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You can get good pictures with 130+ colours, but if going to that level of colour matching, it seems a bit odd to me not to go a tiny step further & blend colours to improve the colour matching a tiny bit more. [On my software it's simply a matter of ticking a checkbox in the colour selection window & blending happens automatically thereafter, making it very easy to create blended charts.]

The pictures can be quite good either way:
Unblended with an earlier version of my freebie conversion software. 117 colours.


Blended with a later version of the software, this first trial piece has 118 blended & plain colours from 151 thread colours (sorry, for some reason my website does not want to allow this image to be used in a forum, but will show it as a separate page):
http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/photos/Sdc14211a.jpg

Regards,

Richard.

Finally have had a letter from the Home Office regarding my naturalisation as a UK citizen. My application has been officially accepted and I have authorisation to contact my local Council offices with a view to setting a date for a ceremony. Called the number today, and they were open!! It will be very cut down affair: rather than a group ceremony with numerous guests, it's a one-on-one and I'm allowed to have only a single guest. Do I care? I do not.

Congratulations!

Oh brill - well done

Yeah Richard, I see your point. But I wanted to do an intense project without blending, because the more I thought about it, the more i realized that blending threads (for me) would entail a whole other level of organization.. as in magnetic strip with symbols/numbers and pre-threaded needles. I didn't want to find myself in a situation where I 'put off' going stitching (if it was too overwhelming for me). It's already a leap enough to do this particular pattern and I have to say I'm a little nervous as to how I'll take to it. Tried to link an image and it worked in Preview but not when posted. Oh well. I'll post it when the pattern arrives.


And congratulations Serinde! You must be jazzed beyond jazzed!

Congratulations, Serinde!

Congratulations, Serinde.

And Richard, I agree with you in blended needles. I will admit that I find them annoying at times but I love the result, and not just in full coverage.

Complete madness to become a UK citizen.
Much more sensible to become Australian, or a New Zealander, or a Canadian...

I think this has an appropriate ring: 'Welcome to the nut-house'.
Not as if you've not seen enough already to have put you off, and yet you went ahead and did it anyway.
Dear me.
Congratulations.

My brother has had his application to become a Spanish Citizen turned down through lack of evidence that he's been in the country long enough. Apparently 28 years of pay slips with Spanish employers, being with the same employer for 24 years, owning up to 3 flats in Madrid concurrently and having mortgage papers to prove it, being on the electoral role for 21 years and having a Spanish driving license for 7 years is all inadequate evidence that he's been in the country for long enough to qualify. Pfft.

Regards,

Richard

Sahari,

I do blending with only one needle. I simply cannot cope with parking when doing it with more than 6 or 7 colours. As a result I have all my threads in their skeins in a bag, cut off about 18" off the skein for each of the two colours and put them in the appropriate place on a thread card matching the thread number (which is between 1 and 140). My home made thread cards have holes numbered 1 to 140 and I put the two skein segments through these holes. Then simply take one strand of each colour through the hole in the card, thread the needle with that and start cross country stitching, going until the thread runs out or it gets too far to the next nearest stitch. I return any remaining thread to the card and then start on the next vacant stitch hole in the piece. I start in the top left corner of a page and work my way across and then down the page as I fill in the colours. Must admit I rarely have 2 same coloured stitches adjacent to each other. Here's an example of my current 'Gryff' piece:


http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/photos/sdc11208a.jpg

It's minimal organisation, and is as much as I can cope with.

Regards,

Richard.

richardandtracy wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:18 pm Complete madness to become a UK citizen.
Much more sensible to become Australian, or a New Zealander, or a Canadian...

I think this has an appropriate ring: 'Welcome to the nut-house'.
Not as if you've not seen enough already to have put you off, and yet you went ahead and did it anyway.
Dear me.
Congratulations.

My brother has had his application to become a Spanish Citizen turned down through lack of evidence that he's been in the country long enough. Apparently 28 years of pay slips with Spanish employers, being with the same employer for 24 years, owning up to 3 flats in Madrid concurrently and having mortgage papers to prove it, being on the electoral role for 21 years and having a Spanish driving license for 7 years is all inadequate evidence that he's been in the country for long enough to qualify. Pfft.

Regards,

Richard

Yeah, it is a bit like jumping out the fire and back into the frying pan, but it was the only choice on offer. I've lived here for 40 years, so it was about time. Any Irish granny I might have had is so long ago it didn't help. I do feel for your brother. The Spanish govt are taking the... well, you know. Theoretically, I only needed to prove I lived here for 5 years (with caveats), and it's surprisingly difficult to prove given the documentation they require. In fact, I needed to reassure them I'd been here for considerably longer because I hadn't travelled on several of my passports! (Gives a whole new meaning to "evidence of absence not being an absence of evidence"!) What people do who have a right to apply but have lived a less settled life, I don't know.

I had great fun trying to get a bank account when I moved here after marrying DH. I had a passport, but (as all Dutch passports are) it was in my maiden name which they wouldn't take on its own. I had no driving licence. I had no utility bills because they were all in DH's name as he had been a householder in this country for decades. I had no previous bank account from which to produce statements - or rather, I did, but it was a Dutch bank account so that didn't count.

