New DMC Colors

In the continuing feeling of BLEAH I've gotten very little done. I did go camping for a couple days last week though, and that was really nice. I miss being outside a lot, but the weather and my body's issues with the weather makes it hard.

I did, however, buy the new DMC colors like a fan-girlish fool (the box set is a lot more expensive than the individual colors will be when they're released singly). But when you own all the colors you get a bit silly.

Anyway, I thought I'd give you all the rundown on how each new color compares to the ones already out. Basically, there's very little difference, and at least one looks to be absolutely identical (the very bright orange).

The bright spot for me is the nice royal blue. It's brighter and lighter than 311, and a bit brighter than 803. There are so few blues, and I've definitely felt the absence of a better basic blue. The bright fuschia, 3886, is the also a nice edition. There's a brownish-grey, 3895, which doesn't have a close match either.


These pictures make them seem closer to pre-existing colors than they are, but seriously, they're really close and most don't fill a real gap. Wish they'd just done an all blue and purple expansion, as that's where I most often feel I can't find the exact color I need.

colorwheel

Yesterday I randomly decided to stitch this color wheel. Other than there being not perfect blue or red-orange, I think it turned out quite prettily. I might outline it in white and then do a ring of each color around that (probably just ROY G BIV).

I really want to work on Frida, but I don't have a good method for coloring the background. I'm out of normal watercolor paint in the colors I need. The next thing I can think of is just grinding up the watercolor pencils I have and mixing that with water (watercolors, at least the kind in tubes, are very staining).

Plus today it was just too cold to stitch. Granted, I could have turned my heat on, but it's a point of pride that I never have in this apartment. When it's really cold I just do some baking (Earl Grey cookies and broiled polenta today) and keep the tea flowing. I'm pretty sure the apartment below mine is empty now, because last year when it was this temperature I had to keep the windows open a bit. Today I've had the windows closed, a wool hat on, and two layers of slippers, one of which were sheepkin. Keep in mind I normally run quite hot.

DMC Spiral - Finished!

Finished this yesterday and I AM happy it's done. All the DMC colors (barring the eight or so that are listed as complete duplicates by DMC) stitched in numerical order starting from the center. After the first color there are six stitches of each color done with two strands of floss on 18 ct. Aida.

Now that my numerical order projects are done I'm going to put my floss back in the order I like. I still keep the colors separated out, but I had each color in numerical order so I could find things. Now I can obsessively put it in shade order. Oh joy.

No idea what I'll stitch next. I might not work on store patterns until after Christmas, as I really should get some more work done in my wisteria project. I've finished enough of it that I would hate myself if I didn't complete the thing.

DMC Spiral - WIP 04

Well I've picked this up again! I'm a little over halfway through, I think.

In the last month I knit eight pairs of slippers (though three were for children). I've also been doing a lot of baking. 

Cold weather, hot fresh bread, and cheese are pretty much my life. This is not necessarily a good thing, given how much cheese I'm capable of eating.

DMC Spiral - WIP 03

Here's the latest installment of my DMC spiral. Like the other piece it's also in numerical order, but has no color duplicates stitched and no non-duplicates left out.

I do like it so far, and I think it's easier to see the color runs than with the square project. 

I'm also still knitting every night, though somethings I'm just fucking around, looking at gauges, seeing how something knits up, rather than working on real project.

I'll have a new pattern in the shop tomorrow, though it's a blackwork one, and people don't like those as much. It's just back stitch ladies and gentlemen, easy peasy, I promise!

DMC Spiral - 02

Here's a look at the progress I've made on the new DMC project.

It's going quite quickly, and I wisely removed the duplicates from my thread cases so I wouldn't accidentally stitch the same color twice.

I wish I had more to say, but I ran a couple errands today and babysat my niece for an hour. She's adorable and incredibly sweet, but it was very tiring.

New DMC project

How neglectful I've been of this blog!

I've been running the website and other web presences of the bookstore I used to work for, so that's taken up a lot of my internet energy. 

Plus there's the Tumblr for my Etsy store. I post art by other needleworkers there once a day, if you're interested.

Now I've started a new DMC color project, stitched in a spiral, and still in numerical order. It's just a side piece for in between patterns for my store. I really recommend doing something like that, if only to have a piece to work on that requires very little thought and no pattern. 

Tomorrow I'll post the pattern I've been plugging away at this week. Yesterday I had a lovely few hours with my niece and nephew, who cheered me up wonderfully (and messed up my hair).

All the threads!

I'll have a picture of my latest project and a new pattern in the shop for you tomorrow, but in the meantime here are all the DMC colors!

Only, not quite all because I realized there were four or five pinks waiting out to be stitched for the color project when I took these pictures. Oh well.

I can not keep them in numerical order only, since I rarely stitch things designed by other people. In order to pick out the right red I need to look at all the reds at once. Each separate color is in numerical order, to make things easier during the color project, but I hate how it looks. Plus you've got greens that look brown when next to other greens yet look green in the brown box, etc...

Once I finish up with the color pieces (I have another I think I'll start in the near future), then I'll organize each color by shade and it will look much prettier.

DMC color project - Finished!

Oh, hello. Look what I finished! In case you've forgotten, the colors are stitched in numerical order.

