New cross stitcher

[Mad Max]

Hello,

Been stitching less than a year. Currently working on my second project which is a Van Gogh piece titled "Skull of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette." I'm doing it in the slightly untraditional 3 over 1 on 18ct Aida. Got the pattern from Xstitch-collectables. Hope everyone has a good day.

[rcperryls]

Hello and welcome to the forum from South Carolina! Your project sounds interesting. I've stitched with three strands, but only on 14ct Aida and it has been a very long time since then. I hope that you will post pictures for us to see it. We love pictures!

Carole

[fccs]

Hello from Colorado and welcome to the forum. Your VanGogh piece sounds interesting - I hope you'll share pictures with us. I've never stitched 3 over 1 on 18 count - is it difficult to get it through the holes as the design fills up?

[Mad Max]

Hello and welcome to the forum from South Carolina! Your project sounds interesting. I've stitched with three strands, but only on 14ct Aida and it has been a very long time since then. I hope that you will post pictures for us to see it. We love pictures!

Carole

Hi Carole,

Thank you for your reply. I was drawn to the image because it is unusual and I liked how Van Gogh was expressing his disdain for the academics at his art school by using some dark humor. I like the coverage 3 strands give but it uses a LOT of thread. I will definitely post a picture soon. I am on page 3 and once I take it out the q-snap, I will post my progress.

Carl

[Mad Max]

Hello from Colorado and welcome to the forum. Your VanGogh piece sounds interesting - I hope you'll share pictures with us. I've never stitched 3 over 1 on 18 count - is it difficult to get it through the holes as the design fills up?

Hi Debby,

Thank you for your reply. I am in New Mexico. Actually, it is quite easy for the most part. At one time I used DMC needles which always seemed to bend or break. Now I use John James and haven't had any issues. I also use Thread Heaven a lot and I think it would be a lot harder without that. I also think you need to have the cloth very tight for it to work well. I use q-snaps and they seem to have the correct tension.

Thanks,

Carl

[Squirrel]

Hi and Welcome from me too in cloudy Brisbane. Your project sounds most interesting and I look forward to seeing it.

[Mad Max]

Hi and Welcome from me too in cloudy Brisbane. Your project sounds most interesting and I look forward to seeing it.

Hi Sally,

Thank you for your reply. There seems to be a lot of stitchers from New Zealand and Australia on this forum which is pretty cool. Do you prefer to download your patterns online or have them delivered via post? I like to have patterns sent to me through the mail so that I have a nice color picture to go by and it is already organized for me.


Carl

[Midge]

Hello and welcome from a dreary Yorkshire.

[Mad Max]

Hello and welcome from a dreary Yorkshire.

Hi Midge,

Thank you for your reply. I lived in the UK for a couple years and I really enjoyed the wonderful hiking Yorkshire and to offer. The peacock tapestry you are working on sounds interesting.

carl

[vanessanjf]

Hello and welcome from the UK I am really looking forward to seeing your project, it sounds very interesting

[Mad Max]

Hello and welcome from the UK I am really looking forward to seeing your project, it sounds very interesting

Hi Vanessa,

Thank you for your reply. I will post some pics soon! I am excited to see your Jim Morrison WIP. What kind of fabric are you using? The Doors rule!

Carl

[Midge]

Hello and welcome from a dreary Yorkshire.

Hi Midge,

Thank you for your reply. I lived in the UK for a couple years and I really enjoyed the wonderful hiking Yorkshire and to offer. The peacock tapestry you are working on sounds interesting.

carl

Walking is one of my favourite pastimes and I'm often found on the fells. Today is a perfectly clear and crisp day so I'm off with the dogs for a trundle.
Peacock tapestry is a Teresa Wentzler design and is beautiful but has so many blended colours it drives me crazy. I' going to work on it during UFO week so stand by for an update in the SAL forum.

[richardandtracy]

Just had a look for the pattern. It's not a picture I had ever heard of before - Van Gogh tends not to feature in my list of favourite artists. However, it looks an interesting project with an amusing dissonance, I had no idea Vincent had a sense of humour other than when featuring in Dr Who.

As a second project, it's quite something.
Are you stitching on black to save yourself thousands of stitches? It's possible, but makes things more difficult, and the effect is quite good.

All the best with the project,

Richard.

[Mad Max]

Hello and welcome from a dreary Yorkshire.

