Any cross stitchers out there? I'd love more time to cross stitch, but with work it's been a chore I need to start something soon to relax me ;D I'd like to hear about your projects!

I don't do much cross stitch although I do love embrodery. The counted cross stitch is beyond me because I always lose count lol. I probably do more quilted satin stitch than anything else. French knots also give me kittens (I'm left handed) lol. I love the closed feather stitch too. Lets see the last one I did was a brown and gold pegasus 12"x12" with a sunset background. Very very rich looking. The sunset didn't come out as well as I wanted it too but then I'm not that great of an artist. I design my own patterns I guess because it's more of a challenge and when I am done I know it is unique. There will never be another like it anywhere. I'm reminded of the wolf patterns that were so popular a few years back. Everywhere I went there one was. Fortunately for me I was busy with dragons (european style) and pegasus's at that time. Now I've got my eye on doing that work working where you cut out the wood to make a silouette. I like the ones of trees on the horizon, and the chinese 5 footed dragons, and the sailing ships aren't bad either. So have you decided what pattern your going to do next?

I love to cross-stitch. Unfortunately, I don't do it anymore because my eyes are getting bad.

Dianna

I do lots of cross stitching.....actually I'll take a pic of the ones I just finished and post them in here later on.....

I find it relaxing to do while I'm watching TV....I'm either x-stitching or crocheting usually.....

I've been cross stitching for years. It's very relaxing yet frustrating at the same time. I've recently had to purchase a magnifying light so I can read the patterns, but poor eyesight won't stop me.

I just finished a detailed rose pattern after putting it down 6 months ago. I only work on my stitching in hotter weather. When it cools down I crochet. My hobbies are the only way I can sit still.

I probably do more quilted satin stitch than anything else. French knots also give me kittens (I'm left handed) lol. I love the closed feather stitch too. Lets see the last one I did was a brown and gold pegasus 12"x12" with a sunset background. Very very rich looking.>>>

Those sound very lovely! Do you have pictures that you can share on a website? I need to start back up cross stitching. I've been working too much anymore to be able to sit and stitch. Gotta make a trip to the craft store very soon~~

I love to cross-stitch. Unfortunately, I don't do it anymore because my eyes are getting bad.
>>>

Dianna, you could always enlarge the charts and get some aida cloth with larger squares!

I do lots of cross stitching.....actually I'll take a pic of the ones I just finished and post them in here later on.....
>>
Please do post them. I love looking at other people's work! Now I'm inspired to start stitching again soon.

I just finished a detailed rose pattern after putting it down 6 months ago. I only work on my stitching in hotter weather. When it cools down I crochet. My hobbies are the only way I can sit still. >>>

What are you crocheting? I can only do straight things like blankets LOL I imagine your rose is beautiful!

Hi ~

I do it all -- crewel, cross, counted cross, needlepoint, latch hook, knitting, crocheting, sewing. It's just how we were taught as children.

But my specialty is vintage crochet. I particulary enjoy recreating vintage patterns and putting the directions into modern language or writing them down for the first time, ever.

For this delicate work I use very fine thread, similar to what you might see as edging on a hankie.

Also, I do make plenty of outerwear and things such as sweaters and vests when I'm tired of the small work and want to do something with yarn.

My sister does petit point and minature counted cross....I think it is 24 x's per inch. She uses a magnifying lens with a light attached that hangs from her neck. It is angled so she can look right through it to the work in her hands. When you start doing 1/2 and 1/4 x's on a 28 square per inch fabric, you need illumination and magnification!

Yipes.

Merme

Merme,

You forgot tatting lol. And ribbon making I've forgotten what that is called. I watched a woman do it at wolf trap one day when they had an irish festival. If I had been alone I would have stayed all day but I was with friends and it was raining so we left.

About the crochet; anyone do the reversable patterns.

Believe it or not I'm not a picture person or at least I wasn't. Now I sincerely wish I had pictures of everything I have done at one time or another. But I don't have even one picture.

So many people have went back to crafting that it is now cheaper to buy readymades so that's what I do.

When the price of craft stuff goes down I'll probably start again. And I'll probably need the magnifing glass and light to do it too.

Karen, to create shapes just use your 2 & 3 together stitches to decrease and your increases are like when you make a shell. Doing several stitches from one spot. It is not difficult. Reading some of the patterns is hard. But the work really isn't. Gage of course is very important.

Here are my latest 2 cross stitches.....of course I'm a bird lover so I had to get these 2--I thought they were so cute.

Oh loz, these are wonderful!

What size are they? Where have you hung them?

Merme

I didn't even think to say how big they were....let's see--the frames are 8 by 10 and the actual stitches are about 5 by 7 I believe.

