Keep on buzzing

Ah ah... Could it be? a progress pic? Yes !

On Bank May week end I left it to the drawn thread herringbone purple line.

I spent a lot of time on those four sided square stitches, because it's what we call "pulled work". You have to pull your thread hard to produce holes, and, well... it's hard. With and without a frame. Over 2 threads gives you something quite invisible (bands 5 and 7), but it got better with the over 4 threads one (band 10).

The sort of white flowers on band 8 didn't come out nice at first, because of the tension difference between stitches, but I passed the needle underneath to pull back and forth and it gave that nice plump effect.

Leaves in backstitch are long to do, but this time I didn't have to frog most of it, so it's quite an achievement ! Otherwise, well... I'm in the middle of the design I think. I already have frights at the idea that I will have to do something so that the design would look straight... eeek !

I'm glad you enjoyed my little "variations comparison". I might do more little tips like that in the future.

Tip of the day: when your satin stitches don't look too good or even, stick the needle under the whole cluster and pull back and forth so that the threads get parallel to eachother.

Pink Canary, I thought "Broderie Inspiration" looked familiar... I bought some of the Australian version issues alerady. I still have to get the courage to try anything from them !

Now, a bit of blogging stuff, and the meme... BTW, feel free to take the questions and answer them on your blog, I took it from somewhere else myself.... ;)

Pink canary, I have to say I enjoy discovering new blogs as well, and at one point my main source was the comments. now, well... not so much. I guess it's hard to comment when you don't know what to say. Is "love the picture, well done" enough? And then there's that time effect... So many blogs, so little time, so we tend to visit like Speedy Gonzales, and I now realise that my posts these days are so long people will just give up anyway ;)

Lutine, I started reading your blog like 2 years ago because not only do we share the same tastes in stitching, but also movies and other stuff... and now we even have the same feeling about blogging ;) I think there are a lot of good blogs, quality blogs, I have like 200 on my bloglines !!! Or I don't see the defects... ;)

Patternnuts, Chiloe... we discussed the magazines issue. When I was writing the magazine reviews, I subscribed to most of them, because they were interesting, and had charts I was stitching. After the quality of the magazines went drastically down, I found myself skimming through the pages, not even reading. So I decided to unsubscribe.

Now, what would a review of a magazine with no design I'm interested in would look like? "I like nothing in this issue, it's all crap, don't buy it". Do I want to spend nearly 4 pounds (to buy the magazine) for that? 4 pounds I could buy crafty things with? Hum, not really....
Not to mention that magazines like CrossStitcher are more and more present on the web, and might not appreciate me hammering them systematically...

So me not writing reviews (and in doing so having an hour extra of stitching time) is a strong statement: The magazines are so bad they are not worth buying, and not worth spending time writing about them.

Now, I recently made some reviews on websites, and products, but they are on my website... the only thing is it takes time to find stuff to review and to make posts, on top of the regular posts... so it's hard to make it regular !

But I might concentrate on that sometime...

Chiloe, even if there was a time I didn't post regularly, I don't see why people shouldn't come back. That's what Google reader is for ;) Things like moving, or being sick for a long time, got in the way of posting ;) BTW, I read your blog everyday too. In fact, all people who comment I visit you everyday.

Now I will stop talking and switch to French. This too, double the amount of time needed to post....

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Mon progres sur mon sampler... Je l'avais laisse a la bande de jours avec "herringbone". J'avoue avoir eu un passage a vide a cause des carres de fils tires (et pas enleves). Les bandes 5 et 7 semblent quasi invisible, il faut tirer for pour produire les trous, et ca fait mal aux mains. La bande 10 qui est le meme systeme, mais deux fois plus grand, etait plus facile.

Les fleurs blanches de la bande 8 m'ont aussi donne du fil a retordre, car elles avaient un aspect irregulier. Mais en passant mon aiguille sous les fils pour tirer et reajuster, ca a donne ce joli effet rebondi.

Sinon, je suis a peu pres a la moitie du design, avec le centre en backstitch, ce qui est toujours long avec les petites feuilles, mais ce coup-ci je n'ai pas fait d'erreurs, je suis fiere de moi !

Je suis contente que vous ayez apprecie mon petit truc sur les DMC variations. Si ca plait, il se pourrait que j'en fasse plus dans le futur...

L'astuce du jour: si vos blocs de point de satin ont l'air irreguliers, passez l'aiguille en dessous, tirez (doucement) pour remettre les fils en place.

Pink Canary, il me semblait bien que "Broderie Inspirations" me faisait penser au mag australien que j'achete quand je le trouve... Pour l'instant je n'ai aps encore ose broder les merveilles qui s'y trouvent !!!

Et maintenant, pour les commentaires du meme... Si vous voulez, reprennez le questionnaire sur votre blog, il commence a faire le tour en anglais, mais pourquoi ne pas le lancer en francais?

Pink canary, j'ai toujours adore decouvrir les blogs des commentatrices... c'est le fun principal d'avoir des commentaire ;) il faut dire que commenter peut etre si complique... On se demande quoi dire, vais-je ecrire un xieme "super, j'adore"... Sans parler du fait qu'on veut lire un max de blog en un minimum de temps, ce qui fait que commenter devient annexe !

Lutine, j'ai commence a lire ton blog il y a deux ans environ, car nous partagions les memes gouts en broderie, films et tant d'auters choses... et voila qu'on ressent la meme chose sur blogger !!! Je trouve qu'il y a beaucoup de blogs de qualite, j'en ai 200 sur mon Bloglines !!! Ahlala... trop de trucs a lire...

A propos des reviews de magazines... J'avais lance ca quand j'etais abonnee a la plupart d'enter eux, car ils etaient interessants et plein de projets que je voulais broder. Mais apres presque 1 an de magazines ou je ne trouvais rien d'interessant, je me suis desabonnee, et j'ai abandonne l'idee des reviews.

D'une part, ca prend du temps (environ 1h par review), et de l'argent (faut bien payer les mags, a presque 4 livres, ca fait mal pour quelque chose qu'on n'utilise pas). D'autre part, si mes reviews sont systematiquement negatifs, je vais avoir les magazines sur le dos.

Donc en fait, mon abandon des reviews de magazines est un message fort: les magazines sont si peu interessant que non seulement ils ne meritent pas d'etre achetes, mais ils ne meritent meme pas qu'on passe du temps a ecrire sur eux (et vous a lire). Donc voila, achetez d'autres trucs.
Par contre, j'ai recemment fait des reviews d'autres choses, mais c'est sur mon site, pas sur le blog.

Chiloe, je ne comprend pas, meme si j'ai eu un passage a vide, c'est pas une raison pour m'abandonner, c'est a ca que sert google reader, a voir quand je reviens ;) Il faut dire qu'avec mon demenagement, puis la grippe qui m'a tenue pres d'un mois, j'ai pas ete gatee cette annee !

Au fait, moi aussi je lis ton blog tous les jours, d'ailleurs, je lis les blogs des gens qui ont commente tous les jours !!!