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That's absolutely gorgeous! I love the contrast in the texture between the very fine silver of the wolf and the klosterstich.
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Sep 6, 2014 19:36
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Hurray, the thread made it to page 2! Allow me to celebrate by posting a more recent photo of my project: Since taking that picture, I've completed more of that empty space at the bottom. The end is in sight now...I can taste it! (And then comes all the backstitch, couching, and french knots.)
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Sep 6, 2014 21:00
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Life is funny, sometimes. It turns out the person that taught me to embroider - the same one that I talked about before teaching me the fancy stitch I wanted to learn to do this project, is apparently a goon. Small world. Anywho, I'm still slowly plucking along on my bag. The event I wanted to have it done for is just a few weeks away, and right now I'm not sure if I'll make it in time or not. I've pretty much been carrying it with me everywhere and when I have a minute or two free I try and at the very least work on laying some background, since that's simple and fast.   I put together a little album of the progress on it since I started it. It's nice to be able to look back and see how far a project has come, especially when you're working on it for so long. http://imgur.com/a/RqXp5
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Sep 28, 2014 17:42
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All of these are so gorgeous. I only started cross-stitching last year, and it makes me nervous to post my simple things. I have a question: I started a project on plastic canvas and it's going to be larger than the one sheet can hold. Is there a way to combine the canvases like you would with fabric, or would it leave a big, obvious bump where the two pieces were joined?
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Oct 4, 2014 00:24
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Zaftig, you should share what you've done. I don't cross stitch, so unfortunately, I don't know the answer to your question. I've been hankering to do some embroidery, so I decided to do a needle painting of a lilac breasted roller, which I feel are one of the prettier birds in the world. I'm really pleased with the outcome. I'd like to mount it in the embroidery hoop as decoration. Does anyone have any advice on the best way to do that?  
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Oct 5, 2014 00:00
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I've embroidered on calico and cotton before, but this is my first embroidery on linen, and I think I'm hooked (sorry about the oh so artsy filter) If anyone is looking for a book on contemporary embroidery I'd recommend Hoopla - there's a few patterns but mainly it's a gallery of works that fall into the 'not ya grandma's embroidery' category, like Jenny Hart. The colour shading on your bird looks great! With mounting the embroidery in the hoop - rather than  there's pictures here at this tutorial which is pretty much how I've done it before. Basically, you put your embroidery in the hoop, trim the fabric around leaving about 5cm allowance, do a loose running stitch the whole way round, pull it tight and knot your thread. You can then lay a backing over the top if you want it to look neat, I've used felt in the past for this because it won't fray.
clarion ravenwood fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Oct 5, 2014 |
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Oct 5, 2014 00:22
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Lot of beautiful work in this thread (... ). Here's my own recent amateurish work: (Text is a verse from the Book of Job)  (Text is by the artist Jenny Holzer)
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Oct 5, 2014 14:19
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Nice Rabbit Hill, I'm planning out a new cross stitch and you've inspired me to get to it. This is something I did a while ago now, never got around to framing  That drat Satyr posted:Anywho, I'm still slowly plucking along on my bag. Would love to see any update of this!
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Oct 11, 2014 00:51
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I'm just going to make a quick drive by post to necro this thread. Here are two things I've done, although not very recently. Both are from around when I started and this excerpt from the Bayeux tapestry is the first thing I ever did; The next one is something I took straight from the RSN essental stitch guide on crewelwork by Jacqui McDonald. If anyone has that book, looking it up will show just how amateur this copy is! The branch is only one colour for a reason.. 
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Jan 7, 2015 08:10
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Holy cow, this is just lovely as heck. I wish I could get my laid work to be so prettyful. There's no way I believe this is your first. It's aces. Great work! My own update: actually in the past week I've been putting the finishing touches on my bag. It's going on six months now, but most of that time has been 'oh god so sick of looking at this' time.  As well, here's the progression gallery where I've been documenting the making of it: http://imgur.com/a/RqXp5 That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jan 9, 2015 |
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Jan 9, 2015 06:48
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This ought to make you feel better; There were many lessons learned on that piece! Mostly about the value of framing techniques and needle choices, I probably should have taken a class or something (nah, you wanna do it just do that poo poo pffff). I've framed up another part picturing the completion of Winchester cathedral that should be done in about 2020.. I never really got the hang of two handed embroidering so I'm reeeally slow. Yours is just nuts by the way, how many hours do you think you've put in to it? All of the work in this thread is just beautiful, post more everyone! When I get access to my computer and things again I'm going to do a big image dump of past and present projects.
