Flaunt or Flout?
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I am reading this amazing book. It is hard going but every so often I pick it up and struggle to read 5 or 10 pages. It is called *STYLE, Lessons in Clarity and Grace* by Joseph M. Williams. 9th edition.
While this could apply to many areas of my life where I clearly lack clarity and grace this book is about writing. The examples used in this book, of right and wrong writing, all come from books on grammar, english language usage, etc. It is a confusing and fascinating book.
I am learning things and I am learning that some of the things I do and write are unnecessary. Mr. Williams says that many of the so called rules we try to keep to when writing are *folklore* and not rules at all and some are just made up annoyances, not useful or true at all.
This evening, while reading this book, I laughed out loud. Laughed at something written in a book about writing.
With all due credit and apologies to Mr. Williams I quote.
“A few words are so often confused with others that careful readers are likely to note your careful usage when you correctly distinguish them – flaunt and flout, for example.
When you use them correctly, those who think the difference matters are likely to note that at least you know that flaunt means *to display conspicuously* and that flout means *to scorn a rule or standard*.
Thus if you chose to scorn the rule about flaunt and flout, you would not flout your flaunting it, but flaunt your flouting it”
I swear, I choked with laughter so I am going to spend this blog post flaunting and flouting. This should be fun.
Ok, first I flaunt. I love art. I have some wonderful pieces of original art. Needless to say, I can’t buy a Reubens or Vermeer or such but I can and used to buy the original works of local and up-and-coming artists. This was before the economy went down the toilet, of course.
I bought watercolors, pastels, oils, photographs…I love them. They say you should buy what you love and not as investment so I bought what I loved. This is my favorite, it hangs above my desk. it is a small oil by Margaret Gerding
Next up, I am from Boston. For many years I lived in the outer exurbs of Boston, usually a house with a few acres around it. I loved to garden. This is an iris I grew.
This is a peony just about to open
And this is a David Austen English Rose
I loved gardening, but then I was so sick for so long……I never again had the strength or balance for the work of gardening after that.
Before I began my needlepoint web store I did needlepoint for myself and to give as gifts. There was something about giving someone a needlepoint I had done. I put so much of myself into each one and they take so long to do, they become a part of me. Giving it as a gift was like putting a bit of me in their home. I know, weird, but it felt like that.
This is a Maggie & Co graphic I did before it was blocked and made into a pillow. I gave this to my friend Katherine.
Now, on to flout. This one should be easy. There is a school of thought that most things I have done in my misguided life (before now, of course) was flouting something or someone. I think that is a grievous exaggeration (nice phrase huh?).
I suppose the whole concept of Color-Choice needlepoint is something of a flout. I am going against the accepted standard of needlepoint canvases painted or printed with colors which one is to stitch, as is.
I am also trying to make Bargello Needlepoint more accessible. I always thought it was some terribly difficult thing that only the creme’ de la creme’ of needlepoint masters could achieve. Now I realize it is really, if not simple, not frightening or impossible either.
Below are a few needlepoint designs I could just not make work. We put them on canvas, one of them more than once, but no matter how good the pictures look the needlepoint canvases were a disaster.
These stylized tulips should have been terrific. A better word for the canvas drawn from them is awful.
This one looked pretty good on canvas until I photographed it. Then, out it went. The many dark lines used for the vines were ugly and bad. Just bad.
I am almost done. This is the very first needlepoint I ever designed. The saying comes from the title of a wonderful book by Sharyn McCrumb. I paid someone to draw this for me. She wanted to do a *nice floral border*. I said no, I wanted the bars on a jail cell with hearts at the corners. In retrospect, I wish I had made the hearts larger, inside the border at the corners but it is as it is.
Some people find this a disturbing pillow. Some love it, some look at it and me strangely.
Oddly enough, that pretty much sums up my life, so far. Some love me, many look at me strangely. But in a world that has fields of flowers like this, what difference does it make?
Time Out
I have been going, going, going since the new year. there is so much work and detail involved in opening a web store. I thought it would be easy, make some nice product, take some nice pictures, write some good stuff and Bob’s Your Uncle!.
