I bought a packet of 100 on ebay for like, a dollar. My local store wanted the exact same ones for $2.50 each!
I do break them a fair bit, but the trick is to hold them firmly where the wire connects, so that you're pressing it hard against the backing plate. This makes them much harder to pull apart accidentally. A drop of PVA glue would probably help too, but I find the metal is too smooth to really attach properly, and the friction of your thumb helps. Strong small magnets/clip with some rubber in between might work well too?
Fantastic work! I mean at the rate I stitch which people say is fast that would take me…
pulls out calculator
About two weeks and that’s if I stitch every day.
Beginner friendly, yes, but it requires the patience of either somebody really determined to finish it before they burn out, or someone more experienced who doesn’t struggle with common issues that slow them down.
In fact, my first attempt was something as large as this with large solid blocks of colour and I struggled. Hard! The results were dreadful. I’m surprised I didn’t quit back then!
My wife and I started using a company called Ridwell so we could recycle things our municipal recycling doesn’t take. Plastic film, light bulbs, batteries, and threads. From whole clothes that they will donate to tiny fragments. I’m not 100% sure what they do with the tiny bits without looking it up, but they’ll take them.
I’m ill at the moment and felt too sorry for myself to stitch anything last night, but hopefully I’ll get a few put in on Errol later and come back with an update!
@thegiddystitcher living in a small town has its advantages. The craft store is three blocks away. Whenever I start a new project I organise my floss, see what I'm missing, make a list and take 20 minutes to go pick them up at 0.75€ per DMC skein, half if using the Polish off-brand. What makes it better is that the people running the store are an elderly couple who are genuinely interested in what you do. I also send my work to them for framing for next to nothing. Support your local small businesses if you can!
We have an actual craft shop, but they’re focused mostly on quilting and anything else gets treated with suspicion at best. I have no idea why they even sell supplies for other crafts if they’re going to be so weird about it, I once dared to ask if they had any lace weight yarns in stock and the owner looked at me like I was mad!
Thankfully we have a more general shop that’s part of a locally-owned chain, and they stock an inexplicable number of craft supplies too. Probably a big market for them here given the attitudes of the craft shop lady, now I think about it 🤔
@thegiddystitcher I have trust issues with anything that involves putting large amount of data into a phone app, a lot of them don't properly support backups/export.
I dutifully catalogued all of my acrylic paints at one point, but then needed to reset my phone and was annoyed that there was no way to export or backup the data (Even the full phone app backup lacked it). So I went back to a Cloud based spreadsheet.
@bitflipped Definitely with you there! In this case the app in question actually has a pretty good export / backup process but I just got complacent and didn't use it enough. Worked out ok in the end but it very nearly didn't and my lesson is learned! 😬
@LemmyIsFantastic Well as soon as Google create an app specifically designed for people who like to paint small plastic war dollies then I'll be sure to download it :D
I’m the same way with cross stitch supplies. There are plenty mobile apps, but I so do not want to lose a meticulously categorised list of hundreds of colours of embroidery floss. So spreadsheet it is!
I haven’t stitched on black aida, but I when I stitched, I used these magnifying glasses that had little LED lights on them. They were rechargeable and you could turn the lights on or off. If lighting isn’t a concern for you, maybe just having a zoomed in view of what you’re doing would help. There’s other options than glasses, as well. I think the glasses are the least expensive and the bonus is that they’re helpful on projects that use other colors of aida.
Still alive. Slow progress. The last few weeks have not been terribly kind. But still working on it. Hoping to get back to a little more regular progress soon.
I just now realized what this piece reminds me of! It looks like it would be in a scene from that old Sierra PC adventure game Gabriel Knight that I was obsessed with when I was like 12 or 13 years old lol it was set in New Orleans and had all kinds of colorful backgrounds in the different scenes
Oh my gosh, I never played that particular game, but I totally get the old floppy disk game vibes. I want to start clicking around the scene looking for things every time I see it.
And the Steampunk World Map is looking decidedly “without NZ” but I swear I know it exists, the pattern has it on, it’s just coincidence that this was my last stopping point 😆
It’s so much worse than glow in the dark! Apparently it’s not so evil if you use thread conditioner though, or so I’m told, no way I’m trying it again any time soon to find out.
I wouldn’t say there’s anything bad about it per se, it’s just kinda frustrating to work with. Cut it off shorter than you probably would a normal thread type as this stuff loves to fray/unravel. It gets real poofy real quick when you’re stitching with it. I also found the stuff I was using to feel … odd. Almost like twine or something. Just kind of rough in texture. I was glad I didn’t have to use a lot of it, although there are a couple other patterns I’ve got my eye on that use it pretty cleverly. I would use it again, but only for a pattern I really love. Or if it was minimal in use. And there are apparently several different types. Some are more plastic-y in nature. Some may glow better than others. It’s just an odd duck.
I just looked at the one I got and you’re right it is kind of stiff compared to the regular floss, like almost a plasticy feeling. I haven’t decided what to use it for yet, but thanks for the heads up!
There is a world statistics website that jumped on the meme about NZ always missing from maps so they took it to the next level and started placing it on random spots like west of Australia.
Reminds me of when people make maps about Eurovision statistics, and obviously it’s focused on the general Europe area, but then they just stick Australia in the sea wherever it’ll fit 😆
lemmy_stitch
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