(no subject)

[muladhara]

~ I have started making my own cross stitch designs. As is fairly typical for me, this consists of running before I can walk. (I mentioned this to mum, and she said she's always been like that, too. Which made me feel somewhat better in that now I know where I get it from).

~ I am reading Diana Wynne Jones' last book, which was completed by her sister. I think you can tell someone else had a hand in it, because it doesn't feel enough like one of her books to me (yet, I guess. I'm still near the start). Well, and I suppose I haven't read any of her more recent books, but the last one I knew about that she finished before she died was in a series I don't read, and the library system has a handful or so, but not as many as they used to, and that makes me sad.

~ I am also reading Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce, but I am not getting on with that. Principally because it's about fairy myths (I mean as opposed to fairy tales, so no Snow White here or whatever), and I think he expects his audience to be unfamiliar with them? I think I have sussed out what is going on, i.e. that I think the girl who went missing is going to turn out to be a changeling. Also the main character is a farrier, and I think he thinks we shouldn't know why this is important. So that we're surprised when the changeling/other fairies are driven away by cold iron! Nope, sorry. I grew up with a fascination for this stuff. It is why I want a copy of the core rule book for Changeling: The Lost so badly*.

*I honestly don't know what got me thinking about that, but I have been a lot recently. It could be the time of year, as it was November when I first read about it a few years back *shrugs*

(Hmm, a softcover print from DriveThru RPG is £20, give or take a bit. That's less than I was expecting. I expect shipping from the US is horrendous, though).

(OH GOD NOW I AM ON REDDIT READING WOD THREADS. HELP).

~ I had a dream about a guy I had a crush on when I was at uni. I don't recall ever dreaming about him before, and I haven't spoken to him since uni (over ten years ago now!) so it was somewhat out of the blue. It made me really sad though, because I really liked him (I think we were friends), and I thought he was a good person. So now I'm sad, and I've spent two days thinking about him, and what he might be up to, and gosh I bet his ears were burning.

ETA: I looked him up under the username I knew him under - he still uses it - and now he looks like a proper grownup nerd and everything. I'm so proud, in the weirdest way. [/eta]

Comments

[fandrogyne]

For years now I've wanted to do my own cross-stitch designs. I have some photos I want to take them from, and I think if I could get it right the patterns might even be good enough to sell. The only thing stopping me is that there's no craft store where I live, so getting the right embroidery floss to test the pattern is difficult. I have to place large orders on websites, or just go without. And I'm more likely to just go without, which means nothing ever gets done.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get ready a load of the patterns I want to test and place that big order anyway, cost be damned, especially if it might make me a little money down the road, selling the pattern!

[muladhara]

I think you should give it a go! Although I do understand about the living in the middle of nowhere and having to order stuff in in one go (because I live in similar circumstances).

[zerenitia]

I've never really done cross-stitching but funny enough I watched a few videos on how to do embroidery with it and it helped me with my knitting. My mum used to do cross stitch stuff for things like bookmarks and magnets when I was a kid but she hasn't done it in awhile. Have you done it before? Is it fairly easy to pick up? To me it looks finicky haha.

[muladhara]

I did some at school when I was a kid, and the smallest amount of Hardanger (which involves some cross stitching) as a teenager, but none since. I did not find it hard to get into when doing it again as an adult, and the worst thing you have to do is memorise numbers of stitches, and keep track of where you are in the pattern. Other than that, I can only think that you may get bored making the same stitch all the time, but that would depend on your boredom threshold. Plus, as I said to a friend on twitter, there's all sorts of nerdy stuff available now, and also you can adapt pixel arts/sprites!

I mean yeah, bits of it are finicky, especially if you're doing a complex pattern. But I wouldn't say it was difficult to pick up at all.