Took me about a week to do each one because of all the backstitching around the leaves and birds and such......that's the tedious part of it I think.....I have them hanging in the living room right now right across from the loveseat.....Glad you like them Merme....just thought I'd share....I've done so many x-stitches over the years....Sometimes my wrist aches so bad from it, but I still love to do it....I also just finished a lighthouse one for my mom that I'll post in here soon......

Oh loz, which lighthouse did you do? I can't wait to see it!

When we first moved to Maine, just like so many others before me, I fell in-love with Portland Headlight, the light commissioned by George Washington in the 1780's. It is local to where we live and rather a beautiful sight. So I started collecting images of it, including a jig saw puzzle I glued together.

Then I found an exquisitely designed counted cross stitch kit and bought it. However, it was well beyond my powers as a cross-stitcher. I did the lighthouse and some of the sky and buildings but then I couldn't complete the thing. To many color changes, too many 1/2 and 1/4 stitches on all the cliff face. So my talented sister took it back to OH with her and completed it for me. It is really something to behold.

Oh do show your lighthouse when you have a chance!

These birds are really nice and I'm surprised each one only took you a week, being as large as they are. Glad you put them in a place where they will be often seen and enjoyed!

Merme

I LOVE to cross stitch. I have a couple that I'm working on now...I only work on them when I'm in the mood to do them though. one that I got for christmas that I absolutely love is of whiteish grey looking horses running out of waves in an ocean...it is absolutely beautiful! it has TONS and TONS of blue in it. I also have one of a wolf inside of a dreamcatcher looking thing that's really pretty. I like to do the little small one's that are like 3 or 4 inches big. I also LOVE to do plastic canvas. I'm REALLY good at doing that. I also love to do latch hook.

Oh Miss Jamie, I didn't know you do plastic canvas too! Isn't it a great medium?

When Maxi was a baby, I made him an entire Christmas village out of plastic canvas and white yarn. The buildings are 3 to 4 inches high, with the school house bell tower the tallest at about 5 inches. There is a mansion, tiny cottages, a church, the school, a gazebo and some trees all made that way.

At Christmas I set it up on a board with a mirror laid flat in the middle and some of the buildings set up higher on upsidedown bowls. Then everything gets a cotton ball pulled apart snow cover.

At the time I made it, I figured it was great for a kid because it is completely washable but very attractive!

What do you do with your plastic canvas?

Merme

I have been working on baby stuff. My younger daughter is pregnant and so far I have made 2 of the big quilts that are stamped and I have made several bibs. Yesterday we went to Oklahoma City to take hubby's teeth to the dentist (he is having horrible problems with his dentures) and we bought some material and I have more blankets to go. We bought some cute fleece and I have to crocet an edge around that, also some material and lace, I just sew this together with the lace in the middle. My other daughter loved those blankets. The baby is due in November so we have a ways to go yet.

yeap merme I LOVE to do plastic canvas! wow that christmas village sounds BEAUTIFUL! I make lots of stuff with plastic canvas. I make tissue boxes,jewelry boxes,pencil and pen containers,coasters,and all kinds of other things. I have a TON of patterns that I've gotten off the internet if you would like me to email them to you I can (if I can figure out how to email them lol!). all you'd have to do is just PM me your email address....the patterns are looney tunes mostly. their are magnets,picture frames,tissue boxes,and lot's of other neat things! if anyone else would like to have them just pm me your email address and I'll happily try to email them to you :-)

I took some more x-stitch pictures of projects I finished, but now I'm on a new computer and I can't find the disk to load the software for my digital camera......LOL Not good huh? I'll be searching for it today....

I tried plastic canvas a few times but I always had a problem getting the needle to go through...it always fell back out, I guess because plastic is slick...

loz, this might sound a bit stupid, but I found it worked when I was teaching Maxi how to do plastic canvas work. If you put a bit of masking tape around the needle, just once or twice so as not to make it too thick, it will give it enough "grip" so it doesn't slide out so easily.

And I'm looking forward to you posting more photos when you get the software installed!

Connie, do you have any way to post photos of your work on the baby things?

Merme

Merme, that doesn't sound stupid at all--it sounds like a great idea, I would've never thought of doing that!


This is in a 5 by 7 frame--I made it for mothers day for mom.


This one is in a 8 by 10 frame--I made this for mom for her birthday. She has a whole nautical/lighthouse theme in her foyer.


I made mom this one for their anniversary of course....It's in a 8 by 10 frame also.


I've made so many x-stitches as gifts for people that they are probably getting sick of getting them from me.....LOL

NO ONE would ever get sick of receiving such beautiful handwork from you, loz. Also, I think you are quite skillful at framing.

