Monday Monday: the hope I'm not getting sick edition.

Feeling kind of cruddy but I don't want to leave you hanging - so have a few pics!

BadassCrossstitch #yearofstitch weeks 1 through 6

Week 7 (and all individual images) are posted on my Instagram
I'm really enjoying this project - it's been fantastic to try new things and each piece is so small and self contained it's been a great take along piece.

New project start - first 100+ stitches in Garden of Delight by William Morris from Heaven and Earth Designs. It's so nice to be comfortable stitching again and after this I'm even more convinced to swap to a new fabric on my Shades of Red project. I do want to pick up some stitch marking pins as this design is fairly intricate (over 20 colors in the first 100 stitches alone) and I think it will help me keep track of things better.

Fresh brows courtesy the Benefit Brow Bar at Ulta. They are the only place I will go to to get my brows done anymore. My brows are so sparse it's very easy to over pluck.

Tried an orange lippy - NYX Liquid Suede in "Orange County". Still looked great after an entire day at the wineries eating cheese and drinking reds so I can definitely vouch for the longevity of this formula. I think I need to be more tan and better matched to my foundation to really feel confident in this particular shade but I was surprisingly comfortable.
I think I've got this bright lippy thing down.

Monday Monday regerts

Live! Coming at you from my new computer desk! 

It may be cheap S-Mart pressboard trash but still worth it to have the hutch and a keyboard tray. It's actually an L desk as well but I have to cut down the L piece to fit the space so that's going to have to wait a bit. The cats are all quite fond of this new and exciting way to be between me and whatever I'm trying to read,

Heaven and Earth Designs - Mini Shades of Red

I'm seriously considering scrapping this project to start again with different fabric. This is navy 22 count hardanger cloth and it is just NOT working out for me.

I find the holes hard to see both due to the color and weave (which is not tight exactly but it is dense), and my stitching feels unbearably sloppy. I've been fighting myself to pick this piece back up every time I want to stitch for weeks and I just don't find the stitching pleasant enough to keep going for another who knows how many months. I thought stitching on 22 count with two strands would be nicer than 28 count with one strand but I no longer think so. I was passing a lot of my reluctance off on the stand I've been using but I no longer think that's the main problem, though it is a continuing annoyance.

Ahhhhhh well, lessons learned: I will likely avoid dark fabrics on large works, and no more two strand stitching on full coverage pieces.

I finally got around to cleaning up my mani on Sunday. One of the pitfalls of a nude mani is its easy to ignore chipping so it outstays its welcome. I wanted something green (because it's been a while) and fairly simple that could stand up to potential staining from my haircolor. I've worn Alien Queen from IncidentalTwin as an accent before but somehow never as the star and as with every single time I've worn one of her polishes I was super dubious on first coat and totally psyched by the third. They are sheer but they build beautifully.
Accent nail is Ulta Popping Bottle. 

Since the move in July my nailpolish has been sprawled across more than three cardboard boxes. My swatch sticks were woefully out of date and I had several new bottles that had not been cataloged in Nail Polish Book - a phone app I use to organize my stash (there are only so many bottles of relatively spendy dark teal polish one person needs to buy in one month). I finally took the time this weekend to catalog everything and get my swatches up to date and now I'm looking for a better storage solution than sorting into overly small dollar store bins by used (red) vs untried (blue).

I realized as I was pitting this together that I never posted my #yearofstitch piece last week so I will do so on my Instagram @the_itsybitsy in a few. Its been done for weeks, just not posted.

Just because it was funny, and a good reminder to avoid unitaskers!

Monday Monday - the stuck in because it's apparently winter again edition

The new embroidery frame is a bit fighty, it likes to explode without much warning* so I didn't do work on it much. I have to work out some sort of stabilization beyond occasionally going over the whole thing with a rubber mallet. 

Most of my stitching this week was on #yearofstitch pieces which I generally do without a stand. I'm actually up to week ten though I've only posted through week four.

I didn't hate stitching this like I thought I would! Sadly I started it in two strand and found it a bit weedy, but I was kind of stuck with it by then so I soldiered on with the sides and switched to three strand for the middle section. 

Hooray for laying tools! You can do satin stitch without one, but I certainly wouldn't want to. Finishing off on the back was really annoying though.

I've done some on my HAED Shades of Red piece and it's starting to pick up speed but it still doesn't look like much yet. So much confetti stitching. I had been using a magnifier and light but I think I'm going to ditch the magnifier. It's a lot of hassle and my stitching just seems wonky in the parts where I used it.

