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Ooh. I've been cross-stitching since the start of this year so I'm excited to find an embroidery thread!  Not sure why I don't have a finished photo of this one, a 9"x9" of Gyarados (from Pokemon)  Currently working on "Mario Through the Ages", which is kind of a beast... 60+ colors. I'm still kind of a newb, though  Kind of curious if anyone has any tips for ironing out finished pieces to get the hoop wrinkles out. I didn't have a clothes iron so I used a straightening iron for hair at a very low setting and it was almost fine until I suddenly... accidentally slightly burnt the outer edge. It wasn't a huge deal but I kind of don't want to make that mistake again... was kind of surprised since Aida cloth seems so tough. So I'm wondering if there is some better way of smoothing it all out. Aimee fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Jun 29, 2014 |
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Jun 29, 2014 18:38
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That drat Satyr posted:I don't know if it'll work so much for Aida, but with most of my work which I do on mostly linen or Osnaburg cloth I inevitably get smudges on it because I'm lazy and leave it in the hoop and throw it in my bag while I'm out and about, so when I'm finished I make a hot soapy bath with a dash of laundry soap and some dish soap in a little tub and just really gently hand wash my work really well, then clip it to the curtain by an open window (or to the shower curtain some days if I'm lazy) to dry. Just use wooden clothespins or even just safteypin it so it doesn't make more dents in the fabric. All of my work has dried well and not had really bad creases in it, even if it had them before washing. Don't be afraid to kind of ball it up a bit when you're washing it, squeeze it and stuff so the whole lot of it gets a bit rumpled. But.. maybe it would be safest to try a bit of scrap before you wash your actual work, since as I said I've never actually washed Aida like this. Ahhh that's a good idea! I used to be worried that the color would run (using DMC floss), but apparently I was all sorts of wrong about how bad it is because I gave away a stitched piece as a gift and was told they washed it before framing it with no problem.
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Jun 30, 2014 04:28
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Buggalo posted:I'm in the middle of a huge cross-stitch project, and by huge, I mean 21x17 inches of pure cross-stitch fever. It's based on an art print of a pangolin (my favorite animal ever). My wonderful fiance got me the pattern and I've been slowly driving myself insane with it. Wow, that is insane. How long have you been working on that total? Also, do you roll the rest of the piece up when you're working on it at all? I'm in the middle of completely destroying a project:  If someone ever tells you "measure twice, cut once," you should listen to them. I'm going to try to salvage it by using some of this adhesive spray and making the block of island land that goes directly above it be its own strip of aida cloth so that it connects the bottom piece to another piece of aida... will end up having a kind of 3D look I *hope*. If not, I'm going to have to end up splitting my work up into 3 separate "frames", but I'm really hoping to not go that route. What a difficult lesson to learn. Aimee fucked around with this message at 22:33 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 22:29
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^^^^ That's what I would have guessed roughly from looking at it. It looks really good so far! That drat Satyr posted:Why don't you just stitch the pieces together? I think if you were worried about the visual gap you could leave a little tab and just fold it over the back and stitch it with white thread with a sharp and probably make it look pretty darn close. You could also pull apart some other pieces and thread up each "line" into a needle and weave it into the rest of the fabric, and probably manage to weave a little extra on to it that way as long as you got it anchored well into the existing fabric. I've done that before with cloth I've ripped while pulling out stitches. It's basically the same as darning a sock. Aghh that pattern! It's so good. I've seen people over there on spritestitch that have been doing the SMW world map overview that have been working on it for months but I don't know, that's a lot of commitment. As for my disaster, I might end up going that way... I'm really not sure. I finished up the edge of the current piece so that the very top is an even line of stitches and now I'm just kind of waffling on it out of nervousness because I've put 2 weeks into this and am scared of ruining it I've never combined two pieces of aida so I did a test run with some smaller scrap pieces and it was kind of annoying just getting everything aligned... I can't even imagine what it would be like with a higher count. I taped it all together and just did it little by little but I still worry it's going to look wonky and weird... but then I kind of wonder if it even matters... I'm going to frame it so even if I just taped the two pieces together or something weird, it should be fine maybe?
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Jul 17, 2014 05:02
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Surgery successful.  It doesn't look as clean or polished as I would like but given how annoyingly difficult it was to do, I'll take it. The aida I had wasn't perfectly cut at the bottom so some of the connecting stitches were longer than others, making some of the aida behind peek through. I added some back-stitching at the bottom in the same green floss to fill it in and it mostly looks okay. I imagine when I frame it and have it on a wall and someone views it a normal distance it won't be noticeable at all. I hope. Adhesive spray ended up not helping at all. The duct tape, on the other hand, was the most helpful thing imaginable. I hope I never make this mistake ever again, haha.
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Jul 18, 2014 16:45
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That looks rad. The scales on it are really nicely done.
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Aug 30, 2014 01:14
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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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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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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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Time to resurrect this thread. WIP but I'm really feeling it: The entirety of the text is a Carl Jung quote: "If your life seems like a nightmare, it's because you are afraid of your own dreams." -- Shadow Nightmares boss from Zelda: Link's Awakening
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Apr 10, 2016 02:38
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Aergo posted:That is extremely cool. It's really not too much of a difference! I think it's *slightly* harder to see in low light conditions. I'm used to 18ct aida so I went 14ct with the black just to be safe but it hasn't been an issue. It was a good choice though, saved me over 10,000 extra stitches
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Apr 10, 2016 15:24
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