Thanks so for sharing with us.

Merme

No problem, I like sharing pics with everyone.....

Framing can be tricky sometimes.....

I'm just the sort of person that is always crafting away at something......I like to keep busy.

wow those are EXCELLENT!! if I can EVER finish the 2 HUGE x stitch projects I'm doing I'll take a pic of them and post them here...they are gonna take a LONG time though lol

Thanks Miss Jamie....you know some of the bigger ones really seem like they take FOREVER--but it's exciting when you see parts of it actually coming together and not looking like just blobs of color.......When you get yours done I'd love to see pictures of them......I have 2 huge ones that I've sort of given up on.....One is really big with pictures of the 4 different seasons--I was really ambitious when I started it, but I lost that ambition somewhere....Another one is a huge one of flowers....I ashamed to say I don't even know where that one even is....LOL

I have about 4 boxes of colored floss, and one thing that I do that helps out a lot is this...say you have a colored pattern and you don't have all of the colors it lists....well I don't go and buy them, I always just pick the color in my craft box that matches best to what they recommend......They always turn out looking fine....And I'll cheat sometimes....Like the edging around the anniversary one I made--on the pattern it had about 6 different blues, but when I did it I stuck with 2 of them--made it so much easier.....Sometimes that's one of the most pain in the butt things, is just having to keep switching out colors to do a tiny little section....

one of the big ones that I have is REALLY pretty. it's white and grey looking horses coming out of waves in a huge blue ocean. it has a TON of blues in it.I got it for christmas from my uncle and his family. the other is really pretty too. it's of a wolf inside of a dream catcher looking thing. and you're right, I can make out a little section of it now. the section is the top part of the dream catcher and a couple of the feathers in fact I'm getting ready to go work on it now and that's something that I REALLY need to get some of...the different colored floss! I hope we get to walmart within a couple days so I can get some :-)

They sound really pretty.....doesn't it get confusing when you buy a prepackaged x-stitch with all the floss already in it? Sometimes the colors of the floss are so close you can barely tell which is pale blue, light blue, or medium blue......Sometimes it takes me forever to seperate all the different colors....I hate how they bundle them all together....They should seperate the colors for you, so when you buy it you don't have to guess about colors....

That's my x-stitching pet peeve.......I have tons of pattern books, but lately I've been buying more of the prepackaged x-stitches with everything in it.......just more convenient...

Prepackaged kits. I too hate what they do with the threads. Plus I always run out. Mostly my fault I will get three together when there are only suppose to be two and there goes the neighborhood lol. I tried doing a bay coloured carousel horse. So how it came out looking like a paint instead. That was kind of when I decided to go off and do my own thing instead.

I love those 4 season pictures. They are really marvelous. Is yours in a japanesse style or vogue or is it more landscape.

I love cross stitch- I cannot do embroidery at all- it just comes out all wrong. But I love cross stitch. but I have a short attention span and cannot finish anything big- so I don't do kits, I never like the patterns I find at the store so I draw my own designs and then I get sick of what I am doing in the middle of it and start something new- or change the pattern and then lose interest. I have lots of unfinished projects. My other hobby is researching my family tree and so most of my paterns end up being about that- old saying and samplers with names and dates of my relatives on them. I mostly do things I can work on a little a time and do over a couple of weeks or so. I loved seeing all the projects you all have done- there just so pretty.

Tammy, the 4 season one I have is more of a small landscape of each season....I really like it, it's just a lot more work than I thought and I just remember that I can't find the pattern.....LOL

Newlife, if you can you should post a few pics of the ones you've finished....I'd love to see some other members finished works......

I wish I could post some pics, but I am about the last person on earth without a digital camera. But I would love to see some of things others have done.

Believe it or not, although I am a 53 year old grandfather, I have done crafts for over 30 years. I crochet,knit, bead, flintknap, weave, braid, and do small amounts of counted cross stitch and embroidery. This year I have made two afghans (of my own design) and a hood to go with my hoodless jacket. When I am not doing crafts, I am doing birdwatching and photography, or am on the computer. (I am retired.)

newlife we have a digital camera that we send around. If you like I could send it to you. It took me a couple of days to figure out the basics but it's not real complicated. Course my pictures don't come out to go. But Fernie gets ok results when she uses it.

Thornius what is flintknap please? I love doing crafts and learning about ones that I can't do for one reason or another.

Flintknapping is chipping stone tools, like arrowheads, from flint, chert, glass, obsidian or other vitreous materials, using hammerstones, wood, bone, or antler. It is the oldest industry known to man (not the oldest profession)LOL.

lol no I already knew what that was.

