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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. How do you even chart out magnificent huge projects like this? Like what is the process? Do you just carefully, carefully obsess over a printout of the pixel map? Whenever I tried doing something like that I'd lose count of stitches and it would throw things off forever. It doesn't look like you've drawn anything on. Am I just incompetent (this is the likeliest answer)?
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Jun 23, 2015 06:03
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CK07 posted:How do you even chart out magnificent huge projects like this? Like what is the process? Do you just carefully, carefully obsess over a printout of the pixel map? Whenever I tried doing something like that I'd lose count of stitches and it would throw things off forever. It doesn't look like you've drawn anything on. Am I just incompetent (this is the likeliest answer)? Well I bought the pattern off Etsy (I am NOT good enough to chart my own patterns, good god) and yes I pretty much just obsess over a print-out of the pattern. It's printed out over six pages, and I highlight the parts that I've done so I can keep track. I also have one image that is the entire pattern that I can display on my computer screen and zoom in on for making sure that poo poo lines up when I switch from one page to another. And yes I have ripped out a fair amount of this thing and redone it when I lost count since everything is based on what comes before it in the pattern. It can be super frustrating, though I have learned to Leave The Wine Alone when I'm sewing and that helps cut down on the ripping out. I got the pattern at this shop if you wanted to peruse what she has, she does a lot of dorky stuff that I quite like.
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Jun 23, 2015 19:46
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 How about some beaded embroidery? Here's a treble clef brooch I made for my mom for Christmas. The cloth is ultrasuede and I use a superfine beading needle and beading thread.
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Jul 2, 2015 13:42
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drat, that's pretty. I like the idea of using ultrasuede for a non-ravelling embroidery stiffener.
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Jul 2, 2015 18:18
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HelloIAmYourHeart posted:
Was this done through primarily couching, or were bead(s) stitched down in groups or individually?
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Jul 2, 2015 18:35
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Valdara posted:Was this done through primarily couching, or were bead(s) stitched down in groups or individually? It's basically a backstitch where you pick up 4-6 beads at a time and stitch through the last 2 or 3 when you bring your thread back through. I made a lovely MS Paint diagram for you.  And here are a couple other pieces, not as nice as the treble clef though. The bezel around the larger stone in the second piece is peyote beadwork, not embroidery  
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Jul 3, 2015 01:07
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Finished a project for a friend the other day. Has anyone had luck with finding weird hoop sizes? I'm looking for an 11" hoop and I can't find one. The project is 10.5" and it would really look better in a round hoop. I bought a 12" hoop but I don't have enough fabric at the bottom of the project to center it. I guess I could join more fabric in, but does that look obvious?
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Jul 15, 2015 02:56
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I posted this one when I started working on it a year ago and butchered my aida... I kept taking time off of it but it's over 90% complete finally after a year Also this one I'm proud of for different reasons:  (That one is framed and hanging next to the toilet in our guest bathroom) Aimee fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 02:37
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That is pretty great! When I finish this mammoth thing I had my eye on this pattern: https://www.etsy.com/listing/195153730/behold-my-field-of-fcks-mature-cross?ref=shop_home_active_2 edit: current progress, I've really been cranking it out the past couple months. 
Angry Pie fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 02:45
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You guys get major kudos from me for being able to do massive blocks of one color. I have some Game of Thrones house banners floating around that I can't get myself to work on because the one I started on is nothing but a shitload of one shade of blue and one shade of white. Two of my friends are getting married this weekend and I just finished up a small design for them. Pattern purchased here!  loving french knots!! I put their names below the pieces of bread after I took this picture. Now I just need to mount and frame it before the weekend.
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Jul 28, 2015 03:22
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Aw that is super cute!! And big blocks of color are easy, you just have to watch Netflix while you do it. I've watched 3 seasons of Gilmore Girls in the past month while stitching.
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Jul 28, 2015 04:01
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Solid blocks are like the easiest part. The one I just spent a year (off and on) on, each area of giant solid color, I associate with a different movie  The top peach is Breaking Bad seasons 3 and 4, haha.I finally finished mine this evening.  I have never been so relieved. Now comes the tricky part of washing it, blocking it, and framing it! 60 different DMC thread colors, supposedly all colorfast, but who knows how it's going to go.
