A diversion of the bunny kind...

I took a break from other pursuits to stitch this little bunny B for my nephew (his name is Benjamin so he's always been Benjamin Bunny).

I showed him a whole bunch of fonts like that with different sorts of added motifs and he picked the bunny on his own.

Today he helped me pick out a nice G to do for Evie (I think it's one with balloons). We had a good visit today and watched some soccer. He thought it was HILARIOUS when I got really loud and excited over a goal.

Celtic G

I knocked this out really quickly while I was listening to The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander.

This is just the color work, of course, I still have to do all the black back stitching. Here's the B I did for Benjamin about a year ago (with a picture before the black outline and after).

Now though I'm taking a break before finishing it to work on a pattern for my shop. It uses the Terry Pratchett quote "Logic is a wonderful thing, but doesn't always beat actual thought." 

Hoping to finish it tomorrow. I've got another good non-fiction book going, so maybe that will help speed me along.

tribute to Father Ted

Here is my first tribute to the show Father Ted. If you've seen the show it's pretty self-explanatory but you probably know the word anyway. I have a second piece that's been almost done for over a month but got shoved under something so I forgot about it for a bit. That should be up soon.

This piece was also made to show off the font, which I created. This font and the one from the "cat's in the bag" piece are on sale in my Etsy shop as a pattern pack, both are included and come with lowercase and uppercase. Given how little luck I've had in finding blackwork fonts I thought some other people might find these useful too, especially since these are wider and not so pointy.

Today was really tiring, but my teacup collection area has a new shelf up, ripe for expansion and some of my books have been moved around. Things look better and I have more room for new books. meaning I went and purchased a few young adult books I read as a kid that I've wanted for a while. That's something at least - I don't actually buy books unless there is a space on the shelf, but when I do have the space I go for it.

As I kid I read a lot, but I also re-read a lot. There were about 15 books at the library, favorites, that I'd check out and read once a month, every single month. Most of the young adult books I own are the ones we owned when I was a kid, I haven't added many to that collection. But I thought I'd like to add those books that I did read, over and over.

So close!

I am so close to being finished with the Celtic motif B! I've done all the colorwork except for the big purple spiral which shouldn't take any time at all. Then some white outline and then the larger task of outlining every bloody inch of it in black, which will take quite some time.

Still, I'll be very happy when it's done and I get to show it off. It may not be as impressive as my Roman mosaic but oh well.

I finished making two patterns of mine completely ready to post on Etsy. Also got the Dalek piece framed and photographed so it's ready to be listed. I need to do a few more photographs of four of my small 5"x7" pieces but then I'll have four framed things to sell, plus the two patterns. I finished touching up the outlines for my other animal face patterns so once I stitch them I can get those typed up and ready to list. In other words, getting close to opening shop!

work work work

Still no black thread but I've made some great progress on the Celtic B piece. It's such an annoying piece with all those little bits of color. Oh cross-stitch, you are a harsh mistress. Still, it's half-way done and once I pick up some black thread and get it all outlined I think it will be really terrific.

You decide "I'll make this for my niece/nephew" but of course you're not making it for them at all. Maybe when they're six or seven they'll think "Oh how pretty" and later on they'll hang it in their house but they probably won't understand how frustrating all of needlework is. Even the simplest piece is fraught with annoyance and anger and bad juju.

I look forward to the day I can sit down with my nieces and nephews and say "You there, try some embroidery and I want to see nice, even stitches or no dinner for you." No, I wouldn't do that. I'm an aunt, dinner is not my responsibility, which is why it's such a marvelous scheme, being an aunt. Come the end of April I'll have ten nieces and nephews. Granted I only ever get to see my sister's kids but at least I get to see some. Not to mention that I will never make ten giant, ornate, Celtic letter cross-stitches. Two is seeming a bit much at the moment, if I'm honest.