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Jan 10, 2015 16:36
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So I'm fairly new to embroidering - can you point out some things that you think you did wrong with the above photo, so I can learn from your mistakes? Also, stupid newbie question, but how would you do the red lines in the green fill - like line first and then fill, or?
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Jan 10, 2015 20:39
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CK07 posted:So I'm fairly new to embroidering - can you point out some things that you think you did wrong with the above photo, so I can learn from your mistakes? Also, stupid newbie question, but how would you do the red lines in the green fill - like line first and then fill, or? The vertical lines are not evenly laid down, that's easiest to see in the cream part. The couching stitches aren't uniform, that is the tiny stitches that are holding down the horizontal lines, and in the sage green section you can see where they are too large and are splitting the wool laying down horizontally. In some areas, the cream part again most clearly, you can see that the overlaying horizontal lines don't match up, because I decided to end each length of thread where the red curving stitch starts. Because I worked this project from the bottom up, I decided to do it differently on the dark green part and lay down all of my vertical and horizontal lengths of wool first and then stitched the red parts over the top before securing it all down with the tiny couching stitches. This worked better, but my uneven application of the couching stitches makes the lines rather wonky by pulling them out of position. But less wonky than the other method! I wrote this while really tired so I can't vouch for it's coherency or helpfulness but just ask if it's confusing! This didn't really matter to me toooo much in the end, as it is a reproduction of a historical piece and as you can see I have retained all of the wonky design lines so I don't think my inept stitching detracts at all in my opinion. If I'd tried to make it perfect I don't think it would have looked much like the original and if you've seen many details of the Bayeux tapestry some of it is a bit squiffy to say the least. What sort of embroidery do you usually do? Edit; That drat Satyr, I just looked at your progress album and it's rad. A few questions, are you using a scroll frame for this? If so, what brand? Do you have or have you tried a slate frame? I'm thinking about getting one but I have several scroll frames and I'm not sure if I need the upgrade. And what needle and fabric are you using? I'm very interested in trying a similar project in the future. my formal jorts fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Jan 11, 2015 |
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Jan 11, 2015 16:49
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So far I've just done a couple simple things with regular old cotton embroidery floss on some cotton remnants, basically just going over line drawings. I'm a vaguely angry with my boyfriend because he is already better than me, but he sews regularly so he knows how to do even stitches and all. I am completely overwhelmed by the thought of trying to fill a large space neatly, or decide what stitches to use to fill a space. Like I have a unicorn I'm working on now, I want to just fill the tail and the mane and I'm having analysis paralysis choosing a filling stitch. I may be too much of a perfectionist for this kind of work, but I'm trying to push through it and just get something finished. Thank you for your response by the way!
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Jan 12, 2015 12:23
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hatbadger posted:Yours is just nuts by the way, how many hours do you think you've put in to it? All of the work in this thread is just beautiful, post more everyone! When I get access to my computer and things again I'm going to do a big image dump of past and present projects. I have no idea. Too long. Far, far too long Over 100 hours. Probably over 200, honestly. I don't like to think about it.  hatbadger posted:Edit; That drat Satyr, I just looked at your progress album and it's rad. A few questions, are you using a scroll frame for this? If so, what brand? Do you have or have you tried a slate frame? I'm thinking about getting one but I have several scroll frames and I'm not sure if I need the upgrade. And what needle and fabric are you using? I'm very interested in trying a similar project in the future. I started out using a hoop, but quickly realized that it was causing some crimping when I put the more delicate parts under the pressure of it so I did move to a scroll frame. I just got a simple one at AC Moore, it's got two sizes of wooden sides, and I think three sizes of bars, and uses a weird velcro tension system which is pretty neat I guess, but it almost screwed me on this project because i didn't account for the extra margin of fabric for the self adhesive velcro and I figured I could just pull it off, but when I did I tore the poo poo out of the fabric right down to where the black laid stitches are - that's where there's a weird spot on the top that's got stitches on it on the last several photos, that's where I tore it trying to get the velcro off. The sheet recommends leaving room and just cutting it away, which is what I'll be doing in the future becuase it held pretty darn tight all things considering. Plus you don't have to deal with stitching the thing on and can break it all down for storage when you're not working. Actually, with a little googling, this is the set I got: http://www.adp-usa.com/product.aspx?itemid=618&prodid=1461&pagetitle=Starter+Set+Oak+-+No+Basting
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Jan 13, 2015 00:39
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Uh..... I do all my work in-hand since I don't like the crimping that hoops can leave, either. Am I being dumb/wrong?
