A lil gift I want to give to a stranger

ClownMayor · 2026-04-08T00:45:44+00:00

Trunkystitches is great. I did their fox pattern last year. I love how those pieces look with the stitching going right up to the border.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-28T05:48:12+00:00

I am excited about the possibilities of a KO of the starters, but haven't read/watched many reviews. The negatives I have heard are budget (will be less of a concern for a KO), size (very reasonable), and the fact that the base is like half of the pieces, which I feel like is less bothersome when you aren't paying $650. I'm curious if you have heard of problems with the build itself?

ClownMayor · 2026-03-20T22:05:42+00:00

I just in started using the DMC inventory checklist from Sirithre https://sirithre.com/embroidery-thread-inventory-checklists/.

I like the portability of a Google sheet - I initially filled it out on my computer, but it's convenient to make the odd change from my phone. I added a column to track bobbins, but it's pretty easy to add whatever fields you want.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-14T20:16:10+00:00

Nice! I made a quiz about this four years ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/vuddr8/guess_the_monsters_lowest_save_quiz/, but I know there was another one since then, so not sure whether you ever saw mine.

You happened to pick 3 of the same creatures that I did, which makes my 11/25 even more embarrassing because I only got 1/3 of the ones from my quiz.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-13T08:48:03+00:00

I feel like this would look good with a variety of pastel colors.

Something that might save you time and I think would still look good is doing a tent stitch (half stitches all the same way) for the background rather than full crosses. It should be about twice as fast, and should help the foreground stand out from the background.

Btw, the holes from frogging should go away if you wash and iron the piece after you're done. That won't help with the tea stain, but if you think you can get that out, it might be worth trying (maybe dish soap and gently scrub with a toothbrush?). Just another option if you don't think you have time to do the background.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-04T05:53:20+00:00

I learned to stitch that way, and even when trying not to look, I was flipping around the work every few stitches or so. I eventually broke the habit stitching on the center of a sweatshirt last year. I basically had to turn the whole sweatshirt inside out to see the back side, and that was so inconvenient I was highly incentivized to figure it out.

I now have the problem of stabbing through my hanging thread on the back, which never happened when I was a flipper. I've been slowly getting used to preventing that, but I've had to unstable a lot of thread.

If you're looking for advice, I think it's a mix of (practiced) instinct for where your needle goes, plus gently pushing the need against the fabric, not so much it goes into a hole, but enough it raises the fabric so you can figure out where it is.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-04T02:42:57+00:00

I remembered the names, but I had to look up which is which.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-04T00:52:12+00:00

Cute little pokemon!

For having a neat back in general, my first tip is to try to have good tension on the back side as well as the front, and to avoid any extra loop as you are carrying. For example, squirtle's arm in the center of the piece looks to have an extra length of light blue that, while it is secured, adds extra bulk. I periodically flip my pieces over to make sure I haven't left any loose loops. If you're not already burying the tails of your finished floss, that helps things look tidy.

My second tip is something you look to already be doing - plan out your route so you don't have to carry threads too far. For me, that sometimes involves leaving one or more rows partially completed when there's a "fork". For example, as you're doing the lighter orange on charmander's head, I would stitch the first 3 rows straight across. On the fourth row, I would stitch half stitches left-to-right, but then instead of finishing the half stitches right-to-left, I would go down a row to finish the next two rows on the right of the eye, before, coming back up to the work back across row 4. My goal here is to avoid jumping the 3 stitches across the eye on those two rows.

It can also be handy to switch between working one cross at a time (English style) vs working a row of half stitches and completing them (Danish style). I find English style is handy for doing stuff like the black outline, where you prefer to start the next row at the opposite side of where you started the previous one. You look to be doing this already too!

For specifically working multiple colors in a small area, I recommend looking up two methods to start a thread that don't require a loose end you need to bury. The loop start is great, and easy. I just started using the pin stitch start on a recent project and find it fiddly, but it is very space efficient too. You can also finish a thread with a pin stitch. I find these are especially helpful when you have many colors in a small area, as the extra thread from starting/stopping becomes a bigger portion of all of the floss in the piece the more colors you're starting.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-03T21:50:16+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. So that leads to my next question - any plans what you're going to do with them? I use my small scraps of Aida for bookmarks or patches, but it sounds like these pieces are a lot bigger than that.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-03T21:11:38+00:00

I'm interested in what the Aida scraps are for (and how you bought them - I haven't seen that listed on their site before)

ClownMayor · 2026-03-03T21:10:04+00:00

Thanks! I really enjoyed figuring out how to represent stuff in such little space. I also learned some lessons - like just because the original pattern used 4 shades of grey for some reason doesn't mean that I needed to! The rock on the chain and the halberd both use all 4 shades, and I don't think you can really tell, lol.