There is a cross country stitching challenge at the HAED forum I follow I'm considering but I don't think I have any projects lined up which suit it very well and the prize images they offer aren't typically my thing. I feel like I should join for the sake of challenging myself but it really will cramp my style. There are a couple of months left to join (this is no small challenge) but I suspect I'll leave this one to others.

I did finally try my new Limited edition  Limecrime lip colour Beet It and though sadly I did not get a pic with it on my face I'm REALLY happy with the shade. It looks a bit mauve in the tube (see the small dot to the left) and I was almost pissed at having snagged yet another blah tone but it dries to a really nice intense shade right on that cranberry border between berry and red. I feel like it looked a touch more pink on my face but I also had a much more even application. Putting lipstick on your wrist is surprisingly awkward feeling.

I include the other Limecrime shades I own and a fairly true red from NYX in a similar formula (longwearing matte cream with a doefoot applicator) for comparison. So far all of these have proven to be pretty much bulletproof. Any lippy that will hold up to a dinner party and a mildly absurd amount of wine gets my thumbs up.

Utopia is the color I wore for my wedding!

*The embroidery stand actually exploded again as I got off the couch to set up the lip color pic.

What was supposed to be a simple clean up of my fatally chipped grey and gold polish turned into a subtle but (I think) cool French manicure. The base is Twinkle Twinkle by NailNation3000 and the tips are Love Me Fear Me by IncidentalTwin.

Sadly it doesn't photograph very well AT ALL as the camera really wants to pick up the yellow tone of the flakies instead of the opalescent goodness and I feel like this pic makes my nails look stained even though FOR ONCE they actually aren't.

I may use a pink tinted topcoat next time as these translucent manis seem to yellow out and get dingy really fast.

Monday Monday - chugging along

This was a quiet week all told.

Most of the "work" I have done this week has been theoretical research for a couple of big online projects I'm hoping to start soon.

If I move forward with both they could change the face of this blog significantly, so more on that as there's more on that. If you have any suggestions for stuff you'd like to see more of/less of this is the time.

I am all ears (all eyes? You know what I mean).

I'm still in the process of a major apartment re-org so whole days are being devoured by the random belonging slide-puzzle game and bookshelf building, but stuff is finally getting unboxed and a functional office/craft space is so close I can practically taste it.

My main cross stitch project, Mini Shades of Red by Heaven and Earth Designs, is all sloooooooooooow particular stitching right now so that is crawling along at a snail's pace. I'd post a pic but it wouldn't look like much of anything.

Our new couch setup makes it very difficult to use my floor stand so that is slowing down my pace even more. I have been looking into lap stands but I work very close to my canvas and plan to work on some big pieces so anything I buy is going to be a relatively significant cash investment.

My #yearofstitch project is moving apace. Week two has been posted and week three is actually done as well. I had originally posted on Friday and then I remembered the Instagram blackout protest due to the planned format change so I took it down and reposted Saturday.

Haha No by thedisasterlife on Etsy

I've been particularly caught on Evil Eye and Ouija designs lately so I picked up a Ouija themed shirt from Amazon and an art print *points up* (click picture subtitle for link or here for her instagram @permascowl) and am in the process of stitching an evil eye themed project as a gift. I'd also really like to reproduce that "Haha No" piece in embroidery but haven't yet contacted the artist about permission yet.

I also picked up a sort of cape/sweatshirt hybrid to replace my trashed hoodies. I expect I'll have to do some surgery to it to make it look like something other than a shapeless bag but I'm tired of supposedly comfortable garments that are huge on my upper torso but somehow don't fit over my hips. 

Perhaps they are afraid of my Puerto Rican-ness, my natural heat.

I'm getting a little tired of the hyper masculine style I've been rocking all winter so hopefully this will be the Spring I finally embrace my inner Norn. I'm planning on a longer, softer haircut once the blue grows out and I've started wearing eyeliner again.

It's hard to do long, flowy, and aristocratic when you sit in an office chair eight hours a day but hopefully I'll manage. If nothing else I have decent hand sewing skills so I'll be able to mend all the skirt damage.

Monday Monday Part 5 - A New Beginning

The Friday the 13th reference is apropos of absolutely nothing, that's just where my brain went this morning.

Not as much to report this week as I would like.

Tuesday night was game night, so unless you have interest in my very bare surface understanding of the Dungeons & Dragons 5e system there's not much to go into there.

