Weekend in Coldspring

Happy Monday!  I have a short week this week since I will be going on vacation and then I have all of next week off!  I haven't decided if I'm going to take some embroidery to do with me on vacation or not... I may take at least one project.

  

Friday I'm in Love...

 ... with this Tara McPherson/Sublime Stitching collaboration!!  

I stitched this up back in 2009, I think (If you care to go back that far, you'll see it) and gave it away and decided I wanted to make one for myself when I saw that one, so I did!  

I did this one much larger than the first one and put it in a 10" hoop. I'm very happy with it.  

This weekend, we're going to my parents' house.  I have a half day today, and then we will get there kind of early.  Right now, I'm not in the best mood, and I'm tired and also a little mad at myself and embarrassed that I slept in and didn't get off my fat ass and go for my walk today.  I don't know why I didn't, I just didn't feel like it.  I've been in a really weird mood lately, like sad sometimes and just completely fed up other times.  Maybe the weekend in the woods will help make me feel better.  

Tomorrow there is a car show at Wolf Creek Park and I don't care about car shows but my sister wants to go and get a bunch of pics of us dressed up like pinups so I'm all for that.  

We were supposed to be doing a mini class reunion this weekend, with homecoming being tonight and all, but no one has mentioned anything else, even after a bunch of us have been questioning it, so I guess it's not happening.  But that's okay, more family time for us!

I have a couple more Sublime Stitching patterns I want to do and a Badbird jackolantern girl I have all ready to stitch up this weekend!  I just wish it would actually get cold again.  It's not gonna be hot, but it's still not fall weather here, which I think also may be part of my weird mood lately. I'm very disappointed that it's not autumn yet, and that we're gonna be in the 90s again next week, at the end of October.  That is unacceptable to me.  But I can't do anything about it, so I shouldn't be mad, but I can't help but be very disappointed.  

But anyway... what can ya do?  Sit in the house and stitch, I guess!  

Happy Tuesday

Hello there, and happy Tuesday!  

I am having a hard time deciding which embroidery piece to do next.  I printed some Christmas ones out for tiny ornaments but I will probably start working on those when I am off the week after next, since I have a whole week and a half off work. 

I started this one yesterday after work, and then Eric and Haylan came for a visit, so I finished on my lunch break today.  It's another of the Japanese embroidery patterns from that book I got years ago, and if you have seen older posts, you may recognize it as one I also put onto a onesie.

I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I had a huge amount of leftovers from when I stopped selling at Moxie.  That was not a good experience.  The lady who owned the shop had absolutely no idea what she was doing.  She didn't want to market or advertise, because she wanted it to be a "word- of mouth store that only the cool people know about", which is the one of the worst business models I can imagine.  I never made much money, and I don't do this for money but it sure would be cool to be able to make a little on the side whenever I want to do some pieces.  I have made more from commissions here and there than I ever did selling there, or even selling on Etsy.  Also, she didn't want us taking inventory (I found that very strange and I eventually insisted on doing my own because I didn't want people taking stuff from my booth and not paying).  That was a huge red flag.  

I ended that arrangement right before the store closed, and I can't really remember when that was.  Maybe 2010 or 2011?  It was kind of a relief, honestly.  I kept trying to sell on Etsy but wasn't very successful.  I think there was a lot of competition out there and since it's not my only source of income, I didn't do a lot of marketing or advertising either.  Also, someone stole my shop name and Etsy did nothing about it, and their fees got high and when I did sell something, I wasn't making much money in the end, and it was so much hassle for nothing so I eventually pulled everything off Etsy too.  I learned that making your hobby something you are obligated to do may not be the best idea.  

Anyway, the point of that long babbling bitch session is to say I had a bunch of embroidered pieces, onesies, and little t-shirts left over from Moxie and Etsy, and I had them in a pink milk crate thing that I think my friend Rebecca gave to me.  I remember distinctly having it in this house, but I have not been able to find it anywhere.  I am hoping I didn't have a moment of insanity and donate it all, but I am afraid I may have.  I would love to have some of those little ones back.  Oh well, I guess I'll just have to redo them.  I think I may work on a Tara McPherson/Sublime Stitching one next.  

Stitchy Weekend

Happy Monday!  I had a great weekend.  I spent the ENTIRE day on Saturday (except for lunch at Usta Kababgy with my cute lil hubby) drinking coffee, watching horror movies/true crime documentaries, and doing embroidery!  I also spent half of Sunday stitching, and the rest out with a friend.  

Here are the fruits of my labor.  

This one is a Cate Anevski illustration.  I did it a long time ago on a hot pad for a friend, and decided I need one for myself!

Pimp Stitch

 I used to LOVE the Pimp Stitch group back in the day.  They had a blog and featured embroidery designers, and also provided free (and some for sale) patterns that were just SO CUTE!! 

 

I’m taking you on a stroll with me… I was looking for my Kawaii Fruits embroidery pattern, because I discovered that I needed a password to access it.  I reached out to the shop owner and she no longer had the pattern or the password.  But I went down a rabbit hole that led me to my very old email address and there it was! 

I downloaded it to my computer and named it with the password as well because you can’t access it at all without the password.  I’m so happy to have it back!! Now if I could only get the goddamned printer to work…

Anyway, I was going through some of my old embroidery patterns that I have saved on my laptop, and I found one for a Holy Cupcake… by Pimp Stitch!  So I was like “OH RIGHT! I remember them!” I got so many free cute patterns from them back in the day when I first started embroidery in 2009.  Well, they have a Flickr page where people used to post their pictures. 

