Thursday, November 13, 2008

Almost Friday

I didn't think it was this long since I posted, but I have decided that I can't take good photos to save my soul. I use a Kodak Easy share and it seems like when I photograph stitched pieces, they come out with weird lines and some of the fabric looks distorted. I have tried using museum setting and it isn't much better. I see other people's photos and they're so perfect. I need to have a tutorial. My son said maybe I'm too close. I'm just baffled. Consequently, there will be no pictures in this post until I am less aggravated with my camera.

I've gotten in the cooking mood - have been making meatloaf, homemade spaghetti sauce with meatballs, banana bread and right now a banana bread with chocolate chips is in the oven. The day after the first banana bread was baked, my son announced - I'm eating the whole banana bread today! I guess the new recipe I tried is a good one! I've been looking for a really good banana bread. I won't make it for a long time and then forget which recipe was good. The fact that I was still looking probably means I didn't come across the perfect one. This one's a keeper - very moist and dense. YUMMY!

I am plugging away at my Cattitudes. I started adding some of the face and eyes- the cat looked demented. I was going more for a sweet look. Ripped out the face- the kitty is much cuter now. Since this is a piece I'm actually keeping for myself, I had to have the face one I wanted to look at without saying "the eyes are weird!". I have succeeded. Now that the cat has a face, it has some personality and I want to keep going to get it finished soon.

I dragged out an old piece I never framed. I guess I'll post the horrible photo of it if my camera cord will allow me to upload. Much to my horror, there was a big stain like a water stain on much of it. I have tried soaking and various products to remove the stain. It's faintly visible in the photograph. It won't show in the frame I have. There is also a little rust spot or some foreign spot on thereflection and I might just pull out the stitches and redo it if I can find a matching thread. The piece is the skyline of Rochester NY where I live. It was going to be for my husband (many years ago......) Why oh why didn't I frame it when it was intact??

Another thing I noticed is my stitching isn't as even as now. It was an early piece and I used 3 strands which was too much and sort of distorted the buildings when I backstitched. I didn't think there would be a difference in my stitching then and today, but this is proof that there certainly is a difference but might not be as noticeable in the pic - of course the whole pic stinks, so what's the difference???



This brings me to another issue - do you wash your pieces before you frame/finish them? I used to always do that and recently I haven't. I am noticing that the hoop marks don't always seem to iron out and I think the real issue is the fabric is very slightly soiled inside the hoop area and it isn't creases at all. Maybe I'll go back to washing.

It's dismal here. It has rained for days and the sun has been behind the clouds with the reminder of how grey it is here for months at a time come fall/winter. It's downright depressing at times!

I hope your lives are happy and busy!! Thank you for stopping by! I love your comments so thank you for taking the time to leave one!

9 comments:

Jennifer said...

I keep a plastic basin and a bottle of Ivory liquid dish detergent in my linen closet just for washing finished cross stitch pieces. I usually only wash things I've stitched with DMC - I try not to wash anything I've stitched with overdyeds for fear of bleeding. When I stitch with overdyes, I am obsessive about washing my hands and keeping my work clean.

You may want to try switching to a scroll frame instead of a hoop - avoid the creases.

Unknown said...

I had good luck removing water stains from some old finishes that had been damaged while stored with Oxi-Clean and the hottest water I could stand. They were all stitched with DMC. I let them soak overnight, and only one has a very faint line left on it. It's a stocking front, and the remaining stain is on the part of the fabric that will be cut away, so I didn't make any further efforts to remove it.

I picked up my mom's habit of marking recipes in cookbooks with comments such as: "family loved it", "too dry", "never again", "***** WINNER!", etc. Saves me when I'm trying to recreate something that we loved from making something that was't quite right.

Annie said...

I think you are too hard on yourself. Your photos look fine to me and I like the skyline piece. Hope you can find a way to get the stains out.

Daffycat said...

I wash after stitching unless it's stitched with overdyed threads. I am a in-hand stitcher so I have no advice for hoop marks!

staci said...

I used to wash my stitching, but now I usually don't. Especially if the fabric or fibers are hand-dyed or over-dyed.

Try Q-snaps instead of hoops. I was always a hoop user, but love Q-snaps better. They don't leave marks like hoops do.

I think your stitching looks lovely. Don't be so hard on yourself. We're always our own worst critic :) {{hugs}}

Michele said...

nice to see you blogging :) and let's see pictures! I'm sure they aren't as bad as you think! The ones you've shared before are nice!

Unknown said...

hi jean good to see you about how are you? i have just bought myself a kodak camera with the easy share button on it aswell

i set the camera to the flower setting ( i dont know what you call it lol) when i am taking pics of my stitching and they seem to come out ok for me ...maybe you could try that and see if that helps

love shel x

Anonymous said...

I think your pictures look good :) I usually prefer pieces that are colorful but I just love the Rochester skyline. The buildings are so unique; it makes me nostalgic, and hungry for Abbott's.

Jean said...

Logoleptic - Did you used to live here? We had Abbott's tonight even though it's 21 degrees out!!