lpanne

[lpanne]

Unfortunately I think there are people who give a shit. I went into a cross stitch specific store for the first time when I was around 15. I had my current project on me because I was on vacation and wanted to have something to do with my hands during my down time. The lady in the shop asked to see it and the first thing she did was turn it over to look at the back. She honestly looked a little disappointed that the back of my piece was neat.

I think having people judge you based on how neat the back of your piece is was a huge part of people’s first interaction with the wider cross stitch community. So I think some of those look how messy the back of my piece post are more about normalizing that that is ok, and are in response to the look how neat my back is posts. I’ve really appreciated this as I’m now actually having the back of my pieces be messier to make the front me neat and have better tension.

Cross stitch social media posts really confuse me. I see a lot of people sharing pictures of the back of their work, going 'oh, I'm so proud I finished but my backs look soooo messy!🙈'.

And I can't help but think,

Who gives a shit??

It's the back! No one's supposed to be looking at it. If someone comes round and, when you show them your latest masterpiece, turns it over and says 'oh, but the back's very messy', that person is not invited again.

My second thought is,

Well, try clipping your fucking ends then. If you don't want a messy back, don't leave two‐inch tails of every thread. Knot it through the work a couple of times and cut the loose off.

[lpanne]

What is your toxic cross-stitcher trait?

Mine is: Every time i buy a pattern with no test stitch perview i think i can choose better colors than the original designer. I do usually fix the issues with the color palette, but make new problems so i'm not sure my fixes are better than the original version.

[lpanne]

My sister-in-law asked me to make a stocking for her nephew. I talked to the parents and they wanted a winter mountain scene for their son. I then bought two patterns to build this stocking.

Winter landscape cross stitch pattern by SoEasyPattern on etsy

and

Winter cross stitch pattern by AuthorEmbroideDesign on etsy.

[lpanne]

I've drafted a Murderbot inspired cross stitch pattern with green text over a static background (produced by picking randomly between 0, 1, or 2 and then colouring the square white, grey, or black accordingly). The text is the quote "I was having an emotion and I hate that" which I thought would work well against the static.

But now that I look at my coloured pattern and the text is incredibly hard to read.

The red lines wouldn't be part of the pattern - they're just to make the individual squares easier to see for cross stitch.

I don't know whether I should give up on the idea because the real thing would be just as hard to read, or if it will be clearer when stitched. Or if I should do it even though it's so difficult to read, because Murderbot wouldn't want its emotions on display.

[lpanne]

How to make new symbols in MacStitch

First go to Utilities > Symbol Editor (PDF symbol Editor looks cool but i haven't played around with it yet.

You should then have a screen with the symbol that is the first in the list to be edited. There is only black and erase, and the select option doesn't let you paste anymore for some reason. but you can hand draw symbols. (give yourself a lot of white area. i think minimum what i'm showing here

Hit the save button when you are done editing, then select a new symbol by clicking on the button surrounded by the red box.

[lpanne]

Round Four of Bargello Pride Patterns

All designs are on 10 count plastic canvas and cut so that they are 34 holes wide and tall.

DMC Tapestry Wool: BLANC, 7605, and 716

Red lines show where to split the lines as you can see in the final coaster. DMC Tapestry Wool: 701, 702, 709, 7020. Do not use these colors, especially 7020, it was too cool toned for everything else. I should have used 707, 708, 701, 7435, i just thought those purples were too pink but it still looks better than the colors i used. See suggested alternative pattern below for if you buy the two multipacks i bought (Tropical and Classic Collections).

reminder on how to read these patterns as i'm not using the correct notation:

I just want to celebrate also how all 9 look together! still don't know what i'm going to do with the final 3 small squares but i'll figure something out.

[lpanne]

Round three of Bargello Pride Patterns

All designs are on 10 count plastic canvas and cut so that there are 34 holes wide and tall.

DMC Tapestry Wool: 7740, 702, 707, 7605 and Ecru (i was running out of Blanc, I can't really tell the difference between them anyways)

DMC Tapestry Wool: 722, 723, 7317, 716, Ecru. Black lines in the pattern show where to split the lines as you can see in the final coaster.

DMC Tapestry Wool: 706, 709, 7317

Again an explanation on how to read the patterns:

Still finishing the Trans pride coaster, and am trying to figure out which flag to do for the final one that is the same size as all of the ones i've made so far. From one sheet of 10 count plastic canvas i was able to cut out 9 34x34 squares and 3 smaller 31 x 31. I'm thinking I will to try to design the intersex pride flag using one of the medallion motifs but it has been a bit hard to chart. But i still need to decide what to make for the 3 smaller coasters.

[lpanne]

Round two of pride inspired Bargello patterns

All designs are on 10 count plastic canvas and cut so that there are 34 holes wide and tall.

