Japanese embroidery patterns

I got this Japanese embroidery book FOREEEEEVERRRR ago. I have posted some of the stuff I have stitched up from the book on this blog. The designs are so cute. And since I'm trying to get back into embroidery, I thought I'd look at the book again. My problem is that I get overwhelmed. I want to start stitching, but I don't know what to stitch. I have so many patterns. So I tend to put it off until I'm no longer interested. That may happen this time too... we'll see. 

Anyway, I did this one from the Japanese embroidery book. The cool kids are no longer just doing outline embroidery but basically painting with the shit and I don't want to spend days on a project, so I won't be doing that. However, I have learned some really cool stitches and thought I'd try one of them out on this one. I forget the name of the stitch but I did it on the leaves. I already knew french knots which I know some people HATE but I love them, and satin stitch. I really love how it came out! This is not the final framing, it's just the hoop I used to stitch it, since these kind give me the tautness I crave. That sounded weird.

WIPS

I'm sitting here listening to a playlist of MTV's 120 Minutes from 1991.  That means all of these songs are at least 30 years old.  I used to watch 120 Minutes every week- it's how I discovered a lot of the music I still love today.  It's making me really sentimental...

Anyway, I have a few WIPs going. I usually only have one WIP, because I hate to start another project before finishing another. This is a rarity.

 

This Absolutely Fabulous piece may be for a friend but I may keep it (she often disappears from the face of the earth so I may not get it done before she disappears, and in that case, MINE!  It’s gone pretty quickly. Here's Pats (I need to redo some of the leg stitches), and now I just need to get started on Eddie. The pattern is from 8BitNorthStitch on Etsy.  

https://www.etsy.com/shop/8bitnorthxstitch?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=920576695

This one is embarrassing because it’s been a WIP for like 3 years. It’s the first installment of the Chopping Mall SAL from The Witchy Stitcher. I don't want to do it all in one piece, so I thought I’d just do each “store” and frame it separately. This is the first one released in the SAL and I'm actually not super happy with how it's coming along so far, so I'm not sure if I'll scrap it and start over or what.

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WitchyStitcher?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=1009379392

The last one is another face embroidery from Cate Anevski. I have been a HUGE fan of her work for years.  I've done this one before but I wanted to do in another color. I need to redo some of the stitches, but really, I can finish this in no time, do I don't know why I just don't get on with it...

https://www.beeskneesindustries.com/

Keep Stitching Weird

I found an Etsy shop called OddAnaStitch. Her patterns are so interesting. I stitched these up last fall.  I remember doing the bat face one while I was visiting my family and my granny saying how weird it was, but that she kind of liked it.  The other one with the mushroom eyes, I think I started out at my parents' but finished when I came back home.

I just love odd and unsettling cross stitch patterns... don't you?

So Hygge!

I stitched this one about a year ago. It was a cool and rainy Saturday. One of my FAVORITE things to do when it's cool and rainy out is put on a horror movie, drink some coffee, and do some stitching! Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. I think I was born to be in a cooler climate, because I just love the coziness of fall and winter! In Texas, we only get a short window of cooler weather, and while I was born and raised here, I have never liked that. This one is from an Etsy shop called ALIFERA. Her patterns are wonderfully weird and also very beautiful.

I love her patterns, and I plan to do more for sure.

Malcolm Tucker is My Life Coach

I have A LOT of cross stitching posts to catch up on. Today, I want to show you a couple of pieces inspired by Armando Iannucci's The Thick of It and In the Loop. It's a British show done in 2005 and the move (In the Loop) was done around the same time. It stars Peter Capaldi, whom I adore, Chris Addison, Rebecca Front, and Joanna Scanlan. It's a British policital comedy, and I instantly became a fan of Peter Capaldi's character Malcolm Tucker. He has THE BEST lines. One of them, which Malcolm refers to as "Tucker's Law", was sadly cut out of the show, but I saw it on some outtakes and knew I had to cross stitch it.

Here it is in action, along with my custom Malcolm Tucker Funko Pop figure!

Here are a couple more Malcolm Tucker quotes I've stitched up. Pardon the shoddy framing... I suck at most things.  This one is from StephXStitch on Etsy.  The second is from Claire Brown on Etsy.

Stick N Stitch

Hello hello! Today I bring you yet another Facebroidery by Cate Anevski. So on this one, I do like how my stitches look more even. However, I still have a problem tracing a perfect circle. I just can't do it. They make this stuff you can print patterns on that will stick onto the fabric and then it washes away, so I'm thinking of getting some so I can stop doing shit trace jobs! The only thing I worry about there is washing it off and then the fabric gets wrinkly and I have to wait for it to dry and bleehhhh but hey... it's either nice straight lines and good circles or the shit I've been cranking out so I guess I'll have to deal. I am fairly happy with this one, though.

Sublime Stitching x Naoshi

Naoshi makes the cutest art. She collaborated on some patterns with Sublime Stitching. I purchased them, but have only gotten around to doing one. I was gonna do it for a onesie for Jessica, but then I waited too long. So now it hangs in the collage I have in the bathroom! I stitched this one back in 2016.

Loooong Overdue Update and Post

It's been almost 10 years since I posted in this blog. Life happened- we did another big move, I went through a lot of mental health issues (depression and anxiety that had gone undiagnosed and unchecked for YEARS finally caught up with me), I suffered the loss of my sweet cat and of my Grandad (who, if you know me or have read this blog, means the world to me), and I fell into a dark plae and I stopped crafting for a while. Well, I still did stuff but it was really sporadic, and I just stopped blogging and I don't know why. Maybe it's because it's sometimes hard to keep up with. AAAAAANYHOW, all is well with Jonesy, though I'm not longer a Jones. I married my sweet Allen and I decided to take his last name afterall (though I kept Jones as a middle name, because afterall, I am definitely a Jones!). But he still calls me Jonesy, so I am not changing the blog name. We purchased a house in 2015 in Hutto. I never thought I'd move from Austin, but I'm glad we did, because I don't like what Austin has become, and Hutto is much more affordable. What else.. oh, I got laid off from my job at Sears in 2017, worked at this cool company called Build A Sign for a few months and then my old Sears boss begged me to come back, so I did. The pay was good but FUCK that place and fuck her. I could write a fucking Tolkein-length novel about the shit show Sears is. I got furloughed earlier this year, and not trusting Sears, I found another job. The pay is a lot less, but it's better overall. And now you're pretty much caught up. I took some time yesterday and read back over my posts, and my life has changed so much, but one thing remains- I still love cross stitch, embroidery, and crafting in general. I basically do the same stuff, craft-wise. I also don't bake sweets any longer so the food will disappear from future posts, since I would like to just carry on with my crafty stuff. So expect to see some new crafty mediums, pictures of plants, my house, etc! Also, plan to see less obnoxious posts. Well, maybe plan to. Jonesy out!