Still, with my sister and her family having moved down here I'm getting more exciting about the new baby coming. What I'm especially looking forward to is my nephew's reaction to it. Sure, right now he's all kissing the tummy and full of sweetness and light but eventually there will be another small, cute thing around that cries. I'm sure he'll be a good big brother, I have no doubt of it, but the reaction for the first few months will still be funny. An aunt's got to have some pleasures.

Up Up and Asleep

It is criminal how tired and worn out I am. Hoping to hit the YMCA tomorrow and do some hot tub soaking but I also want to hang out with my nephew and sister for a while. They literally just moved down here. Benjamin seems to be settling in well, but toddlers are pretty flexible about things that don't involve food or toys.

Meanwhile my apartment is a complete wreck but my legs just don't want to cooperate. So instead I've done a bit of lethargic picking up and a lot of stitching on the Celtic B project. I was thinking about making these letters to sell but they are too much of a pain. All those little tiny pockets of color just frustrate me to no end. There's a reason I do a lot of text pieces which primarily feature one color and have borders that can be thoroughly connected without the endless starting and ending of numerous new threads.

The pictures once I start the black backstitch outlining will change the look of the piece completely. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Working on the even weave is a joy. So much nicer on the hands than old Aida (though I know I'll continue to use that as well).

I did, however, finish the logo and banner and such for Hardcore StitchCorps which I share with you here. I think it turned out pretty well.

Working the productivity...

I've been sitting around watching QI, working on the Celtic letter cross-stitch, and dreading trying to color Frida's background. I'm starting to think it would be safer just to do a thick border of vines around her.

Come to think of it, I could do a border of vines and flowers and then paint only up to that point so there was less risk of color seeping into the figure area. That seems like it could work, right? Right?! Seriously, the thought of damaging Frida, who turned out perfectly, is driving me to distraction. I wanted to work on her at the beach and I think I can work on the vine border and have that done by the end of the week.

The Celtic E is looking very beautiful and almost seems worth the immense amount of work that's going into it. I'll be doing the next ones on even weave linen which would make for a much easier time. I'm also starting to get a good picture of the sampler I'd like to make for my sister and her growing family. I have a super pretty tree pattern that would look nice at the bottom and a ton of nice animal and plant motifs.

Sadly I will miss most of the blooms on my lemon tree as I'll be at the beach next week. On the plus side, I bought this thick letter stickers that include some punctuation including brackets. I basically only bought it so I could wear the bracket as a moustache and it looks so awesome. I would wear this all the time.

Pastel, floral bastards...

I have finished my Still Game quote cross-stitch and it may be my most favorite piece so far! I love the colors, I love the borders, I love the font, and obviously I love the quote.

The only thing I'm not pleased with is the purple border above the quote. Initially it was just the lighter purple with the design left open. However, all the other borders use two colors and it started looking weird to me to have an odd one out. So I filled it in and it looks fine and all, I just think it looked better plain.

The first border below the quote turned out much lovelier than I first anticipated. I think it looks very old fashioned, like something my great-aunts would have done in the early 1940s. It is, however, one of those pain in the ass patterns. You can stitch it across without having to break and restart the thread at all, but you have to stitch in a very particular order and not lose concentration. Looks lovely though, doesn't it?

Bastardization of Tradition...

This is what I like most about cross-stitch - the combination of traditional borders/motifs and modern/snarky quotes. It's just so much fun. Plus, quotation pieces can be finished relatively quickly. From the moment I heard this line on the Scottish comedy Still Game I knew I wanted to stitch it.

I'm really pleased with the color combinations in this piece. There will be three different borders under the quote as well and I'm generally planning to use the same colors as in the top borders. The font is basically this half-uncial one with some alterations since I wanted more typical lowercase letters, I love how it turned out though.

I'm always amazed at how different something can look once it's stitched. The purple border ended up looking very argyle-ish, which I adore. I did learn something very vulnerable with this project though. Mainly that it is very difficult to stitch when your nose is leaking like a sieve. I have a bad cold/flu/thing that began with that super watery type of nose running where it just leaks out no matter what. I'm surprised I didn't get any on the project because I was still trying to stitch as much as possible. Now it's all about that typing of wracking cough that shakes your whole throat and some very questionably colored phlegm. Thank god for needlework, in any case.

