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.  

Anyway, I guess I'll just have to keep working with Stick N Stitch to get the right tension. I don't like pulling my stitches too tight. In fact, I taught myself not to! This is a re-do of a Cate Anevski Facebroidery that I did forever ago. I do like how it came out, except for the loose stitches here and there. The lines are straight for the most part. You can't really tell, but I stitched some of the hair using etoile thread so that some of it sparkled. I LOVE that thread, but it's hard to get the sparkle to show in pics. I should use more of it. I also realized that you can't see all of the stitches in the picture for the hair.  The thread I used is almost the same color as the fabric.  You can see them in real life, but in the picture, they don't really show up.  It's a pity, really...

I'm working on redoing some of the Facebroideries, because some of the ones I did long ago look terrible, or I gave them away and I would like to have some for myself. I am working on a really cute one right now on the prettiest fabric, for which I have a funny story. 

 I went to JoAnn on Friday to look at some fat quarters. I usually go to the one at Arbor Walk, but thought I'd try the Round Rock one. It is awful. It's really messy and disorganized. They barely had any fat quarters, and they are not organized neatly like they are at the Arbor Walk store. I was going to look for some hoops and also for some fat quarters because I like doing the Cate Anevski patterns on patterned fabric. 

 I picked out a few fat quarters, and then saw this pretty fabric. It's kind of a dusty rose color and it has random half moons on it in black and white. You'll see it when I post the finished piece. It was on a fabric bolt rather than a fat quarter, so I took it to the fabric counter. The girl at the counter was folding some fabric back onto bolts, so I waited patiently. She looked at me and acted as if I was interrupting her. I get that her job is probably hard, dealing with customers all day, so I really wasn't that upset about it. Then she turned around and started doing something else, and after a few seconds, said over her shoulder, in a really aggressive tone, "I'll be with you in a MINute!" to which I replied "Oh, no rush", because I wasn't in a rush, and look, JoAnn is my happy place, so I'm not really mad if it takes a little longer. Then she turned around and gave me a look.. it's hard to explain. I want to say it was a challenging look, as if she were daring me to say something about her service. I said "Hi, can I just get a quarter yard, please?". She took the bolt and measured, and kept giving me disdainful looks. Then she cut the fabric, and measured it again, and then gave me another look, as if to say "I dare you to say something about what a cunt I'm being right now".

I didn't say a word. In fact, I was slightly amused, because it's fabric and it's Friday evening, and I'm full of Tex Mex dinner I just had, and I'm really not bothered by your being a jerk. Then she folded the fabric and shoved it at me, and gave me ANOTHER look like "You gonna say something now?" 

 Finally, she created the fabric ticket for me to take to the register and literally slammed it down onto the fabric and walked off. I said "Jeeeesus..." and walked off. Again. I have worked retail. I know it sucks. But she was a real fucking bitch to me, and I'm proud I held my temper. I mean, seriously, I wasn't even mad. I thought it was kinda funny, the way she looked like she was just waiting for me to say something about how incredibly RUDE she was being to me for absolutely no reason. And I also wasn't going to taint this cute fabric with attitudes. 

 When I checked out, the cashier was SUPER nice, and we talked about embroidery while she was checking me out. A customer came in and asked where the spray paint was, and the cashier told her and then called "Torie" on her walkie talkie thing to tell her that someone was coming back. "Torie" was the fabric demon. So I thought "Yeah, good luck with that, you'll be lucky if she doesn't spray the paint in your face".

Like what just happened??? LOL Oh well, I got some cute fabric so whatever!