Women are not... Finished!

Well I finished the Women are not.. piece and the pattern is now for sale in my Etsy shop. If I were stitching it again I would do the colors a bit differently, but oh well.

Stitching on The Cheat has been a bit stalled, since I'm just been so tired lately. I know I keep saying it, but after that I really must get to the chintz napkin. The last bit won't take that long and I know I'll be overjoyed when it's finished.

Please and thank you!

So there are a few things I especially adore in this world (okay, many MANY things) but as far as TV shows one of my favorites is the cartoon Kim Possible. It's one of those perfect cartoons that has a lot of adult references and humor in addition to the usual stuff. It's also just genuinely hilarious and I relate a lot to the bumbling sidekick character, Ron, as he's my twinsy.

Anyway, one of the commonly said phrases in the show is "please and thank you" so I thought I'd embroider it on a tea towel.

I know most people don't like this kind of rough free-handed cursive but I love it. Something in the simplicity and roughness pleases me greatly.

Now I'm working on another Kim Possible quote in cross-stitch with a gorgeous floral border: "not dumb luck, dumb skill."

Assumptions

This new project is a quote from Priscilla Queen of the Desert. It may be a phrase more widely used but I've never heard it except in that movie (one of the best movies ever!). 

I stayed up really late to finish the text so it would be ready to show this morning. This in turn, presumably, caused me to dream about doing the loveliest flowery border in wonderful peachy and sea foam colors. I might try to recreate it but not for this piece.

For the border on this I have a pretty good idea which will be quite simple and easy but hopefully give a nice effect.

So far I have raised $6 in my It Gets Better pattern fundraiser. Even if I can only raise enough to buy one of the books that's more than I'd be able to do on my own so it's all good. If you don't buy patterns (I certainly don't) you can donate through the It Gets Better website or make a purchase of the book which they'll then give to a school library (you can even ask that it go to a specific school library).

Cross-stitch alphabet

I've been working on various alphabets, mostly for cross-stitch and blackwork. I find that putting hilarious and snarky quotes in cursive makes them even more amusing.

Of course, cursive is a big pain, since the letters all join up differently and for some you can't join them well at all since doing the official, traditional cursive 'r' in cross-stitch will end up looking like an 'n' or will just be a bit confusing. I'm not completely satisfied with some of these letters (mainly the p and q), but it's a start. I haven't stitched all of them, so perhaps the 'p' and 'q' look nice on fabric.

Sometimes it's so amazing to me how different something looks on graph paper compared to how it looks in thread on linen. I suppose that's the nice thing about cross-stitch, you get some surprises.

Here I post for you the lowercase cursive alphabet, which anyone is welcome to use. I altered and combined a number of sources to come up with this. If you do use it (and end up posting your piece online) I would really love for you to link people back to this post or my blog in general. Click on any image for the full-size version!

I am also posting some pictures of various pieces I've done basically using that alphabet (with a few changes) so you can see how it really looks. Now work that needle, darlins!