{"id":3441,"date":"2009-11-05T07:55:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-05T11:55:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=3441"},"modified":"2009-11-03T12:17:29","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T16:17:29","slug":"the-primitive-needle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/?p=3441","title":{"rendered":"The Primitive Needle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/hallowsampler-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Hallow Sampler\" title=\"Hallow Sampler\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"contentimg\" \/>I ran across a mention of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wyndhamneedleworks.com\/Primitive_Needle\/the_primitive_needle.htm\">Primitive Needle<\/a> on another blog (whose link I can&#8217;t find now, so I apologize for not giving credit wherever it&#8217;s due) and liked the country\/vintage look of their patterns so much I decided to give them a try.<\/p>\n<p>I chose the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wyndhamneedleworks.com\/Primitive_Needle\/hallow_sampler.htm\">Hallow Sampler<\/a>, which recommended floss and linen from Weeks Dye Works (which can be purchased cheaper at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.picturethisplus.com\/\">Picture This Plus<\/a>).  I finally finished the piece, and although I&#8217;m quite pleased with it I do have some comments:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The directions call for &#8220;Dill&#8221; linen, but the Dill color is <em>way<\/em> darker than whatever they used for their sample.  Since the floss colors they specify are all fairly dull, I think some of the detail got lost in the background.  I&#8217;d recommend ignoring their fabric suggestion and choosing a lighter color.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The directions also specify 40-count linen.  Brothers and sisters, as dog is my witness, 40 count is really freaking small.  I had to either sit under a strong light source or borrow Shadow Jack&#8217;s reading glasses to see the holes well enough to count them, and I still wound up missing stitches and having to pull rows back out.  (This piece definitely has the highest profanity count of any cross-stitch I&#8217;ve ever done.)<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The hand-dyed floss is gorgeous, with subtle variegation and colors that aren&#8217;t as harsh as many commercial brands.  However, the variegation tended to be a problem with the small size of the elements.  In particular the &#8220;Thyme&#8221; color&#8211;a mixture of grey and green&#8211;gave me trouble because the floss would change noticeably from grey to green about halfway through the row.<\/p>\n<p>All of that being said, I really do like the richness that the hand-dyeing gives to the piece, and the tiny stitches make it look old-fashioned and elegant.  The pattern itself is great (and the same company has loads of others in the same mold), and if you don&#8217;t have the patience for little fiddly stitches you could always use linen with a lower thread count.  One or two of the elements would also be cute stitched onto clothing as an accent.<\/p>\n<p>If you enjoy cross-stitch, I&#8217;d definitely recommend these guys.<\/p>\n<p>Bonus link: Check out the awesome new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.picturethisplus.com\/html\/news.html\">Headless Horseman<\/a> pattern at Picture This Plus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I ran across a mention of the Primitive Needle on another blog (whose link I can&#8217;t find now, so I apologize for not giving credit wherever it&#8217;s due) and liked the country\/vintage look of their patterns so much I decided to give them a try. I chose the Hallow Sampler, which recommended floss and linen [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doom-it-yourself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3441"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5162,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3441\/revisions\/5162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shadowmanor.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}