I haven’t been able to find another community like the ones back then.  Feeling Stitchy and Pimp Stitch were two of my favorite places to find patterns and inspiration.  The blogs are no longer active, sadly, but the archives are there!

And now I’ll leave you while I go down a rabbit hole of my own. 

R.I.P., Pimp Stitch.

Final Facebroidery (For Now)

 This is the last of the Facebroideries for now.  Green is my favorite color and I thought this piece of green fabric would be great for a green Facebroidery!

The Stick N Stitch is good for some things, but I think I may give it a rest for now and go back to tracing, and maybe just use Stick N Stitch for pieces with long straight lines or circles (you know, the things I can't trace worth a shit), because if I'm using a dark color over the lines, I can't really see how straight the stitches are.  Or maybe I can use it and just not do dark colors.  

Another issue is that I can't get the wrinkles out of the fabric after rinsing.  Anyway, I do think this one is pretty cute.   I chose to not fill in the eyes on this one. I like how they look a little hollow.  I also used some more etoile thread but as usual, the sparkles are not showing up in the photo.  It sure is pretty in real life, though!  

Recent Facebroideries

I have finished a few more Facebroideries, and I have one more to go and then I think I will have done most of the ones I really like. These will go in the giant collage that's in our bathroom.

I have really gotten the embroidery bug again, and I think it's due to reading over my old posts. I started that one in my early 30s and since I'm now in my late 40s so of course, I have grown in a lot of ways. I think back when I started this blog, I was trying to mimic other popular bloggers. Now, that's not at all important to me, and no one even reads this blog I'm sure, but I'm no longer doing it for others. I'm doing it for myself and if people happen upon it, that's great and if they don't, that's not a problem. Since embroidery and cross stitch are such a huge part of my life, I just like to have them to look back on, and to read what was going through my mind at the time I completed them. I have learned a lot since I started the blog. I try not to critique myself too harshly anymore, because who cares? It's something I do for fun. It's not a competition and I don't sell my pieces anymore. So what if there is a stitch out of place? I may, now and then, say something like "Oh the stitches are wonky" etc but... sometimes I may not! I try not to critique, I said. 

I feel like this one is just about perfect. I am happy about the colors I chose. This is the fabric I was talking about in my last entry, over which I probably narrowly avoided getting my ass kicked.

Stick N Stitch

I think I have talked about this before, but if you don't know, they make this stuff called Stick N Stitch. You can use your printer to make stick-on embroidery patterns, which eliminates having to trace them. It's a really cool thing. The only issue I have with it is that after I wash it off, some of my stitches are loose, as you can see in the picture below.  

The Witchy Stitcher Cryptid Stitch-Along: Jackalope

I finished this cutie from The Witchy Stitcher's Cryptid stitch-along. 

During the days of the Old West in Wyoming USA, when cowboys gathered by the campfires singing at night, Jackalopes (or Frankenstein Rabbits) could often be heard mimicking their voices.  It is said that they may be caught by putting a flask of whiskey out at night.  The Jackalope is described as a jackrabbit with antelope/pronghorn horns or deer antlers and sometimes a pheasant’s tail.  Scientists suspect that people who saw these horned rabbits actually saw creatures that were affected by a papilloma virus that causes horn-like bumps to grow from their heads.  – The Witchy Stitcher, Cryptid Wiki, All That’s Interesting

I found these great 4x6 frames at Hobby Lobby that fit these perfectly and I have been using them to frame each one of these. The only thing is that they are not meant to hang on the wall so when I hang them, they sometimes fall a little crooked. I may have to just glue hangers on these to hang them. There is a cute song about the Jackalope by Shonen Knife I wanted to post but I can't get the link to show up... if you wanna listen, just look up "Jackalope" by Shonen Knife. It's worth it. G'bye!

Weekend Stitches

Friday night, I stitched up two more ornaments from Wild Olive. I traced these, again, so the circles are wonky and I may actually do another one of each, because I can print it on Stick N Stitch and not have to worry about crappy lines and bad circles. On the little reindeer, I put teeny tiny white beads to look kind of like snowflakes and I like how they look!  

The C Word

I love "the C word"- Cunt, not the other one that kills people. I don't know why people are so offended by it. It's just another curse word. But it sure feels good to say it. I say it a lot. In Scotland, it's a term of endearment... kind of sometimes. Why do we hate it so much? ;) Of course, there are people who I will not say it in front of- children, my parents, old people, people who have told me specifically they find offense. But it's just a word... I dunno the big deal. I found this one online and copied it because I couldn't find the actual pattern to purchase.

Wild Olive Christmas Ornaments

 I have been working on my Christmas stitching and trying to get back into embroidery again, and I found these cute cute patterns from Wild Olive, so thought I'd give them a go.  I traced these rather than use Stick and Stitch so this is what I get. 

I'm not sure what I'll do with these because they're a little big to hang on a tree.  I'll figure something out!

I used some tiny beads for the snow on this one so it's extra special!  I may start adding beads on other ones for a little razzle dazzle.

Creepy Cute Stitches

In the spirit of the first day of October, I am posting creepy embroidery from back in the day. This one is from Wild Olive.  These are not really her style but I really love them!  I honestly don't remember when I did this one because I didn't take a pic of it for some reason until recently.  I remember doing it in the smaller apartment we lived in, in the Chevy Chase apartments in Austin, so I would estimate I did this one in 2010 or possibly 2011.