Hi Midge,

Thank you for your reply. I lived in the UK for a couple years and I really enjoyed the wonderful hiking Yorkshire and to offer. The peacock tapestry you are working on sounds interesting.

carl

Walking is one of my favourite pastimes and I'm often found on the fells. Today is a perfectly clear and crisp day so I'm off with the dogs for a trundle.
Peacock tapestry is a Teresa Wentzler design and is beautiful but has so many blended colours it drives me crazy. I' going to work on it during UFO week so stand by for an update in the SAL forum.

Midge,

I'm jealous! I live at around 8,000 ft above sea level and it is already at freezing temepratures. My first pattern had a couple blended colors and I thought that was a pain so I can't imagine the difficulty with several strands. How do you organize something like that? Do you pre-make a bobbin with a blended color or do you do it on an as-I-need-it basis? I also have a silly question: What does SAL stand for?

Thanks,

Carl

[kandifloss]

Hello & welcome

Kandi

[Midge]

Midge,

I'm jealous! I live at around 8,000 ft above sea level and it is already at freezing temepratures. My first pattern had a couple blended colors and I thought that was a pain so I can't imagine the difficulty with several strands. How do you organize something like that? Do you pre-make a bobbin with a blended color or do you do it on an as-I-need-it basis? I also have a silly question: What does SAL stand for?

Thanks,

Carl[/quote]


I have pre-cut the floss and put it onto a punched card with the thread numbers alongside. I just pick up strands as I need them rather than pre-blending. It's a blinking nightmare! Sometimes there is just one or two stitches and as I can't do loop starts its a real faff starting and stopping. Only 3 colours are used alone in the whole design.
SAL stands for stitch-a-long and the forum is on the board index.

[Mad Max]

Just had a look for the pattern. It's not a picture I had ever heard of before - Van Gogh tends not to feature in my list of favourite artists. However, it looks an interesting project with an amusing dissonance, I had no idea Vincent had a sense of humour other than when featuring in Dr Who.

As a second project, it's quite something.
Are you stitching on black to save yourself thousands of stitches? It's possible, but makes things more difficult, and the effect is quite good.

All the best with the project,

Richard.

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your reply. I can appreciate Van Gogh as an artist but I didn't have a desire to stitch one of his paintings until I saw my current piece. I guess I am drawn to its dark sense of humor. I love the Dr. Who reference. I am a fan, although I haven't been following the series since David Tennant left.

I did consider using black aida but I didn't for a couple reasons. The first was that I simply couldn't find a piece the size I wanted for a reasonable price. I don't live near a major city and the online options were limited. And then secondly, I don't know if this sounds weird but in some way I thought it would be "cheating" if I didn't do every stitch in the pattern. I'm only on page three but right now I don't regret doing the background work. Ask me that in a few months though and we will see, lol.

Are you working on anything right now, Richard?

Thanks,

Carl

[Mad Max]

Hello & welcome

Kandi

Hi Kandi,

Thank you for your rainbow. I saw a double rainbow the other day and was amazed that they were both full arches! Are you currently working on any projects?

Carl

[richardandtracy]

...

Are you working on anything right now, Richard?

Thanks,

Carl

I got my black Aida on E-Bay, and it was quite pricy, think it worked out as £26/$US35 for 54" x 30". So, yes, I can understand. However I stitch at a rate of 140 per hour max/100 normal, so need every last bit of help to finish in a reasonable time.

I am working on two bigish projects, a picture of my old cat Gryff (end of SAL page 1 at the moment) and a Luis Royo picture 'Luz', think that may be on SAL page 3 or 4 at the moment. In terms of area they are fairly small, but have around 100k stitches each. I've written a conversion program and am using the charts produced with it, so if it goes wrong, I know who is to blame...

Regards

Richard.

[Squirrel]

Hi Carl,

Do you prefer to download your patterns online or have them delivered via post? I like to have patterns sent to me through the mail so that I have a nice color picture to go by and it is already organized for me.

I rarely get new charts these days, having a big stash of them anyway. I used to get some of the English cross stitching magazines in the early days of my cross stitching and just pulled out the charts I was definitely going to do. Needless to say many of them are still there. I have also bought a few kits over the years - most of them still waiting - and so it goes. Most of my stitching for the last few years has been for special events/birthdays etc within the family and for special friends with special events and often their tastes are not what I have in stash so I go buy or download a chart.

At some point in the not too distant future I will be unloading some kits and charts that I definitely won't be keeping any longer. So watch this space.
What genre of designs do you enjoy stitching?