... that is so cool. Okay, adding that to the craft room setup, as soon as I'm good enough at spinning.
i already had a rigid heddle loom so i just lash my warp to the beams instead of wrapping/tying the individual warp threads like you do with the usual rigid heddle technique. the advantage of the navajo technique is that you can weave all the way to the very ends of the warp, so you get a selvege-ended fabric without having to sew in individual warp ends. the disadvantage is you can't use a rigid heddle (because how would you get it out? it would be stuck there!) so you have to use two shed sticks, one threaded. or just sew your weft in with a tapestry needle, which is what i tend to do, since all the bending and side-to-side motion of throwing a shuttle kills my back.
ok this isn't the best tutorial but it has kitties. also a good photo of how you do the selvege cord, which is hard to find. https://myfiberbatical.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/warping-a-navajo-loom/
i keep finding glorious patterns that i would love to knit for @Kit and i's etsy shop, but the writers insist that you can't sell what you make with it (i'm pretty sure copyright doesn't even work like that, but i don't want to pick a fight). why do people who write knitting patterns want to keep people from selling the things they make with the pattern? NOT reselling the pattern itself- selling the actual physical hat or scarf or what-have-you. with proper attribution and linkback, even! i love talking about how well patterns are written and/or charted. i want to support independent pattern writers. i don't want to steal their work. but i literally do not understand why they don't want me to sell projects made by their instructions (it's publicity that doesn't cost them anything extra? unless they're trying to be the exclusive supplier of that product. but then why release the pattern at all?)
@asynch short answer: you're right, that's not how copyright works. long answer, a list of links: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
(SIGHS) I'm sure there is someone, somewhere in the world -- probably even someone here on campus -- who would like this scarf (it has little owls! and a blue stripe!). but I am 8" into it and being struck by how much I do not wear scarves that are thin flat rectangles, and so I am tempted to unravel it.
AHHH OH MAN okay so I've been sitting on these for a while so I didn't ruin the surprise, testing the absolute limits of my self-control. But! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, @pixels! Oh man, okay, okay. First part of the present: it's a Cronus footstool! Because come on. If you're going to rest your feet on one homestuck character's smug-ass face, who's it going to be? I think we all know the answer to that question (also, tagging @furrylatula, because I think it will make you smile, and you deserve smiles right now) And then. The second part. The pièce de résistance. SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF CROSS-STITCH I'm not even going to lie, I am unbelievably pleased with myself right now. My favorite, favorite part is the poorly-cropped 'let's DO'. Isn't this hideous? Isn't this hideously beautiful??? I've never made anything so glorious in my life, and I never will again. And trust me, these stitches are faithfully transcribed. Including the skeins and skeins of white. I worked so hard to stay true to what the pattern ordered me to do. And in the process, I'm pretty sure I reached conksuck nirvana.
not sure where else to ask, so speaking of cross stitch, how would someone start learning that? what do i need? i have a bunch of thread and embroidery thread, do i need an embroidery hoop too? (the only one i have is really tiny, for stitching on stuffed animal noses)
A hoop is good, though I personally prefer scroll frames! They're a big larger/more unwieldy/more expensive, but they're easier on my hand. When I use a hoop, I look for one that I can fit my entire project onto in one go, because one, I am lazy, and two, it helps me dodge creases. You probably want to start with Aida fabric too, since it has the holes pre-made, which helps with keeping them even. 14-count fabric (14 stitches per inch) is the most common, and stitching with two strands from a skein of embroidery floss is what I was taught for that fabric count. But that's all the materials you need! For tutorials, hm. I don't have links on hand right now, but there are a lot of cross-stitch blogs on tumblr, and a good number of them have simple, doable patterns you could try. @roach has posted some cute patterns on tumblr too, at rachelroach, and they look like a lot of fun, and not too overwhelming for a first project. Pinterest is another decent resource if you're on there, but it can be a bit much to sort through when you're looking for something you enjoy. (If you're silly like me, to make your own patterns, what you do is feed pictures into pic2pat or similar sites to generate patterns. To get decent resolution, those will be large, dense, and very detailed. I know @coldstars did that for their second project, but you may or may not want to dive into that side of things. There's also freeware out there for making your own patterns in spreadsheet-type ways, but I'm lazy, so I just always go back to excel to make them. You can find alphabet charts without too much trouble, if you want to do words, or you can noodle away and come up with images or geometric patterns on your own)
For basic stitches (like, the most basic) the clearest picture guide I saw when I started was this one - videos might be easier to follow, depending, but diagrams with a bunch of arrows trying to point where you go made my brain explode, so. This is another guide for stuff like finding the middle of the Aida fabric and how to mark it so you know where to start the pattern, etc. It's really long but the pictures go step by step and row by row as she goes through a simple pattern. This was the post I followed for basic supplies, and I think the biggest thing is that Aida fabric with 14 count needs a size 24 tapestry needle, while higher counts like 16 count need size 26 needles or so. I have no sense of scale, so I've picked two big projects in a row to start with, and have been using this cheap q-snap frame off Amazon for everything because it's huge enough to contain the amount of fabric I'm working on. They come in different sizes, but the smallest I think they have on Amazon is 6x6 inches
I'm trying to decide which color I should put with this pretty cream paisley, what do you guys think? Eta: it helps if I put the picture in :p
You can also usually find little kits at craft stores. They have pretty much everything except a hoop,and they're usually fairly simple patterns. My mom taught me to cross stitch, but after the initial lessons, she just bought me a bunch of kits and told me to have fun and stop pestering her :P (I also like kits because everything is self-contained and doesn't require a lot of brain power to acquire. I do cross stitch to shut my brain off, not make it work harder!)