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Aug 5, 2015 04:18
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That looks awesome! I also worry about washing, my project is really effing grimy around the edges (because apparently I'm dirty??) and I don't want to frame it with visible dirt on it. But I don't want to wreck 2 years of work in 10 minutes. Also, what is with the second Mario from the left on the ground? Is he the turnip-pulling one from Mario 2?
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Aug 5, 2015 22:49
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Nah, he just got kicked in the balls. (I'm pretty sure it is the Mario you're thinking of.)
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Aug 5, 2015 22:51
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Aimee, that is AWESOME! Congrats on finally finishing! I bet it feels great to finally be done with something that huge. So, those of you that do cross stitch - do you find it easier to work with no hoop, in a round hoop, or in a square / tambor frame? It seems to me that a square frame would be best for this stuff, but... Gosh, all those squares. That Damn Satyr fucked around with this message at 00:59 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 00:53
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Hahaha, a friend of mine said the same thing about Mario looking like he was getting kicked in the balls a few months back when I posted that section on Instagram. Haven't been able to unsee it since, but yeah, Mario 2. I read a few pretty good guides on cleaning pieces. There were a few videos on Youtube too where people had large projects with upwards of 100 colors that managed to not run. Just cold water and very gentle delicates detergent, then placing it between two white towels and rolling it to get the excess water out without the aida/thread touching itself. I think the best guide I found was this one, which explains how to clean it, block it, and then iron it in prep for framing. That drat Satyr posted:Aimee, that is AWESOME! Congrats on finally finishing! I bet it feels great to finally be done with something that huge. Thanks! It does, but I'm already moving onto the next project because it feels weird having nothing to do  I use a round hoop for now. I really want to use a tambor frame, but I have a really weird habit of flipping the aida when I start a new thread. Maybe switching would finally break me of the habit. Aimee fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Aug 6, 2015 |
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Aug 6, 2015 03:44
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Aimee that is freaking awesome! I use a plastic square frame for stitching, like this. The handy thing is that the side pieces are interchangeable. I had two different sized ones and ended up making two rectangles with them because I thought the larger frame was too big for me to easily use.
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Aug 6, 2015 04:15
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I use a round hoop, because it honestly never occurred to me to use anything else. I might just check out a square frame and see how it works for me. And Aimee let us know how the washing goes! I know in theory it's supposed to work but I get so nervous. 
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Aug 6, 2015 14:43
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Q-Snaps (the ones Daisy Danger linked to), always. Round hoops stretch the fabric on the bias as well as up-down right-left; square hoops (or slate frames, but I am not that anal) stretch only with the grain. And sometimes I just work in-hand because it feels nice.
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Aug 6, 2015 22:07
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Embroidery classes I will not be signing up for:quote:Originally a designer I am now known as much for dexterity with the needle. Being a male in a female dominated world has been a great advantage. The stereotype being broken enables one to look freshly at the subject without rules. The line of design and colour are different from a male perspective, evident from the work of such male designers as William Morris and McIntosh.
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Aug 8, 2015 02:02
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Ah, blessed day, finally some enterprising young gentleman has discovered this heretofore-undiscovered territory in which to be the pioneer mansplainer, may all women praise his light.
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Aug 8, 2015 04:15
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Man, I have been embroidering in some form for my entire cogent life, and have been interested in needlework in a scholarly sense for my whole adult life, and nothing butters my biscuits quite like some dude being like "oh, wow, look at my ART I invented" and they like, embroidered a dog or something. gently caress you and your sexist art/craft distinction. When I'm feeling especially misandrist, I'm like, gently caress your appropriative bullshit, but then I sober up. Ugh.
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Aug 8, 2015 06:15
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Micomicona posted:Man, I have been embroidering in some form for my entire cogent life, and have been interested in needlework in a scholarly sense for my whole adult life
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Aug 8, 2015 06:17
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Ooh! Do you have books to recommend? Hah! I was hoping to suss out like-minded stichers and follow this post up with a request myself The best/most comprehensive book on embroidery I've read so far is Rozsika Parker's 'The subversive stitch', a feminist art historical survey of embroidery... I've found a handful of descriptive histories of different embroidery techniques/materials, but I've been kind of chasing the dragon in terms of critical work. I'm reading outside of academic paywalls however, so if you have university access to journals there's probably some good stuff there! Parker is a great place to start though!