That's cool. Thank you for the information Thornius. I love learning new things. Now if I could just remember them for awhile lol.

Thornius...I think it's great you do all that stuff and stay busy.....doesn't matter if you're a man or woman anyway as long as you enjoy doing it.....

My 74 yr old dad can knit....when he was a boy in London during WWII they had to knit squares for blankets....

I crochet, do you prefer knitting to crocheting???? I have a Dummies guide to Knitting, but I hate to say that I couldn't follow it....LOL Doesn't say much about me huh? It's hard to follow books in pictures though, much easier to learn from someone showing you.

tk hooper wow, you loan out your digital camera, thats very generous of you, I just might like to try that, as long as I don't need a scanner to get the pictures into my computer- I don't have one of those either.

I used to know how to Crochet,I made a bunch of blankets but it's been a very long time, I tried to learn knittng and made a scarf and a pair of mittens that turned out pretty good, but then I tried to find other beginer type patterns and I couldn't find much of anything- just sweaters and blankets that I wasn't ready for so I gave that up.

The hardest craft I have found is the plastic canvas thing, it should just work like crosstitch, but I just end up with a bunch of tangled narled up yard- very frustrating.

No you don't need a scanner. There is the camera, something called a UBS cable, and the CD that the photo software comes on. You just copy the disk on to your harddrive and then plug in the cable to the UBS(i hope i've got the right initials for that lol) port on your CPU and plug the other end into the camera after you take some pictures. It comes with a set of directions that aren't to hard to understand. Just make sure to follow the directions carefully. Evidently the UBS connection can damage the motherboard if it isn't done right. I didn't understand the explanation but I managed the connections without a hitch.

BTW the camera isn't mine it was donated to the forum as a whole. There is a string in this chat room called "forum camera" if someone wants to use it they can just put their name there. And the person who has it pm's them and gets their address so they can send it to them. If you pm me with your address I can send it on to you after the 5th. I have to wait until payday lol.

While your waiting you could choose which photo website you want to have. I have photobucket but it doesn't let the pictures get very big. And since I don't see very well I've been thinking about changing.

I love sharing it is so much fun.

Hi, loz! I think I prefer Crochet to knitting. Crochet is faster and you can do fancy lace and filigree effects with it. However, you can do color pictures by knitting which is also cool, but knitting takes waaay too lonnnng. Flintknapping is fantastic and with goos tools and materials you can turn out a museum quality stone tool in about fifteen minutes. However you get little nicks and cuts in the process and tend to bleed all over the piece you are working on, LOL. I REALLY like counted croos-stitch but don't do a whole lot of it and I could (and do) bead for hours on end. My ears are pierced and I love to make earrings for myself, my wife, my son (who has more holes in his ears than I do, and my son's wife. Heck, I just like making earrings. :p

I am discoreving more and more about this forum every day, very cool about the camera.

I've seen the knit lace too but I drop so many stitches I could never pull it off. Have you used the "broom" and "cross" stitches in crochet? I love being able to make the cables in crochet like you do in knitting but as you say it's alot faster. My problem is finding large skens of sports weight thread for the crochet. The 4 ply is just to thick for clothing. And I do a lot of that.

tk when you were talking about the cable for the camera you meant USB cable didn't ya? lol

Did I mess up again???? Oh dear. Thank you Miss Jamie for keeping me straight. I do so bad with trying to learn things. How was the rest of the information? Was I good on that? Thank you for the help I really need it.

I don't know everything about digital cameras or anything and didn't notice anything else wrong with your info...happy to help ya

could anyone tell me where I might find information on how to do embrodery. My mother used to do it when I was very young however, I was too young to pay any attention to it. I woud love to learn the proper stitches.

Thanks,
Joyce

Hi Joyce, and welcome!

If you PM our Triss, she can give you lots of good info on cross-stitching. She constantly has a project going while she's on the forums here.

Hi there Joyce. I don't know a whole lot about embroidery but do love to cross stitch as Lynne said. I am sure if you Google embroidery stitches you will get a lot of good info there. Please feel free to PM me if you want any info.

A lot of the stitches are the same as for petit point or needle point so you can look that up too. But it would probably be easiest to just get a book with all of the different stithes pictured and a graph on how they are sown.

Cross stitch is one of the stitches used in embrodery. It works well when doing a trellis or quilted bedspread as a part of your design.

I used a lot of the closed feather stitch and did a beautiful Flying Pegasus block 12" x 12" It took 6 weeks of continuous work to complete it.

What kind of projects are you planning to do? Most kits will teach you the few stitches that you are going to use for that project. It is seldom that you are going to use more than a few on any given project.

I do alot that are all satin stitch with just a few outline stitches to accent focal points.