Mini-break

Hey everyone! I hope your Sunday is as beautiful and sunny as mine. I just wanted to let you all know I’m going on a mini-hiatus for right now.* Work is super busy and I am probably moving within the next couple of months, so sadly I won’t have much time for fun craft stuff. Right now I am planning a whole slew of new projects and patterns that I can’t wait to show you all, so hopefully once things settle down I can get back to a regular blogging schedule. Until then, stay cool!

*I figured I’d let you know ahead of time, rather than just disappearing off the radar. Hopefully it’ll only be for a month or two!

The Delta Cubes will never die!

I was looking through my sketchbook this past weekend, and I decided to stitch up a quick idea from one of the recent Community episodes. Throughout “Economics of Marine Biology,” Abed is involved in a subplot to establish a fraternity on campus (which the Dean expressly forbids). He calls his frat the Delta Cubes, and they pop up several times throughout the main plot of the show. I thought it would make a great embroidery/cross stitch, and sketched up a few ideas. I’ve been wanting to make embroidered buttons for awhile, and I thought using the Delta Cube symbol would be the perfect choice!

Like it? I can’t wait to put it on my bag and see who figures it out. I think I’ll make some more for my shop so all you other Community fans can get in on the action! What do you think – should I stick to this fabric to stay close to the DC’s white shirts, or should I expand into different colored buttons? I’m also planning on making a pattern for a framed piece. The Delta Cubes will never die!

What’s in my basket: Throwback to 2011!

I was going through some of my old craft photos and noticed one of my project basket long before I started the “What’s in my basket?” posts. I thought it would be fun to take a look back in my crafty past all the way to August 2011 (the 29th, to be precise).

Funnily enough, the purple scarf makes another appearance! Imagine that. I didn’t realize it was that old, but I guess it’s been hanging around for awhile. I really should finish it at some point. I used the same yarn to crochet some Queen Anne’s lace (bottom left), but I eventually tore it out as I didn’t know what to do with it. I think making a smaller version with more delicate yarn would make a lovely scarf or shawl. The blue yarn in the back was originally for my uncle’s Christmas scarf before I decided to do it in dark grey instead. The teal project was my very first experiment with knitting lace. I ended up making a huge (and I mean huge) lace scarf/shawl for myself over the course of the fall. It’s the first time since middle school that I knit a scarf for myself, so I was very excited to work on it (one of the many reasons my uncle’s scarf for Christmas 2011 is still in the works now in 2013!). I’ll have to post a photo of the final product at some point. And last but not least is my embroidered portrait of Mark Twain. I still have him hanging right next to my desk – he’s one of my favorite projects.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into my crafty past! We’ll see if that purple scarf is still hanging about next time.

A good neighbor ignores the screams.

When I think of cross stitch samplers I generally picture traditional motifs and some sort of saying. So when my mom gave me a half-finished sampler last winter, I wasn’t surprised to see a couple of houses surrounded by roses and accompanied by some phrase about good neighbors. She said I could finish it for her, and I dutifully worked on stitching the yards and roses. I personally felt that the saying was a bit cheesy, so I spent time imagining a good replacement. While talking to a friend I came up with “A good neighbor ignores the screams.” Simple, yet effective. I told my (horrified) mom, who couldn’t understand why I would want to stitch that instead. But I decided I would go ahead with it and finished it up early this past fall (I had the pattern if I decided to make her the original someday). The final product looks like this:

Did you notice the bloody handprints and castoff? That’s my favorite part! I really like it. Maybe someday I’ll give it to a neighbor as a housewarming gift (how great would that be?). I think I’ll make my own version of the houses, yards, and border and turn it into a pattern for all you friendly neighbors!

These are my awards, Mother. From Army.

Arrested Development is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. I’ve watched the whole series innumerable times, and have probably memorized most of the episodes by now. So when I saw a meme on tumblr from one of my favorite episodes, I immediately decided to stitch it for myself!

The image is from an episode called Afternoon Delight (season 2, episode 6). Buster, the youngest of the adult Bluth children (and quite the momma’s boy), has unwillingly joined the army. Lucille Bluth, his mother, signed him up to make the family look good on television. He doesn’t actually want to be in the army (which he refers to simply as “Army”), so in this episode he decides to go the arcade and play games instead. When he comes home with his prizes Lucille makes fun of him. In response he declares, “These are my awards, Mother. From Army. The seal is for marksmanship, and the gorilla is for sand racing. Now if you’ll excuse me, they’re putting me in something called Hero Squad.” In my opinion, it’s one of the best moments on the show. It cracks me up even just thinking about it. Anyways, I set out to make a simple, backstitch version of the meme. Here are some progress shots:

I had a lot of fun working on this one. I especially like how his right hand turned out! I decided not to replicate the camo, as I thought that might make the black-and-white piece too busy. I’ve been thinking of making a pattern for my Etsy store, so maybe I’ll do a version with color and camo. What do you think? I’ve been dying to stitch some more Bluth moments of glory (like this one), so maybe I’ll do a whole series. I can even work on them while watching the new season!!

