Henriettas Heirlooms

Frequently Asked Questions

• 1. How do I do cross-stitch?
• 2. How do I order using my credit or debit card?
• 3. What background should I use?
• 4. What about copyright? Can you process magazine pictures?
• 5. How small a photograph can you process?
• 6. Will the face be recognisable?
• 7. How should I prepare an image file for you? What format do you need?

1. How do I do cross-stitch?

A. A photo based picture is not a good choice for a first piece. That said, new cross-stichers need to know whatever they start with, so a beginner's lesson can be found here.

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2. How do I order using my credit or debit card?

A. Use PayPal. They will create an account for you for some some small sum, and accept a payment into your new account from your credit or debit card. PayPal now make payments in UK Pounds, US Dollars and Euros.

Your PayPal account can be used for paying anyone with an email address, including ourselves.

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3. What background should I use?

A. The ideal background will depend on where the piece is to go, and what colours it contains. For most images, I recommend a light, off-white colour. These are often known as "ice" colours.

Ice colours will make the whole picture light. They usually provide excellent contrast so the image is well defined. Last, but not least, it is much easier to see light cloth than dark when sewing, so your eyes are not strained.

If you choose 14 stitches per inch you can purchase linen with 28 threads per inch and use 2 threads sideways and 2 threads upwards for each cross-stitch.

You can buy Aida material which has clearer holes, which makes it easier to sew, but un-sewn background material looks rather blocky. A good stockist will be able to show you both linen and Aida in a range of colours.

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4. What about copyright? Can you process magazine pictures?

A. We can only process photographs to which you have the copyright, or permission to use the copyright, or which have been placed in the public domain.

Please do not send Magazine pictures, even of yourself. These will be copyright of the magazine, and seldom work well anyway. In the printing process the picture is converted into lots and lots of tiny dots. When we scan them, the dots and the scan lines sometimes line up well and sometimes they don't, creating strange rippled effects, which spoil the picture.

If you want to use a picture from a newspaper or magazine, approach the publisher for a copy. If you explain why you want it, most will provide a suitable print and permission to use it, for a modest fee.

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5. How small a photograph can you process?

A. The quick answer is that any image from 2" (5cm) up to full A4 can be handled, and will process well. 2" is the size of the Queen's portrait on a British bank note, and rather larger than you get from passport photograph machines.

They key to getting a fine result is to start with a clear crisp photograph. If the origional photo is unclear than cross-stitching will make it worse.

Below 2" then the results depend on exactly how well the scanner pixels and the stitch pixels match up. If we can fiddle things so that each stitch is a whole number of scan lines, then we can go remarkably small. For this to work, the original image must be pin sharp.

If you want us to process a passport photo, and the original has really excellent focus, then it will probably be just fine. Note that we may have to alter the number of stitches so that the result is good. You may be able to compensate for this by altering the stitches per inch or making the piece a different size.

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6. Will the face be recognisable?

A. That depends. Portraits that show head or head-and-shoulders work well, and the subject is clearly recognisable.

The traditional wedding line-up photo has to have small faces to get everyone in. Here faces will generally only be recognisable if considerably blown up. Such blowing up requires that the original is in excellent focus and has good colouration. I.e. Professionally done, not a snap.

A full length portrait photo will seldom convert to cross-stitch and produce a recognisable face because the face is too small. If in doubt, please ask.

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7. How should I prepare an image file for you? What format do you need?

A. You are probably best doing nothing!

You may crop the image to leave only the part you want us to use, but there is no need to do even this.

IMPORTANT - Do NOT alter the scaling, file format (extension) or colour depth of the image. The reason for this is that such conversions can only lose data, which degrades the end result.

You can upload a file via our order form, but please note that uploads may be unreliable at busy times, and there is a limit of 500KB on the file size. If you have a larger file than this, please compress it using Winzip, Stuffit or similar software, or send the file to us using ordinary email. If you can, post such big files in a single section.

We have a whole range of software to read and convert images, so we can handle almost any format including those common on Windows, Linux, Apple Macs as well as most of the formats used by digital cameras.

Our software will handle attachments in both MIME and UUENCODEd formats so we can receive and process almost anything.

We do ask that, if possible, you "ZIP up" bitmap (.bmp) files in order to save transmission time.

Finally, when creating an archive or "zipping up" please create a normal archive (.zip, .tar, etc) and not a "self extracting" one (.exe).

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