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Fused Glass Business Holder

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This blogging on Craft Gossip is getting expensive!  I have to keep up on all the latest glassy goodness you know, and that means test driving the handcrafted products I come across so I can review them.

The above is a fused business card holder from Glass Junkie on Etsy, who is also a lampworker.  How anyone finds time to do both and sell online too, I’ll never know.

But anyway, I can’t really review the item because I haven’t gotten it yet.  I was so excited about it I just had to come and tell you!  I ordered a green one.  I emailed her to let her know that it is the perfect addition to my studio for my upcoming open studio show.  I would live in a glass house with glass furniture and everything else glass if I could.  I want it everywhere around me!

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Do You Park Your Cross Stitch Thread? Try The Royal Roads Method

I have not done a lot of big cross stitch projects, but sometimes even with small projects it can be hard to decide exactly where to begin and how to work through the chart if you’re working with multiple colors. The general categories for the possible methods are known as cross country and parking. 

Cross country means that you’re working one color at a time, moving around the chart (or the section of the chart you’re working on) until you’re done with that color. Parking means you’re working in a smaller section and doing all the colors in that area, “parking” the threads by leaving them attached to the canvas but out of the way while you finish each section. 

Royal Rows is a specific way of parking named by Alison Royal, which is explored in detail on a post on Stitching Daily. 

The idea is that you’re working one “tower” of stitches at a time (she uses a section of 10 stitches across by 20 down, but you can do whatever makes sense to you). You work all the stitches of a color at a time, starting at the top left and working your way down. When you’re done with a color you can park it where needed in the section below your current tower (known as the dungeon) or in the “east tower,” which is the section to the right. 

There’s also a specific way of dealing with thread ends when you’re done with a color. This is a super simplified version (head to the blog post at Stitching Daily to get all the details) but the basic idea is that you’re working from left to right and top to bottom across the work, parking the threads in the next section when you’re done with them and systematically choosing which color to work with next. 

The whole idea of parking is kind of overwhelming to me though I will admit that it makes a lot of sense. I guess I need to try it on a smallish big project and see how it goes. Do you use the parking method of cross stitch? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Stitching Daily]