Nope, there is so much detail, this, that and the other. The process to list one single item on an already established web site (setting up a site is a whole other rant) is like this…..as they say: from the beginning
1) have an idea for a design/find a picture and adapt it/create a collage
2) decide what size, canvas mesh, the design will be best on
3) print the original in the appropriate size or create the collage
4) machine hem the edges of the canvas (this is out of actual order but it belongs here, I do a bunch of these at once. If NewNeedlepoint ever becomes successful at all, this is the first chore I am hiring out, the hemming of cut canvas)
5) nag husband to trace design on to canvas
6) nag husband again…repeat as needed
7) if not color-choice, decide to use wool or Pearle Cotton, pick colors for design and list where each color goes on the design
8 ) mark color use guide with color numbers
9) photograph canvas, threads, source picture etc etc etc
10) upload pictures to editing site, adjust, fix and crop. Custom size pictures based on where they will be posted
11) download and name pictures
12) write text
13) post pictures and text to web site (not as simple as it sounds, each picture besides the first one has to be uploaded to a mirror site and then individually placed and downloaded into the text)
14) create keywords title
15) create main keywords specific to this item
16) write search engine item text linked to keywords
17) price each part of the piece and time to make it, set sell price
18) upload to web site
19) add to sale inventory
Wow, it is even scarier when listed this way. Sometimes it is better to not know exactly how hard things really are to do. Better to just do them.
What I am getting to now is that the first batch of items is now up on NewNeedlepoint.com, the keywords are placed and this blog exists. I now have a little breathing space to do things like taxes, sleep, leave the house (Really?? I can go out??!).
I have more kits I want to add and will always be adding new Bargello patterns but the basic bones are there now. Now it is just the waiting.
I am told it can take up to a year for a new web site to get active, if it ever does. This is not really out of line with established retail practice. I have read that you should have the money to live for 1-2 years when starting a new retail business (as in a real store). I guess a retail web site is not that different, maybe easier really. I do not have to pay rent and utilities and be there all day, hoping someone opens the door. I think that would be difficult to get through.
I am just beginning to be excited by the stitching I am doing, the pressure is lightened and I find I am thinking about my own, private needlepoint projects, they have been sitting patiently in their Claire Sanchez bags (nice plug wasn’t it?) waiting for me to get to them.
I was working on an Agam adaptation piece for a picture for my mother. She admires the work of Agam. I am doing an ongoing series of big pillows using Susan Treglown’s opitical graphic canvases (with the colors changed some) for my living room. A French provincial rooster canvas for my family room (I have a few very, very large ceramic roosters on top of my kitchen cabinets under high ceilings) and finally a very 18th century looking muted floral wreath with the quote *THE CHEESE STANDS ALONE* in the center. I love that saying.
I am stitching one of my own NewNeedlepoint canvases The Love Kanji for myself. I am doing a smaller one on 16 mesh with DMC Pearle Cotton.
I have always done a bunch of projects at the same time, sometimes I put one down for as much as a year. I mostly come back and finish them but sometimes I don’t.
Like most of us, I have a pile of canvases I have bought to stitch that I will never get to. Sometimes I think starting this needlepoint web site was just an excuse so I could buy tons and tons of colors in Paternayan Wool and DMC Pearle Cotton. I have to admit it is terrific to just pop into my workroom and take a skein from the case when I need a color. No more emergency trips to a needlepoint store only to be told they are out of that color (or it is discontinued or something).
I sometimes look at my wall of colors and feel very satisfied. I bet every single stitcher out there knows just what I mean.
Are some of the handpainted canvases I am selling on NewNeedlepoint.com ones I bought to do myself? Yes, indeed, as well as Patt & Lee’s Cat with his Coffee canvas. Buying that cat canvas was how I first found Patt & Lee. However, there are still a number of them I will not even consider selling.
I ask myself why, when I can now make almost any design, in any size or colors to stitch, do I want to keep these other canvases? I think the answer is sometimes I want to stitch someone else’s ideas besides my own.
I don’t think I will ever finish all the partially done needlepoints I have now. I am pretty sure I will finish most of them eventually but the whole concept of *needlepoint time* has changed now.
It is true, no matter how much we resist it, for every step forward we take, something is left behind and lost. Always.
4-Way Bargello
As I learn Bargello Needlepoint, I find I am in a whole new territory, needlepoint-wise. I am used to having a set design before me, be it a designed canvas or one of my own. When stitching, I often change colors and design elements but it is still what was there, more or less.