Another present ready to be wrapped....

Well, I finished my rhyme samplery thing! So happy to have it finished and ready to be ironed, framed and wrapped. I feel like I've been working on that thing non-stop for days, which is true, I guess. I neglected my Roman piece but Christmas is fast closing in so priorities change.

My direction on the red borders changed dramatically, because there just wasn't going to be enough space for it to still look nice in the frame and those flowery borders wouldn't have fit in with the style. I'll work those irises into my next project, perhaps using the Carl Sandburg quote "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits."

In any case, I'm quite pleased with the final result. I like the borders, I like having the text in black and the borders in three dark colors. Again, I think my dad will really like it. I can't wait to see his face. I ordered a print for him that I'd temporarily forgotten about and now I'm wondering if I should just hold onto it until his birthday.

Well, we'll see. There's nothing like seeing my parents happy. Lately I don't feel capable of much else. Just waiting for Christmas so they can be distracted by my complete lack of ability to function in all other arenas. C'est la guerre.

Almost done with Poor Little Willy!

Well, I wouldn't say it's been fun, but at least my blackwork piece is over 50% done. It might be 100% finished but I haven't decided yet. I'd like to do another border on the top and bottom, something with a little bit of color (green and blue are colors, granted, but they're dark and monocolored).

My usual confidence has deserted me though. This piece has been such a nightmare and I still haven't decided whether or not to fill those gaps at the end of two text lines. If I do fill them, what with? Something completely different? A motif from the green border? I have no idea. It seems like pressing forward is also pressing my luck.

In the end, I know that I will press on. I have a plan, I have a pattern and I want this present to be impressive. Depending on the person, handmade gifts can be viewed as a cop out, cheating at Christmas or something. The effort that goes into a pair of hand-knit gloves or mittens is often not understood by those who don't knit. However, it must be understood that my dad is the opposite. He would rather have something his children made than pretty much anything else on earth (possibly he would enjoy a case of fine single malt Scotch whiskey even more, but don't quote me). Baked goods, knit things, wood projects (my brother's arena), etc... He loves it. Watching his face when I tell him I baked him something is one of my favorite things on earth. It drives me to wear myself down to a lump of pain and exhaustion, no matter what, just to see him enjoy something I baked.

Stitching one of his favorite old rhymes with elaborate borders and framing it is something I know he'll adore. I know he'll love it as-is but I want it to be huge. For the past few years at Christmas I have focused on my parents. For the past five years my sister and I have done their stockings (since they did ours for so many years) and I've gotten my siblings just one or two things while trying to get four or five presents for my parents. This has been a problem since my income is extremely low but happily my parents love the hand-made.

99% sure that the final lower border will be the irises shown on the chart in some previous post. The same dark green for the stems and a lighter (but not super bright) blue for the flowers. Still sliightly unsure on the final top border. Happy to have it this far done though! I still love blackwork more than anything. The even, certitude of cross-stitch but with more flexibility, what's not to love?

Does working with Aida make you forget how to count?

Do you stare at the fabric, all the little squares, and immediately forget everything you meant to fix? Do you repeatedly count some segments? Does it cause you throw up your hands and give in to the mistakes? Do you slyly claim that the mistakes had to be made in deference to the Native American belief about such things?

Well, I do. It makes me crazy. I love needlework, absolutely love it. The problem is that there's too much to think of at once. With knitting you rarely have more than one thing to consider. Yeah there's counting rows sometimes and if you're doing Fair Isle there's more to think about but it's less work and there are typically large swatches of mindless knitting. I knit a lot of hats and I don't use a pattern so there's no counting and it's in the round so it's all knit stitch, no purl. I could do it in my sleep.