Lvl 2 Goliath Barbarian, in case you are wondering

Wednesday was colour session one on my Halloween inspired bat sleeve with John Lally at Masquerade Tattoo. It was a bit gruelling but so cool to watch the piece start coming to life bit by bit.

At our first break I texted this pic to my husband and it was the first time I had gotten to see it from the "proper" angle. What looked like some nifty shading from my perspective practically jumps off my arm in 3D from the right side up. There is, not incidentally, an entire BACK of my arm to this project as well.

Interesting note; I am apparently more upset about the movie Prometheus than I am about someone repeatedly and painfully injecting ink into my arm over the course of several hours. Anyone who feels like having a captive audience to talk about horror hit me up for when my next appointment is scheduled.

I'm not entirely joking. It really helps.

Thursday I got to hang out with the family, my Mom is doing better every day and seeing my brother is always a pleasure.

Friday was kind of a crappy day at work so when I got home I buried myself in TV and crafting. My husband eventually went out to a local music show leaving me to my own devices.

These devices apparently didn't involve hitting the bathroom until about 8:30... which is when I found this Limecrime lipstick I've been eyeing for months casually taped to the mirror! Because my husband is the ginchiest I now have Velvetine lipsticks in Beet It, Utopia (the color I wore for my wedding), and Pansy. I just realized all three of these colours are LEs, woo!

I will probably continue eyeing Red Velvet and Wicked (both reds) for some time to come. My current go-to red is NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Monte Carlo. Not that I have any lack of red lipsticks but when you got one that really works it can be hard to commit to an untried product for a night out.

Craft wise I switched up working on the Blackwork piece to get some work done on Shades of Red. So far everything in this piece has been a study in extremes. Huge blocks of slightly mind numbing unrelenting black background or incredibly fussy "confetti" stitching of no more than three stitches of one colour at a time. Thankfully the next section should be a much larger section of colour which will hopefully be a bit more laid back.

I'm realizing as I get further into this project that I like the higher count fabrics more and more and I think I will be sticking to 1/1 on 25 count and up from now on. I thought the lower count would be easier on the eyes but it's not really until you get to 18 and the annoyance of dealing with two strands of floss for proper coverage on a full coverage project is NOT worth the small amount of relief.
I don't think the dark color of this fabric is helping much either.

I'm sort of gearing up to work on the Bowie piece. I FINALLY settled on a fabric but I prefer to work with floss cards and making your own floss cards for intricate designs with upwards of 75 colours is possibly even fussier work than much of the cross stitching itself.

Controlled Chaos

There used to be a system available from a brand called LoRan with little soft binders and pre-punched cards, Dritz has taken over the cards but they don't have enough colours on each card for the sorts of projects I do and they are small for my needs (also SPENDY). I am strongly considering altering some kind of 3 ring datebook to be a project floss holder. Come to think of it I should have a really nice pink leather one lying around somewhere that would probably be just perfect.

As far as the #yearostitch project I am really hoping to get that underway in the next few days. I just haven't taken the time to find the first entry (um, nevermind... check) and take stock of what fabric I will need. I kind of like how Instagram user @Queenofslacking has laid it all out in 20x20 blocks so I'll probably do something like that.

OH! I sort of idly mused last night that I hadn't seen a ship notification for that cone of thread I mentioned buying last week only to dig back through my emails and realize I never.... actually... ordered it.

I know I hit submit on Paypal but I'm pretty sure I must have closed the browser before hitting the final submit on the full order, so I went to do it aaaaaaall over again. I missed out on the shipping coupon but happily the cones were still half off, and threw in a clip on magnifier to boot since I've resigned myself to staring cross eyed at impossibly fine evenweave for the next decade or so.

Oh also, Cheeeeese Gromet!
My Cheese of the Month delivery came on Saturday. I've already tucked into the Dubliner and the Mellville and can highly recommend both on their own merits.

A month of Monday Monday

Happy monthaversary!

Technically the first one was on the 8th so you could argue that next week would be the anniversary of the posts but as it's a retrospective wrap up sort of thing I'm going to call it good.

It would probably be a good idea to do my weekly blogging on a weekend day when I've gotten more sleep but then the series would be named Sabado Sabado Sabado! and that would be really misleading as this is not a Spanish language blog.

Wow, yeah, I really *did* sleep like crap last night.

I digress.

First things first:

Someone in a cross stitch group tipped me off that Jo-Ann Fabrics is having a MASSIVE online sale on cones of DMC floss and has a cheap shipping coupon, so you better believe I snatched up a cone of 310. The entire background of my current project is columns of unrelenting 310 (black) so I've been considering this for weeks. Not sure how long that's on so jump on it while you can.

