Busy busy!

 Hello!  

I have been kind of busy of late.  Doing what...?  I can't really tell you. It just seems like I have not had a lot of time to blog.  There are a lot of things going on that I don't want to get into because this is a craft blog and not a political or sadness blog.  

That being said, we are taking steps to move up north.  We have actually been doing that, but now it's more urgent.  We are getting estimates to fix both gates and our driveway, and then we will start taking things off of the walls and patching holes and then I guess we'll need to paint but we can do that after we move stuff.  We want to really spruce the place up so we can sell for a decent price.  Not that it's in bad shape, but under all this pretty stuff are a bunch of holes in the wall!

We plan to move to Coldspring until we are able to find a place up north, and that will give us the space to save money if we need to save for a new place (depending on what we can get for this place) and also pay off some debt.  I'm excited, a little nervous, and very sad.  It's like a house break-up and it's painful for me because we have worked so hard to make this home perfect.  But... sometimes things happen and you have to move on.  

I'm also a bit sad that I won't be decorating for Christmas.  We will be packing so there is really no point.  

ANYWAY so that is what we have been doing.  I have, however, managed to finish another Cryptid from the Witchy Stitcher Cryptid Stitch-along, and I am working on another piece right now. Cross stitching and embroidery bring me peace and happiness so I have been concentrating on that as much as I can.  

How CUTE is he???  I also did this one, because I am feeling quite angry about things.  It's a pattern from VanCityStitchCo on Etsy that I've had for a while and it was time to do it. 

I have also decided I am no longer doing cross stitch by request for free.  So many people want me to do these and it takes time.  I LOVE doing them, but dang, I gotta get paid too!  So I have opened up commissions.  I doubt I'll get any (because when I open commissions around the holidays, I never get any but the rest of the time, I get people asking me to do stuff), but that's okay.  The option is there for people.  I will still do some for gifts for people, but no longer will I do requests for free.  

Anyway, I'm working on a great piece now, and hope to finish soon, and I'll post it.  I have started a list because I always think "I'm gonna do this one next" and get distracted and start another one and then before I know it, it's months or years before I do the one I had planned.  

New Stitches

 Hello there!  It's been a while since I have written.  I went on vacation to Savannah with my sister and Mom, and then had another week off, so I got a lot of stitching done.  Plus, there was Halloween merriment to be had!  

Savannah exceeded my expectations.  We went on a ghost tour, a few cemeteries, a plantation, and we went to a museum of oddities that had weird taxidermy, freakshow stuff, an Anton LaVey room, a room of cult stuff, and there was a little Ed Gein and John Wayne Gacy tour/talk they did.  It was my favorite part.  We ate lots of good food and walked a TON.  We had brunch on a river boat.  I was TIRED when we got home but I had a blast and I'm so glad we got to spend that time together!  

Then I came home and just did a bunch of relaxing and I got a few embroidery and cross stitch pieces done.  And now I don't know what I want to do next.  I'm usually into holiday stitching but I think since it's still summer outside, I don't feel much like the holidays.  I think I will do the Witchy Stitcher Yeti from the Cryptid Stitch-A-Long tonight.  

I finished this cutie on Halloween!  I got the pattern years ago from Andrea Zuill/BadBird.  

The next couple are Sublime Stitching patterns.  The first is from the Tara McPherson collab and the second is a free one I got from her site.

I've been in more of an embroidery mood, but I did manage a couple of cross stitches.  The first is from AlexStitchins on Etsy.  I finished it on Halloween too!

This last one is from Largodargentoshop on Etsy.  There is also a squirrel and a pumpkin one in the set, and I decided to start with the tea set!

Hopefully I'll get more into the holiday spirit and stitch up some ornaments soon, but regardless, I'll post what I do here! 

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.

This weekend, I was so disappointed in the weather on Saturday.  It was hot as fuck.  We went to a car show and I wore a really cute outfit, but it was all black, and heavy fabric, and the sun was out in full force with not one cloud in the sky.  UGH.  I got overheated.  I'm not super into car shows, but we went because my dad likes looking at old cars, and my sister and I dressed up to get pics and didn't end up getting many because we were so hot and miserable.  The one I got is horrible and I am probably gonna end up deleting it.

After we went back to my parents', everyone took a nap (except for me) and then we had dinner and then came back and hung around by the fire.  I made it an early night because the heat just took it out of me, and I was finding that I was almost falling asleep by the fire!  It was a nice fire, though.  

Sunday, we all got up and drank some coffee... again, around the fire.  My dad loves making fires and when it's cooler out, he makes one every morning and he and my Mom sit out and drink coffee by the fire.  I love doing that too.  All in all, I had a nice weekend.  I love hanging out with my family.  

Saturday night, I got all comfy in my pajamas and then got ready to do some embroidery, but then realized I was too tired, so I decided against it.  I didn't get any embroidery done until last night after we were home, rested and had dinner.  I started the Sublime Stitching stitching lady last night watching The Penguin and then finished her on my lunch break today. 

Then I think I'll work on the Badbird Jackolantern girl, or I may actually save her for my trip so that I don't have to take a bunch of different colors of thread, and I'm sure there will be downtime during which I can do some more embroidery.  I have a nice piece of orange fabric I can use for that one and since it's all black stitching, it should go fairly quickly.

I got a used copy of Carina Edvolsen-Harris's Stitched Blooms book.  The patterns are simple but very, very pretty!  It came with a CD so you can download and print the patterns, but laptops seem no longer to have a CD drive, since we don't really use CDs anymore.  I can always just trace the patterns, I guess.  Or scan and print them.  I'm excited to flip through and see what pretties she has in there.  

I also just found these cool embroidery stitch practice cards on Amazon that I've put into my Amazon Christmas wishlist!  If I don't get them for Christmas, then I'll just get them on my own, but I would like to learn a few more new stitches. 

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!

This one is from the Sublime Stitching/Black Apple collab.  My idea behind it was that the little hedgehog guy came to say hello.  He's so cute and look at this stylish little hat!

This is another from the Sublime Stitching/Black Apple collab and about halfway through I remembered I have already done this one and it's currently hanging in my giant collage.  Oh well, now I have two and I can hang this one in my office.  It's super cute anyway!

The last two I did are from a Japanese embroidery book.  I have done the girl and the cat on a onesie before but this time, I added a pattern to her dress.  

Those are the ones I completed this weekend.  I am looking forward to doing a lot more soon, and revisiting some of these patterns to keep for my own.  Then I can do Christmas ones starting in November!

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!