So here's a progress picture of my Victorian (or possibly earlier) rhyme about poor little Willy. I love how the border turned out but beyond that I am so frustrated. First the text was going to be too long (would screw up the border repeats) so I had to cut down the font to a less pretty version. Then the border spacing was still off so I had to cut the right side vertical border down by one square which my dad probably won't notice but would drive me to drink. Then after I had already pulled out the first few words I realized that although I'd fixed the border spacing I'd yet again forgotten to indent the text so it would be centered.

Well. Screw. That. I refused to go back and yank it again. It would not be centered and everyone would have to deal with it. I might do a small fiery design in the spaces after the first and third lines or a motif based on the border. Opinions? In any case, I would make it look great or I would go on a ruthless killing spree. Honestly, It's surprising that more serial killers aren't needleworkers.

Granted, my mind is foggy on the best of days. Between the pain and the way the disease eats my memory away I have a real problem focusing on details. Yet I have chosen to make cross-stitch and blackwork my new favorite hobbies. Obviously the RSD is eating away at my whole brain and not just my memory functions. Obviously I should return to plain freehand embroidery (as I have a niece on the way I'm sure I will at some point).

Why have I included a picture of adorable five year old me with my ten year old sister? Because I keep thinking about the new little niece my sister is growing and wondering how my nephew Benjamin will react to having a little sister. I hope (and believe) that he will love her like I love my sister. He's such a sweet, happy kid. A two year old who is able to understand that he needs to be extra gentle with me will be a good big brother, I think.

Okay, no, I just really wanted an excuse to show off how darned adorable I was! Beat THAT, new baby. Baby Meredith has the monopoly on cuteness. Forever!

Progress, Progress, Progress

Despite an initial setback (some mistake that I can't even find) my Roman mosaic cross-stitch is going well. I've finished a good portion of the skull now, though it's less than I'm letting myself imagine since I'm filling in all the white squares with white thread. I just needed more work to do. Oh, and I'm crazy and apparently have a desire to have constantly aching eyes and hands.

On the side I've finished the pattern for a blackwork piece for my dad. It's hard to look at because I've changed several aspects but I like the main border I've chosen and really like the font. I'm doing two smaller borders on top (and bottom) of the main one (four or five squares high) and then a taller more eleborate border on top of that. The elaborate outermost borders on the top and bottom with have some color worked in, while the rest of the borders will be dark green and the text with be black.

My intent is to have it be sampler-ish. The quote is an old rhyme, Victorian, I believe, but possibly older than that. So in my head I can imagine women then using common rhymes as text for samplers and then filling the rest with border and motif practice and such. I also need to start work on a traditional family sampler thing for my sister and her family. You know, the classic names and dates of birth and such.

The picture is a bit all over but for the rhyme I'm doing the first two borders (top and bottom) and the fourth border. I got carried away and was trying to make it a square piece but gave up on that because my eyes were going really bleary. I was initially doing the dot/slash on the "i" but it was making the spacing weird in a few spaces so I decided to drop it (but didn't feel like going back and erasing it). I really think the font fits the quote.

The borders are from Lesley Wilkins Traditional Blackwork Samplers and the font is adapted from one in that book. The corner piece and border on the vertical side is my adaptation of the horizontal one. I especially like how the corner piece came out, though I ended up having to drop it so the spacing will work out correctly.

Buckling down for the good of all...

Well my last post must have been a bit cathartic because I buckled down and finished the cursed piece. It's not like there was much left to do, but it was all annoying because there were various corners that needed five or six stitches only. If they'd needed twenty stitches I wouldn't mind but a mere five or six is just...frustrating.

I even worked on it while hanging out with my sweet and maddeningly adorable nephew Benjamin. He's two years old and very into letters and numbers. He knows the whole alphabet and numbers up to twelve (and a few random teen number and maybe twenty, I forget) and whenever he sees words or numbers he likes to point them out. It makes it dangerous to do cross-stitch around him, given that toddlers are well-known to often have sticky, messy fingers, but I risked it. The phrase "This is a no-touch item," was oft repeated.