I got a message last week from my stylist Fran Nordstrom at Waves Salon (here, have a Groupon deal!) that she had a color refresher thing for me so I picked it up and tried it this weekend. It came out of the tube a bit more purple than it shows on my hair but the end result was spot on for the powdery, denimy blue I really wanted this time around.

I don't think the first pic shows the yellowing I was starting to get as well as it could, but the refresher definitely made a difference in the overall tone without changing the color or staining anything (on my bathroom or my anatomy). It was easy, fast, and pleasant as hair dye experiences go. My only complaint about it is that it has a fairly heavy lily sort of scent which I find a bit much even after a day, but I'm specifically sensitive to that sort of thing so I suspect most wouldn't have a problem.

I have no idea of the general availability of this product but I would definitely give it another go.

This was my main project start this week and so far I am enjoying the HECK out of it. My mom had some medical stuff going on this past week so I stayed overnight last Monday at my parent's house and brought this project with to keep me busy while we waited for updates (long story short: my Mom is all good so far). I had a bit of a false start (that entire top row of stars had to be redone) but once I worked out a counting snafu and got used to working over two again I was golden. Per my post from mid last week I learned a new (to me) stitch and as a result will be starting that #yearofstitch project hopefully this week.

I've stopped on that piece for the time being to focus on getting a page finish in on Shades of Red, but will be setting up to start #yearofstitch and possibly prepping fabric for the upcoming Bowie project this week as I think I've decided on my fabric. Now that I've gotten away from the relentless black stitching of the background of Shades of Red it is of course confetti city and is sloooooooow going ,no middle ground there. 

OH!!! I FINALLY GOT MY FABRIC FOR THE MOST RIDICULOUS EPIC SEVERAL YEARS LONG PROJECT I COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE!! Look at that thing! I think I have sheet sets that take up less real estate. That is a 55x55 inch square piece of 25 count Lugana from Heaven and Earth Designs and for size reference I am myself all of 62 high x *mumble* wide inches.

The end result will be the design above - Four Seasons by Jacek Yerka as charted by Heaven and Earth Designs. The design is considered a supersize piece in max colors which will be about 40 inches square and contain 234 colors. The pattern is OVER ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PAGES and at current speed a single page takes me about a month.

I don't know, I might be crazy but I just sort of fell in love with it, lifelong commitment to a single cross stitch project be damned.

Monday Monday week 3 - Do All the Things!

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
For serious, read this blog.

Okay, so uh, what all did I do this week:

Love me, love the occasional Batman Bandage

Nail polish break went poorly so I finally re-polished Sunday. My nails were getting shorter and shorter and my cuticles longer and longer so it was high time. I am at the point where I can't file any further without removing flesh on several of my fingers because of the way my nailbeds attach underneath (that is literally as short as my pointer and middle fingers can get right now).

I used this FANTASTIC "Super Juiced" colour I recently picked up from ILNP mostly because my hair was going to stain whatever colour I used blue anyway so might as well go with it. My nails are nubby and my cuticles are a mess, but hey, at least the colour is sexypants.

Cannibalized a mood ring and a crappy old needle into a fingertip laying tool with the magic of pliers and E6000 glue and so far I'm pretty jazzed. It's butt ugly and I want to blunt the needle a bit more, but it's comfortable to wear and works like a charm. Thankfully (?) with the mind numbing amount of black background in the cross stitch project I've been focusing on this week I have had PLENTY of opportunity to practice with it .

Got into a discussion of floor stands and Qsnaps (a popular style of needlework frame) on a Facebook embroidery group Saturday and decided to try out the combination on my stand. I have an Edmunds Stitch Master Floorstand which is not the sexiest thing out there but for the price (half price with a Joannes coupon, in fact) it is pretty good for my purposes. It's a bit tippy but I have zip tied it to a box which lets me wedge it under the edge of my couch.

I used a shelved Supernatural themed Work in Progress (or WIP) to test it all out and figured while I was at it I might as well get some work done on it. All I had left was stupid annoying really effective backstitching so I had at until it was done. It's all stitched so I just need to wash and mount at this point. I think I want to try out a padded mount for this as I hate how glass looks over embroidery.

As a... break? (am I crazy? I'm starting to think I'm crazy) from cross stitching I decided to try a blackwork project so I spent much of Sunday getting the fabric prepared for that. I've decided to do the astonishingly free Box of Delights by Elizabeth Almond of Blackwork Journey ( <- link is the designer's own Pinterest page, in case anyone is worried about copyright. Her own page doesn't have such a nice spread of pics, but it is here).

