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Upcoming Candle Company Shows

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scented chocolate strawberry candle Artwax offers many detailed fruit and vegetable candles but their scented chocolate dipped candles are my favorite. They also have great apple, pear, eggplant and pepper candles. The apple candles look very realistic and would make a great gift for a teacher. Artwax also has handmade bakery candles, floating flowers, wedding favors and candle holders.

The locations of Artwax.com shows:

  1. July 13-17 at Atlanta International Gift & Home Furnishings Market
  2. August 12-15 at New York International Gift Fair
  3. September 15-18 at Boston Convention & Exhibition Center

Racoon River Candle Company creates their candles with natural soy wax, scents and dyes. They also have a line of bath and body products made with goats milk, shea butter and other natural ingredients. You can purchase their products online or check out their upcoming shows in person held in Iowa. Some dates and locations of Racoon River Candle Company’s events:

  1. Craft Show at Iowa State Fairgrounds, Friday September 21-23
  2. Cedar Falls Craft Show at the UNI dome, October 20-21

buy u candles mason jarBuy U Candles are highly scented, hand poured and last for hours. Their shop is located between Welsh and Lacassine, Louisiana. Buy U Candles and gift baskets are very reasonably priced and triple scented. They also have an online store showcasing their products. Buy U Candles just had an event at the Gator Guns and Knives Show but will be appearing again at the Civic Center  in Patterson, Louisiana from August 4-5. Next shows to be announced so check in with their website.

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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]