Thursday, November 5, 2009

The Case of the Missing French Knots

Last night I was searching through my Ebay pictures in my Photobucket account and found this little cutie.
It's a mini version of the larger "Let It Snow" candle mat. I sold a couple of these smaller votive sized candle mats last year on Ebay.
To my horror, I noticed a glaring error in this little mat. ..... There are two missing french knots on one of the snowflakes. I can't believe I never noticed that last year. Can you see on this picture where those knots are supposed to be? Ok, now go back up to the big picture and tell me ...
Does that mat now SCREAM out at you .... "YOU IDIOT, YOU FORGOT TO PUT ON THE LAST TWO FRENCH KNOTS!" ???
I can't even bear to look at that picture now. Sooooo ....
if the Ebay customer who purchased this from me last year happens to be reading this please email me. I will pay to have it sent back to me so that I can add those french knots. It bothers me knowing that #1. I never noticed that last year. #2 Someone out there has missing french knots and I don't know who it is.
Yay, I can get pictures from my camera to my computer now and I didn't have to buy a camera!
Thank you to my Blogging friend who suggested that I just needed to purchase a Card Reader for my camera. I saved oodles of $$ because of that. For $13 at Walmart, I bought a card reader and I can get pictures on my computer now. I didn't know that they made card readers for personal computers. It just never occurred to me that anything like that existed other than for commercial printshops. And it's TINY too!
So this is the progress so far on the stocking candle mat. I'm a little disappointed that I don't have it finished by now, but I had some trouble with my green wool. The first green that I used was just a little too dark. It needs to be a dark medium green to pop on that black background. Forest green is just too dark to use on the black background. I dyed up more wool and now I"ve the perfect green color to use.
So, I'm hoping to do the pine branch embroidery today and hopefully have that time-consuming task completed tonight.
I need to get this finished so that I can get a picture of it for the printed pattern. All other projects will be put aside until this is done. I'm really anxious and excited to get some new things started. New designs will be on their way soon.
TIP OF THE DAY! Read this and learn from my mistakes! .....
Do not eat things while sewing with wool, especially black wool. I'm telling you, the worst thing is pretzels. You might think you can get a harmless quick nibble on a pretzel while stitching on the black wool, but that pretzel, no matter how careful you are, will haunt you with it's crumbs on your mat. If you don't shake those crumbs off right away, they will embed themselves into your black wool background and cause you much anquish.
I always keep a lint roller handy while I'm sewing. Every once in a while, I'll pick up the mat or penny rug that I'm working on and give it a good shake and then go over it with the lint roller. That black wool background shows every single little fiber of lint so if you take care of the lint while you're working with it, when you're all finished your mat will look a lot nicer because the lint (and pretzel crumbs) won't be embedded.
So there ya go ... Don't eat while stitching. Keep your hands washed and clean while stitching and your mouth empty.
That reminds me of my granson. He can't say the "g" sound quite yet so when he sees me chewing gum he always points to my mouth and says " dammas dumb" (meaning: Grandma's gum).
It'a whole comical routine between us now with him calling me dumb and me saying "who are you calling dumb??" giggles and tickles are added in.
I get to watch him this afternoon, so I'm outta here to get some things done .
Happy Day everyone!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the stockings, why not embroider a star or something to help them pop from the black.

Danielle said...

Been there, done that- both french knots and crumbs. For me it was buttons. I lightly glued a whole bunch on a mat and was going to stitch them down but apparently forgot. I didn't notice till it was all 'finished' and sitting out to sell. Also, I don't have an issue with crumbs so much as coffee. Sometimes it's as simple as taking a sip and then sticking ivory floss in my mouth to thread a needle. Instant coffee-stained floss! I love your work! Very inspiring.

Parsley said...

LOVE the candle mats! So cute!

Lisa said...

Yea! Glad the card reader worked! I love mine!!
Sorry about the mat! It would make me crazy too!!
Hugs, Lisa

Anonymous said...

Found out the hard way not to use hand lotion before sewing. The needle slips and then you get blood on your wool. Did you know that your own spit will remove only your own blood from fabric? True.

WoolenSails said...

I have done that before on my penny mats, lol.
Some I have run out of thread and then forgot to finish the edge.

Debbie

Wendi said...

I just love your designs. I have been watching some on ebay. I have a question ..do you teach classes in the Pittsburgh area? I would love to learn how to do this. I also live in the Pittsburgh area.
Thanks:)
Wendi
www.justkeepstitching.blogspot.com