I try to write about variety in technology but sometimes something comes out of the left field and really shocks me. Today, I am going to talk about something that was totally unexpected from Mabel in Va. Beach with regard to something that has been around since 600BC (check out a history of cross stitching here, dblclx.com/cstitch).
Mabel is a stitchery pro. She has been an embroidering, weaving, crocheting, cross-stitching professional for many, many, many years. Those "many" words are her words, not mine. Now, you are thinking, "Ron, what is wrong with you? This should be a technology article…what is going on here – cross stitching?"
Well, here goes a short story of why I care anything about cross-stitching. About a million years ago, the late 1980s, I had a high-stress job and tried different ways to relax. Now, one of the hobbies I tried was cross-stitching and the other racquetball. Yes, I admit the first one; however, I have not continued either in recent times. One thing I was very good at was creating patterns for co-workers of which Mable was one. She and they would give me simple patterns, pictures, company logos, etc. and I would convert them to stitchery patterns on a piece of graph paper. More detailed stress relief.
Recently, she found me on Facebook and contacted me. I figured she just wanted to let me know that the previous patterns I had worked on for her over the years were very nice and she was still using them. I had worked on them for weeks, maybe months to finish them for the cross-stitchers. How nice – I thought she was just reaching back over the years and thanking me. Well, not quite.
She did comment on all the patterns I had done over the years. And how my skills had been replaced by…you guessed it, an online website! She told me that there are several out there but the one she and her cross-stitching friends prefer is called Pixel Stitch. It is an easy website to navigate and use. Go to Pixel-Stitch.net to get started.
If you are adventurous as some of my readers are, all you do is click on the blue bar at the top of the page that is labeled, "Get started and select a picture…". You could also scroll to the bottom of the page and click the "For detailed instructions click here" link and get step-by-step instructions. Once you click the blue bar, locate the picture that you have on your computer, select it and it will be uploaded to the site. The picture will appear on the next screen. Above the picture you will have four features that you can set for the pattern that will be created.
You can choose Width, (number of stitches) Number of colors, the color palette you want to use like DMC and the pattern style, i.e., symbols or colors to show the stitches. Once chosen, click "Create Embroidery Pattern" box and in a few seconds, you will have a better cross-stitch pattern, clearer and created for you in seconds that you can download and get started on. It used to take a geek many, many, many hours to do anything like what this site does.
|
|
 |
You may also register at DoubleClicksLive.com for upcoming FREE Google Classes.