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Jan 13, 2015 14:33
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Rabbit Hill posted:Uh..... There's nothing wrong with doing it outside of a hoop/stretcher bars as long as you're really careful with your tension. It's very easy to accidentally wind up with some fabric pinching here and there, especially if you like to carry the thread over short distances to other sections (which I know is a bad habit and I only do it when there's very short distances).
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Jan 13, 2015 19:22
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Rabbit Hill posted:Uh..... As a SCAdian, I am envious of your ability to embroider in a period fashion without killing your hands and fingers. The only thing I can do with no support is blackwork. Also, since I know there are a few more of us here, I put my wolf bag in the Arts and Science competiton this weekend at our kingdom's 12th Night event and at evening court the queen called me up and told me that she'd never seen such beautiful work from someone that had only been embroidering for a year. She then promptly gave me my Award of Arms. 
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Jan 13, 2015 20:28
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 This is amazing, thanks for posting the finished product! Rabbit Hill posted:Uh..... I started with a hoop then tried without and ended up going back because I'm a dummy that can't control tension without a hoop. Might be easier with heavier fabric?
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Jan 15, 2015 09:59
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This turned out BEAUTIFUL. And I'm excited that I will actually get to see it in person in the near future. You really need to enter that as a competition piece with documentation. I am also a SCAdian with a love of historical stitching. My masterpiece to date has to be my heraldic pouch. Done in cotton floss on linen in Klosterstitch.   An easy 80 hours in this not including construction. But I stitch fast. Currently in the hoop is a chicken done in Bayeux stitch. I haven't touched it in almost a year.  I've been stitching since I was 5. But never had lessons. Just by the seat of my pants. It has been an adventure actually researching stitches and how they are supposed to be worked. I wish I still had the countless cross stitched pieces and needlework cushions I gave away over the years. It's my biggest flaw, giving away my work. At least all the small bits. My husband still wears plenty of my stitching on his clothing.
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Jan 15, 2015 16:20
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 Man, I need to get out of this thread. I can't do poo poo compared to you all! That drat Satyr posted:The only thing I can do with no support is blackwork. Heh, that's the only kind of work I do.  (Well, besides cross-stitch for text.) And I don't even do that right because my reverse side is unshowable. Eh, whatever, I have fun!
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Jan 15, 2015 16:39
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Goobers For Guts posted:Many words and pictures You! Glad you finally made it over here.  This lady right here is the amazing, saintly patient person that taught me pretty much everything I know about embroidery. Much love. Such stitchings. Wow.
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Jan 15, 2015 18:59
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I started cross stitching right before Christmas to make a couple of gifts for people. I finally started something for myself recently, but that's not far enough along to take any pictures of yet. I'm just using patterns I've found on Etsy and Pinterest so far, but it's a relaxing thing to do when I get home from work. 
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Jan 16, 2015 16:51
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Hey, I've been doing cross stitch, too! This was my first project:  And this is what I'm working on currently:  It says "TARDIS Sweet TARDIS" to the right.
