The "no frills, no gremlins (hopefully)" cross-stitch cafe

mrs-moneypenny

coxy, they look lovely little church mouse is a real cutie. lots of babs in the mp cottage but it really brings out the detail so is worth it.

great start on the world Annie

love the count your blessing FoS, the colours blend beautifully

hope all are well - still no stitching managed here

blue_eyed_girl

Always admire LK and Bothy stitches Kevin.

Great start on World Annie :T

Cute little mouse Coxy and MP is looking great. :T MP is another favourite of mine.

Manage a little bit of stitching on Keep Calm cushion. Finishing off the first design on it and then putting it away until new threads arrive in the post. Might move onto something Christmassy whilst I'm waiting.

Hope everyone's well


b_e_g

Elizabeth_Braun

Oooh, love that map design, Annie. I adore maps! Amazed I have never stitched any... Oh rubbish, I have. Did a half globe a couple of years ago.

No, 'Paradise Island' isn't on black Aida, Coxy. Worse, black evenweave! It's a bit of a challenge, but I'm managing it OK - WHEN I get to stitch, that is.

Yup, I'm very organised. It's a mixed blessing. Anyway, the whole process is complete to my stranded cottons (which I intend to reorganise in colour families and will take a good few hours to sort and need to be 'between projects' at the time). I can't stop looking at the drawers and so on. Drool!

Flat_Eric

I've got a bit of a plan to sort my stitchy stuff mainly my threads. At the moment I have two five drawer plastic storage towers. The threads are sorted according to number sequence eg a drawer for white to 434, a drawer for 435 to 747 etc etc. Repeat for anchor. I'm thinking of downsizing the current storage towers to boxes with lids I'm not sure though and unsure whether to store as I do at the moment ie by number or I wonder by colour? I would welcome suggestions/ideas. Thanks xx

nmm

Love the updates especially the map and the knitted church mouse

Flat Eric, I sort by number it just makes it easier when sorting threads for a project.

Latest RF update yet more red, but this week I've started some of the green in the bottom left corner which you'll see next week

maria_and_the_imps

Still not picked up a needle
By the time I get home I'm shattered, going to look through all my mags tonight to try and find something to get my enthusiasm going and hopefully get back to doing some, really miss it but struggling to do anything.
Loving all your pictures though.
Maria x

Mrs_ceejay

Love the map,always like maps,somewhere in my cupboard I have an old world one but never get round to sorting it out.
Flat Eric
I sort by numbers,can't see how sorting by colour works as most kits give numbers and not always the colour.
Nearly finished "I love stitching" then it's back to the dratted cat but I will finish it

maria_and_the_imps

I've picked a set of 3 little birds and have completed the outline of one already.
Eric mine are also sorted by numbers with gaps left for the ones I don't have, I even have them labled for the specialist threads should I ever get them!

blue_eyed_girl

Just love the way the trees seem to stand out nmm. Great colours too - so vibrant.

I have sorted my threads by number too Flat Eric. Even got the bobbins numbered with stickers for the missing threads - should I ever get them you understand.

Putting Keep Calm cushion away now whilst I wait for the rest of the threads to arrive.

Still haven't managed to frame the two pictures I was hoping to get done. Must get one of them for next week as it is a birthday pressie.

Hope everyone is well.

b_e_g

Elizabeth_Braun

Flat_Eric wrote: »

I've got a bit of a plan to sort my stitchy stuff mainly my threads. At the moment I have two five drawer plastic storage towers. The threads are sorted according to number sequence eg a drawer for white to 434, a drawer for 435 to 747 etc etc. Repeat for anchor. I'm thinking of downsizing the current storage towers to boxes with lids I'm not sure though and unsure whether to store as I do at the moment ie by number or I wonder by colour? I would welcome suggestions/ideas. Thanks xx

Interestingly, I've been dealing with a similar dilemma to you, except that I have only the full Anchor set and maybe up to 100 DMCs to plug colour gaps.

At the mo, my DMC threads are in colour family bags and the Anchor ones are in bags of 40-50 shade numbers in numerical order in my workbox. The main question really is, what do you expect to use your threads for most of the time? Will you be working designs that require you to put your hands on certain shades by number, such as in cross stitch designs? Or are you just likely to pick them up strictly by colour, such as working your own pieces?

If you expect to rely heavily on colour numbers, then I recommend having at least one set in colour number order. Anchor is my 'go to' for that type of thing. I only use the DMCs when I need something Anchor doesn't have, so then I need to select purely by colour. I can do this quite easily with Anchor as well given that, unlike DMC, the first half at least of their collection is grouped in colour families and I have their real thread shade card.

[URL="[URL=http://s897.photobucket.com/user/elizabeth_rb/media/Anchorcollection_zpse1db1160.jpg.html][IMG]http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac179/elizabeth_rb/Anchorcollection_zpse1db1160.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"][/url]

[URL="[URL=http://s897.photobucket.com/user/elizabeth_rb/media/DMCCollection_zps014a579b.jpg.html][IMG]http://i897.photobucket.com/albums/ac179/elizabeth_rb/DMCCollection_zps014a579b.jpg[/IMG][/URL]"][/url]

If you decided to mix them all together and bag/sort them by colour families, then you'd really need to spend time making a note of exactly which shade numbers are where and keep an easy to follow list to hand. This is what I planned to do, but, on reflection, I don't think it will help me enough to make the work involved worthwhile.

Something else to consider is whether downsizing your storage will meet your needs in terms of ease of use. For instance, I used to store a number of non-stranded cotton threads in boxes in a craft tote on my room floor, but that meant 2 to 4 steps to get at each item, whereas where they are now in drawers at arm level, it's just one step and much more user-friendly. If you're not too worried about space concerns, it may be worth leaving the threads be. I should think it over for a goodly while and see how you feel after a couple of weeks (if you haven't already!)

Hope that's of some use to you!:o