I've always gone to joann/michaels and bought the floss I needed as it came up. That's probably the least money-efficient way to do it, but it helps me keep things sorted by project. At the stores, individually, basic floss is 40 cents per skein. I'd say for that project, two skeins of each color prrrrrobably be enough (I'm bad at estimates, but I think two would be playing it safe), so if you wanted to just dip your toes in the cross stitch waters, it would be a pretty inexpensive way to do it.
Jfc $0.40 per skein?? I need to move to North America. I bought a big set of 250 skeins online, which I like because it means I have enough shades to make p much whatever I like on a whim. If I bought floss individually it'd cost me £0.95-£2 per skein, depending on material and brand. Edit: sorry, this is a bit misleading. If I bought floss individually, from shops, because even the low-cost craft shops tend to primarily stock expensive Anchor brand cotton.
Michaels is a godsend, tbh. And you can get 40% off coupons online basically all the time. Edit: that is to say, 40% off one item per purchase, but you can go through the checkout multiple times if you're buying multiple things you want to use the coupon on. sneakily.
well, i already do regular embroidery sometimes, so i'm running low on what i've got and would probably use up a bulk lot! plus i'm into making felt plushies right now so the thread's good for chunky seams as well as stitching patterns and faces on. one or two skeins at a time is too expensive, like you said, even if it is 2-3 for a dollar.
AWRIGHT. Pardon the image quality on some of these, especially the ones where I didn't photograph them on a frame. Some of these finished ones got framed all pretty and everything, and given as presents, but I got so excited about giving the presents that I forgot to take pictures :V Spoiler: so many wips This first one takes a little explaining. Ceruleancynic has a mad max fanfic, Under The Curve. It's pretty awesome. I drew fanart. (oh hey the fanart also has fiber arts happening, this is even more appropriate than I thought) Then the wonderful curlicuecal offered to make a papercraft for me, and I picked this image. Once she sent it to me, I joked that now I'm supposed to make a cross-stitch, right? Then we'd have a cross-stitch of a papercraft of a fanart of a fanfic of a movie. She thought I was kidding. On the other hand, I had NO clue how much work I was committing myself to. I used pic2pat to generate the pattern from the papercraft, because on my image the black lines and detailing would have made things tough. As it is, I'm improvising as I go, because like, the resolution ate part of the yarn, and I'm going to embroider extra details onto their faces, but I'm hoping it turns out well. I'm using... 35 colors, I think? So there's a lot of shading that ends p happening in this that doesn't come across well in the photo. Then some text stuff! This first one was actually a present for pixels, and one of the presents I got so excited about finishing that I forgot to take a pretty picture. I LOVE this font, it was a lot of fun to work with. This is actually a semi-dud, it was supposed to be a present, but I managed to accidentally grind some makeup into it just off the top left corner. It's being given to a person in england, so I am NOT shipping that sucker in a frame, but I'm also not giving her a present where she can see the stains. However, an irl friend mentioned he'd love having one of these, and I had a frame on hand that cut off the makeup'd part, so that all worked well. Except for the part where I got excited and forgot to photograph it again. I designed the brand myself, and I can post the pattern for that later, if anyone is curious. The bulk of the brand is done with one strand of bright orange and one strand of dark brown held together, because I wanted to try evoking some red-hot-iron feeling, plus some rough texture. It's more noticeable irl :T There's also a drop shadow of midtone brown + dark brown, which worked nice, and a shine of bright orange + midtone brown, which didn't work so well (not bad, just not adding anything) that I'll probably drop when I restart this project. I also liked this font a lot. It may need a reframe, because this is a thrift store frame and the wire hanger popped out when I took out the original picture, so it's just perched awkwardly on the hook, but I think it worked out pretty decent. I'm in the process of turning this post into a cross-stitch, which is fun. I can also post the pattern for that if people want it, but mostly I just counted a lot of pixels by hand. Sorry my picture is so washed out. I actually had to fiddle with the spacing and kerning, and it still only just barely fits on my fabric. Framing it will be exciting. But this is SO cute, and I want to make a lot of tiny undertale characters and hang them all up in my place. Sweet bro and hella jeff! This is currently on hold because I have three frame things, which is already pretty excessive, and this got booted to make way for undyne. This is based on an awkward crop of this image, where the only text that shows up is 'let's DO,' which seems pretty appropriate for these two. Jpeg artifacts are really, really suited to cross-stitch, but man is it making this thing an adventure to count properly. Annnnd last one! This is my baby. It was hard just to pick one homestuck image, but I chose davesprite and jadesprite from cascade. This is going well! It's a lot of colors, but it's coming together really pretty and I love it a lot. I haven't touched it in a bit because of new projects yelling for my attention, but I want to get back to working on this soon.