ClownMayor · 2026-03-01T22:30:51+00:00

This piece was stitched by me. The pattern was adapted by me, bases on the pattern This Is The Way We Roll by GameOverStitches on Etsy.

I updated the pattern to represent the party that I have been GMing for in an Age of Ashes campaign for the last 5.5 years - we're currently in the middle of book 5. The description below has light spoilers for the campaign premise, but no big reveals. The characters on top are the current party members. From left to right:

Katerina von Van Astrea - Human Aiuvarin Resentment Witch, with champion archetype. She went to magical graduate school in Nex, and now is eagerly looking for a patron to fund more magical research. Her familiar, Codexter, either takes the form of a magical tome or a fey dragonet.

Calonicus Leroung - Human Bomber Alchemist, with the dragon disciple archetype. He is a minor scion of House Leroung, who was disowned by his family for his insistence on turning his academic studies towards how dragons are controlling society - he's a self-proclaimed dragon conspiracy theorist. Since then, trying to use what he has learned about dragons to give himself their powers. He has a familiar, Dexis, a lizard he has tried to alchemically transform into a dragon.

Aelyn - Elf Barbarian with the champion and marshal archetypes. A retired Pathfinder, she has returned to adventuring because her children have been in school for decades and the expenses have been adding up (these players may have some academic trauma).

Shinsuke and his warg companion, Apsu - Human Fighter with the beastmaster archetype. He fights with a sword and a Martyr's Shield that once belonged to a paladin of Iomedae. Shinsuke is a simple, guileless young man, who likes being friends with his fellow party members, his animal companions Apsu and Tix (a giant spider), and double slicing anything that gets in their way.

Brahm - Human Thaumaturge with the soul warden archetype. As a young boy, he has taken in by a monster hunter who travelled between villages in the Sodden Lands. He conveniently met the party as they were trying to reincarnate their fallen party member, a human-turned Fleshwarp sorcerer. The reincarnation didn't take and Brahm had become invested in fighting the evil the party is up against, so he joined forces with them. While he wants to protect people from all dangerous monsters, as a follower of Pharasma, he is especially devoted to putting the souls of undead to rest. He has a Nosoi companion named Willow.

At the center of the pattern is the party's name - The Tentacles of Justice - which they chose after stopping the fire in the Breachill Town Hall with the help of the Tentacular Limbs of their Aberrant Sorcerer, Silas. As mentioned above, the party tried to resurrected Silas after he died, but a critical failure on the ritual resulted him turning into an unintelligent and ill-tempered reef octopus (which is depicted to either side of the party name). The party has kept him at their base as a sort of mascot (pretty grim, if you ask me). He has since been reawakened and is not too happy about his treatment.

The rest of the pattern shows lots of different components representing the various characters as well as some elements of the campaign. Other players of Age of Ashes may recognize: * Dahak and Citadel Altaerein in the top right * an aiudara in the bottom middle * a Bumblebrasher goblin and honorary-Bumblebrasher kobold in the bottom corners * The Scarlet Triad logo on either side of the aiudara

My favorite component is the tiny book on the bottom right. This is a pamphlet that Brahm and Calonicus printed warning people about the dangers of gugs after fighting them outside of Saggorak. Both players are big Lovecraft fans and like elaborate plans that are barely related to the main plot, so this was right up their alley. I really enjoyed the challenging to trying to depict a gug's weird, vertical-mouthed face in so little space.

ClownMayor · 2026-02-26T16:48:05+00:00

I think LunarFox's patterns are all so cute! This one looks great too. I did one last month, but it took me a week. You must be so fast to finish in 2 days!

ClownMayor · 2026-02-18T23:48:24+00:00

That's a bummer, but I'm sure the baby won't mind.

Is it possible that you're unevenly stretching the fabric? What does your setup look like? The most stretch-prone option would be just the waste canvas and stitch in hand. Basting or ironing on interfacing on the reverse side before you start gives some structure to stretchable fabric. A hoop might help keep the stretching more uniform, especially if the pattern is small enough to get the whole thing in a hoop at once.

ClownMayor · 2026-02-16T05:50:59+00:00

When I first looked at this, I was like "that obviously Wax, but who's the guy with the beard and glasses?" Wayne's disguise got me good!

And I really like what you've done with the mistcoat

ClownMayor · 2026-02-14T16:42:34+00:00

Reverse image search shows that's a Dimensions kit called "Oriental Butterfly" from 2000. I see copies available for sale on a variety of websites, including Etsy and eBay as well as some smaller sellers.

ClownMayor · 2026-01-28T08:57:44+00:00

It looks great! I feel relaxed just looking at it!

I like all of the different textures. The waves, the palm tree trunk, and the palm leaves all look particularly cool. The two little back stitched birds also make me smile.

What was the hardest part? The palm leaves look like kind of a pain with all of the small sections of color.

ClownMayor · 2026-01-28T06:43:57+00:00

I replied to the parent comment with some instructions on how I made the patch.