I am SO happy it's done. I especially love the colors in the last six rows and the way they flow into each other. All rows except row five are stitched from left to right. I thought about going back and forth, but that made it much harder to stitch neatly. Plus, I don't think it would have added much visually.

To make this type of piece a square you must leave out 13 DMC colors. I left out the following colors: 

311, 350, 370, 602, 605, 611, 703, 731, 782, 825, 832, 840, 912

However I just left them out randomly as I went along, and I would alter a few of these choices if stitching it again. There are some duplicate DMC colors. The same color with two numbers. I know of three: 3326/776, 731/732, 3760/806. I'm not sure if there are more, though I contacted DMC about it today. The DMC labels list the other color in parentheses under the number, but it's not listed on the DMC shopper's checklist or color descriptions sheet (by they way, they have a really helpful website!).

EDIT: I found out all the DMC duplicates and here they are --
504 = 3813
731 = 732
776 = 3326
781 = 782
806 = 3760
971 = 740
3773 = 407

In light of that I would leave out the following 13 colors if I were stitching this again:

407, 504, 731, 740, 776, 782, 825, 832, 912, 936, 3760, White, B5200

Opera Pattern for sale, DMC wrong side

You may remember my awesome opera quote pattern (from Terry Pratchett's Maskerade). Well, the pattern is now for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Honestly if I were forced at gun point to choose a favorite Discworld book, it might be Maskerade. It's just... so accurate in its depiction of opera and theatre people. Also I love the witches and the Agnes vs Perdita back and forth.

I thought you might like to see the wrong side of the DMC color project. It looks really neat, I think. I've left longer tails when I end a square (bind off? weave in?) so that if a lower square loosens the last stitch of the square above it I have enough thread to grip to pull it tight. That's an awkward sentence and description, but it's relevant for anyone contemplating a similar project.

DMC color project - half done!

This piece is now a little over the halfway point. 

I realized yesterday morning that it was Monday so my embroidery shop was closed. Thus I haven't gotten any more work done on the quilt piece and I'm about as far as I can go on the color piece without buying some more thread.

There's plenty of other work to start, but it annoys me. I really want to finish the quilt piece. I'll possibly get to the store today, and if not then definitely tomorrow. 

When it's relentlessly sunny I can't drive anywhere myself. The sun hurts my skin even if I'm only in it for a minute or two, let alone being stuck in a car with it shining down. If someone else is driving I can cover myself with a windshield reflector thing and be okay.

If I can't get thread today I'll be starting a new project. It has the outline of West Virginia and says "West Virginia is the Best Virginia." Which it is. One side of my family may have stayed in Virginia for 250 years, but that was a mistake on their part (and what do you expect of Jamestown survivor descendents, that guy had probably gone made after the cannibalism).

DMC Color Project - 8/21 rows

Since I'm plenty sick of the blackwork quilt project, I thought you might be as well!

I've stitched three more rows on the color project, and that bottommost one is so gorgeous. Now that I play favorites between rows or runs of color...

If you don't know, I read quite a lot, a few books per week this year. So I want to recommend one of my recent reads: Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich.

Don't worry, she's not talking about individual positive thinking. She's also not talking about finding joy in small things, which I'm quite good at (and without that talent I'm not sure I could cope). It's extremely worth reading and I highly recommend it.

Color project update and quilt colors

I am already a quarter of the way through the color project, which seems rather insane.

It goes quickly but it's so tedious to constantly be starting a new color and then immediately ending it. I've been sort of queueing up ten or so at a time, and of course now I'll have loose thread on EVERY bobbin. I do have a number of other ideas for similar projects using different shapes and arrangements though, so I suppose I'll just continue those until I've used up the loose bits.

Also, here are the colors I've chosen for my quilt project! The dark green is possibly the background. The quilt block design I'm using is a Lemoyne Star, and the dark green is for the background (not sure which I'll use), which has a much larger fill pattern than the diamonds. That might be too dark a green, but I'll just have to see once I get there. I think my pricey hand-dyed variegated thread will work out though. It's no SO variegated that it will be overwhelming, just enough to provide some extra interest.

It was difficult to get a really accurate picture of the hand-dyed yarn, so I doctored that one on the computer. It's still not QUITE right, but you get the idea. Also, my star looks distorted because of the odd angle, but I promise it's not really. 

I am switching over to work on the quilt motif for a while, though it should go relative quickly.

The DMC color project - first look

Since I haven't been able to get to the embroidery shop to find the perfect thread for my quilt project, I started something new.

This will eventually be a square with almost every DMC solid color in it. I have to leave out 13 colors in order to make it a perfect square. So I'm randomly just leaving out some of the ones that are ridiculously close in shade to their neighbors. I'm stitching it in number order, which I think you'd have to do anyway just to keep track of where you were.

I've since completed the third row and I really love it so far. It's interesting to the see the colors in number order. I store mine by hue, because it makes it easier for me to pick colors for a new project, and I almost never stitch anything designed by anyone but me. I'm using the DMC provided color description sheet to cut down the time it takes to locate each color, but some of their descriptions seem rather off.

This piece goes quickly and slowly. It's slightly annoying since you're constantly starting a new thread and using such a small amount of each. I feel like I'm spending more time cutting the thread, separating the thread, cutting the thread again, winding the thread back on the bobbin, and putting it away than it takes to do the actual stitching!

Working out the numbers was a little exciting as I had to USE MATH! Granted, quite simple math, but still...