Somebody To Love

This meme came up on the LJ cross_stitch group, and I figured since I don’t talk about my stitching very often this would be a good way to let you all know some things about how I go about it.

1. How do you hold your fabric?
I used to stitch in hand, but then I ended up with cubital tunnel so now I use Q-snaps that someone on the BAPXS yahoo list gave me.

2. Floss licker?
Nope. I use Thread Heaven on my BAPs, and on some of my more important smaller pieces.

3. How do you thread your needle?
With those funny-shaped Boye threaders. Mostly because they are less likely than the wire ones to break, and cheap enough to replace when I inevitably lose them.

4. What needle do you like best?
Size 28, of any kind. Needles don’t last long enough for me to be attached to anything in particular since my skin reacts with them and they get tarnished and rough, or I manage to break them.

5. Are you a needle loser?
Most definitely. I usually end up finding them in the sofa (if I find them at all). A few days ago I put one in the arm of a chair while reaching for the scissors and it disappeared into the stuffing. I’m sure that’s happened before without my noticing.

6. What fabric do you prefer to stitch on?
Anything, really. It tends to depend on the project.

7. Bobbins or floss bags?
Bobbins, because if I kept things in bags I’d lose them or the cats would eat them. It’s harder to lose an entire bobbin case.

8. Are you a scissors collector?
Nope. I have a cheapo pair of stork scissors that barely hold together anymore (these get the most use, and have come in contact with children) and a pair of expensive chrome stork scissors that I treasure. Any others are kid scissors from wherever.

9. Do you do your own framing, and if so, do you lace or pin?
I’ve laced a project once, and never pinned one. But I didn’t frame it. I made it into a book cover.

10. Are you a floss floozy?
I don’t think so. I can’t really afford to buy floss at random. I am collecting all the DMC colours though, buying a hundred or so every time they go on sale.

11. Silk?
I have yet to use silk floss, but if it’s anything like silk roving I’m sure I’ll love it when I finish school and can start using it.

12. Railroader?
No, but only because I’m working on BAPs that I started before I knew what that was. Rather than having the more recent areas looking neater than the rest I am going to start railroading when I finish one and start my HAED.

13. Are you a pattern or designer snob?
That depends. I really like detailed, complicated patterns so I’m currently working on two Teresa Wentzler pieces, and I’ve done some of her smaller pieces as well. But it’s not as if I’ll only work on her stuff. I’ve got a HAED lined up for later and I’m sure I’ll branch out more once that is done. For smaller pieces I’ll work on anything as long as I like it. Though mostly I make my own designs for small stuff.

14. Do you get antsy when you give someone a stitched gift?
A little. I only give pieces away to people who I know will appreciate them, but even so there’s some apprehension since they are usually surprise gifts.

15. Have you reached S.A.B.L.E.?
No way. I’ve been stitching for 15 years and in all this time I still manage to only have a couple pieces going at once and two or three lined up. I don’t get the supplies for a piece until I start it either.

16. Do you wash your projects?
Yes. Sometimes partway through if it has gotten dirty, otherwise when I am done. It seems to help even things out and make the overall look more polished.

This holds in life in general right now as well as for crafting. I’m so so unbelievably sick of all this dreary weather.

My copy of Color in Spinning arrived this morning, which is doing a lot to help with the doldrums. It’s such a great resource, but right now all I’m doing is looking at all the bright and pretty pictures and wishing it was like that outside right now.

I’m also thinking I need to start messing with colours that I normally don’t think to use. On Wednesday during weaving class I realized I inadvertently chose the same colours for my scarf that I used for my Endpaper Mitts last year. This is great because I will have matching outdoor wear, but it really cemented the fact that I’ve been in a bit of a rut lately.

I’ve got all of the orange ones done and most of the olive green ones. I’m halfway there! Unfortunately I’m working on a MySQL assignment at the moment and I was on a field trip to Delaware with my weaving class earlier so blocking and pictures will have to wait until tomorrow.

BUT! I might have finished a few more by then. It will be worth it, I promise. At least, it will if you’re as obsessed with cute little knitted leaves like I am.

ETA:

One of the normal-sized leaves being blocked:

One of the smaller leaves for the toe insert being blocked:

A gods-eye-view of my blocking setup:

I didn’t notice until afterwards that the towel I was using is the same colour as the main yarn for the socks.

So far so good. It’s been taking me roughly an hour to knit each leaf so far, so I’ve only got 8 of them done. I did one of the green ones for the toe and 7 of the orange ones so far. Once I finish the 8th orange one I’ll block them and take pictures.