S is for stitching

You might remember this post where I mentioned my work was (and still is) featured in the &Stitches blog header. Over the summer, Nicole and Carina put out a call for stitched letters. They wanted a new header featuring the work of fellow stitchers. I thought it would be a really fun opportunity to get my embroidery out there, so I volunteered to take a letter. I had just seen the amazing work of MaricorMaricar, and was particularly drawn to their sweater letters. I really liked the way they looked, and wanted to do something similar. At the same time, I had recently come back from a break at home where my brother had gifted me with five skeins of embroidery floss he had left over from some friendship bracelets he made. I loved the vibrancy of the colors, and wanted to use them together in a project. When I started brainstorming, I had the sweater letters in mind, but I also liked the idea of having the letter be sort of an absence of color. To have the background be the intricate part, making the simple letter at the center pop. I decided to combine the two ideas, and got started stitching.

I used satin stitch for most of the layers, as I really wanted a solid piece of stitching. The only white I wanted anyone to see was the S itself. I enjoyed picking out different patterns for each of the layers, and kept changing them on the fly. Some of the layers came together as I was stitching them. I find that, even if I like it, I always change a pattern when I’m actually stitching. Watching the fabric slowly disappear under floss was cool. I don’t usually do much solid stitching, so filling an entire space up was a different experience for me. I love the feel of solid sections of floss – both in cross stitch and embroidery.

I think my favorite layer has to be the swirly section. It kind of reminds me of The Starry Night. I originally intended the layer to have three lines winding back and forth over each other (kind of like loosely-braided floss), but when I came to it I decided to do a curly pattern instead. I combined single strands of red, orange, and yellow floss together in sets of two, and used the outline stitch for smooth curves. You can see above that I experimented with a line of blues as well, but ultimately I decided that I liked the warm colors more. I love how it kind of looks like fiery swirls! The chevron layers were the hardest for me. I didn’t really think ahead about the angle I wanted to stitch them on, so it was difficult to keep the stitches consistent. Often I wouldn’t like how a section looked and either tore it out or stitched over it.

I hadn’t used the satin stitch too often before making this piece, and it was definitely more challenging that I imagined to keep all my stitches neat and even. Stitching the S was the most nerve-wracking part. I had drawn it on my fabric and saved it for last, but some of my layers were a bit off around the outline. I was worried it would look really lumpy. In the end, I’m really proud of how it turned out. I think everything works well together, and the few mistakes and odd bits are swallowed up in the larger piece (which is only 3″!). I am pretty proud to have it featured on such a popular site as the &Stitches blog!

Embroidery floss (is one of my favorite things)

me + new embroidery floss = this

I love embroidery floss. Like a whole lot. Getting new embroidery floss is equivalent in my mind with getting new office supplies – or for those of you who don’t get excited about new sticky notes – like Christmas + Easter + Halloween + my birthday x 48. I love spending time picking out colors, and then planning new projects with endless color combinations. I also love spending time organizing (and re-organizing) my floss. Is all of this weird? I don’t think so! Maybe a bit OCD. But then, hey, I’m a librarian. I organize by nature! Anyways . . .

Before this past Christmas, I was generally good at either wrapping new floss around homemade bobbins (mostly recycled cardboard) or keeping it in fairly neat skeins. Back in high school I commandeered my brother’s old toy car box to keep the floss in. I kept the wound bobbins organized by color, and the other skeins just stuffed into the other side of the box. I have to say it’s by far the best container I’ve found to store them in.

Side note – my brother came up with the most ridiculously awesome name for groups of floss (as in flocks of sheep and murders of crows) – bouquets of floss. Like flowers! I want to buy floss and sell it on Etsy in packages just so I can say I sell bouquets of floss. It just sounds so pretty. (Copyright pending!)

Then, last month, I convinced my brother to go halfsies with me on a huge pile of embroidery floss. Like probably double what I had at that point. I really wanted to expand my color choices, especially in the greys, browns, peaches/tans, and yellows. I also got a bunch of new blues, and a few greens, purples, and oranges. So we tortured our poor Michaels cashier with a ridiculous number of tiny bar codes to scan (apologies, ma’am!) and I went home with my best Christmas present of the year.

After Christmas, I spent several cozy evenings next to the fire winding the floss on bobbins. I really enjoy winding yarn into balls – I think the repetitive winding motion is soothing – so winding lots of floss was great (especially because I got to switch colors more often!). I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to my bobbins as well, so I’m sure it took me twice as long as someone else would have taken. But now my bobbins are all neat and even! (scroll down a bit for an appropriate response gif)

I’ve never been that good at keeping track of the floss number (whether on those annoying little tubes from around the skeins or on my bobbins). Most of the time it doesn’t matter, but then when I go back to create a pattern I dislike having to guesstimate which color I used. So this time I was also careful to write every number down on each side of the bobbin. Being such a floss nerd, I first organized them by DMC number and noted down which skeins I had. I love the gradients this produced (even though I have big gaps all over the chart).

