July 9, 2019 Tuesday

The First Day of My Remodeled Website

Permanent Resolutions for Stitchers

1.  Take all the pent-up anxiety about perfection and redirect that energy toward creativity. Open up your minds and think of creative  possibilities you can bring to your needlework, ways that will personalize it and make it distinctly yours.  Here are two ways to start:

Oops you made a mistake and you face a lot of ripping.

Ask yourself, is it really a mistake or a variation?

You do have to rip if you crossed most of your crosses in one direction and suddenly you started crossing them in the other direction, yep no way around that. Why? The real reason for good technique is that it allows all your attention to focus on your design (where it should be).

You don't have to rip if you made a leaf one row bigger than the design called for. This is obsessive behavior that needs redirecting.

You do need to rip if you make something so large it is out of scale with the rest of the design; you do not have to rip if it is barely noticeable.

You do not have to rip if you mixed up colors and the design is not exactly as the designer's model. For heaven's sake, if it looks OK, stop obsessing.

You do have to rip if a color or texture is not in harmony with the rest of the design.

You do not have to throw away a design if you run out of a dye lot.

If it looks like you are headed toward thread shortage, don't use the thread to the last strand, save at least 1/4 of it. Buy some more and decide where and how to introduce the new dyelot. I actually prefer to work with multiple dyelots. If you pay attention to lights and darks etc., they can bring an added depth to your design.

2. In memory of Audrey Francini, my generation's greatest needlewoman, slow down. Needlework is not a speed contest. Audrey was the slowest stitcher I have known. She was also the best. I have a couple of great stories about Audrey and her speed, I'll tell them in the next couple of mornings.

3. Forget about the Needlepoint Police. They don't exist except in their minds. You may meet people who think they know it all. Good for them, I applaude their confidence, but I don't buy into it.

I have probably told this story a dozen times but it is worth telling again and again. Years ago a friend wrote to me and asked, will this Kreinik braid look good with this silk?

I replied, beats me, try it and see.

Friend: whadaya mean you don't know, you're the teacher.

My reply: if the Immortal Artists Of The Western World don't know without trying, how would I, one mere mortal needlework teacher? (There's a bit more to thsi story too, I'll tell the rest another time).

All this goes to say once again, there is no real right and wrong, there are problems of course. The best way to find solutions is to think creatively.

Those are my New Year's Stitching Resolutions for 2021, still good for 2022, 2023 and for 2024.

Reminders for me as well as for all of you.

To Revisit my Wait List Sale click on EWEEK 2024 on yellow nav bar above

May 14, 2025  Wednesday     

I can't say life is good right now, but it will have a good outcome. Life here is filled with untold amounts of dust and debris and basically constant noise from workmen on our roof.  In these early stages we have to be here for consultations.

A clever friend told me to be sure to move a car out of our garage and park it on the street. That was the best advice we've had. We've parked where the foreman can find us, but we are away from the incessant pounding and the car is nice and clean.

I plan on adjourning there with some drawing tablets and pencils and some ideas. Long way to go still, but day by day we will get there.

May 11, 2025 Happy Mother's Day     

To all of you mothers, I hope you enjoy your day of celebratiion.

For us today is the last day of roof prep: tomorrow all the noise and chaos begin. I will post as time and nerves allow.  MeanwhileI have packed away all needlework in hopes of avoiding too much dust and debris.

As I think daily these days: this too shall  pass and when life returns  to normal, I willl offer my Pride and Prejudice Needle Book to celebrate -- and I will see if Maxine will revive the Stitchalong Room on facebook.

Something to look forward to.

May 10, 2025 Saturday     

I sorted out my closet of needlepoint projects over the years yesterday and covered them with plastic. I remembered most of them but I had forgotten how many geometrics I have stitched and I found a number of them I had totally forgotten. It was a nice tromp through my past.

I am now ready to cover all of them in  plastic dropcloths. What a mess!  But I think they will be safe from the dust and debris people have warned me about. Our whole house looks like a Halloween House right now, only the season is wrong.

As I think I have said a dozen times, this too shall pass.

May 9, 2025 Friday     

Not long ago I finished the very long task of drawing all 24 Oversize Graphs for my Armada Portrait, a long task indeed!

So what do I have left to do? I have to write the instructions for sewing on the pearls, jewels and beads. This includes illustrations of how to sew on each bead, so it will take me a while.

Meanwhile chaos laps around me as I prepare for noise and pounding and dust for 6 days and the aftermath of it all. I am not looking forward at all to the next two weeks but this too shall pass.

