SBQ Meme: Stitching Term or Acronym

This week's SBQ was suggested by Renée and is:

For seasoned stitchers: Define a stitching term or acronym for new stitchers.
For newbies: What stitching term or acronym would you like defined?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog.blondelibrarian.net/archives/2008/05/sbq-stitch-speak/

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I can remember the first time I joined the stitching boards over at www.ezboard.com ( now www.yuku.com ) I was so bewildered by all the abbreviations used in the messages.

The one memorable one that always gave me a start when I read it in a header was:

SEX = Stash Enhancement eXpense ( or eXperience )
: Materials bought, gained in an exchange, won in an auction, etc.

Others that always gave me trouble trying to remember:

SABLE = Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy
: To know for sure, simply ask yourself this one simple question - If I quit buying anymore stash and stitched everything that is currently in my stash? If the answer is no, you have reached SABLE.

AFAIK = As Far As I Know
FWIW = For What It’s Worth
YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary ( your experience may differ from mine)

Kitchen Towel Finished

I was going to post this Sunday but simply didn’t have the time, so it gets a quick little blurb today. My ordered supplies came in on Thursday the 1st and I finished the towel by Sunday afternoon. Now I’ve got 3 weeks left to stitch the pot holder. This is a first for me and proving very interesting as I have never counted cross stitched in-hand before. That and I had to dismantle the potholder down 2 of the 3 sides so I could work the stitches. I’m fairly confidant that I’ll get this finished in the next 3 weeks and mailed off to my girlfriend in England by the last Monday in this month.


Name: BlueBerries Kitchen Towel
Type: Counted Cross Stitch
Finished Chart Size: 3 3/4" x 5 1/4" (9.6cm x 13.4cm)
Leaflet/Kit #: Fruit Tarts & Towels Book 244
Designer/Publisher: Stoney Creek Collection, Inc. © 1999
Finished: May 04, '08



Potholder progress as of Sunday:


This will probably be the first and last potholder I stitch in a very long time. I find I don’t really like to stitch in-hand on pre-finished items.

Well, that’s all for this blog blurb.

SBQ Meme: Family Heirlooms

This week's SBQ was suggested by Jennifer is:

Do you have any pieces that you would liked passed on to future generations as family heirlooms?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog.blondelibrarian.net/archives/2008/04/sbq-heirlooms/

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My fantasy would be that everything I stitch gets passed along. That said, I doubt that any of them will become family heirlooms and will most likely end up in a yard sale long after I'm buried and gone. I'm not married and don't have any children, and by the looks of things I'm not going to have either in the near future. I do have 3 younger siblings,1 niece and 1 nephew so far, and they've all gotten wedding and birth announcements stitched by me. So hopefully some of them may appreciate my stitching after I'm gone and rat-pack away a few items.

Birthday Present Update

Well it’s been 1 1/2 weeks now and I’ve worked all I can on the kitchen towel for my girlfriend’s present. I’m still waiting for a skein of Glissen Gloss spectrim gold and a ball of DMC Pearl Cotton #12 I’ve ordered from www.needleartmania.com. Jackie’s brick n’ mortar shop is in Pasco, Wa. the only needlepoint and counted cross stitch shop in all of the Tri-Cities sad to say. I’ll be giving her a call next week about my thread. I’ve never ordered from her before so I don’t know what her ordering schedule is. I do hope I get my order before the middle of May, cuz the birthday package need to be sent out the last week of May if it’s to get to England in time for her birthday. In the mean time I’ll be working on the matching potholder that goes with the towel.

In Other News: I’ve been laid-off and out of work for 3 weeks so far, and it doesn’t look like the company is going to be calling me back to work this month. Damn but on-call work really sucks.

SBQ Meme: Blended Threads

This week's SBQ was suggested by Christine and is:

How do you handle blended threads? Do you kit the blends up before you start a piece, or do you grab what colors you need and blend when the need arises? If you kit up the blends beforehand, how do you store them? Do you have another option for blends to share?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog.blondelibrarian.net/archives/2008/04/sbq-blends/

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Like most stitchers I blend (tweed) as I go. I set up my LoRan small project cards so the 2 solid colors are on either side of the blended color. Example [ 378 – 378/379 – 379 ]. That means I pull 1 thread from each solid color, use the blend and place the unused piece in the middle hole to be worked later in the same project. I try to organize all my blended pairs this way on 1 – 2 project cards. That way I'm not duplicating solid colors on more than one card. When I'm finished with the project I either toss the blend or, if the length is still usable, separate the threads and return them to their respective plastic bobbins.

A hint for the LoRan cards: Write on the back and not the front of the cards, that way you can easily erase the pencil markings and use the cards again.

Christmas Sampler 2003 Update and Page Loading Problems

As promised here’s my progress picture for parts 3 and 4. This will temporarily be set aside as I work on a birthday present for a girl friend. Her birthday is coming up in June and I’m going to stitch her a kitchen towel and potholder combo with a picture of blueberries. No worries about her finding out, as far as I know she doesn’t have internet access so my secret will be safe.

After that I’ll be working on Le Marquoir - Il était une fois replacing french knots with seed beads for part 4. Then it’s back to christmas sampler forcing myself to finish it.
Do you ever get to a point working on a project that you’ve had for so long that you start to wonder what possessed you to start it in the first place? That’s what I’m feeling about christmas sampler. There must have been something about it I liked back in 2003 when I started it that drew my interest, but for the life of me I can’t remember what. Now I feel like it’s a chore to finish the beast. But finish it I will, then it will either get rolled up and put away never to see the light of day, or it will get turned into a bell pull and only hauled out during December to be hung up on the wall.

As for the wonky page loading problems. I’ve gone out and bought myself a 3 inch thick Cascading Style Sheets book. Basically it’s a developer’s guide for CSS1 and CSS2. It may take me a while but I plan on teaching myself the basics and fix my blog myself. I guess it doesn’t pay to go copying and pasting other peoples code together when you have no idea what the hell you’re doing.

Well that’s it for this blog blurb.

A New Face Lift, Sampler Progress, and the SBQ Meme: April 10, 2008

Well after four years I finally decided it was high time for a face lift. I got tired of seeing blue skies and fluffy clouds deciding to go for a green motif and earthy flowers, orchids to be specific. It took me roughly six hours to tweak the template just the way I wanted it, and for someone who know zip about style sheets I think it looks damn nice. There's just one catch - it only works in Internet Explorer. For some reason, I can't figure out why or how, the style sheets screw-up in Mozilla's FireFox.


On the stitching front I'm hard at work on Christmas Sampler 2003. I'm up though part three, the center flowers, and halfway through part four the band just below it. I should have a progress picture by Monday or Tuesday showing both parts completed. Then thank goddess I'll be in the home stretch with part five. I've decided to leave off the bottom row of diamonds, part six, as I feel it unbalances the length of the bell pull.


This week's SBQ was suggested by Jennifer and is:

What is the most complicated piece you've ever completed?

The permalink to this post is:
http://blog.blondelibrarian.net/archives/2008/04/sbq-complications/

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At this moment in time none. I consider Teresa Wentzler's Camelot Sampler the most time consuming if not actually complicated, as I'm still plugging away at it after 7 years. Most things I've done aren't actually complicated. Then I guess it all depends on your idea of what complicated is.