These socks are going to be so great when they are done. I’m still at a loss when it comes to how to wear them though. It was brought up at the Knit London meetup this week and I still haven’t decided. I don’t want to wear them without shoes because I’m pretty sure the carpet in here would wear them out super-quick. But at the same time, shoes would do a lot of damage (my boots ripped a huge hole in my angora socks) and I still want to be able to show them off. I think I need to get used to the idea of wearing them around the apartment, or getting clear shoes for the summer.

omg omg omg! I checked the mail on my way back in from the doctor, and look what I found:

Even the kit is a thing of beauty. The pattern is incredibly detailed and includes colour photos of some of the harder-to-explain steps. I’m so excited!

I’m not going to start it until later today when I finish setting up my loom for weaving class, but I think it’s safe to assume that half the things I was going to do tonight are pushed to tomorrow.

ETA: The yarn came wound into hanks, so before bed I took the time to wind them all into centre-pull balls. At first I was using my thumb, but there was too much of the purple to do that comfortably so I used my spindle as a nostepinne.

Before:

After:

“I’d have sworn that with time thoughts of you would leave my head.
I was wrong.” — Neil Diamond

Marin said today that “the Harlot is to knitting trends what Oprah is to book sales” and she’s not far off on that. You see, on Wednesday Stephanie posted about Vintage and people started snapping it up. I ordered it in the Pinot colourway yesterday. The funny thing is, I’m not usually one to go out and buy things just because someone makes them popular. I don’t buy books that Oprah endorses, I tend not to follow trends that Stephanie does either. This isn’t a case of that even though it might seem that way on the surface.

What happened in this case was that Stephanie’s blog was the means through which the gods finally caught me. When I went to the website and saw these socks I swear they were daring me to knit them. I don’t back down from a challenge. Especially when it comes in the form of knitted socks. This might sound like crazy-talk, but I get the sense that these socks are the embodiment of the Dionysian spirit. It’s not just the subject matter. It’s because of the arrogance I sense coming from these socks. They know they are magnificent but at the same time they also know they’re going to make you let go of your fear and inhibitions, make you get into another mindspace and do things you wouldn’t ordinarily do in order to get them done.

Now, I don’t need to commit hubris against the knitting gods and have things come crashing down on my head, but at the same time I realize there’s a lot of work involved here and I refuse to let these socks beat me. I tend to see it as a way of putting my skills to good use serving a higher purpose, whatever that turns out to be.

I’ve again participated in yet another cross-stitch exchange, this one autumn-themed. Now that my package has been received and my partner has gotten hers, I can show off what we’ve done.

Dasha sent me a lovely needlebook that I’ve been using non-stop since it arrived. It’s great. The colours are amazing, the fabric inside is also very fitting, and the size is perfect for the project I’ve been using it with. She also sent an adorable Russian doll keychain, and a very pretty card for my collection.

See how awesome! I wanted to make myself a needlebook a while ago, but after making my brother a wallet I learned sewing defeats me. I’ve got this one to do once I get some more practise sewing with stuff that I won’t worry about wrecking in the process.

Here’s a closeup of the whole pattern:

And a detail shot of the front:

I keep taking it out to look at and pet it. Dasha said she keeps doing the same with what I gave her. I’m glad we’re both happy.

I made her the Miniature Autumn Sampler by Teresa Wentzler (I know, I know, I’m obsessed) but turned it into the cover of a book. It’s attached in such a way that she can swap the cover onto a new book if she needs to, or take it off the backing completely for use as something else. Part of the requirement for this exchange was that we had to try new finishing techniques and the stuff online was boring so I made something up. Now, I forgot to take pictures but Dasha took some and gave me permission to use them, so here we are.

Here’s what the finished product looks like:

The detail shot of the fruit for those interested:

I did really like doing this piece. It was certainly much easier than my other two projects. Even though it’s a TW it didn’t induce the frustration that usually happens when I work on the others. I liked it so much I might do it again down the road. The pattern is not that costly and I have all the materials, so it’s likely. Of course, now I also want to do some of the freebies that I saw on her site, since they’d be detailed but easy as well.

Or, what I’ve been doing.

Things haven’t been too busy but I’ve been enjoying the chance to read again and not spend so much time on the computer. I realize once school starts up in September I’m probably going to be chained to my laptop again.

I’m trying to learn to actually use Photoshop, rather than putting up with my usual tactic of fumbling around until I get something presentable. I’m also teaching myself to type using Dvorak to help with my repetitive strain. I’ve pretty much got it down but find it hard to stick to because I’m so slow at it compared to Qwerty. Oh well. If I put stickers or something on my keyboard, or rearrange the keys, I’m sure I’d be faster at it since when I forget where a letter is I can just look instead of having to stop and think about it.

Look! A cute ducky!