Of course, I may have rushed into this a little too heedlessly. Now all I have on the books is the big, complex Roman mosaic - a piece which alternately frightens and enlivens me. I am excited to do it, but I'm so scared of messing it up to the point where it must be scrapped.

The other day I made a Felix the Cat cross-stitch pattern and I'd like to do a Tintin piece for my nephew. My sister has a mug with Captain Haddock on it and a little picture of Tintin on the bottom, this has led young Benjamin to point to the bottom of all dishware, and pretty much anything he can pick up, and say "Tintin!" He has a dutch Tintin counting book which he absolutely adores.

As this is the formerly-cursed piece, I do absolutely love how it turned out. While the border was fussy and frustrating I think it looks wonderful and the greens are close enough in shade to not distract from the text yet distinct enough to make the mosaic pattern shine. Again, I adore my little snakes and mice, especially the mice, and I believe I'll try to work the basic design into a blackwork sampler featuring various animals.

Projects Lost in Time

With cross-stitch I have been immensely efficient. I have only once started a new project while the previous one remains unfinished and typically finish my projects in one to two days. I just sit there listening to my books on tape, doggedly stitching until a) it's finished or b) I can't move my hands (at which point I take a break for an hour or two and then take it back up). I am not so disciplined with knitting, I'm afraid.

However, there is a cross-stitch project which I started, designed an annoyingly wide and complex border for, and then proceeded to screw it all up. The text is fine and used a a font I designed myself, but it was a long quote, longer than I've done before and thus requiring a larger border. The quote, by the way, is from the TV show Better Off Ted, which is the funniest thing any network has come out with in one, maybe two, decades. Sadly it only lasted two seasons but both are available on Netflix instant viewing, and I highly recommend it.
Most of the border is a geometric pattern done in two fairly close shades of green. On the horizontal parts I added some animals that related to the quote in order to break up the monotony of the main border (and to make sure I had enough green for the rest). I also added some smaller blackwork letters in the lower border that include the last line of the quote (which isn't completely necessary but helps if you're unfamiliar with the quote).

Because of these additions I needed to stitch the bottom two lines of the border and the top two and then fill things in. On the bottom I did the bottom three lines without thinking and had to ripe them out. Then I noticed a problem in one of the corner bits, which was glaring to me though my mom couldn't really tell even when I'd pointed it out.

I am a perfectionist. I love symmetry, I love perfect spacing. Stuff like this makes me see red - not so much the finding of problems but having to rip out my stitches and do it all again. With the lower border I couldn't even reuse the thread, it was entangled with the other green color so I had to take it out with a seam-ripper (and my seam-ripper is crappy). Since then I have been loathe to pick up the project again. There's really not much left to do but it's like the whole thing has become a bit of bad luck. I've completed two projects since setting the cursed one down and started a new one to boot.

Here it is so far. I am going to try to start it again, though first I need to make sure I have the text completely worked out so I don't end up completely off-center and needing to do THAT again too. Sigh. It's my first real problem project (though I think the Roman mosaic will end up with a lot of frogging and re-stitching) and oh how I hate it, but I might hate it sitting there unfinished and looking at me even more.

Cross-stitch Quotations

There are many things that make cross-stitch appealing to me. It indulges my OCD, my desire for symmetry, and my love of amusing quotes. It keeps my hands busy, if aching, and the concentration I put towards it mirrors meditation. Other than the extra aching, these are the things that I need most in life, such utter distraction that I can forget the world and my circumstances.

Yet for all the distraction my constant inner feeling appears in the quotes that I choose. None are so accurate as this quote from a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, to which I've added a little judicious swearing.

It's true, isn't it? Reality can ruin all our lives to various extents in various ways. We build up our defenses, our distractions, and we lose ourselves in them until some bit of the bad old world intrudes into that bubble. So we shrug and we sigh and above all we say "fuck this."

The border is my own design, and you are free to use it, if you'd like. Click on any of the pictures for the full-size image.

Happy crafting!

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!