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Aug 8, 2015 06:32
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A friend of mine wants to do a podcast on fiber arts, and I suggested we do it from the perspective of how traditionally female hand crafts are so ignored and maligned and sneered at (until some enterprising young gentleman suddenly "raises" it to an "art", of course), yet these hand crafts are literally survival skills. If something in our world were to go terribly wrong, it's women who practice traditional crafts who are the best-equipped to survive without modern comforts. Thanks for the book recommendation! Does anyone have any more examples of these sorts of crafts often dismissed as "lady things" that equip women with survival skills?
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Aug 8, 2015 20:45
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Valdara posted:Does anyone have any more examples of these sorts of crafts often dismissed as "lady things" that equip women with survival skills? Canning. Canning is key, assuming you've got the resources and skills. (Me, I don't have the steam pressure canner needed to preserve meats.) e: If you don't think canning is a craft, basic handsewing lets you darn, which is also key in a low-resource economy.
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Aug 8, 2015 21:09
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really any sort of garment construction; clothes are definitely seen as frivolous, but they keep us warm and our skin protected. The specific crafts of sewing or knitting (wool has a way of keeping you temperature-regulated even when wet) are super gendered and definitely fall into the "silly hobby" zone nowadays. Fiber processing (carding/spinning wool or plant fibers) is definitely less gendered, I think, though in preindustrial Europe at least it was still considered 'women's work'. Would cooking count? Some foods are not palatable or edible raw, or are far more perishable. The gender dynamics of this skill are interesting because the whole cook/chef distinction so mirrors the craft/art distinction--cooking is amateur 'homey' hobby-work of scant value except as a little comfort that is done primarily by women. Compare this to the idea of being a chef, typically male work but percieved as creative, rarefied, high art. There are definitely entrenched sexist attitudes in many professional kitchens ("women can't be CHEFS, only COOKS, they need to get out of the {professional} kitchen and get back into the {home} kitchen"), which always struck me as so weird because, c'mon, there is a hell of a lot of skill overlap there. Micomicona fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 05:50
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Embroidery classes I will not be signing up for: Also, rereading this guy's ~ArTiSt's StAtEmEnT~ and am especially  because William Morris' embroidery workshop was pretty much run by his daughter, iirc (though, in all fairness Morris did actually go out and learn how to embroider)
Micomicona fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Aug 9, 2015 |
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Aug 9, 2015 06:00
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Canning. Canning is key, assuming you've got the resources and skills. (Me, I don't have the steam pressure canner needed to preserve meats.) I can. I do canning? I can can? I am canny? Stupid polysemy. Anyway, I absolutely think canning is a craft, and I didn't think of it. Micomicona posted:really any sort of garment construction; clothes are definitely seen as frivolous, but they keep us warm and our skin protected. The specific crafts of sewing or knitting (wool has a way of keeping you temperature-regulated even when wet) are super gendered and definitely fall into the "silly hobby" zone nowadays. Fiber processing (carding/spinning wool or plant fibers) is definitely less gendered, I think, though in preindustrial Europe at least it was still considered 'women's work'. I sew and knit and spin and (used to, pre-back-injury) cook. I'm not a super feminine lady, and I grew up in an extraordinarily misogynist rural town in Oklahoma where any interest in lady things got me mocked, because obviously all things feminine are mock-worthy, so I took up more masculine pursuits, which was also mocked, because I AM a lady and thus only good at lady things. It took me a long time to get over the, "I'm not like other girls," bullshit internalized misogyny, but I'm better now I promise. The gender divide in these things is super frustrating. Across the board it's lauded if a man does it and derided if a woman does it, until a man does it, and then it is praise-worthy. Does anyone know the history of when "homemaking" stopped being a respected position? I mean, Ma Ingalls did some poo poo and was amazing, and she was "only" a housewife. The word "husband" comes from "house bound" or a man who owned his own land and house and thus could be a homemaker of his own home instead of working for a lord. Today, we don't have to do this stuff to survive, but we could probably make it happen if we needed to. Maybe this thread isn't the place for this discussion, since I've dragged this way off topic of embroidery, but thanks for the suggestions and feel free to PM me if you have more ideas and don't want to clutter up the thread too much.