Bargello Needlepoint is something else, completely something else. You start with a blank canvas. You often have a center point marked or maybe a few lines drawn for multiple centers in 4-Way Bargello but that is it.
In front of you is this chart. How easy it is to read and use this chart depends on many factors, from the needlepoint skill of the chart designer to the number of colors used to designate changes in color or pattern. The very hardest to read are the all one color charts. Subtle graduations in the strength of a color to mark a chart are a killer.
The hardest Bargello pattern I ever tired to stitch from was a chart with the lines in shades of blue on a pale blue background. That one never did get finished.
So…I am teaching myself Bargello. In the last few days I did my second 4-Way Bargello. The first was ultra simple and came out just barely passable. This one came out great, until I stitched 4 lines beyond the mitered corner. The mitre was bad. A few days worth of work, wasted, or maybe not wasted. Maybe I learned something, then again maybe I did not learn something. Maybe I am not going to be able to do the math needed for perfect 4-Way Bargello. We shall see.
This is my first pass at the new 4-Way Bargello
As you can see, I just learned that on 14 mesh canvas, you need 3 strands of Paternayan wool to cover correctly not 2. This is just too thin.
Ok, next try
This is good. The colors are great on the cream colored Zweigart 14 mesh canvas. I like them alot, I like the effect, I like it.
BUT (big but here) the mitered corner is not good. Just one or 2 threads not lined up perfectly screws this pooch.
So, I am going to try again. I think this time I will use these same colors but on a black needlepoint canvas.
I did this one while visiting my parents the weekend before last. My background is a family owned clothing business. My Father has a talent for color, he did quite a bit of the designing. Of course, he is retired now but he says maybe I have inherited a little bit of his color ability. This is about as fullsome as his praise gets so I am gratified.
These colors are unusual but I think they work. I think I have mentioned before. Either the color combinations just *work*, they come together easily and look great or I struggle with them. I re-think and re-think the colors, I change them elements over and over until it get mostly right. I think the ones I struggle with, while they may be pretty good in the end, are not as good as the ones that just come easily. The ones that flow to use an ancient hippie terminology.
The actual Bargello stitching is fun. One you get your establishing line done you can cruise along. The exception to this is, of course, the advanced or very advanced Bargello patterns. Some (many) of those require stitch length changes within the pattern. Those you have to watch and count carefully, line after line.
The result of of all that extra counting is spectacular
I am making progress. I am surprised at the difference between Bargello in wool and Bargello in #5 Pearle cotton floss. I knew there would be a difference but I was not prepared for how much of a difference.
The wool is softer, deeper looking, not richer so much as the colors meet and change with no hard edges. Not at all architectural.
The DMC #5 Pearle Cotton I love and use so much has a different effect. the Bargello looks more modern, the colors have a light sheen and the edges, the changes from color to color are very clear and sharp. This Bargello has a strong architectural feel to it. Some times it looks very Art Deco to me, while the wool does not. Interesting stuff.
To revert to some former posts.
Yes, after some prodding and the threat of a PayPal action against them, BedBathStore.com refunded my money.
My blog worm has tried a second time to get me to let his blog post “question”. I figure he is trying to get me to post his question in my blog so people will click on it (everyone but me wants free ring tones) and go to his site where he can plant a virus on them. Ha Ha to him, I use a mac and am more or less virus immune. (I love my macs, I do have one PC, I avoid using it whenever possible).
Little does he know, so far I do not think anyone has seen these blog posts but me. I wonder if my tone and approach will/would change when/if anyone ever begins to read this blog besides me and maybe Zac, my wonderful website tech (and even him not very much, he is a busy young guy, not an old semi-fogey like me with time to do this stuff).
worm holes
When buying antique furniture (not that I have ever bought any, I inherited the few pieces I have) I have read that worm holes and worm tracks are good things, they tell you the piece is truly aged.
I have also read that some people beat repo pieces of furniture with chains etc to copy this look. This is off the subject but my poor pitiful little blog has just received it’s first response.
It was the oddest thing. It was somebody saying they were new to my blog, apologizing for asking this beyond odd question about a ring tones web site. hmmmmm.
Well, as the last semi-competent person out there who is not attached to their cell phone (I only turn it on when I need it and have no idea what it’s number is) I found this odd, odd odd.
