Ordering from Amazon...

amazon.com is evil. Perhaps you should check www.bn.com (Barnes and Noble).

I refuse to order from Amazon after I tried to get a cross stitch book from them. The form for the book said the book was available, in stock, and would ship within 3 days. After 3 months of repeated promises that it would be there in 2 weeks, waiting 3 weeks, asking where the heck my book was, and being told that that book didn't actually exist, or wasn't printed yet despite the fact that I knew 3 other people who had ordered that book from them AFTER I did and gotten it (depending on the customer service person), they finally sent me an e-mail telling me how to cancel my order. I figured that was a hint, ordered it from Barnes and Noble, and had it in 3 days.

I know a few other people who had a similar problem with Amazon, and that's not even trying to order out of country... if at all possible get your book somewhere else, if you ever actually want to see your book. The fact they say they have it doesn't mean they actually do, apparently.

-fel

[edited by - felisandria on January 30, 2003 11:18:56 AM]

I''ve ordered lots of stuff from Amazon, and had no trouble whatsoever. Sometimes the books even show up BEFORE I expected them to. As for ordering out of country, I have no experience there.

-----------------------------------------------
Mass production is a great way to make cars, not people. - Korvan

Amazon rocks. Books are cheap, usually arrive 2-3 days before the estimated time of arrival, and their customer service can''t be beaten. When a DVD arrived without a booklet, they sent me the same DVD (worth €30) again (including case, both discs, and booklet), free of charge. When I offered to return the first DVD, they told me to keep it and donate it to someone, if I liked. I have yet to see service like that topped by any other company.

If they''re that good with international orders, I can''t imagine how good they must be when you order from within the same country.

Anyway, as for international ordering: I live in the Netherlands and often order from both UK and US. Both work fine. As for the postal code... Try leaving it blank. And did you set "country" to United States?

Maybe the hint they were trying to give you was to get a new hobby.

I've had no problems getting stuff from Amazon. However, I'm still waiting on a $130 rebate for my cell phone which is supposed to show up at rebatestatus.com or whatever but hasn't yet. -edit- It's there now, whoohoo -/edit-

My cell phone was $80 but I got $180 in total rebates from Amazon and AT&T

Ben


IcarusIndie.com [ The Labyrinth | DevZone | Indie Mail | Hosting | Tiberian Merchandise | GameShot | Fun With Cutouts ]

[edited by - KalvinB on January 30, 2003 11:47:27 AM]

New hobby? When I can do things like this?

and this?

and my latest project, which I have about a third done, but will look like this when I''m done?


-fel

If I leave the postcode field blank, it gives me an error. And yes, I set the country to the US.

Thanks for the replies.

Yep. It looks like you definitly need something that will challenge you more. Like blacksmithing.

Ben


IcarusIndie.com [ The Labyrinth | DevZone | Indie Mail | Hosting | Tiberian Merchandise | GameShot | Fun With Cutouts ]

I grew up on a farm, metalworking isn''t something I''m not capable of. If I had room, I would definitely have my welder out... but that won''t happen until I get a house this summer... then maybe I can take up chain mail making with my husband between refitting his Scout II. I already have the anvil and hammers, and welder, all I really need is a cutting torch and a forge.

Cross stitch isn''t supposed to be all that challenging... it''s soothing. Recent medical studies have shown that while doing repetitive handcrafts people tend to enter a meditative state. /nod

-fel

quote:

---

Original post by Khaos
If I leave the postcode field blank, it gives me an error. And yes, I set the country to the US.

---

Whenever I order anything from a site based in the US, usually the instructions are to use my Uk postcode for the zip code. I''m not sure totally on how interchangable the two are, but if theres a box to choose the country, this seems to be the usual way of doing things..

Thats not as bad as whats currently happening to me. I purchased "Game Scripting Mastery" about a month ago from the Canadian store, on the 26th of December, its release date. Today, the status is still "Not Yet Released."

See the Injustice here!




