OVER 2 YOU 204 (02/11/04)

EMBROIDERY

My wife loves doing embroidery but has difficulty finding suitable designs in retail outlets, which appeal to her and are not cross-stitch.  Can anyone suggest any websites where designs can be downloaded, either for free or to buy and a method of transferring these to linen from paper ready for stitching, once having downloaded and printed these to paper.

Michael Dewhurst, via email

There is a book called "Free Stuff for Stitchers on the Internet" (ISBN: 1571200673), which according to the Amazon website will direct the reader to

a wide range of stitching sites where they can find patterns, tutorials, techniques, software, galleries, guilds, discussions, articles, e-mail, and advice".

Once you've got a design on your screen, then you can use your inkjet printer to put the design on fabric (just as if it were paper) - you soak your fabric in BubbleJetSet2000, dry it, cut it to A4 size, attach it to a sheet of paper and pass it through the printer.  BubbleJetSet2000 is available from www.riodesigns.co.uk and it works like magic.

Margery Allcock, via email

Scan the desired drawing or design and print out on transfer paper (I use Epson Iron-Cool peel), it can then be ironed on to the fabric. The design will be reversed but this can be rectified before printing.

Norma Rowlerson, via email

A photocopy of a design can always be enlarged if necessary and a tracing made.  On the reverse of the tracing draw over the pencil lines with a transfer pencil, the design can then be ironed onto cloth. There are many courses available where these and other interesting techniques are taught.

Elizabeth M., via email

Try the Computer Textile Design Group website at: www.ctdg.co.uk

Kathe Ashley

Mrs. Dewhurst may wish to consider "Jane Greenoff's Cross Stitch Designer Gold" (www.focusmm.co.uk).  She can choose the number of stitches per inch, import on to the grid any design she chooses, print on to transfer paper then iron this on to the canvas. The program will match the colours on the design to various manufacturers' yarns and calculate the amount required.

Alfred Williamson, via email

My wife recommends ‘Elsa Williams’ designs, obtainable from Johnson Creative Arts, Inc., 400 Main Street, West Townsend, USA MA01474. The designs used are based on the Williamsburg Museum collection of samplers, etc.

More information about Elsa Williams can be found at: www.needleworkcorner.com/elsawilliams.htm

Peter Hogg, Hartlepool.

I buy a bi-monthly embroidery magazine called 'Stitch', published by the Embroiders Guild (www.embroiderersguild.com/stitch/). They also have a website and articles can be downloaded. I would suggest Mrs Dewhurst purchases this magazine as all of the articles featured have step-by-step instructions.  I wish this magazine had been around when I did my City and Guilds in Creative Design and Embroidery in 1995, it would have been a great help to me.

Barbara Webster, Huddersfield

BOOK CATALOGUE

I have always planned to catalogue my library of some 500 books when I retired. So I am retired and it doesn't seem such a good idea! I wondered if anybody had worked up a solution by inputting the scanned front page(s), where most of the information can be found, into some software that could sort titles from authors and from publishers, etc?

Gerry Tickner, via email

About two years ago, I downloaded a trial version of Readeraware from www.readerware.com. I used it for a couple of days and then paid for a full version as it made my life much easier cataloguing my books, CDs and videos.

The program allows you to enter a series of books' ISBNs (either via the keyboard or a bar code reader) it then searches various sites for relevant information - title, author, publisher etc. I have approximately 3,000 books catalogued and this was achieved using Readerware 2.9 in just a few days.

The basic program is very quick and easy to use. The advanced features need a little thinking about before using but in all, I have no hesitation in recommending it.

Paul Ambridge, London W3

May I suggest your correspondent visits www.avcataloger.com.  This company offers an excellent program, which allows the users to catalogue music, videos and books utilising online databases; for books it uses Amazon. I have entered a number of books, some quite obscure, searching using title, author or ISBN number. When found the details are automatically downloaded and saved. A graphic of the cover is included or it can be scanned in. This is an excellent program, easy to use with good tutorials, it also allows you to download and use it for as long as you like before registering; the only limitation being that you are limited to 30 entries.

Frank Ward, via email

CAN YOU HELP?

We run a large Flower Show in our village and find that the task of determining who has won the cups for various vents quite time consuming. Can anyone recommend a program that will allow us to enter who has come 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each class (100 plus) and then calculate the winners in various sections? Also it would be advantageous if we could print the results for display.

Doug Martin, via email

I have tried various video-editing packages that allow you to stitch together video clips, add titles and so on. These are obviously very useful and fulfil the needs of many, but, what I am looking for is a software program which will allow me to create and work on individual frames, in much the same way as animators draw individual ‘cells’ to produce cartoons. Can anybody help?

Chris J Catton, Swanage