In the end he had to write me a letter of recommendation or something like that on office paper (he ran his own business and I was going to work in it) and go to the local bank where he knew one of the cashiers who was a fellow parent at the boys' school to get me a bank account. Even then, even though I had brought my marriage certificate, it had to be in my maiden name, and I had to come back a week later to change the name.

At one point I was advised to get a provisional driver's licence, whether or not I was going to learn to drive, because that would count. So a completely spurious provisional licence which anyone could apply for was OK, but my marrage certificate, passport and various Dutch proofs of identity were not. And that was before Brexit!

When my parents applied for my first passport it was, I'm told, quite difficult. I really don't remember this - fortunately. It's even more stupid than Mabel's problem.

I was born in West Germany while my dad was in the army. My dad was born in India while my grandfather was in the army.
I also understand that at the time the mother's nationality could be ignored at the discretion of the issuing officer for determining the child's nationality. The officer decided to ignore the fact that my mother was born in the UK, as had all her ancestors. Furthermore, the officer unilaterally decided my UK Consular Birth Certificate issued in Germany was on a different form from the normal UK one, so was, by his definition, suspect or even fake. And so was my father's issued by the Consul in Madras.

So, my UK citizenship had to be proved by my grandfather being born here. It all got a bit fraught as we were in Germany at the time, my dad was posted to the UK at fairly short notice (3 months), it took a lot of correspondence which took ages, my dad didn't have access to his father's birth certificate (in the UK with my grandfather, naturally). Neither we, nor my grandparents, had telephones at the time to speed things along. Not that international calls would have been affordable, either. My, how we forget this given how ubiquitous telephones are now.

It started to look like my parents might not be able to bring me into the country with them as I was due to have my 5th birthday just before the move. This was because a 5yo child was not eligible to be covered by the one line 'baby entry' on their mother's passport and needed their own. So, my parents had to make arrangements for me to stay with some other officers in the patch until they could get my passport from the walk-in centre in London and drive back to West Germany to collect me. Anyway my first UK passport arrived 3 days before my parents had to move to the UK so all was OK in the end. Phew.

Regards,

Richard

Serinde wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:16 pm Finally have had a letter from the Home Office regarding my naturalisation as a UK citizen. My application has been officially accepted and I have authorisation to contact my local Council offices with a view to setting a date for a ceremony. Called the number today, and they were open!! It will be very cut down affair: rather than a group ceremony with numerous guests, it's a one-on-one and I'm allowed to have only a single guest. Do I care? I do not.

Well done! Who will you take with you I wonder?

All what do you have to do at the ceremony? Sing the National Anthem?
Friends in France became French Nationals. When they finally get to the ceremony they have to sing La Marseillaise...all the verses!

Congratulations Serinde!

Carole

wendywombat wrote: Mon Sep 28, 2020 4:50 pm Well done! Who will you take with you I wonder?

All what do you have to do at the ceremony? Sing the National Anthem?
Friends in France became French Nationals. When they finally get to the ceremony they have to sing La Marseillaise...all the verses!

Ha. DH's already jumped in with the Big Ask. Anyway, saves me driving... We have to swear an oath to the Queen and successors and pledge to uphold UK rights and freedoms, democratic values and laws. (That negates half the British govt, then.) The usual sort of stuff. Interesting that you can make these oaths and pledges in Welsh if you live in Wales, but not Gaelic if you live in Scotland. Curious.

Okay, so here's the CS journey I'll be embarking upon as soon as the frame arrives in a week or two, and I've handstitched my last CS into a pillow complete with homemade piping {don't ask}):

<img src="https://p0.pikist.com/photos/528/719/bu ... nature.jpg" alt="butterbur, plant, leaf, autumn colors, nature"/>

Thanks for the input Richard -- I do appreciate the time you took to explain. My brain just doesn't work like yours, at this juncture anyway.

~S

Wow! That's gonna be something spectacular.

Serinde wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 11:38 am Wow! That's gonna be something spectacular.

Indeed! Looking forward to seeing that progress.

wendywombat wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 11:43 am

Serinde wrote: Tue Sep 29, 2020 11:38 am Wow! That's gonna be something spectacular.

Indeed! Looking forward to seeing that progress.

Me too!!!

Carole

Blended threads can be managed without too much extra work. Just treat the blended symbols like you would the solids except that when you need more thread you pull a strand from each color rather than two from the same. I use bobbins and put a length of each color on the blend bobbin and when that is used up I got to the solid color bobbins for a refill. The biggest issues I have experienced is that it doesn't really work 1 over and you can't do a loop start.

With all of the bills and statements going digital I'm surprised that anyone can prove that they live somewhere. My wife and I own the home we've lived in for these past 10 years and yet we don't have a single paper utility bill to prove it. At one point that was the standard, I don't know if it is. A passport used to be something you needed to travel to certain countries (I have been to Mexico and back again with nothing but a driving license as proof for reentry), but these days it is starting to be one of the few ways to satisfactorily prove who you are. I am increasingly needing to show my birth certificate for things like renewing my driving license, never mind I've had it for over 25 years, no birth certificate no renewal. Several years ago I lost my driving license and what kept it from being a huge mess to replace is that I just so happened to have memorized its number and that was enough to prove that it was me. Ironically that is something that I would expect an identity thief to know and not the average person.