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Jan 16, 2015 22:43
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Congratulations, That drat Satyr, and richly deserved. I noodle around from one needle art to another. Right now I'm mostly knitting because you can do it while watching British TV. However, an old friend just died, and she loved pink gingham, so I''m doing a gingham lace (a.k.a. "chicken scratch") piece for the memorial service. It's reminding me how not-good I am at laying cotton floss strands evenly. However, for this particular form perfect style wouldn't be in keeping anyway, or at least that's what I tell myself. needlenthread.com tutorial If you don't know it, by the way, needlenthread.com is the bomb. The woman who runs it has superb skills herself, and she's also very good at doing tutorials. Her free patterns show a great eye for design.
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Jan 19, 2015 00:40
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What a great resource -- thanks for sharing it!
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Jan 20, 2015 19:55
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Hello thread that I didn't know existed before today and that hopefully isn't totally dead! I've been doing cross-stitch and embroidery for a while, but had to take an extended break last year since I had a bad carpal tunnel flare-up that meant I was in pain every time I even looked at a needle. I've been feeling alright lately, though, so I've been taking the opportunity to finish some things and start some new things!  First is this sparkly purple kitty, who, if you'll look on her forehead, is actually Luna from Sailormoon! I'm sending this to my friend who introduced me to the show when we were in middle school.  Second is a Parks and Recreation piece, which is based off a design that you can find here! The pink is what I'm planning to do the bottom text in, it's nowhere as neon looking in person as it seems here. It's very messy, which I'm okay with, and is honestly sort of intentional. I still really like cross-stitch, but it's so much easier to be creative when you're doing this style of embroidery, and it's definitely more what I'm drawn to these days. (Also, I'm shockingly bad at counting and almost always end up missing squares and loving everything up when I do cross-stitch.) Does anyone else have an embroidery-related pinterest board? Mine is here, I use it for tutorials, patterns, and pieces that inspire me!
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Mar 7, 2015 07:51
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I made this a few months ago (sorry for the terrible picture quality!) to send for a secret Santa it's about 4 or 5 inches wide, for scale it's backed with orange felt and after I took a picture I threaded a leather string through the back to turn it into a necklace this was my first time trying this style of embroidery and I had a lot of fun making it 
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Mar 7, 2015 15:52
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Lovely work, both of you! Thanks for sharing and helping keep our little thread alive. I have... too many Pintrest boards. I have one for general stitches and tutorials, one for pattern inspiration, one for blackwork patterns... and... I guess that's actually it. I have way too many pintrest boards though. I should probably consolidate some but that would take some effort. Having a look over these, I guess it's really quite an insight into the kind of work I do. :p Lame medieval inspired things mashed up with tattoo-flash-esq things, and... blackwork. Yep. That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Mar 8, 2015 |
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Mar 8, 2015 03:05
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I finished my latest cross stitch! I lost interest with it about halfway through but found some motivation last week and finished. I want to find a big, ornate, gold frame at Goodwill to put it in. The rainbow is one stitch to the left and it's driving absolutely insane.
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Apr 20, 2015 17:07
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The Human Cow posted:I finished my latest cross stitch! I lost interest with it about halfway through but found some motivation last week and finished. I want to find a big, ornate, gold frame at Goodwill to put it in. The rainbow is one stitch to the left and it's driving absolutely insane. Holy crap this is amazing and I want one to hang on my tool box.
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Apr 21, 2015 03:18
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Figured I'd post an update to my giant-rear end pangolin cross-stitch that is consuming my very soul: At the rate I'm going, I'll be done in January of next year! Also finished a few things for friends, but only have a picture of one:  I need to find pics of the others, will hopefully edit with them later.
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Apr 27, 2015 02:21
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I recently stumbled upon some great embroidery blogs, and I thought I would share. http://www.mrxstitch.com shares all sorts of embroideries and interviews the makers. There is a good mix of high fashion, art, and fun etsy stuff.    I also discovered Chloe Giodiano, http://karenin.tumblr.com who does super fine work   I am in awe of her talent.
