Learn From My Mistakes...

...or, How I Stitched the Background. LOL

Last night I worked a bit more on the pale yellow background behind Fan. The left hand side, which is the larger background area, is done. I always try to do the largest area first in a background, particularly when I am using a fancy stitch. That gives me lots of practice before I have to tackle the smaller areas where compensation is constant. As you see in the image above, Fan's right side background is very narrow along her side. I am adjusting, counting and trying to fit the background in constantly there. I wouldn't want to start in a place like this. It would be too confusing. Leave these places until later, ok?

As you probably remember, on Butterfly I didn't think to do a long row of background from one side to the other until I'd stitched Butterfly herself. That made it harder to figure out where the background diagonal ran from one side to the other. So on Fan, I did a row of background from one side to the other first. You don't have to do the entire background first, but do give yourself a guide row if your background is elaborate like mine is. The Caswell Stitch isn't hard, but it does need to be counted right each time. (eeek)

The last thing I'd like to mention about the background is that in some places I stitched right over items that are on top of the background. See the tiny butterfly in Fan's outstretched hand? It has gold antenna and I did my background on top of those gold lines. I'll put in a French-knot-on-a-stalk later for each antenna to match the same French-knot-on-a-stalk stitch I used for Butterfly's kite antenna. Reusing the same stitch unifies two canvases in a set so I want to repeat myself here.

To get back to my main point, when I stitched right over the antenna here, I made sure I carefully laid the Caswell stitches so that the paint job wouldn't show. If you hate using a laying tool, get over it for situations like this. At least do it here if you do it nowhere else. A nicely laid stitch is perfectly flat and covers beautifully, even with just two plies. I'm using two plies of my pale yellow Splendor silk. If I had not laid those stitches, the painted antenna would show and might even be noticeable after I put my little gold antenna on top.

My main blog is at
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Blogspot Posting Only

Just to let everyone know who is watching me stitch at Blogspot instead of Yahoo 360, I've started posting links to other blogs about needlepoint on the right hand side of the page. I started with the ones that I check often because they change frequently. I'll add to the list occasionally as I have time. If your favorite blog isn't there, look at the main blog website and if it's not there, either, please let me know. By the way, I put the link to my main blog website at Yahoo 360 at the top of the list for your convenience. Normally, what I post there will be identical to what I post here. Blogspot is my backup plan.

Main blogging site--
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

You can email me at chilly hollow at hot mail dot com
Thanks!

Blogspot and Sue's Google Reader

Yesterday I got a nice email from Sue who is very glad I set up a mirror blog on Blogspot. Sue says her Google News Reader reads the Blogspot version of Blog much better than it reads the Yahoo 360 version. Google owns Blogspot so I guess that's why their news reader works better for it. Not being familiar with news readers I asked Sue about them and this is what she said:

"...this software allows me to subscribe to blogs and it appears on screen similar to a Window Explorer screen. The left side - a thin tall pane - displays the name of all the blogs I've subscribed to. When I single-click on a blog name on the left, the right side pane displays the most recent feeds - just the posts, without the blog headers or lists of links folkes may have created. One cool thing it does is that it'll bold the name of those blogs who've updated since I last viewed them thru the Google Reader software. So no more checking on blogs just to find they've not been updated! Streamlines my blog checking. Isn't modern technology wonderful?! The only drawback seems to be that those blogs on typepad or yahoo only display the text of the entries ... I have to open those blogs in my browser to access the pictures. "

I asked Sue for further clarification about how the Google Reader looked. Here's what she said:

"Think of your blog as twofold - the "shell" and the "meat." The shell generally includes a header (where many include a pretty graphic to remain at the top of each page), footer (many include copyright notices at the bottom ... and many blogs automatically include navigation here - the "prior posts," "home," and "newer posts"), and extras - here it's totally up to the user what they want to include but most include navigation links USUALLY at the sides (lots of blog software allows for links to recent posts; lots allow for labels so readers can, for instance, search for all "woodlawn" posts; etc) - but blog software can also allow the user to insert special html coding or javascript so the blog owners can insert their own slide shows or video, counters, guestbooks, etc. The content of the shell shows up on every page. Then, there's the "meat" of the blog - your posts. What you see within Google Reader is the posts themselves in that right-hand side pane - without the part of the area I've noted as within the shell. IF you include a link within your post, it's still treated as a link and is clickable. Also, the name of the blog itself is a link that you still have the option to click on to open. I love the Google Reader and would recommend it to anyone who has bookmarked blogs they read on a regular basis!"

If you are interested in using Google Reader, here is what I found out about it from Google:

http://www.google.com/reader/view/?hl=en&source=en-mmm#directory-welcome-page

Some other needle bloggers at Yahoo 360 are setting up mirror sites on Blogspot as well. Some of them are finding that Blogspot versions of their pictures are better than on Yahoo 360 and others find the opposite. I guess this has to do with how we make our photos and how we export them to each blog. Plus your own monitor may well display some things better than others. So experiment and see where you like the postings best. For now I plan to post everything to both blog sites. I prefer Yahoo 360's features, but it is bug-ridden and I feel I have to have a backup plan.

Sue, thanks very much for helping me understand how Google News Reader works. Hope someone finds Sue's information useful.

Main blogging site--
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Want to Stitch a Rug?

This Maggie Lane design is painted on needlepoint canvas and comes with yarns. The seller has several other rug kits painted from her designs. Click on View Other Items under Meet the Seller to see them all. This seller has offered several rug kits over the last two weeks. Of course these are charted in one of Maggie Lane's books if you own them.

Here's the link to eBay.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350038914725&fromMakeTrack=true&ssPageName=VIP:watchlink:top:us

Mirror blog at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow

Fan's Obi

Since I was setting up and learning how to use the new computer AND the mirror blog at Blogspot this weekend, I didn't have time to stitch much. However, I did finish stitching Fan's obi. At least I think I did. I don't have time this morning to check for missed stitches and it's too dark anyway. I like to hold a canvas up to the sun and see if I see holes where stitches were missed and the earliest I'll be able to do that is tonight. However, I might be able to tell from the scan I did.

Whether I finished or not, I wanted to point out that the bottom ribbon is alternated mosaic stitch and the other three parts of the obi are all diagonal stitches that alternate between being over one intersection and over two. Somehow the bottom ribbon looked good in a different stitch but I didn't have the right sized space to repeat it in any of the other sections.

So you don't have to use the same stitch in similar areas on a canvas. Just see what looks "right" to you. If it looks right, it probably is.

As a reminder, the main blog is at http://blog.360.yahoo.com/chillyhollow