That was taken before Convocation, when me and Dean were wandering the park looking for good places to take pictures of the gown for my grandma. I’m sure she’s glad she made me promise that I’d go to this one [since I skipped out on my highschool graduation] because not many people in my family make it through to university, let alone graduate. Now that I’ve had a couple weeks to get over it, I’m kinda glad I went too. Not for the usual reasons, but so I’ll have an idea of what to expect when I graduate from Western. At least that’s one convocation that I’ll be glad to go to!

Still, I really like the pretty purple frame for my degree. It’s much better than Dean’s with his boring brown thing. Mine’s so bright and cheerful. I think it better represents the spirit of the school. Not just because it’s the school colours. The whole experience at school was so much fun. The other frame is so austere looking. It kinda creeps me out. I keep saying mine is better than Dean’s. Eventually it turns into us joking that I chose the one I did because I’m an artsy-fartsy philosophy major and he’s an important and valued business student. Ha! I still say we win because there are more people getting BAs at Laurier than BBAs. So there!

See? Mine’s so nice:

While waiting for the spinning wheel to get back I didn’t feel like knitting much, so I started working on Peacock Tapestry again and I’ve now finished another page. For as much as I still love this piece after all these years, I must admit I’m going to be very excited when I’m finally finished the leaves on those trees. So much green! Even the pears don’t provide much distraction from the overwhelming green of it all.

This is the section of the trees that I just finished. You can see where the page ends.

This is what I have so far:

Since Kitty actually stayed off it this time, I’ve got something else. Kitty raspberries!

In other cross-stitch news I received my needleroll from Hania this month:

It’s so beautiful! I love it so much. Especially because it’s something I never would have thought to make for myself, and yet it’s so pretty.

I also made her one. Mine’s something of a colour-overload, but in a good way I think. The original pattern was so monotone that I couldn’t stand it and went in the complete opposite direction.

As if there isn’t enough random stuff in this post, have some cute piggies!

Okay, so I lied about the wheel being fixed before. When I tried to use it the wheel was wobbly and not spinning properly. The instructions sent with the repair kit said to tighten the bolt holding the wheel to the base until the wheel runs true. I tried that. Instead of the bolt tightening it broke and made my wheel not just sort-of useless, but completely useless.

Needless to say, rather than making things worse I contacted the manufacturer and sent it back for them to fix properly. I could have just asked for a new bolt but this way means it gets fixed right the first time.

I checked my UPS tracking, it arrived back at the factory yesterday so sometime soon I should have my wheel back and working as it should be. When that happens, I’ll definitely be posting pictures of what I spin. I’ll also be dyeing and spinning some of my own stuff, since I ordered a bunch of assorted fibre last month that is just sitting in the box in the corner waiting to be loved.

I’ve made some really good progress in Peacock Tapestry and almost completely finished the section I was on. I can’t really work by the page because it’s an evil evil pattern and is too complicated to cooperate.

I’m participating in a needleroll exchange and I finished and mailed that on Monday. I have pictures and they are awesome but I can’t post them until my receiver gets it. No spoiling the surprise!

I received my new wheel, a Louet Victoria (S95) last Friday, but with moving and such didn’t get to use it right away. On Saturday when I did try the singles I spun were great, the wheel was amazing, and everything seemed fine. The next day I tried Navajo plying the singles and it just wasn’t happening. Then the wheel started fighting with me, making this really loud screeching sound that worried me so I stopped to check things out. It turned out the wheel was forcing the screw holding the footman bearing into place out.

The screw could not come out all the way and thus make the bearing fall off because the footman was holding it in place. It could only come out as far as the empty space inside the cup of the footman would allow.

After asking around to see if this was something I could fix myself or not, I contacted the dealer I bought the wheel from to see what could be done. He contacted Louet and got them to send me a bolt assembly that could be used instead of the screw that would fix the problem. Apparently it’s not something that happens often, but it does happen. Rest assured, the letter they sent with the part mentioned that second-generation Victoria’s would be assembled with the bolt instead to prevent it from happening at all in the future.

The repair itself was pretty simple. You drill a hole through the wheel where the hole for the screw is, then put the metal bushing provided into this hole. After removing the white plastic bushing from the bearing, you put the bearing on the bolt provided, with a split washer and regular washer between it and the wheel, and then just tighten the bolt into the metal bushing.

I didn’t attempt pictures of this step because the lighting was bad and because a camera can’t really show you the inside of a hole that small very well either. But when you are done (and it’s easier than it sounds, the repair took a matter of minutes) you will have a nice secure bearing that won’t be forced out of the wheel. It’s much the same as the way the wheel itself is attached to the base.

It also doesn’t make the wheel look much different than it did before. In fact, I suspect other than the fact that the bolt used is black most people wouldn’t notice a difference at all.