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Aug 9, 2015 06:08
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I've been lucky in not personally experiencing derision about knitting/cross-stitch, but I know my dad cross-stitched and got teased about it a lot for it being woman's work or some bullshit. He doesn't do it anymore and I don't know if it's because he's too busy or because of all the stigma he experienced. I'll take some pics of he and my mom's work when I next visit. I just started a project for a gift exchange and it's the first time I've made my own cross-stitch pattern as opposed to buying one! It's nothing too fancy but I still feel good about it. Has anyone gotten into that side of embroidery? I'm wondering how annoying it is to make more complex patterns.
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Aug 9, 2015 12:48
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I think people should be able to do whatever kind of handicraft they drat well want, regardless of whether they're dudes or chicks. I don't really see much of this in my own life, thank God, because if someone started trying to give me poo poo for being a male knitter I'd probably poke their eyes out with my needles. I wanted a tentacle scarf so my girlfriend taught me to knit one and it took off from there, who gives a God drat? She is super into cross-stitch and I've shown her some things in this thread and she thinks a lot of you folks have done some amazing stuff. She's also big into spinning, so she makes the yarn, I knit with it. We are a fibre arts power couple.
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Aug 9, 2015 19:58
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I actually did an embroidery thing so I can contribute on topic! I haven't embroidered in YEARS, so this is my "getting back in to it" project for a Ravelry swap box. I did the black first and the red last, and I can definitely tell a difference in the quality of the stitching. This was before washing and ironing, so some of the wonkiness is from wrinkles in the fabric. I also learned that you need to use more contrasting colors for them to be seen. The stem and leaves are dark green, but they are very hard to tell from the black. And here's the back. The last step is to make a lining for the bag so that putting things in and taking stuff out doesn't rub on the threads too much. I might even add a pocket. God I love making poo poo.  Mad Hamish posted:I think people should be able to do whatever kind of handicraft they drat well want, regardless of whether they're dudes or chicks. I don't really see much of this in my own life, thank God, because if someone started trying to give me poo poo for being a male knitter I'd probably poke their eyes out with my needles. I wanted a tentacle scarf so my girlfriend taught me to knit one and it took off from there, who gives a God drat? You're not wrong! But who gives a drat is "most of the rest of society, because we live in a lovely, misogynist culture where things perceived as lady things are disrespected." I would love to live somewhere that no one gave a goddamn, but we don't. I love seeing people of all genders doing all sorts of handicrafts, but until seeing a man with a spinning wheel isn't surprising and dude knitters don't get weird looks on the bus and women knitting isn't seen as frivolous and "having too much time on your hands", we need to talk about this stuff.
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Aug 10, 2015 17:12
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This discussion. All of these things is the biggest reason I love the SCA: the acceptance of all people doing all arts, from weaving to fighting to embroidery to cooking and between. We really need a SCA thread.
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Aug 11, 2015 19:53
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Early this year I decided that I would try my hand at cross-stitch. This was partly due to Awesome Games Done Quick marathon which had featured, as a donation incentive, a framed picture of Link with a heart and the saying "Home is where the heart is." It was a fairly simple design but not something I was particularly interested in. On the other hand there were these large, colour dense perler designs of things like Bass from Megaman or Samus that were donation incentives of earlier years that always looked impressive in my eyes. Why not combine the two, I thought? The patterning was basically congruent since they were designed around pixels. And I did try cross-stitch when I was younger but couldn't maintain the effort needed for the kits that my mother got us. Shortly after the marathon ended, I got a set of small aida squares, package of floss and a packet of needles from Micheals and started sewing. Found a couple patterns that were small and disposable and eased into it. For this square, it took about a month.  I had fun and it gave me some alternative than playing some handheld video game while watching TV. It's surprisingly easy to follow most typical shows by audio cues alone, looking up occasionally when the action gets fierce. I established that I could do it. Now could I direct that energy towards something frame-worthy? I managed to stumble upon a pattern that I really liked online and just assembled colours close to the image. I fumbled a good two weeks on a double-size version before I realized it wouldn't fit my cloth (and it would take 4x the floss). Getting to the same point previous wasn't difficult and I breezed through another two months. The picture to the left is one my mother gave me for my birthday when I was late in elementary school, for comparison.  I ended up doing the majority of the background while at a friend's for some Star Wars pen and paper. Alright, I've got a handle on how to do this now. My mother saw my progress and decided to dump her remaining cross-stitch materials in my lap because she's far more interested in quilting and other crafts these days. Now for the actual pattern I started this craft for! I found this block painting of the pose of Samus I was looking for on deviantArt, made measurements for the cloth required, bought supplies, assembled colours and went at it once more. This took me far longer, about three and a half months. I had to repick a couple sections after realizing they were off by one, even adjusting the remaining picture when one of those sections was an entire arm. But it was worth it.  (My mom gave me an idea of adding a line to simulate floor meeting the wall that I might try. Also issues with contrasting colours in some places) Now I can't stop. I ran into an avatar I particularly liked here on SA and ended up doing that for my fourth piece. My mom and dad sort of reminded me to try back-stitching so I used this one as an experiment. I think next time I'm going to tone down on the colour and/or the amount.  Just need to get some decent foamboard for proper blocking and I'll have the last two framed nicely! I know of only one other person who does this stuff near me and she's more busy doing costume work for other people's cosplays.
