take off, hosers

Long have I been a Bob and Doug McKenzie fan. My sister and I got the movie from Netflix and thought it was the best thing ever. We thought this because it IS the best thing ever. I own it and we still love it. We still quote it all the damn time too.

One of our favorite lines is "Give in the dark side, you knob," during the lovely hockey scene. It works on many levels as I'm also a massive Star Wars fan (used to watch the trilogy once a week minimum all summer long). I literally knew every single line of all three movies and once ran through the movies with a selection of stuffed animals on a three day drive to New Mexico. My mother kindly claims that it kept her awake.

Anyway. Bob and Doug needlework, eh? Beauty.

Warm colors for a Cold Snap

masses of hail!

After last night's massive hail storm and then thunderstorm the weather got cool again and stayed quite cool today. This is good news for me as warm weather just kills me and I hate having the noise of the air conditioner. I live on the fifth floor which was perfect for winter - I never turned my heater on all winter. For summer though... bleagh. 

I'm working on a frustratingly annoying border pattern which will frame part of a quote from Robert Frost: "never be bullied into silence." Once the piece is finished I'll be selling the pattern wherein all the proceeds will go towards buying the It Gets Better book for school libraries.

It's a sentiment that is true for pretty much any group or issue or individual person and I may make a more neutrally colored one to sell after this but I do love how the colors and the different borders are turning out.

In Search of the Perfect Iris

Because dark purple irises are my favorites I've done the ones in this border that same color. It might have looked nicer in the same blue as the flowers above (keep it less distracting or something) but oh well.

My stitched version is full of imperfection because I tend to be too impatient to make a complete perfect chart before I start working. This is why I'm incapable of starting a line of text in the right, centered, orientation. I am both a perfectionist and unbelievably shoddy at prep work, which is a wholly frustrating combination.

I would be finished with the completed (and perfect) pattern but Photoshop is doing this obnoxious thing that it sometimes does. I'll open a file and it will only do the grabby-hand-moving-around tool. I'll shut the whole program, open it again, same thing. I have to restart the whole freaking computer to get it to revert back. Only I believe I already tried that this time. I would do it in GIMP which I prefer for making needlework patterns but I just can't find a straight line tool on there. There MUST be one and I've been using Photoshop and equivalents for over ten years, so it's not like I don't know where to look. Frustrating!

Apparently it's just one of those days. I needed some cream and things to make some Valentines treats for my mom but my car battery is dead (didn't leave the lights on or anything, so I'm assuming a door didn't quite shut but now I'm worried it's something worse, like aliens stealing my engine. Sigh. Can't figure it out until my mom can come over and can't jump it until there's an empty space in the parking lot next to mine. This is why I've always wanted one of those self-contained jumper unit things. I predicted this day long ago.

Poetry and Biscuits

I am a big poetry reader. I grew up on it, thrive on it, lived for it in high school, and even dabble with writing it. If I had to choose one favorite poet it would be Carl Sandburg. The man was a genius. He writes the most realistic and accessible poetry I've ever read. People who think they don't like poetry should read Sandburg. He writes of the every day in the way we like to think of it in our heads. Like when you imagine how you would draw something - your mind makes it so so beautiful but your hand just can't translate it to the page.

Sandburg also wrote some of the most wonderful children's stories ever recorded (The Rootabaga Stories) and wonderful biographies. The man was incredible and is such a hero of mine. One of his quotes that I especially love is "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." It is literally the first quotation I added to my file of "quotes I might embroider."

Should I babble on about embroidery and color choices and motifs and charts? Certainly not. I'll babble about that tomorrow (the piece is actually finished now but I want to take daylight photos). Instead I shall share with you some excerpts from what is perhaps my favorite Sandburg poem, Honey and Salt. It is found in the book of the same name, which is also my favorite Sandburg book ever.

When boy meets girl or girl meets boy--
what helps?

They all help: be cozy but not too cozy:
be shy, bashful, mysterious, yet only so-so:
then forget everything you ever heard about love
for it's a summer tan and a winter windburn
and it comes as weather comes and you can't change it:
it comes like your face came to you, like your legs came
and the way you walk, talk, hold your head and hands--
and nothing can be done about it--you wait and pray.

Is the key to love in passion, knowledge, affection?
All three--along with moonlight, roses, groceries,
givings and forgivings, gettings and forgettings,
keepsakes and room rent,
pearls of memory along with ham and eggs.

How long does love last?
As long as glass bubbles handled with care
or two hot-house orchids in a blizzard
or one solid immovable steel anvil
tempered in sure inexorable welding--
or again love might last as
six snowflakes, six hexagonal snowflakes,
six floating hexagonal flakes of snow

Bidden or unbidden? how comes love?
Both bidden and unbidden, a sneak and a shadow,
a dawn in a doorway throwing a dazzle
or a sash of light in a blue fog,
a slow blinking of two red lanterns in river mist

I'll post the full poem in the comments. I don't want to overwhelm you. It is worth reading. I meant to read it at my sister's wedding but I was crying too much (which surprised me greatly, I adore my sister and brother-in-law but I'm not the "crying at weddings" sort).

A bit of a break...

Please excuse my absence. There's been a plethora of stress and activity lately as my mother just bought a house which needs a bit of fixing up. I can't really help much in terms of house work but I've been keeping her company and doing what little I can in terms of fetching things and holding tools for short periods. My brother came down for a week to help out and then my sister and her family were here over the weekend. My nephew Benjamin and I had a lovely time playing in a couple of a large boxes and I received many kisses from him.

On top of that I've been working on a large knitting order. I suppose I could count knitting on this blog as well given that technically it is needlework; however, I think there's a bigger cross-over between people who do different embroidery types than between needleworkers and knitters.

Things are set up for the dying of the Frida piece though it will take a few days for the drying and adding of more color and drying and rinsing etc... to all be carried out. I've also got another blackwork project charted out and ready for the stitching to begin. I'm doing a quote from Doctor Who (during the years of the 7th Doctor, who was the next to last doctor of the first run of Doctor Who): "Conquer the galaxy, incredibly power, unlimited rice pudding, etc... etc... etc..." While I've only watched some Peter Davison episodes of the first run this quote greatly appealed to me on the basis that I adore rice pudding.

It will be set up like this:

Conquer the galaxy,
Incredibly power,
Unlimited rice pudding,
Etc... etc... etc...

Starting with a decorative border above the first line and different borders continuing to alternate with each line of text. I'm stitching it on black Aida with the text probably in green and the borders in different shades of red and purple. Though since I don't want it looking at all Christmas-y I might do the text in blue or a nice blue green. Oh, or I suppose I could do it in white (which I had sort of forgotten). Well, it bears thinking about. White thread would certainly make color clashes far less likely and easier to deal with. Or perhaps a light grey to keep it from being too bright.

Included here is a picture of my dwarf meyer lemon tree. It is covered with buds, the first of which should be popping any day now! This is the first blossoming and I'm very exciting. It won't lead to fruit yet, the tree is too young, but it should at least be gorgeous.

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?

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?

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!