I traced it back and found something, something abuse, something, something as the writers name, so I refused *permission* to post it and deleted the little worm.
I wonder why anyone would even take the time to try to mess up a puny little needlepoint web site blog. I mean, it is not like I am doing anything critical here. I am hardly a web god. I am just me trying to sell my idea of needlepoint in the 21st century.
Oh well, On the same page, I finally got my first ever communication generated from my web site. This nice person complemented my web site and then asked me how I liked the company I paid to develop my web site for me.
Talk about letting the air out of a big balloon. So, it is nice to know someone has seen NewNeedlepoint.com. I do not give up easily (except on some men, as I have noted elsewhere).
So, here I am. I have finally added all the keywords, that is a daunting task. I am now going over them all again, correcting the lamer ones I did at first.
When I finish I have some excellent new kits to add to the web site. I am trying some larger formats, bigger canvases. I personally love to stitch large canvases, then I make huge wonderful pillows from them.
Then again, I stitch what is considered quickly. I can’t even imagine the 1 year per project people. Then again, they persist, don’t they?
I have finally received the colored Zweigart needlepoint canvas I ordered back at the beginning of time (in web site time, of course). I was shipped the 14 mesh first, while that is nice and I am working on ideas for designs for it, it was something of a disappointment. The 14 mesh colored canvas is limited to Paternayan Wool bargello or wall art needlepoint. You can’t leave bare canvas areas on a piece meant to be a pillow
I found this terrific out-of-print book Free Form Bargello. It poses an original idea to design needlepoint using some of the ideas used in modern art. Jackson Pollock needlepoint YES!.
This concept uses quite a bit of unstitched canvas areas and the colored canvas is the thing for it.
On Thursday I was sent the 18 mesh colored Zweigart Needlepoint Canvas that had been on order for so long. The colors are lovely, more interesting and subtle then those used in the 14 mesh. I am working at a fever pace, I want to clear my *work space*, that limited place in my mind where I create things, to begin designing 4 way bargello for the new 18 mesh colored canvas.
That is what I wanted it for. This might take a while, since I am still struggling to learn 4- Way Bargello.
Meanwhile, I can stick one of my favorite needlepoint pillows in here. It is a very small pillow but it is all there.
More later, I do hope someone, someday sees all this.
Books &….
Since I first imagined my web store I have been working, working , working on it. It has taken 10+ months to create the merchandise, build the store and launch it.
During that time I have pretty much stopped doing my own personal needlepoint. I stitch samples and Bargello samples of patterns and colors people can order.
My web site tech wants me to talk about the specifics of needlepoint but I have always been something of a rebel, I always want to do the opposite of what I am told to do.
This has had mixed (at best) results in my life but it does keep me from being a nauseatingly perfect person.
I want to talk about books, I will add Needlepoint books, to placate Zac The Tech (I am fond of him). I have not had much formal schooling. It was all I could do to stay awake in school. My reports used to say I was not working to my potential (yeah, right).
I have learned almost everything I know from books.
I have always been a reader. I was raised by reader parents (one can forgive much to parents who encouraged me to read). I was also not censored, so along with my Nancy Drew and Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales (and nasty fairy tales they were too) I read all my parents adult books and quite a bit of my father’s much loved science fiction collections.
I have since learned there are not that many girls out there raised on science fiction, especially in it’s heyday, the 1950’s and 1960’s.
Along with fiction, I buy lots of How To books. Not of the “Im’s Ok, You’re OK” genre (or as I prefer I’m OK, You’re Not). I read books on how to sew and learned. In my hippie years I made one of a kind hippie clothes and sold them.
I read books on embroidery and clothing embellishment, I decorated the clothes I made.
I read cookbooks, I learned how to cook (more or less, my son is a chef, I think in reaction to my miserable cooking).
I read home repair books and learned to fix up my houses
I read books on style and fashion and learned how to be a very stylish fat fashionista (I look good!)
I read books on needlepoint and learned how to stitch
I read books on needlepoint stitches and learned to do decorative stitches
I read books on color and color theory and became obsessed with color
I read more and more books on needlepoint, I became pretty good.
I ended up with many books on needlepoint. A few were useless, a few were ok. the best were Margaret Boyles books, Dorothy Kaestner books and my first stitch book “Stitch Sampler” by Lucinda Ganderton.
