This week’s question came in the form of a lovely note I received in my email from Madeline. I won’t paste the whole note here, but her question was about spot cleaning linen …

What do you use on linen to spot clean it? I don’t intend to submerge the entire stitchery in water for fear of the colors running. What can I use to clean some of the soil that accumulated where the roll bars were? Is there something at Hobby Lobby that is specific to safely cleaning linen or do I just use very cold water with some Woolite and a little brush?

Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Always a good question. We’ve talked about cleaning finished stitching here before and it’s always a good topic to discuss in regards to stitching because there are so many different options and everyone has their own preferred way of cleaning their finished pieces and washing away any stains that might have occurred during the project. [Read more...]

This week’s stitchqueries comes from Jolande about washing a finished piece of cross stitch…

I have stitched Girl With A Pearl Earring on Black Aïda. I would like to know if it is safe to wash my ‘masterpiece’ with detergent, before it will be framed.

Washing or not before you frame is up to you, some people always wash their finishes and some people never wash them.

There’s an article about what type of soaps and detergents to use here: Washing Your Finished Cross Stitch Piece. That might help a bit. [Read more...]

This week’s Stitchquery comes from me! It’s my turn to ask you a question

I love a good podcast. I was looking at my current subscriptions and I suddenly realized none of them are stitching related. I have business podcasts of all sorts, and a few fun podcasts, and a few geeky podcasts, but not a single cross stitch podcast in my listening file.

I went looking for some and I’m coming up with an empty basket here. [Read more...]

This week’s stitchquery comes from Mary about some old stash she has waiting in the wings.

I’ve been away from doing cross-stitch for some time and am wondering how old is too old when it comes to the quality of floss. I’ve had some of my floss stash since the early ’80′s, kept clean and dry in a plastic covered bin.

Should I just toss it and buy new?

Good question, Mary. In this case it sounds like the floss was well stored so my advice is to just dig in and enjoy it! As long as the floss hasn’t been damaged in any way by moths, moisture, or other elements of storage you’re all set. [Read more...]

This question came to my email from Lisa about stitching on Cashel Linen.

Hi, Loretta. When you were stitching your snowflake pattern you twice mentioned that Cashel was not your favorite fabric choice, but you were using it from your existing stash. I’m new to evenweave/linen stitching and mostly just curious if there is a reason you don’t like the Cashel fabrics and if maybe I should avoid them in my stitching projects?

Good question. It’s really just personal preference on my part.

While I’m happy to stitch on just about any evenweave or linen fabric, Cashel is probably among my least favorite. I just find it to be very thin and have too many uneven threads [Read more...]