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Aug 11, 2015 22:49
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That's funny, I started a very similar Samus forever ago: I should get back to it sometime. 
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Aug 11, 2015 23:26
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That drat Satyr posted:This discussion. Heck, make one! One of my friends "grew up" in the SCA, so sometimes I'd tag along with her and her mom... The variety of handmade objects and the quality of craftsmanship I saw even just strolling through camp was incredible. I've got so little time during the school year (and the idea of joining is intimidating  ) but man they've got the handicraft hookup! I love looking at other people's projects, I'd for sure follow that thread.As to the current culture of craft, I definitely agree with the previous posters. There is nothing that is inherently gendered about putting a needle in cloth! I do think (and I am really happy that this is happening) that these things are opening up. I taught my fiance how to handsew because he was interested in what I was doing, he taught me how to solder circuit boards because I was interested. I see way more fellows knitting on the bus, and guys in the fabric store on sale days (and not just waiting in the car ). But there definitely is a super-long and super-interesting history of imposing gender on craftwork (embroidery in particular), and simultaneously imposing craftwork on gender!It is just a sore spot for me when dudes hop in to embroidery and are like "Gosh, what potential this medium has, how has none of these silly ladies explored it as an art form, when I stitch it is art, not some frivolous tchotchky!" ANYWAY here's a really interesting sampler, dates from the 1830's...  More information, including a transcript, here. It is difficult to imagine the amount of work (emotional and actual stitching) that went into this! Poor Elizabeth 
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Aug 11, 2015 23:43
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suddenly cats posted:That's funny, I started a very similar Samus forever ago: Fantastic colours there. If it ever gets finished it's going to blow my version out of the water.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:16
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Sage Grimm posted:Fantastic colours there. If it ever gets finished it's going to blow my version out of the water. You flatter me  Yours looks fantastic though! I also really like your Ruby and Sapphire, I think that backstitching helps it a lot.
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Aug 12, 2015 05:21
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Micomicona posted:
That one terrifies me. I hope things got better for her.
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Aug 12, 2015 06:02
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Micomicona posted:It is just a sore spot for me when dudes hop in to embroidery and are like "Gosh, what potential this medium has, how has none of these silly ladies explored it as an art form, when I stitch it is art, not some frivolous tchotchky!" Conversely, Elizabeth Parker posted:The little hope I feel that I shall obtain  Anyway, I'm about to start on my annual summer blackwork project, and in light of the discussion of SCA, I want to recommend Lesley Wilkins' book Blackwork Made Easy. All of the patterns are either taken directly from, or are modified from, 15th-16th Century blackwork samplers or artifacts. She includes a brief history of the form in the introduction, as well. The two blackwork pieces I've posted to this thread are modifications of Wilkins' patterns found in this book. (Please excuse the poor mounting jobs  Ugh, that first one especially makes me cringe! I need to redo it ASAP.) (Text is a verse from the Book of Job)  (Text is by the artist Jenny Holzer)
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Aug 12, 2015 13:43
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