ok so i'm declaring this is the place to put plushie works too. i'm doing a SPIDER FRIEND. fourteen pieces: two palps, two thorax, two abdomen, eight legs. i wanted to keep the pattern as simple as i could manage. the tarantula in the picture has another set of limbs— the mandibles? i think? some arachnids' grabby mouthparts evolve into yet another fuckin set of limbs— but they just don't fit. i actually ended up cutting 2 large and 2 small legs, and 4 medium, rather than 4 small legs. i'm going to have to cut 1 more medium because the first leg i sewed was just to mess around with and needs to be tossed out. but, so far, so good! all legs but the replacement are sewn and stuffed, ditto palps and abdomen. so the next time i work on this i'll just be attaching abdomen and legs to the lower thorax piece, then stitching on the upper thorax piece, stuffing it, and attaching the palps. then a few eyeballs, and on to embroidering orange fuzz. this has actually been a surprisingly straightforward and easy project!
i'm so into your spider project roach you don't even know ok you probably do because i think i vomited a rainbow about it in the other thread but anyway pls continue to post progress pics <3
make one of your own! if you have felt. or like, wait to see how mine turns out, and i can give opinions on what ought to be tweaked.
i think i'll wait, for two reasons. one, you may want to tweak stuff. and two, this monstrous thing is eating my brain rn:
@jacktrash holy crap the colours. Is that two rainbow colour-change yarns knitted to contrast? Which reminds me, someday when I have time again, I want to make this: Except maybe a different shape, because those small broad cowls irritate me.
mostly sorta? it's the leftovers of about 6 skeins of color change yarn. mini mochi, i think. so the rainbows stop and start and run backwards and so forth, based on what i had left and how much of it. that's also why it's a long hat with a flop-over point, rather than the round kind i usually prefer; i want to use it all up!
CUPCAKE PINCUSHION! It's so smol! It's so soft! It's weighted with coins at the bottom and it's sensorially so nice! ALSO IT'S CHOCK FULL OF PINS! Oh yeah also it MATCHES MY SEWING MACHINE! I am one happy craftnerd right now.
ME ME OH GOD DO I I've been cross stitching since 3rd grade. Sometimes I take pictures and pixelate them, but I'd really love to be able to do my own patterns some day. It's hard for me to consider it art when all I'm doing is following the pattern. I'm getting better at that though! And I really need to get more cross stitching pictures posted, but my presents/projects album on facebook is all fiber art and is now public. The second, third, and fourth are patterns that I pixelated. ---------------- So I did an embroidery project once, that was mostly cross stitch. It is a PAIN to keep the stitches regular. But, my project had a printed on pattern so it wasn't so bad because I just made all four corners meet in the middle and that was about right. I can get pictures around Thanksgiving. It was a pillowcase set and I only did one so I can show the before and after. xD ------------- Aaaaahhhh I wanna nerd about embroidery now. I really wanna learn how to do it proper, and not just on the aida cloth... I have tons and tons of thread and cloth and cross stitch books at home, I just need to time to use them. xD Also my first cross stitch project was like meticulously perfect, but these days I'm so messy and I miss stitches and I'm just "eh, I'll work around it" because I'm too lazy to rip everything out. xD Though I do tend to have pretty backs for my projects! I do a thing where I go backwards sometimes to avoid having long drags across the backs of the fabric.
Not exactly fibre art, but does anyone have any ideas on making sweater cuffs more elastic? I have this cabled sweater that I like a lot, but I have a habit of pushing the sleeves up to my elbows and that makes the cuffs baggy until it's washed again. I'm guessing my best bet is to sew in rows of elastic thread, but does anyone have any experience of this prob?
I spent thursday photographing the rest of the fingerlooping strands I made. I spent today sorting through over 500 photos, because my camera hates me and it took a while to get the photos to be a) sharp b) well-lit c) as close to the strands' colours as possible I am now down to 150 photos of individual strands, and about 30 that show off my colours and the strand collections sorted by loop number and looping technique. things to do: edit all those 150 pictures to include colour combination, and resize them, and set up the damn shop.
finished the baby shower project! ...well the stitching anyway, i gotta glue it into its frame before i hit the hay. Spoiler: just the stitching Spoiler: dyed the Aida cloth with some diluted paint why the little kid on the seahorse doesn't have a mask, and why neither kid has any way of breathing is beyond me. but w/e. kid's not even fuckin' born yet, they don't give a shit.
i just got a big bunch of embroidery thread in the mail today! juuust as i get bored of embroidery and go back to weaving, lol. i have great timing. will post pics of weaving projects tomorrow if anyone wants to see.
ohhhhhh my god http://www.bonanza.com/listings/ADD...hine-16-patterns-instructions-996-0/271297054 TURBO KNITTING TURBO KNITTING
did the thread name change? I could have sworn this was called fiber crafts before..... i must be going crazy