May 7, 2025 Wednesday     

Several days more and then the roofers will come, it will take 6 days, so they tell us and then our lives will be our lives again.

I will contunue in the early a.m. to draw beads and hopefully soon start writing the instructions for the beads.

May 6, 2025 Tuesday     

Today I have a  computer lesson; I also have two people coming to help me take down things from high places for roof preparation.

By the end of today hopefully my PayPal system will work again. Right now there is some bug somewhere and PayPal thinks I am a threat, so I am barred from my account.  It is always something with the computer but hopefully this something willl be over soon enough.

And I'm hoping to get in at least 2 hours of drawing beads on Oversize Graphs.

May 5, 2025 Monday     

THE best thing anyone connected to a computer convinced me to do was learn Illustrator. Impossibly complex to handle in early stages, all that complexity became my friend once I got used to it.

Why do I mention Illustrator this morning? Because I have been drawing beads. Armada has 600 beeads, 425 of them pearls, and each has to be drawn and slotted onto 6 Oversize Graphs.

No way could I do this without Illustrator. Thank you, Adobe, expensive as you are, you make my life easier.

So today? a complex little bead I need to draw. I take a photo of the bead, put it in Illustrator, make a new layer and access the PenTool.  I'm about to draw that bead right now. Will take me a while, but then when I finish, I lock the photo layer, copy my drawing, paste it on the graph and size it.

Off now to do just that.

May 3, 2025 Saturday     

Late in the day yesterday I sat down and worked on the list of jewels,  pearls and beads I used on my Armada. My task was to decide how many baggies of  beads and which beads in which baggies.

The first impulse is to put all teardrop pearls in a single baggie, all round pearls in a single baggie, all red beads in a single baggie, etc. but the result is a  quandary of which  is which.

So each of the different sizes goes in a different baggie, that way I can write, 'From Baggie #1, one teardrop pearl 4-6 and the stitcher doesn't have to sort through the 4 sizes of teardrops.

I won't carry on: suffice it to say, I stole some hours this morning also and my list is complete.  Later on, I will add up the beads in Armada, particularly the pearls. I'm not going  to guess, will post tomorrow.

May 2, 2025 Friday     

Today: time away from needlework today as I spend my day on cleanup in preparation for the dust and debris that might float through the house when our new roof is hammered into place.

I am making a large pile of single patterns that are turning up and I have some decisions ahead: what to do with them. For now the stack grows.

Along with a multitude of single patterns, I unearthed some Queen kits and I may make them the center of EWeek this year.  I will see what else turns up in the next couple of weeks. Oh my, I have made a lot of needlework in my day.

Looking forward to seeing what the weekend unearths -- and some feeling of accomplishment -- I shall soldier on.

May 1, 2025 Thursday     

Welcome to the fifth month of 2025, doesn't seem possible that so much of the year has gone by already.

I know where the year has gone: I have spent the better time of my months writing a hugely detailed set of instructions, and then I undertook the hugely elaborate job of collecting and sewing on more pearls than I have ever used before.

Now I have a month or so dealing with a new roof and the dust and mess likely to accrue as a result. Once the new roof is finished, I will return to writing instructions for a good month or so: I have to quantify and write sewing on hundreds of pearls.

So what about Pride and Prejudice Needle Book that I promised to bring back in May? I don't think I can do it in May but I do promise to bring it back in this year of celebration of Jane Austen. Let me get past the chaos from the new roof and I will make plans, I promise.

Apri1 30, 2025 Wednesday     

My last day of beading for a while. Even later today I need to start work on preparing our house for the chaos of a new roof installation. I have come close to finishing but still need 3 or 4 more days. It has been a long journey and I am happy to be reaching the end, even if I haven't quite reached the finish line.

I suspect it will be mid-May or later before I can pick up my needle once again. Well, maybe if I work hard at house prep, I can sneak some time in the early early mornings, before the sane world comes alive.

Apri1 29, 2025 Tuesday     

I have two more days to work on my Queen and then I will take a vacation from her. I need to start on May 1 to work on preparations for our new roof, so Queen will take second seat.

It is just as well: in two more days I will have made most of my decisions and the big one that looms with a design like this: when is enough enough? ie when am I finished?

I would like to arrive at the point where I would naturally take a break and some time away from the design so that I bring fresh eyes to the question. Nice to be at that point because it means the end is nearing. Yay! Time I can start thinking about what is next.

New from me. Two Hearts.

If my spring goes well, there will be more new hearts