Bad Manners and Brimstone

In my experience, linen is not as great a fabric as you might think, because the threads themselves are not as even in size.  Evenweave, Lugana or similar are a better bet, and most people work the patterns over two strands with two strands of floss for decent coverage.  You should certainly practice before committing because it will give you an idea of how it looks and feels. 

A standard hoop should be fine, unless the fabric is particularly fine or prone to pulling. 

Quote from: STiG on July 16, 2020, 05:28:39 am

Nothing wrong with asking something be left off the plate if you're not going to eat it.  If they offer a substitute, you're fine to accept.  If they fail to tell you there is an upcharge, I think it's fair if you refuse to pay it.

I just wish I could remember to tell them not to bother to bring Chalet sauce whenever I eat at Swiss Chalet.   

I wish when I ordered online from Swiss Chalet and I don't check the box for cutlery that they would not send cutlery. It's wasteful enough to get their delivery containers. I don't want crappy plastic cutlery to throw away on top of that.

STiG, I'll take your Chalet sauce so it doesn't go to waste.  And Soop, I agree, I wish the default was not to include the cutlery; I've tossed so many of those cutlery packages.  Our experience with ordering Swiss recently has been so bad we have stopped getting delivery and go to the store to pick it up instead.  After the fourth or fifth time they screwed it up, I threw in the towel.

Thread conditioner is great stuff when you use it correctly. The most popular of them was Thread Heaven, but it's been discontinued.  I agree that for needlepoint it's no use, but it's not designed to be used on wool.  If you were needlepointing with floss it would be fine.

The single most wonderful use for the stuff is cross stitching with metallics or light effects.  The three things I tell everyone who gets frustrated working with metallics is, use thread conditioner, shorter than normal strands, and allow to untwist very regularly.

I don't know what it's made of but definitely not beeswax.  But it is amazing.  Rho, if you want to try it, your best bet is your LNS* which should have good recommendations.

*local needlework store

Not so much a collection of yardsticks as just the odd few that accumulated over the course of years.... except for one specimen....I have an odd one from the early 1900’s (I think), which is a shorter length held vertically in a brass base and clip. It’s used for measuring dress hems from the floor, and belonged I’m guessing to my husband’s great grandmother, who was an extremely talented seamstress.

I found it in our basement, which is home to artifacts of 3-4 generations of my husband’s family. We live in the house my husband grew up in and although the house was only built in the 1950’s, no one ever threw anything  away that “might be useful.”

My 88 year old mother has one of those too.  It has lived in her clothes closet for as long as I can remember, and I have always known what it was used for, although I don't remember ever asking about it or being told about it.   

I have a number of cross stitch projects going at the moment and just finished one, the Satsuma Street Spring StitchAlong in Warm. I can't get a picture small enough to post, I'll work on that.