Now, I bet in addition to all the needlepoint books which include stitches, I have 5 books that are just of stitches. Of these, Stitch Sampler, while far from the most comprehensive, has the clearest directions besides being a handsome book.
Then I decided to open newneedlepoint.com
I read books on needlepoint design
I read books on marketing
I am currently reading a book on writing with clarity and style, let’s hope it helps.
I wanted to add Bargello Needlepoint to my new fledging web site but I had never done it. I think I was intimidated by Bargello in a way I never was by needlepoint.
It was relatively easy to make the transition from printed or hand painted needlepoint canvases to my own line drawn designs. I had no trouble designing the colors for these new canvases, In fact, I loved it but Bargello….
Bargello starts with a blank canvas or at best, a canvas with a few straight lines drawn on it to establish a center. I bought a lot of books on Bargello. First I had to wade through all the books on Bargello Quilts. I had no idea such a thing existed but it does.
I soon learned to type *needlepoint bargello* into any searches.
I bought Bargello Books, I bet I have 15 of them by now. Some were useless except as pretty picture books, some were just stupid and one of them I have yet to figure out what it is.
The best are, again, Margaret Boyles and Dorothy Kaestner. Check out Dorothy Kaestners 4 Way Bargello, incredible. There is another good one, Traditional Bargello by Dorothy Phelan. These are all great books.
I went from my first level 1 Bargello (ripples) to a level 3 Bargello in about 6 months. As I learn the patterns, I eventually stitch one good enough that I add that pattern to my web site offerings. I am a work in progress, to be sure.
I belong to the ANC. I know their emphasis is on seminars and on-line classes etc. I disagree, I wish they would publish books (or more books) with these instructions instead of tedious classes or impossible to get to (and expensive) seminars.
I still fear being able to stay awake for classes. My web site tech sent me to an on-line class on building my web site. There were 14 students, we were all muted. I fell asleep 3/4 of the way into the class. After laughing at me (nicely) he nows does classes with me during my weekly tech support sessions.
So, books. More unasked for advice. I have learned that used book sellers do not speak the same language the rest of us do. It looks and sounds like english but the meanings are different.
For example, *like new* really means not falling apart…yet,
*very good* means starting to fall apart and quite stained, *good* means in the act of falling apart, stained and smelly, and *acceptible*. I do not know what acceptible means, I am not that brave.
I have begun doing reviews on amazon.com, where I get most of these books. No one reviews these used books and there is zero information about them out there so I am writing reviews and encouraging others to do the same. There are a few books I have bought that I would not have, had anyone told me what I am telling them in my reviews.
So, I have followed *the letter of the law* and talked about one aspect of needlepoint, just not the ones Zac wanted me to.
Now I get to rant on my own. Has anyone else noticed that customer service is getting worse? The economy is so bad that you would think that stores, web sites and services would be bending over backwards to serve us and treat us well.
I find the opposite is happening. Everybody is greedy, once they have their hooks into you they do not want to let go.
I have had some odd experiences recently.
I have a small car loan. I adjusted my car insurance levels, which were VERY high. The bank holding the loan decided I had cancelled the insurance, when notified of the changes by the insurance co.
They began to threaten me that if I did not get insurance they would make me buy car insurance from their own company at $160 a month (for insurance that benefited only them).
I sent them proof of my insurance, my insurance co sent them proof, my insurance agent sent them proof. They claimed not to have received any of it. They began charging me. Only when I asked for my payoff number did they offer to try to settle this. By then I had had enough. I refinanced, at a lower rate too. This was Huntington Bank.
Another one. I ordered 3 coverlets from an on-line store , BedBathStore.com. As an online merchant myself, I do most of my shopping, except grocery, on line.
2 1/2 weeks passed and no delivery. The order form said all were in stock and would ship within 3 days. I am careful to not knowingly order something backordered, many years ago Victoria’s Secret sent me a backorder almost a year after I ordered it. I had forgotten it completely.
So, I e-mailed them. I got a prompt enough answer “one item was not available, did I want to wait for it?” I responded, you held this order all this time, without trying to contact me in any way? The answer was obviously Yes. I cancelled the order and stopped reading their emails (I often do not read emails that I know contain bullsh_t).