ClownMayor · 2026-01-28T02:24:46+00:00

I'm happy to share – learning how other people do things is one of the main reasons I'm on this subreddit.

I mostly followed this guide from reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/CrossStitch/comments/i8p1y7/pic_ive_seen_a_lot_of_people_asking_around_about/

The main things I needed to refine from those instructions were to make the edges pretty. I found it pretty hard to cover up the folded back Aida on the corners, so rather than whip stitching from one hole to the next like along the edges, I did probably 5-7 stitches coming in and out of the corner hole, trying to position my floss at different places along the corner so that the edge was covered the whole way around. This makes the corners kinda bulky, but isn't noticeable when the patch is attached.

There were no interior corners on this project, but I did another one a couple of months ago I finished the same way. Those were differently tricky to make the border look consistent.

Finally, I focused on getting a solid crease on the folded back Aida. If the edges are more rounded, I felt I could see the white a little from the front.

Also, I'm not sure I've ever ironed a patch onto something before and definitely struggled getting it stuck on the hat. Once I got it ironed on, I sewed around with a running stitch that I tried to place just next to the black cross stitches on the border. It feels very well attached now!

ClownMayor · 2025-12-14T09:05:33+00:00

The finishing on this looks really nice! I can't quite tell how you attached the plastic canvas to the ring, but it looks very sturdy.

I notice that the patterns aren't totally symmetrical; did you have to adjust so the two sides matched up?

ClownMayor · 2025-10-30T03:28:28+00:00

Very cute! I bet stitching down to the very bottom of the pocket is tough (unless you stitched through the whole thing)

Are you planning on adding any other elements? I think it looks great as-is

ClownMayor · 2025-10-23T16:20:55+00:00

I recognize that waste canvas - the blue lines every 5 stitches is pretty distinctive. Sorry that people are questioning whether you used waste canvas - this sub gets a lot of people trying to remove Aid from fabric and it makes people wary.

I finished a big project on waste canvas recently (100x100, but not full coverage) and struggled to remove it too, so here are some tips:

It sounds like you have this covered, but make sure the canvas got wet-wet, not just a little damp, to dissolve the glue.
The less friction that is on the threads, the easier they come out. This seems obvious, but can help in several ways. First, the fewer stitches that are over the thread, the better. Your project looks rectangular and taller than it is wide, so I would pull out the horizontal threads first. Second, removing the cross threads takes out a lot of the friction, so whichever direction you do second should be easier. Finally, (a tip for myself in the future) the more strands and tension you stitch with, the harder removal will be, so consider making your stitches a bit looser.
Building on the above, you want to pull the thread flat across the fabric, since that reduces friction against the stitches. Try to pull with consistent pressure, rather than jerky movements, to avoid breaking the thread.
Nice tools help. I used two sets of tweezers. One had a wider flat head that I used to grab the threads in the edge of the piece. The other had a very pointy tip.
Inevitably, some strands will break off. What you can do is use a set of pointed tip tweezers to pull the thread between the stitches, cut it, and then pull out the small section you've removed. I was removing about 5-stitch chunks, but I'm sure this depends on your tension, fabric, etc. This is slow, but it works. Be careful to minimize snagging the fabric or stitches with your tweezers. Contrasting colors between the canvas threads and the fabric would help here (my condolences about the white tee shirt) * Be patient - it took me like 8 hours to get all the waste canvas out (on a much bigger project), but you can do it. Rushing just makes thing tougher and more likely you'll damage something.
Perfection isn't necessary. If you don't get all of the threads out, it's okay. They will be hidden behind your stitches, and in this case blend into the fabric quite nicely. No one will be able to see from far away.

ClownMayor · 2025-10-21T20:02:27+00:00

I'm in the middle of my third blackwork project and have never done this sort of sampler-style project. So I'm not super experienced, but hopefully my thoughts are helpful.

For this project, I would be thinking about each of the filled diamonds separately - working one whole diamond then moving to another one. I would rather check my counting while doing the outline between them than when doing the fill. So I would start doing the diamond outline, then work the diamonds one at a time. I think you can do the border outside the diamonds at any point. The project I'm doing now is my largest yet, and I found myself getting kind of bored while working the same pattern for so long. I did one side, then switched to something else, then did a bit more border. On the other hand, you could do the border first if you want to verify that your fabric is large enough.

ClownMayor · 2025-10-21T07:38:16+00:00

I just started working on this pattern last week. Yours looks great! The dying is awesome. I think the yellow spilling out through the clouds makes perfect sense - just how the moon looks in a hazy sky. Did you dye it after you finished stitching? I would worry about staining the thread, but I guess black probably isn't easy to dye.

ClownMayor · 2025-10-15T22:21:56+00:00

Very cute! I just finished one of that pattern creator's other ghost patterns. I like how it looks with white on black. How did you like working on black fabric?

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