Wonder Woman!

 Finally stitched the last Wonder Woman pattern of the bunch I designed a while back. This one is my favorite, because this Wonder Woman totally gets me. The number of times I'm standing in my kitchen or bathroom totally bewildered as to what brought me there is sad (I mean, there's only so much I could possibly want in the kitchen or bathroom).

The pattern is for sale in the shop now. Maybe I'll do more in the series later, but I don't have any concrete ideas at the moment.


I finally mailed a birthday/new baby package to my friend Christine, so I can post all those pieces now. Her daughter's name is Maisie and she enjoys the Maisy books so this was an obvious choice to stitch. I created the pattern from a coloring book image, and you can find it in my free pattern section. She's a Beastie Boys so this onesie was a given (though I'm still only partially happy with it, and I didn't pay enough attention to wear the fabri-solvy had wrinkled up, making my crochet hooks extra wonky). And then a name piece for the new baby. There really need to be more interesting and neutral alphabets out there. If I go temporarily mad maybe I'll try to make one.

After the onesie I had a desire to do a super detailed embroidery of a skein of floss, but I think I've regained my common sense now.

I'm working on a new pattern using a quote from a Moomins book: "There's no need to imagine that you're a wondrous beauty, because that's what you are." It involves lots of metallic gold thread. Which, by the way, the difference between trying to use DMC's metallic flosses and Kreinik's thread is night and day. Kreinik is so so easy. I still use the thread conditioner on it, but I don't think that's a necessary step. Plus they have such a HUGE range of colors and different colors of glow in the dark thread and they're made in my home state! I didn't realize they were a West Virginia product until I got my order for the dragons piece. So pleased to support my fellow West Virginians.

New item

There's a new pattern in my Etsy shop. It's the one for this Assumption is the Mother of All Fuckups piece, which I quite like. 

My Miyazaki pattern set is done and will be up for sale in a few days. It's different from my other patterns in the shop because I haven't stitched all of the designs. In looking through Etsy I found that loads of people just sell patterns without an example of how they look stitched and they all seem to do fine. So we'll see. I did stitch my Totoro who is quite cute. 

It's not loads and loads of designs, just a sampling. The set includes Kiki, Jiji, Calcifer, Porco Rosso, Totoro, No-Face (a large design and a smaller design), a couple small tree sprites, and a soot (though I'm not happy with him). I'm happy with it, in any case. I don't really want to do larger full characters, though I might try to slip in the scarecrow from Howl's Moving Castle quickly, but maybe not.

For the kidlets...

Well I finished the sun lion pattern by Cate Anevski onesie for my upcoming niece and a second one for her with 'girl' in various foreign languages. The girl one is an idea I initially did for my nephew Benjamin and one I particularly like and would like to sell in my Etsy embroidery shop (hoping to open it in about a month). Some parents really dislike people getting their kid's sex wrong (more so I think when the kid is a year old for the ones whose hair grows suuuper slowly) and somehow I like that it facilitates communication with people who you might not otherwise talk with. Plus you could take your families nationalities and just use those languages. I include Dutch on the ones for Benjamin and the new girl because our friend and 'sister' Tessa is Belgian (from the best part of Belgium, the Flemish part!).

I spent a bit of today embroidering a design I drew a few days back. It's part of a trio of animal head designs, very stylized. My wireless was out so I couldn't easily scan in the design and make it larger and then printout, transfer, etc... So in typical fashion I just drew it freehand with the washable marker. Therefore it's not quite right (right side white tuft is a bit too low, eyes aren't quite identical) but it's still pretty cute. I can't wait to try the other animals (along with the fox I did a raccoon and an owl). They'll be good for a possible baby quilt, onesies, and patches (or patch pockets) for kids clothes.

We had two days of warm (mid to upper 40s) weather and now it's cold and rainy again. I was so hoping that it would stay sunny for my lemon tree but oh well. At this point I would just be happy if we didn't get another rash of snow. I am so sick of it. Not that we've had any huge blizzards but snow every week almost since the beginning of December is just not fun. Especially since the house my mum bought is at the top of a really really steep hill (one which scares me a bit even when bone dry). She has a four wheel drive Subaru, but I do not. Fingers crossed, in any case.

Sunny Baby

Well, given that there are only three months left until the birth of my 10th niece/nephew I am an in full "make things for new niece..." mode. I finally got some plain white onesies in 0 - 3 and 3 - 6 month sizes.

I knew I wanted to do this pattern for the niece from the moment I saw it. It is by the talented Cate Anevski and you can find it on her website along with other free patterns. Now, given that I'm doing this on a onesie, stretchy knit fabric, I can't do the dotted line stitches. It works on some onesies better than others but these are particularly plush and springy so it's a no go.

It's turning out well so far though. There will be a total of four shades of yellow and orange in the sunburst parts and I didn't finish the face because I'd gotten to the end of that thread and don't want to do the knots for the dots until after I've washed it. So may as well do that last bit of the mouth then. I hate started new threads, especially when it's for some tiny piece and when I'll have to do another tiny piece later.

On the Frida front I got my favorite stitch book out the library for ideas on how to fill the skirt and some decorative stitches that I'll never have memorized. I really need to go ahead and dye the background but it's one of those tasks that make me feel lazy and procrastinating.

Babies and Garden Pests: Are they really so different?

Though I had done some embroidery before my sister became pregnant with her first baby it was that event which really propelled me into regular embroidery and from there into cross-stitch and blackwork.

My sister is my best friend, and has been since I was seventeen years old. She is five years older than me or I'm sure we would have been best friends even sooner than that. Of my eight nieces and nephews (this time next year it will be ten!), her son Benjamin (often called Bunny) is the only one I see regularly. I don't want kids myself and I've never been a baby-person, but the Bunny is the light of my life. He is two years old, and the happiest toddler I've known (knock on wood). He recognizes me and gives me unsolicited kisses, and I appreciate that.

Before he was born I embroidered a number of white onesies for him and just kept doing it as he grew. Now I've got three pieces that just kept being forgotten until he grew out of them, but luckily my sister is pregnant again so these, along with the smaller sizes, will be passed on to the new baby. I feel a little guilty since two of them are the best I've done, but Bunny got two sweaters I knit just for him and the new baby is unlikely to get a new sweater from me (sorry honey, hand-me-downs will be the name of the game for your whole life).

Here you find my favorite original embroidery pattern to date, a green and brown snail sliming along. I love the way the slime trail turned out with the two close shades of green and two stitch styles. What I will eventually add is a thicker line of darker brown next to the light brown of the shell, as it is too thin compared to the body. Otherwise, I love it! If I make another copy on regular fabric I will probably use metallic thread for the lighter green of the slime trail.