DMC Tapestry Wool: Noir, Blanc, 7275, and 708

DMC Tapestry Wool: Noir, Blanc, 7275, 7770 and 722

DMC Tapestry Wool: Noir, Blanc, 7275, 722 and 708. (This one i should have cut down to be 33 x 33 but i wanted all my coasters to be the same size)

These are a little more complicated designs using Bargello as you aren't doing just doing straight lines of stitching. I wanted to try some more difficult patterns and when i saw a flag for the Asexual spectrum i felt like it was perfect to try the 4-way Bargello.

Again as a reminder of on how to read the top pattern:

the ones were i'm literally drawing the lines doesn't have this issue but i don't want to go back and redraw the top pattern as drawing with backstitch takes so much time!

And here is the link to the post were i talked about some of the difficulties i ran into first learning how to stitch this style of embroidery: https://lpanne.tumblr.com/post/751029562546274304/bargello

[lpanne]

Bargello

So i'm trying a new type of embroidery which is called Bargello embroidery. I saw this video and decided to try it

So i wanted to share the pitfalls i found as a cross stitcher while trying to learn this technique.

First, there are very few free resources for Bargello. There are some but compared to what is available for cross-stitch there is nothing. I did find a couple of blogs, and i found that a lot of needlepoint or embroidery books had a couple of pages about it, but those patterns were super basic)

Second the embroidery is on a grid and that lured me in with a false sense of security when trying to design a pattern. I cut a bunch of perfect squares out of 10 count plastic canvas and then set my pattern up as a grid. This was a mistake as i will try to explain in the diagram below.

basically if you cut your canvas square the design dimensions will be the number of openings in the width x that number minus one.

So not knowing this i designed a square pattern and ran out of room on the blue complete row to go over four strands like every other color and had to do three instead. (I started at the top and bottom separately and worked towards the middle, which lead to me realizing my issue only at the very end.

The pattern i'm sharing will assume you cut you canvas 34 holes wide and 35 tall. If you want a perfectly square coaster just make one color shorter like i did or cut off a row at the top or bottom of the pattern.

I used DMC's Tapestry Wool on 10 count plastic canvas.

Colors: 704, 7740, 7435, 7770 (probably should have used the 722 that came in the same pack though, but i'm using that one in a different design and was worried it would run out), 7317 and 709.

I couldn't buy the colors individually so i bought both the Tropical and Classic Collections. This dictated the colors i used and i'm not claiming the are the best colors to use for pride flag colors. Also these collections were $20 for 12 skeins which i thought was a bit steep so i waited for good discounts before buying them. I'm hoping to get another 50% off coupon before buying the collection that is all black so i can finish the edges with an overcast stitch.

So look forward to me designing a bunch of pride flag inspired bargello patterns.

Though i think this is a good beginner's project i really think this needlepoint style shines using smaller count canvas and thinner thread and a larger area overall. That way you can make some really cool patterns.

[lpanne]

The card i made for Mother's Day. I forgot again to take a pic before putting it in the envelope so thanks mom for sending me the photo.

The design is from this book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1044210.ART_NOUVEAU_CROSS_STITCH

[lpanne]

Done! only took about 16 weeks (I would have been faster if i hadn't had to frog so much). I don't know what to do with myself now.

Pattern by Vivsters on etsy

[lpanne]

Another month's worth of progress! And i'm finally done with one of the colors! it is the strawberries which i actually started last and have the least number of stitches, but you have to take your wins somewhere. I am 72% done according to my tacking program, and i think it will be about 6 more weeks of work.

[lpanne]

photography is wild. in person i can't really see the difference between that dusty blue and green but it is so clear in the photo?? also i'm finally done frogging! Was actually done a couple of hours after my last update but i wanted to see how far i could get in a month. i'm almost done re-stitching all the sections i had to frog, but i'm most excited to be almost half way done.

pattern by Vivsters on etsy

[lpanne]

Not a lot of progress over the last two weeks as i was traveling, but I'm almost done frogging! and my pattern tracker says i'm about 20% done. It doesn't feel like 20% though because i have to fill in so much of that background blue. I'm saving the dark blue until last so that i can stitch without a pattern when i need to. Though, i'm going to have to start working on the bottom so i can roll the pattern up in my scroll frame.

[lpanne]

made some progress on the stitching and frogging! Still have that bit in the corner but i'm not fussed about getting it done as it will be awhile until i'm stitching that high up again.

Pattern on ETSY by Vivsters

[lpanne]

I loved the design for the William Morris cross stitch i made for my mom so much that i decided to stitch the whole thing (ETSY link by Vivsters) Unfortunately I miss counted and i have to frog the entire area circled in red. Normally i would just work around it but the pattern is completely symmetrical so it would be super noticeable. Also i don't have a deadline for this so i can do the frogging as nice mindless work between stitching new sections.