I had originally tripped over her also astonishingly free Save the Stitches design first but having never done much (or really any) blackwork it is WAAAAY too rich for my blood. I like how this one is worked in perfectly reasonably sized little chunks.

It's the perfect project to use a silver 32 count linen I've been hoarding and this particularly lovely aqua I've been drawn to every time I open my floss box. I'm basing my piece more on the blue and white version but with a darker outline. The aqua will be the patterned part, the darker blue will be outline, and the coppery colour will be used in place of the metallic thread her original design calls for.
I did say this was supposed to be a break and metallic thread is not a "break".

Why yes, DIY grime guards ARE on my imminent to-do list, why do you ask?

I've got my fabric all mounted and prepped but... [EDIT]
I had a whole thing about being daunted by Holbein stitch here but then I woke up this morning to find out via Facebook that it's not designed for Holbein at all and is instead entirely worked in backstitch (woo, more backstitch!). Which tells you something about how well Elizabeth Almond supports her patterns as that wasn't even eight hours and she lives on a different continent.
This is, might I add again, a FREE PATTERN.

I'm in the process of kitting up another (considerably more detailed) David Bowie cross stitch but I have to pick a fabric and set up project cards so that'll be a little bit still.

I have some family stuff coming up this week and a major apartment layout overhaul planned so I'm not sure how much interesting stuff I'll get done in the coming weeks but fingers crossed I'll get some tinkering time.

Monday Monday 2 Electric Boogaloo

Ch ch ch ch changes

Easily the most obvious change this week - the end of a nearly year long run of variations on silvery white undercuts. Blue is my go-to grow out colour but I've never done this silvery denim blue.

I started the silver process in April '15 (it took a few months to get to white - finally NAILED it in June) and this is easily the longest I've ever kept it up. The silver has been a lot of fun and I know I'm going to miss it, but it's expensive and hard to keep up. It may be time to change things up when you've started using Manic Panic as a Leave-In.

The undercuts, mohawks and between I've been wearing since the wedding have been a LOAD of fun but it's been a while since I did something softer and more feminine (that wasn't growing out length for my wedding hairdo) so once the lightened portions are cut out I think I'm going to go a bit longer, in front at least. I have a pretty tenacious crown swirl so I prefer to keep the back short.

Cut and color by Fran Nordstrom of Waves Salon in Sayville
(scroll down a bit and you might see a familiar face!)

I have a pretty big change in my current embroidery project as well.
I finished page two of Heaven and Earth Designs Portrait with a Spiderling and decided to change up projects so I started Mini Shades of Red in 2/1 on 22ct Navy blue fabric.

I'm about 600 stitches in as of bedtime last night and pricing out cones of DMC 310 as the ENTIRE background is solid black. The 22 count goes a lot faster so far than the 28 I'm working on Portrait but stitching 2/1 eats up thread and I find laying the stitches makes a big difference in stitch uniformity so I'm trying to consistently use a laying tool (some people like railroading but it doesnt seem to do much good on 22ct), which leads me to...

I really wish I was comfortable enough with this page to just order one The thing itself costs all of seven dollars but I cant even imagine how annoying the shipment would be.

I might actually make one of these when I get home today. There is a type of fingertip laying tool I never see on English language embroidery pages - only pages written in Cyrillic script (presumably Russian?) and I WANT ONE - that page has pics of a bunch of different home versions (and in many cases step by step pics). Here is another link of same.
I have a mass market one called a Trolley Needle but its WAY too clunky for my use.

Chopped my nails off (by necessity) and took of my nailpolish without refreshing it, so it's been interesting running around with bare nails for the first time in a few years.
My cuticles are A MESS so I may do some much needed hand care before my next polishing.

Rebel Rebel

I've decided that not only am I doing the bat design with the stitches in different directions as previously discussed... I'm apparently now kind of obsessed with the idea of playing with texture and stitch direction in cross stitching.

While I agree doing things haphazardly in all different directions can look messy and detract from a pictorial piece that's no reason to abandon the idea of deliberately working with texture to create a desired effect.

One of the specific joys of many other types of embroidery is the play of light on directional stitching... so why is this such a taboo idea in cross stitching?

Historically, changes in texture are EXACTLY how we create visual interest in regular, single material objects. Jacquard, knitting, card weaving, pressed velvet, mosaic work, crop circles, magnetic nailpolish... texture play is everywhere!

