Ford makes modern, nerdy, snarky subversive, countercultural, and pop culture cross stitch patterns. The SonovaStitch youtube channel share tips and tutorials for learning or mastering cross stitching.
Very good info! I quit using the hoop because my left hand hurts holding it and thought it must be me being old and having some arthritis. lol. Glad I saw this and will try again because Iwant to soon start on a big project that will be too difficult to hand hold it.
I use bobbins and I also have a spreadsheet with all the colors I have, where I put them (currently a work in progress) and conversions to DMC, because I'm polish and I'm cheap and I use Ariadna brand. It comes with an added benefit that Ariadna had more foresight designing their colors and organizing by numbers also organizes them by color
I can’t believe I’ve been doing it “wrong” all this time! I wonder if switching in then middle of a project creates a problem, like it would with knit or crochet? I think I’ll switch on my next new project instead of in the middle.
I know this is an old video, but I haven’t found too many other people talking about this subject… do you have any suggestions on how to determine the original of a particular pattern? There is one pattern on Etsy that is listed under two different Etsy shops, with the same generic-ish pattern name, but I can’t find if this pattern originated somewhere else, or if one of these two is the original, or even if it’s the same person or company selling under two different names. It’s just *so* confusing.
Hey Ford! I just saw your video on Caterpillar Cross Stitch and followed you here. No, I’m not a stalker! 🤣 This looks like the perfect place to refresh my memory of the few x-stitch techniques I once knew, and to expand on those. So I’ll start at the beginning-a very good place to start. 😉 Thanks for the detailed Grow Up pattern. Nerdy and snarky works for me! I appreciate information you’ve included in the legend. This will be really helpful. Looking forward to binge-watch your videos. Thanks, and stay well! Muskoka ON 🇨🇦
Ford, I know what you mean about unscrupulous Etsy. A seller canceled my order AFTER I paid for it. He didn't like it that I wanted a receipt. I tried to report him to Etsy but sense he canceled my order it was not considered a purchase and therefore I could not report him. Yes, I consider Etsy an unscrupulous site. Sellers are not accountable on Etsy.
Yeah, excellent advice. One poor woman bought a pattern of an owl. The photo on the front of the kit was of the painting of the owl and not a photo of the finished cross stitch. The painting had a lot of fine detail of the feathers that of course didn't translate when you cross stitch it. So when she started stitching the piece, it was missing the details she fell in love with when she saw it on line. She spent hours on it before it was revealed it was going to be a poor blurry image of the owl. Yeah! Be careful! This can happen on ANY website, even the well known highly regarded ones.
I'm a heathen; when I first got started with embroidery, I'd get my floss onto a bobbin and do nothing as far as labeling goes. I hate myself for it now because I've amassed quite the stash and have NO IDEA what number every single one is 😫 It really sucks now that I also want to collect them 😂
Where did you get the sample card? Is is one that has the actual threads or is it printed? I do not like the printed ones as it's not possible for the colors to be accurate.
I totally bought one! DMC had them back in stock! The one I had was the really out of date one from the 80's. A big big THANK YOU to you Sonovastitch.@@SonovaStitch
Thank you so much for this new method of finishing a cross stitch in a hoop. Just a quick question, the edge of the aida looks like it is fraying a little bit, how can you stop that please.
I’ve been through all methods. My now preferred method is unwinding all floss from bobbins and hoping the bobbins didn’t weaken the floss at the ‘kinked’ edge. I now am in the process of putting all floss bobbins onto floss drops. I like being able to pull/tease one strand of floss out from the drop and not having a cut a length of floss remainder to rewind on the bobbin. I prefer putting all floss numerically. Patterns are giving floss numerically and rarely gives the color. I have the DMC floss card like you do, but it also doesn’t give or go by the color name. Still in the process of getting the bobbin floss onto floss drops. Consider this process. RNRWOODWORKSKY make a marvelous, inexpensive floss stick to wrap the floss from skein form. I have both sizes and prefer working with a longer length of floss so I use the longer winder. Will save the smaller winder for specialty threads.
can you explain more about the digital renders? Like are they faking the look of an piece with computers? and how can you tell which ones are rendered vs real?
I just discovered your channel recently from your string art hoop finish video. You and Nugget are adorable! I hope you'll continue to make videos if you can !
I am so glad someone else relates to my sticker dilemma. I also just started putting them on my floss boxes and now I’m looking telling myself I can buy more 😂
Really great video. Any ideas on resources to learn how to design large, complex pieces? I'm a graphic designer and am enjoying the larger landscape type pieces, but I'd like to learn how to recreate my own work in cross stitch form. Pretty much all I've seen on the subject is for smaller, simpler designs. There's gotta be info out there somewhere on how more complex designs are made, since Luca-S and Dimensions certainly have quality designs that aren't simply run through a converter.
I've designed a handful of larger, full-coverage pieces (usually as commissions) in the past. To be totally honest the only way I can suggest to make them is by hand, one stitch at a time. Most cross stitch designing software has a mode that lets you underlay the grid with an image, so you can put it behind the grid and choose your colors as you go. I definitely recommend using a swatch card instead of trusting the digital estimations of the colors, and I usually like to use an image editing software to posterize the image to reduce the number of colors overall. I've also had some luck using the conversion feature, then manually selecting the colors I want instead of the ones it picked, consolidating colors that are very similar, cleaning up confetti, and fixing the dithering around edges. This still takes a very long time, though.
@@SonovaStitch Okay, yeah I've definitely noticed the issue with the supposed rgb equivalents for colors. The best solution I've come up with so far is to order a pantone color guide and a dmc color guide (with the thread samples), color match them to figure out which pantone colors are closest to each dmc, then use that pantone's rgb value. But I'm not sure I want to invest that much money into it. Color guides aren't cheap. I did figure out a little system for myself where I export an image via photoshop with a limited number of colors and pixels, then convert all those pixels into vector squares in illustrator. It's a lot easier keep my colors to a specific set in illustrator than in photoshop. And I can easily add in backstitching and fractional stitches. But it's frustrating to not be able to work with the actual colors available in thread form.
So I watched this video and was like ok for most of it but I have the plastic hoops with the lips. I tried it today on one of my projects and am completely blown away by how much tighter my fabric is holding. So thanks for this video.
Welcome back, I'm a new subscriber, but I missed your cool videos.. Nugget's bath was the best. Little show stopper! Have you seen the Slow Stitching craze?? Grab a nice sheet of felt, arrange fabric scraps on top however you like, and start stitching any way you want. It's no rules, relaxing and addicting. Don't EVEN get me started on making a fabric book...OMG!!! Peace and joy-
My mother taught me embroidery, and she learned it from her mama. I do believe I have been doing it wrong...lol. My next project will be done with your tips in mind. We always have room to learn, and it's wonderful to be able to share such cool tips. Thank you, I'm a new subscriber, and I've learned so much already.
I keep floss in Floss-Away bags about the size of a snack bag and file them in the box made just for them in numerical order. Easy neat never had a problem.
Thank you for this!! I definitely realized from this video that my current project came from one of those sellers. 🙄 The pattern has several flaws and it is frustrating. Thanks for the tips! (Also I bought one of your patterns and it was fantastic! Thanks for being an awesome seller!)
I don’t actually do crossstitching, I was looking for videos about Pattern by Etsy. But I watched cuz of the budgie, and you know what? I learned a lot and now I’m thinking of taking up cross stitching! 😂
