My stitching buddy

This is Charlie my 15 year old Westie, having a doze on the sofa beside me. I'm going to stitch tonight and he'll be keeping me company

 

And this is what I've been working on lately - Four horses of the Apocalypse from Kustom Krafts. It's 39% complete in this picture

It's my blog-o-versary today

This blog is 5 years old today... I'm having a rough day today with a lot of pain so there won't be an inspiring post but I hope to be feeling more human again soon.

Blumenweise im Raster is going away for a while

I set myself a target of 75% this year and reached it last night. Four Horses of the Apocalypse is my focus project for a while now.  

How to find the designer for a cross stitch pattern

  if you find a picture of a finished piece and cannot identify who it is by...  

   1. Right click on the photo and choose "Copy Image Location"      

2. Paste the Image Location into a Google Image search and hit the Search button      

3. You will get a results page like this, click on "Search by Image"      

  4. You will get a results page a bit like this, you can then hunt through the links to find out more information. This doesn't always work but it's worth a try       And how to tell if a chart is an illegal copy or breach of copyright   1. Scans from magazines are almost always a no-no. It is safest to assume the worst. You can usually see if it's a scan from a magazine by the typeface, quality of type, page numbers, columns and adverts alongside patterns.   2. Any chart posted on a commercial photo gallery site, particularly Russian galleries is almost always a no-no. The photographs on these sites often point to files uploaded to file sharing/cloud sites. Russian websites end in .ru   3. Websites where you earn "points" to enable you to download designs.  These aren't always illegal copies but there is an infamous Chinese site like this that is full of illegal copies   4. Charts posted to forums, facebook pages & blogs. Most free designs are available from shop websites & designers own sites and it should be possible to post a link. Some designers use blogs but you should be able to tell if it is their site by the other content. French designers tend to use blogs a lot and there are some gorgeous genuine freebies on those sites.   5. Any site that has a large quantity of computer generated charts from photographs and artwork that doesn't mention the photographer or artist. A lot of these sites harvest images from the internet with no thought to who owns the image. Just because it is on the internet does not mean it is "free". Even if there is no charge for the pattern produced it is still breach of copyright.   6. Charts with no copyright notice as this has been cropped from them by the person sharing.   7. Any cartoon or film character or trademarked logo. This includes but isn't limited to: Hello Kitty, Spiderman, Smurfs, Disney, Coca-Cola, football teams, Snoopy, Betty Boop... You will never find legitimate free designs as designers need to pay a license fee to the copyright/license holder   8. A special note on Pinterest - this has become the new medium of choice for illegal charts but you will find many gorgeous genuine freebies from up and coming designers.   9. Publications & patterns from 1928 and earlier are in the public domain and can be scanned & shared.    Whilst these aren't hard and fast rules - they will weed out many of the illegal patterns