Ah, I can't believe I forgot to post this! I was so happy I got to finally use this alphabet. It took me YEARS to track down an extremely poor copy of the pattern, and was more frustrating to read than stitch.
I made this for my friend Christine's new baby, and was so excited to post here, and then once she'd received it I forgot!d
In other work, I spent ages on the robot sampler pattern design and decided I just hated it. Then I spent some ages on a Cthulhu twisted "bless this house" design, which I like and will start stitching as soon as I get some more 14 count Aida, since of course that's the one count I don't have.
I'm also working on a (gasp) subversive project. Free embroidery, more artsy/political statementy, which I'll post a progress shot of in the next few days.
It's summer, and I hate summer. I've also been desperately looking for something to stitch for my mom's birthday, but nothing is speaking to me.
I thought I had finished this and then remembered that I still had to outline it. Grumble grumble. I also found a big mistake which was SO annoying.
Anyway, it's done at least, and the pattern is now for sale on Etsy.
I'm feeling a little blocked in designing patterns that are sale-able. I do want to finish that robot sampler which I hit a block on, and there's an idea with foxes that I'd love to make work. It's one where I know EXACTLY how I want it to look but I'm having trouble getting there.
After that, I'm planning to transfer a bunch of entries from my second grade journal to one big piece of cloth and embroider them along with some drawings from the same period. Is that silly? I think it will be sort of neat, though now I wonder what on earth I'll do with it.
Here is my mermaid, all finished. I'm really quite happy with her.
I was weirdly nervous about stitching an iron-on transfer piece, I think for fear that I wouldn't cover the transfer lines or something.
This project went ridiculously quickly. I still need to work on my Frida project, but getting appropriate background color filled in (non-embroidered) has been a pain. I hope I'll be working on that again soon though.
Well, I got almost half the background done and ran out of floss. It's my favorite purple (154), so it seems stupid that I didn't have an extra skein around. Oh well. I'm hoping to get to the store tomorrow, but I really like the way the purple is making it pop.
Wish I'd chosen a different color for the flowers, or done them in half-stitches, but oh well. This one had a lot of mistakes and things I had to work around. Maybe someday I'll make another and it will be perfect (ha, like that will happen).
In the meantime I've been working on my first kitschy transfer piece! I have a big thing for mermaids, and strong feelings that they wouldn't have pink skin or red hair. Here she is so far.
Meanwhile my mom is is Italy, taking pictures of things she feels would make excellent cross-stitch patterns (and cats lounging on statues).
I could have sworn I'd posted update pictures of this piece already! Apparently my brain has gone hooey.
Soo, this is the piece. There have been some issues. Didn't have enough of the one hand-dyed thread for the squares, went to get more, but I'd written down the wrong number. Realized that the sun had faded the other pieces anything, so waiting to use more of that would still leave problems.
So I used one green-blue kind and one yellow-green kind, then decided to do have the piece is more greenish colors and half in more yellowish colors. It's not really noticeable enough though. I now have many things I wish I'd done with the the corner pieces, but oh well.
I'm doing the remaining white parts in dark purple (154) half stitches. I don't dislike the piece, but I can't help thinking about what I *would* have done if I'd sat and given myself time to think about the choices. I wish I could make myself go through all the options ahead of time, but I don't seem to have the knack. I'm slower with my color choices now, at least, but that's as far as I've come.
My friend got her package, so I can show you the onesies I stitched!
Unlike with all of Benjamin's onesies, I used fabri-solvy as a stabilizer and just drew the design on that with a water soluble marker. It worked brilliantly and make the task SO much easier.
The designs are a big wonky, because I free-handed them pretty quickly, but I'm pretty happy with them.
I'm having a block in finishing my robot sampler design, so it's back to work on the blackwork quilt piece.
I am finally stitching again! It is quite the relief. I finished two small free embroidery pieces, but I'll have to wait a few days to show you, as they're a gift that's currently in the mail and I'm playing it safe.
However, I found this old piece that I started and nearly finished over a year ago. It got shoved in my purse for a while, and then into a drawer. It was a quick finish, which made me feel nice and productive.
I also spent the last few days cutting and gluing fabric onto hoops so I could start an embroidery display wall! It's not the in the best place for it, but I've lived here for almost three years and my walls are pretty damn crowded.