I'm kind of obsessed with herringbone so I'll probably start there, but yeah, expect some experiments.

New Project - Na na na na na na na na Bat Square! (phase 1)

My next project - Bats by Tantes Zolder

My husband and I are very keen on bats so the minute I saw this design I knew it would be ALL over my home. I plan to do several versions of this in different coordinating tone-on-tone colourways to be framed up as coordinating pieces.

This iteration of the same pattern done by SweetPeaStitching.blogspot.com

Phase 1 is all mounted up and gridded out in 18 ct oatmeal coloured Aida cloth to be stitched in a bronzey goldy olive green thread.

So far I also have a white on white and a black on black planned (and materials sourced) but I'd love to do some more contrasty versions too - cream thread on lilac fabric is one version I have in mind and I'd also love to do something on a natural or grey fabric with white polka dots.

I'm a leeeettle obsessed with that particular shade of green right now. I wish I could have found a closer fabric but there's not a lot of variation in Aida cloth 

The *only* thing holding me up from starting in at this point is a style question and I'm waiting for some other brains to chime in:

I know the prevailing cross stitch logic is to do the whole piece with the stitches in the same direction BUT since it is a reflected medallion sort of thing and very texture oriented I'm thinking it might look cool to stitch each repeat separately from the top down in the same direction so that each has its own sort of texture.

I think that makes sense, I hope that makes sense!

Is this just crazy enough to work... or just crazy?

She chose down? - A thing I just learned about setting up new embroidery.

I've been dabbling with embroidery of various sorts since I was a kid but I recently got back into cross stitch after a looooong hiatus. I remembered most of the basics but I spent a lot of time poking around the internet to flesh out setup details and see how other people did things.

One of the things I specifically looked for was the best way to set up the fabric on a frame or hoop for stitching and in particular -

Why do some people set up their canvas "underneath" the frame/hoop - is there an advantage to this?

I couldn't find anything to suggest an advantage either way, and I found the most pics of people working "over" so I set up my recent pieces to match.

Now that I've found the answer to my question completely by random chance on a Facebook Cross Stiching page I'm switching up what I do with cross stitching and sharing the tip. Working underneath fixes a problem I find REALLY annoying and hopefully having this info handy will help others.

The main issue I find with working over the top is that when I get too close to the frame/hoop it's REALLY hard to maneuver the needle under threads horizontally. This isn't a problem for up and down stitching like in cross stitch, but it's a really big problem if you want to run the needle under previous stitches to finish off a thread and you are very close to the frame.

Ever hit up against this? Pulling that needle through would be SO ANNOYING!

You never work horizontally on the face of the embroidery when you are cross stitching so this will never be a problem if you work with the top of your piece in the ditch.
Y.M.M.V. if you're working a different style of needlework, but there are a couple of other advantages as well so unless I was doing a LOT of tight horizontal work (like in attaching Shisha mirrors for example) I would probably continue working this way.

The second BIG advantage is that the projecting frame will help keep your top hand up off of the face of canvas so it will help keep the top of the piece a lot cleaner. Also: if you drop your frame or your pet/spouse/child bumps against it - the fabric which is most exposed on the edge is the underside of your work instead of the top.

A third potential advantage is that the well created by the frame projecting upward could be handy to keep working items nearby. You can rest items like scissors or a pattern right on the piece with you, though I *personally* would be really careful with this. Given *my* luck my scissors would open up and cut threads, or the ink from the pattern would transfer onto the fabric, or something similarly Murphy's Law-ish. Even if I don't make active use of it I can't even express the number of times this could have saved me from stopping everything to move my work off of my lap so I could pick up a a needle or threader which just joyfully rolled off the working surface and on to the floor.

I have a large-ish piece (around 11x15 inches) I've been working on for a bit that I have on stretcher bars and after finding out about this I'm SERIOUSLY considering un-mounting the whole thing and re-mounting it underneath the bars.

(2 am edit: I did it after I got back from dinner and I regret nothing!)

Anyway, I hope having this info out and about helps someone because I know I'm TOTALLY taking advantage of it.

Bonus thing - How to tell the front from the back on a piece of woven fabric:
(as much for my future reference as for yours)
"Hold the fabric by opposite corners and pull gently. If the fabric forms a "valley" between two "hills", that is the right or front side. If it forms a single "hill", that is the back. The front side is smoother than the back. However, it really makes no difference which side you stitch on unless it is a printed fabric."