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May 1, 2015 19:58
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Buggalo posted:Figured I'd post an update to my giant-rear end pangolin cross-stitch that is consuming my very soul: That is one epic pangolin. I just embarked on my biggest project thus far, a wedding gift for a friend. I have until the end of August, so I should be good   http://www.dmc-usa.com/Inspiration/Projects/Cotton-Floss-Cross-Stitching/Wedding-Day.aspx
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Jun 18, 2015 17:51
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Oh hi I just found this thread! Here's something I've been working on for what seems like forever but want to be finished by September. I wanted to finish it by LAST September, too, so we'll see. Here's a closeup of one section  And here is the backing which is a hot mess but will mercifully be covered up when I frame it.  I originally thought I could bang this out in like 4 months but it's been almost 2 years at this point. How do you folks power through big projects without hating it?
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Jun 21, 2015 20:21
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Angry Pie posted:Oh hi I just found this thread! Here's something I've been working on for what seems like forever but want to be finished by September. I wanted to finish it by LAST September, too, so we'll see. That is gorgeous! I've been working on a really big project for a year that's only two colors (so it gets really boring), so I've been dealing with it by...putting it down and not touching it for a few months. Oops. I only started cross-stitching last year, and I've completed three projects.  This was my first one, for my mom. She likes turtles, clearly.  My best friend and I played Heavy Rain together and very much enjoy laughing at dead children. She bought me a Disney cross-stitch pattern set for Christmas and I plan on making her something horrible with it.  My boyfriend actually has Avatar tattoos, so I made this for his 30th (no picture of it framed). Took loving FOREVER. Edit: just realized that I'd asked about this piece earlier in the thread. I ended up just putting the two pieces next to each other in the frame, and the backing isn't terribly visible. I'll post my current project when it's all done. I made the mistake of posting a progress shot on FB and had a bunch of "make me one too!" I've put about 300 hours into it so far, so that made me laugh. Zaftig fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Jun 22, 2015 |
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Jun 21, 2015 22:12
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Angry Pie posted:How do you folks power through big projects without hating it? My longest project took six months of near constant work - the wolf bag earlier in the thread. The only way I get through any big project is to have a few all going at the same time - I do weaving, nalbinding, and a few other SCA-centric crafts so its easy to always have something new coming around to work on if I get sick of staring at my current project for a week or two. It can be really good too just to get your brain working in a different way for a bit, it helps you refocus on the bigger piece when you get back to it. That's going to be friggin awesome, by the way. Welcome to our small little thread. Zaftig posted:I made the mistake of posting a progress shot on FB and had a bunch of "make me one too!" I've put about 300 hours into it so far, so that made me laugh. Just wait until you get people offering you $30 for something you have 200+ hours in. ._. Some days the urge to punch people is hard to repress. That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 05:39 on Jun 22, 2015 |
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Jun 22, 2015 05:35
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That drat Satyr posted:Just wait until you get people offering you $30 for something you have 200+ hours in. ._. Some days the urge to punch people is hard to repress. I completely feel you on that one. I also knit and crochet and usually make gifts for (a VERY select few) people around the holidays, and every time I hear how I should "totally sell those." I tell them I'd be glad to, and that my rate is $10/hour for commissions. Then I tell them how many hours a project usually takes. Then they stop telling me I should sell things.
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Jun 22, 2015 05:53
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That drat Satyr posted:Just wait until you get people offering you $30 for something you have 200+ hours in. ._. Some days the urge to punch people is hard to repress. Haha when I showed this project to someone a few months ago he was like "OMG can you make me one too??" and I told him sure buddy, just pay me 2 grand and we'll talk. I don't know how high volume Etsy people do it, I really don't.
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Jun 22, 2015 15:21
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I usually avoid getting burnt out on big projects by not taking them on to begin with, because I inevitably get bored and abandon them halfway through. That being said, here's a big project I finished recently:  My boyfriend lives in Seattle and just recently moved into a new apartment, and I really wanted to bring a housewarming present with me when I went to visit him last month, and as soon as I saw the pattern, I knew I had to do it (even though I'd never before done a successful french knot in my life). Since returning from Seattle, I've had like zero time for sewing because of my job being terrible, so all I've finished since then is this:  It's only 2.5in x 1.5in! My goal is to frame it since I have some tiny cute frames that I found at Michaels, but I haven't even got around to that yet, whoops. I'd like to knock a few more of these out since a few friends of mine said they'd buy one if I did, but who knows when that'll happen.
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Jun 23, 2015 05:17
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