UPDATE: They have not yet refunded my payment, I bet they never do.
Last one, BTW, these are all in the last few weeks. I made an appointment at a new local nail salon for a manicure & a pedicure for 11am. I confirmed this appointment, all ok. I got there on the appointed day & time to be told they did not have anyone for me, I could wait.
It seems they had taken walk-ins instead of me at my appointed time (note:I was exactly on time). Needless to say, I did not wait.
Are us customers and the pitiful remnants of our money really worth so little to these merchants? I guess so.
When I was an eBay seller, I had way over 1000 feedbacks, 100% satisfaction from my customers. I was often told that an honest, trustworthy seller was a rarity on eBay.
It is my intention to be the same on my needlepoint web site, assuming I ever have any customers, that is.
Moving Along
I was already pretty good at needlepoint when I began preparing to open my web store. I am not the world’s best fancy stitcher, I have little patience with overly fussy decorative stitches but what I love to do, I do well. ( I suspect, as usual, I am out of step with the mainstream of needlepointers, everyone seems to be into these ultra fancy stitches these days). I love the color, the texture, the effect of the things I stitch. My plain stitch is quite good and I am not bad at some of the simpler background and fill-in stitches.
I had always admired Bargello Neeedlepoint but never tried it. I think I was intimidated.
Bargello requires you to work from nothing more then a graphed chart, there was no printed pattern, no pre-set color chart or choices to use or ignore. Bargello is just you and a blank canvas. Once I began designing my own needlepoint canvases, I became less in awe of the whole blank canvas challenge. I was ready to try Bargello.
There are few current needlepoint books out there about Bargello. First I had to wade through all the books about Bargello Quilts. I had no idea such a thing even existed. I soon learned to type *Bargello Needlepoint* in to my searches instead of just *Bargello*. I found some books. The few books I found were not very helpful. I bought the Joyce Petschek’s book *Beautiful Bargello* but it was no help. A pretty book of pictures but no help. I bought Bargello Revisted by Janet Perry, hmmmm.
I began buying out of print books. I discovered Margaret Boyles’ and Dorothy Kaestner’s fine books (there are many of them).
This was the first Bargello I did. It was harder then you think.
This was my second
And this was my third pattern. The red one was not a success
They came out mostly ok, not perfect but ok. I was all fired up. Admittedly, these were all level 1 or easy (relatively speaking) but I stitched on.
The next series was a pattern I was hot to do. it was not so good. I must have pulled out the stitches a zillion times. I re-did them and re-did them. I do not give up easily (except on men/lol).
finally I did one that was not too bad. I tried a wool one
I was stuck on this color combination. I lost count of the times I re-stitched this, in the end I did not use it. It is just sad.
Eventually I got better at this:
Ok, I thought I was pretty good. Moved to Level 2’s
Then I came to 4 Square Bargello. YIKES
You have to count, you have to be exact, mitred corners YIKES!
I am currently stitching these and the advanced category. I have not even peeked at the super duper advanced category yet.
This is hard, I have total respect for the people who have mastered this, I struggle on.
Meanwhile, back at the virtual ranch. No one has been to my lovely web site yet. My mother calls every day and asks me if I have made any sales yet.
I have managed to get my father to stop asking that (at least daily) in his daily call but my mother is a harder nut to crack.
I explain about keywords, I explain about search engines. I might as well be speaking Mandarin Chinese. So, she asks, how do I get people to find my web site? Good Question. Short of running around various malls and accosting people and asking them to go to NewNeedlepoint.com there is not much I can do right now.
It is up to me to practice Zen Patience. Oh My.
I found this terrific web site today talking about the different buddhist practices. They all sound lovely.
Then I found one talking about the Zen Of Not Knowing. Bingo! that is me in a nutshell. The person who invented it has this whole process where you send him index cards of things you do. He/She/It will shuffle the cards and send them back to every so often.
You are free to do or not do the things on the cards, the things you have written. I am deeply curious about this person. I think the Zen Of Not Knowing is the essential Zen discipline. I know how little I know, I know I know less every day, not even including the things I have forgotten.
Sometimes I am surprised by the length of the list of things and people and places I have forgotten. And those are just the ones I remember I have forgotten. What about the knowlege, the people, the experiences I have forgotten I have forgotten.
Interesting, if like me, you are basically nuts.