By the way, I was looking at the .com one, and I was looking at "Advanced Animation with DirectX." I spotted a part of the page that said:

Customers who wear clothes also shop for:
Clean Underwear from Amazon's Target Store
Ladybug Rain Boots from Amazon's Nordstrom Store
Pet Socks from Amazon's Urban Outfitters Store
Helicopter Sleepwear Sets for Baby from Amazon's Old Navy Store


[edited by - evergrowgames on January 30, 2003 1:07:17 PM]

[edited by - evergrowgames on January 30, 2003 1:13:43 PM]

quote:

---

Original post by felisandria
Recent medical studies have shown that while doing repetitive handcrafts people tend to enter a meditative state. /nod

---

Yes, I too often get very relaxed after repetitive hand motions.

most excellent work fel

how big (length x width) is your average piece?

My parents ordered Effective C++ for me, as a Christmas gift, from amazon.com. Unforunately, the incompetent Postal Service lost (or stole) the book. Fortunately, the kind people at amazon.com offered to send another book free of charge (even shipping), in order to keep us happy. Kudos to them!

Wolf:

Enchanter (top one) is 11"x17", and is 164x230 stitches in linen for a total of about 37,720 stitches (not counting beading and backstitching).

Fantasy Triptych (middle one) is about 12"x18", not nearly as many stitches because the white part isn''t stiched.

Celestial Dragon (bottom one) is 13"x17". The fun part on that will be all those little blue dots in the background... they''re all tiny little glass seed beads, in clusters of 4 per intersection. It has a lot of stitches because the corner chinese letters are all done in over-one, which means there''s 4 stitches where there would usually be only one.

-fel

I''ve had nothing but good experiences from amazon.co.uk; I order all the Raymond Feist books 12 months before they''re even printed here in the USA =)

How does a thread go from Amazon.com grievances to tapestry? This forum is getting too weird for me.

My mother did that celestial dragon one. It took her a LONG time.

Hey fel, one of my friends is into this cross stitching. It''s one of her biggest hobbies. I''d like to impress her by learning it, but it looks like you need the hands of a surgeon. How hard is it? How easy is it to pick up?

clueless: Can you count and read? Good, you can handle cross-stitch.

Cross stitch is all about making tiny thread x''s where the pattern tells you to, on a piece of cloth. There''s very little actual artistic expression (good thing for me hehe), and very little that you can actually do wrong. The main difference between an accomplished cross-stitcher and a learner is speed, confidence, and how good the back of the thing looks.

So, if you want to start out, all you need to do is go down to your local hobby store. For a beginner, I strongly suggest getting a small kit (kit because it''s going to have everything you need pretty much), preferably on Aida (the cloth... it''s a lot stiffer than any other cloth used so you can''t even screw up your tension on that, there should be separate pieces of cloth to buy so you can make sure it''s the right kind comparing what you see in the separate cloth vs. what you see through the plastic on the back of the kit bag, but most kits are aida anyway). Then buy yourself a pack of needles (26 are a decent size for learners, you want *needlework* needles, which are blunt and have very large, long eyes. Not the sharp ones with an eye you can barely see, those are quilting needles) because your kit will only provide one, if any, and get a decent pair of scissors (I like Fiskars) if you don''t have one.

From there, it''s basically like this. Take your project cloth, if it''s very wrinkled from being in the kit, iron it. Then fold it in half lengthwise and widthwise. That way you find the general "middle"... eventually you might start on an edge but for a beginner the middle is always the best idea so you don''t run out of cloth unless the kit makers seriously screwed up.

Now go to your patterns. You''ll see lots of weird little symbols and letters, the middle should be marked by a triangle at the top and/or bottom, and a triangle at the left and/or right. Follow it in, find the middle of the pattern. Pick a symbol in there that looks like a good place to start (your chart will be a conglomeration of all sorts of symbols). Once you have your symbol, go over to the list of symbols with the keys to which floss to use, and pick the floss you think matches out of the big knot of it they gave you. Looking at the front of the kit package where the big color picture of the project is might help if you get lost trying to find which one is really "brick house red". Pull that piece of floss out.

