My 2 cents on what's going on the stitching world

Hi everyone,

Well I think that by know we all know what happened to a fellow stitcher and I though after reading all the comments on her post and all posts written because of it to share here opinion and my experience also...

So if your not interested in my opinion, and note I'll be quoting the anonymous comment,or are tired of this topic that has been going on for a while, you can jump to the bottom to see some of my finished projects with the so called "mistakes"

After reading the latest comment, including the anonymous one defending the Moderator, I tried to see it by both cases, and still don't believe it was the right thing to do... 

First of all if we weren't right defending Heather, there wouldn't be so many of us leaving a comment there to cheer her up, and asking for her not to stop blogging right

It's true that the Moderator of the group is only human, but if it was me I wouldn't simply expelled her from the group, first I would inform the person who sent the exchange of what the recipient thought of the stitching and ask her what she thought of  what she did, if she was happy with what she did or not; I would ask both sides to send a photo if possible of the item to compare, depending on what it was it, there's also the possibility of getting ruined during the travel right, after that and if I thought necessary I then would ask her if she had any problem in having me as her exchange partner for awhile so that I could evaluate myself if her finishing were as bad as what it was said, and in the very remote possibility that was really really bad as "looks like its been made up by someone of kindergarten age" I would offer her some help to get better if she wanted. If not I would set her up with partners like me who value the exchange by the act in itself, trading something just because you wanted to make someone feel special because you dedicate your stitching and your time on making something for them ignoring the perfection or not perfection of the finishing and receiving the same love and dedication in return. For me this would be the correct attitude.

Then if you check her photos as I did I couldn't find anything wrong with her finishing techniques, it is possible that they can have one mistake here or there, being bumpier here or so, but common you don't see it in the photos and no one is perfect and for me the imperfections are what makes the Handycrafts in general special, otherwise I would just get it made from a fabric so that it would be perfect. Just think of the hand-dyed threads aren't they more gorgeous because they are hand-dyed and aren't they imperfect in the sense that you can't have two looking exactly the same?

Then my second comment to " she isn't always happy with her finishes" honestly can anyone say they are always happy with the final result, I definitely can't and in the cases where I can do something about it I do exactly what she did and I change what I don't like, if there's nothing I can do about it then, if it's for me I'll leave it, if it's for someone else I apologise and explain I did my best.  This actually happened in an exchange I participated and I was very lucky because I got sweet Cucki as a partner and despite one of the finishings not being as good as I wanted she liked it (photos will follow), again what was valued was my attempt and effort and love in trying to make something she would enjoy instead of only the final result and I think she understood those were my firsts attempts in actually finishing a project (if you see my finished projects you'll see how I used to finish them if I actually finished them).

As many people said in their comments we are all at different stages either in the stitching by itself either in the finishing techniques, and we all have our strongest and weakest areas and we can have people with more difficulties trying to make the back of the project as clean as possible, others who would struggle in keeping the stitches all in the same direction without doing it on purpose and others who would have difficulties in finishing a project in a certain way, but isn't the important the effort and isn't by doing that you get your technique better, what is the problem of wanting to share your first attempts with someone

, and hoping the person will like, I bet many of us, still know where is the first project you ever done and you know the person who has it cherishes as a precious treasure.

Finally to finish this extremely huge post and to jump to some pictures of projects that have some kind of mistake I did one thing I loved to see coming out as result was the amount of positive comments given and to see that the majority of stitchers would prefer something with mistakes but made with love than to receive something perfect that could be made by a machine and it's all the cheering given that make me happy of being a stitcher and belong to this amazing world of stitchers, in today's world is really good to see people standing and defending and supporting those who need our help, and this a general trace to almost all stitchers, but of course as the saying goes "there's always a black sheep" right, the good thing is that there are many more white sheeps than blacks and I'm really happy for that.

Now, finally some photos, I have to say I don't have any UFO yet, I always end my stitching projects and I like to think f my mistakes as my personal touch to the project, if I can do that when I stitch a stitch on the wrong place why can't I apply it to the rest (after all a stitch out of place is also a mistake) and I'll post the picture and say what I didn't like:

1 - Cucki exchange (Cucki I hope you don't mind me commenting on this)

Can you see the tiny ornament? can you see were each side was stitched to the other and some white spots... well that was my second attempt on finishing a project with the technique used for biscornus, and the first time on such a small count, I cut the fabric a bit to short and the stitches are a bit too small and tight, but I had stitched the leaves with such dedication and I really wanted to give it to Cucki that I decided to send it anyway (and I could simply have kept it for me) and I think she enjoyed receiving it as much as I enjoyed stitching it no matter how awful the finishing was and she never said a word about the messy finished on it :) Thank you dear :)

2 -  A photo of a real dog converted to cross-stitch for a dear friend.

It was the the first time I converted a photo or a design to cross-stitch, when I started it I had to be careful with the thread count because at the time money for stitching was really short and threads were expensive. So after a while I started thinking that looked very rough and looked almost like a blob with a head, but I kept stitching because I had promised to do it and took me nearly three years to finish it and when I did I was already in Ireland and I sent it by post without any sort of finishing, the back was really, but really awful, and there are several stitches done in a different direction, because at the time I didn't care about that detail. Anyway, the person who got it Loved it and said it really looked like the real dog with the broken hear and the spot in the eye, again she didn't said a word about any of my imperfections.

3 - Some emblems I stitched as per my brother's request

While my brother was in college i asked me to stitch this 3 emblems for him to add to his academic suit (a traditional clothe we have for college students in Portugal, and the cape works as a diary for important events and people, you record your college years by stithtching emblems given to you or that you got at any stage during your college years so that when you look at it after several years you still remember that person or that place and why it was important) Anyway he had asked me to do the top two one for him and another for his girlfriend at the time, and the one at the bottom for when one of his best friends finished the course I felt so honoured that I said yes to all the three and I tried my best, and must say the stitching is perfect but the finishing was a struggle and you can see many of the fabric threads showing up in between the thread I used to make the border, I showed it to my brother and at the time I told him I was going to cut them out to try and finish them again, he took them from my hand and said that they were perfect the way they were and that he liked the fabric showing up, because then people would believe that they were hand-made for him :)

This aren't all my faulty projects, but I'll stop here for tonight.

Thanks for keeping up with me for such a long post :)

Happy stitches everyone