You must be rolling your eyes by now.

I stored them in my red tin (usually used for bits and pieces or small WIP) for the flight home, then took them out and prepared to organize them by color. So much fun! So on my last evening of break I spread out all my floss (old and new), and turned on Brave (which, by the way, is an awesome movie with some really cool embroidery!). I ended up sorting the floss into rough color groups and storing them in my floss box. You can tell how much more floss I have just by comparing the photos at the top and bottom of this post – it’s stuffed now! This week I even found a few more skeins floating around my room under various stacks of fabric and pattern ideas, so I think I’ll have to start doubling up in some of the spaces. Or maybe even get a second box . . . no, that would be dangerous!

Anyways, here is all of my pretty floss! I’ve since organized the front half (whites-yellows with browns and greys), and am waiting for time to organize the back half (green-purples with blacks). Once I do I’ll just have another excuse to post photos of my floss box on here. *rubs hands in anticipation*

A natural progression

So lately I’ve had all these new projects floating around in my mind and in my basket. I love coming up with new ideas – I think pattern-making is a pretty exciting business – but it’s also nice to follow someone else’s patterns once in awhile! I tend to start stitching my own patterns before they’re finished and I change things as I go, so having something solid to go off of can be a relief (and I get lots more Netflix-watching done when I don’t have to concentrate as much on what I’m stitching). I have a lot of patterns saved up to stitch, and this past weekend I decided to start one from the brilliant people of Steotch. I love their creativity – they are definitely one of my big 3 (the three people that renewed my interest in embroidery and cross stitch). They always have awesome pop culture and internet references, and I love how intricate each piece is.

I’ve had the pattern for In Nature’s Splendor saved up for quite some time, and I decided to give it a go. I try to stitch pieces in a systematic way (middle out, finishing a whole section before moving onto the next), but this time I’ve been doing things sort of piecemeal. I started with the tree, stopped to do the woman’s outfit, moved onto the floral border, did the grass and furry animals, worked on the tree some more. I think part of my jumping around is due to the fact that I’m working with 28 count Aida – by far the smallest count cross stitch fabric I’ve ever used (I think I’ve used 22, most of my stuff is on 16 or 18). I wanted to have a really tiny finished piece (I think this one’s something like 3.5×2.5), but the small squares are also driving me crazy! It takes so long to fill up a decent space, and the tiny holes don’t lend themselves well to multiple stitches. Anyways, it’s coming along nicely (but slowly!). I love the floral border along the top. I’ll definitely post some more photos when I’m done! On a side note, make sure to check out Steotch’s newest pattern – a Monty Python piece. It’s awesome.

More Valentine’s Day treats: Cranberry shortbread cookies

So even though Valentine’s Day passed, I still had a recipe I wanted to try out: cranberry shortbread cookies. I looove cranberries, like a lot, so I couldn’t resist making this tasty treat. I decided to make a batch and bring them in for my coworkers again. Having a place to bring all my baked goods is so nice – it keeps me from eating them all!

I started out with one recipe which (I found out later) required a little less butter than usual, and as a result my dough was completely dry and crumbly. I switched over to Martha Stewart’s version, which solved my dough problems. I couldn’t resist snacking on a few cranberries while putting everything together, but I still had enough left over for the cookies.

I didn’t have a heart-shaped cookie cutter (this situation needs to be rectified!), so instead I just made walnut-sized balls of dough and flattened them with the sugar-coated bottom of a glass. After they came out of the oven, I sprinkled some powdered sugar on top (you can never have too much powdered sugar!).

These cookies went over even better than the last batch! Lots of my coworkers told me they either love cranberries or shortbread (or both), so the cookies were a hit. I’ll have to remember that for the next time I want to bake something for them. I’m definitely going to save this recipe too – I think these would be great treats for the reading club/tea parties my friends and I have!

 

&Stitches ezine!!

This past November, I got invited to participate in the &Stitches ezine! It was an awesome opportunity to work with some fabulous stitchy people, as well as a great way to share my work with a big audience. Carina and Nicole (the brilliant minds behind &Stitches) asked me to take part in the Stitch Challenge. In this challenge, a piece has to be made primarily of one stitch – in this case, the feather stitch. The theme of the issue was “woodlands,” so hopefully the challenge piece would fit in with a forest-y theme as well. For my embroidery, I took inspiration from a winter hike through a forest preserve. I got to experiment with lots of feather stitch variants, and I made up some of my own as well. If you’d like to see my final embroidery, make sure to pick up a copy of the ezine!

“Woodlands &Stitches” is chock full of other goodies as well – free patterns, interviews, and lots and lots of stitchery. I especially love these two patterns from Laura Howard and Nicole:

This ezine is full of color and inspiration. Carina and Nicole do a great job of including a bunch of crafts – not just embroidery. I’ve definitely discovered a few new people I have to follow (especially Trish Burr – oh my goodness!). Anyways, I encourage you to check the ezine out. And make sure to stop by the &Stitches blog – they always have something fun going on!