Each piece of floss has 6 strands. You want 2 of those. The best way is to find 2 strands that are beside each other on the twist, grab them, and gently pull them away from the main thread, or if you prefer just grab one thread, and fold it in half (which some people will tell you not to do, but frankly I don''t think it makes much of a difference unless you''re using a variagated thread, which you shouldn''t be). Some cross-stitch patterns use blended thread, where they have 2 colors bracketed together, in that case you take one thread of each kind. When just pulling one thread, it''s best to grab the thread, put your thumb and forefinger on each side of the top of the main thread as tightly as you can without making it impossible to pull on your single strand, and pull straight out of the top of the main thread.

You should only be working with a maximum of 2 feet of thread at any given time... otherwise your arm will get tired stitching that wide, and your thread will wear and get knotted more easily.

Take one end of your floss, you should have a pair of threads there. Take your needle, hold it out horizontally. Fold your threads over the end of the needle in half, and pinch it. Take the pinched part and feed it through the eye of the needle. That''s the easiest way to thread cross stitch needles with floss. If you can''t get the hang of it, you can always buy a needle threader, which are basically little metal things with a wire on one end that you stick through then put the thread through, then pull back through the needle eye.

Now you''re ready to actually stitch. In the general middle of the cloth that you marked by folding, poke your needle up from beneath through one of the little holes (which side you pick as "beneath" doesn''t matter unless your cloth is dyed or painted on one side). Leave a tail of 1/4" to 1/2" underneath. Then move to the hole on the upper right from the hole you came up through, and poke your needle through going down. Make sure you keep a good grip on that tail. Flip your project over, so it''s upside-down to how you''re working. You should have a tail in the upper left diagonal hole, the thread attached to your needle in the lower right diagonal hole. Push the tail down so it''s between the hole your thread comes out of, and the hole just above where your thread comes out of. Put your needle in the hole just above where your thread comes out, and pull it through... this will lock your tail down. Flip back over to the correct side. If you have a big line of that symbol, keep going from bottom left hole to top right hole until you run out of that symbol, skipping a square or two that don''t have the symbol is fine, if the symbol occurs again within 1-3 stitches on the right. If you can keep going over the tail on the back while doing this great, it will make your back look nicer.

Once you run out of symbols in that direction, go to the hole one down from where your thread last went in, and go back across the stitches you just made, from lower-right to upper-left. This will complete the crosses. Your stitching should look something like this:

starting here > ////////// then
\\\\\\\\\\ < starting here to make
XXXXXXXXXX

Then you go on to the next row until you run out of symbols. Your tension should be even, don''t pull on it too tightly. Every now and then, hold up your fabric and let your needle dangle on the floss, to get rid of the twists to avoid knots.

The most important thing for your project to look like you''re not a newbie... is to make sure that all your X''s go in the same direction.

When you''ve run out of symbols, turn your project over. There should be a bunch of bars ||||||| in thread on the back from your previous stitching. Put your needle through (by "through" I mean between the stitch and the back of the fabric) two to five of the bars on the back to finish off, pull the thread through, and snip it off.

That''s pretty much all there is to it. You just do that for every single symbol and you''re done with the cross stitching.

When you''re done with that, you can do the backstitching (don''t do backstitching before you''re done cross stitching, it won''t show right). With backstitching you basically put your needle up through the fabric, then back down behind where you brought it up along the line you want to backstitch, then up through the stitch in front of where you originally brought the needle up, then back down through the stitch where you originally brought the needle up, and so on. It''s simpler than it sounds, if your kit is halfway decent they''ll have a "how to" drawing.

If, by the way, you ever mess up and have to take some out, don''t just reverse stitch. Pull your needle off the thread and insert it under each wrong stitch half, then pull up... it''s called "frogging". It''s a lot easier.

-fel