Tuesday, September 27, 2011

pretend quilting

I finally present to you the completely finished (and framed) color-fade blackwork piece. It's not exactly what I wanted, because I didn't start with a large enough piece of fabric but it does look pretty. 

Plus it gave me a lot of ideas for color fade pieces which I could then do properly. Before that I need to bulk up my thread collection. I have a ton of embroidery floss, but not enough oranges and not enough blues and missing some important reds. It feels like I never have the colors I want.

I got a new computer, as mine was getting run down (especially in the touchpad department) and I'd like to have a backup that still works normally. The new machine is running Linux because holy crap I hate Windows 7. I thought I just disliked it, but having to use it for more than two minutes at a time amped the dislike right up to despise. 

We used Linux on all the computers at my high school (a tiny boarding school) so I'm not completely unfamiliar with it (though even if I was Ubuntu is SO intuitive that it should be easy for anyone to use). The best part for me is downloading all the free applications. I got a geography lesson program and can now identify all the countries on all the continents and a number of island nations. When something big happens in Moldova or Togo I'll know just where they are! I'm beyond psyched about this.

So thank you, Microsoft, for completely screwing up the operating system I grew up with and liked using. You even managed to make networking my two computers a pain and not workable. Now that's talent. Change for change's sake is always a bad idea.

5 comments:

  1. Thats an amazing piece. Considering it still takes me hours to do a small section of my projects I can only imagine the work that went into it.

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  2. thank you!

    I stitch pretty quickly since I can't work and have too much time to fill, but this definitely took a while. That's why I mostly stick to doing pieces with quotes and a small border since I can finish them super quickly and feel accomplished. :)

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  3. so gorgeous. I love your blackwork, I used one of your patterns on a small piece i did a few weeks ago. I have a pic on my blog :)

    http://greybabystitches.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-finish.html

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  4. Thank you!

    I didn't come up with that one though. It's a pretty traditional one I've seen in a few different books, most notably in Traditional Blackwork Samplers by Leslie Wilkins. If you're getting into blackwork that's an indispensable book to own.

    Blackwork is the most fun of the counted embroideries, I think.

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  5. hmm, I might look into that. I don't do a lot of blackwork but I find it looks awesome when I do :)

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