Since I'm jobless, I'm forced to move out of my home of 3 1/2 years, which really sucks a big one. So I'm in the midst of packing up and moving to my new temporary home, which means no stitching for a little while as life kicks me in the ass. Once I get settled, I'm planning to start my embroidery project, my NSFW stitch, and finally finish the pony.

I've already packed all my important stitchy stuff up and damn, I had more than I thought I did, especially fabric. Don't know what I expected, I did have an entire drawer devoted to just fabric.

Still hoping to have the birthday giveaway in about a month.

Also, apparently my last post was #100. Who knew!

This is the piece I made for the movie swap over at the Phat Quarter. One of the things I like best about making things for other people is trying to incorporate the things they like into what you make. One of my partner's favorite movies is Shaun of the Dead and her favorite color is red. I've been wanting to stitch something with a lot of components to it and since I don't generally do a lot of monochromatic things, I thought I'd change it up.



The pattern is adapted from an 1826 Danish sampler pattern that I bought on a trip home last year. I chose to focus on Shaun as a character rather than the whole movie. I rearranged and added new parts to it to include references to Shaun...cricket bats (which I had to convince myself weren't corn dogs), his shirt and tie, flowers, hearts (it was a love story after all), zombies, and crowns since he was the "fucking king of the zombies".

Closer view of the details...you can see that the ties are actually striped.



I had fun stitching this up and I think it turned out awesome. I was a bit sad I had to send it to its new home.

Also, I think I have a serious addiction to 5x5 frames. This is the 5th one I've used...and my lefties stitch is going in one once I move.

So last week both my bf and I were fired from our jobs in a spectacularly unprofessional and malicious fashion. At this point I'm going back and forth between anger and depression. Mainly anger. Lots of anger.

But I have been working on my swap piece and I'm really happy with the way it's turning out. Stitching has helped me relax somewhat through all of this. On the bright side, I'll have a lot more time to stitch now!

No swap pictures until it arrives in its new home. Maybe next week.

I had the idea to do this stitch over a year ago but struggled to come up with an idea for the pattern (what else is new). While I was in Seattle I picked up some new pattern books and was inspired....



I took the original pattern and changed the girls to give them more of a 60s feel- inspired by Mad Men. The green dresses are an ode to Joan. The blue/pink I took from the cover of the Doll Parts single. I left the shoes as is and imagine them being Doc Martens as a reference to the 90s. Overall, I wanted them to be doll-like but not in the obvious blonde/Barbie/Betty Draper type of way.

Note that the one with the scissors is left handed. Haven't decided who or what she's cutting.

I chose the song because I enjoy changing the lyrics...

I am...doll parts...big boobs...small heart

I spent Fri-Mon working on my swap pattern and didn't touch any of my other projects. I did stitch some last night, but I won't bore anyone with yet another in progress picture of that stitch. Let's just say there's more girls than there were last week. In the meantime, this is the mayhem a wip creates...the horror!



Seriously thinking of having a birthday stitch giveaway next month.

Work is pretty much kicking my ass these days, which is really screwing with my productivity. Not cool, work. Not. Cool. But I did finally start on my (little) pony over the weekend. Not sure if I like how it's turning out so far. The back of it is really messy which is bugging me, because I really like the back of my work to be as neat as possible. It's probably about halfway done though so I'll finish it and hope for the best.

Here's my progress on my other stitch, fairly slow going..



I'll have to put it on hold while I work on my swap piece. Have to admit, I'm not 100% sure of what I'm going to do yet. I have 2 semi-formed ideas that I'm trying to figure out. Definitely feeling like a slacker at the moment. Although I did watch Monster's Inc last night for "research".

Progress on the pony kit has made it as far as putting the fabric in the hoop and choosing colors. I'm hoping to actually start on it today.

In the meantime, I'm working on this bad boy....



Also finished the NSFW pattern I was working on, which I'll stitch sometime after the pony, and my movie swap piece. I came up with an awesome idea for a movie swap piece but I'd probably need to learn to embroider and possibly sew to pull it off the way I imagine it.

Last week's wip....



A lovely sarcastic saying of my bf's, since I'm a lefty and he's a righty. I intentionally made everything left aligned for obvious reasons. I'm really happy with the way it came out, so this one is going to get framed if I can figure out a place to put it. I really need to clear out my finished project stash and start making more things for other people (hint hint).

I think I've figured out what I'm going to do with the pony kit I got. Have to do some experimenting before I start on it though.

I'm also planning my first embroidery project(!!!), finishing up a new pattern that is NSFW, and will be starting my next stitchy masterpiece today (possibly).

I finished what I was working on last week, and I'm glad I decided to do a second version of it because I'm not happy with how the first one came out. I'll probably wait to do the second one since I've finished 2 new patterns and will be doing a swap soon.

Speaking of swaps, I am super excited for the next Phat Quarter swap. I wasn't able to participate in the last 2 because I was working on the wedding sampler, so I am definitely ready for this one. When I heard that the theme is movies, my mind started going crazy with ideas. I also happen to be working on a movie related pattern that may end up being my swap piece.

In the meantime, my latest WIP...



I've gotten over the bit of stitcher's block I had and have been working on a bunch of new patterns, mostly older ideas that I'm going back to.

At the dollar store the other day I found some cross stitch kits with plastic frames. The kits of course weren't all that interesting, but I picked up a few for the frames.



I decided to take this one and change it up to make it awesome, since it's a pony and all. When it's done I'm hoping to add it to my "inspiration board".



It's what I look at when I'm at my desk. I try to rearrange it and switch things out every few months and I'm overdue. The Smurfs have to go. For now anyway. Need some new things to look at.

So that plan I had to spend the long weekend crafting up a storm? Yeah, not so much. My car battery died last Wednesday and screwed up my plans for a few days. Then my laziness caught up with me and I spent the weekend doing the following things:

• watching reruns of House
• watching Bones
• rewatching season 3 of Mad Men (the season finale is one of my favorite eps)
• watching The Mighty Ducks
  
• playing Civilization Revolution

Needless to say, I'm a nerd and I wasn't as productive as I thought I would be. But I did work on some patterns. Still haven't finished the pattern I've been struggling with. For now it's on the backburner until I figure out how to finish it. I also worked on my spool knitting. It's about 3 feet long now and still has no purpose in life. I also started stitching something new finally...



This may or may not have something to do with LL Cool J...
I think I'm going to do 2 versions of it, so no finished pictures until I get them both done.

Nothing to show today, but I'm planning to spend the long holiday weekend crafting. So I should have something by next week. I've been working on some new patterns and have hit a wall with one of them. The text is done and I've chosen the colors I'm going to use but it needs something else and I haven't been able to figure out what that is. I'm waiting for my "a-ha!" idea moment so I'll know what to do with the pattern. I did finish one pattern that I'd abandoned months ago so I'll at least have something to work on this weekend.

Waaaay back when, I stitched this little number for my bf. A couple of weeks ago I came up with the idea to do a stitchers' version of it, minus the binary because frankly, I didn't want to stitch all those ones and zeros again.



I'll be adding the pattern in the next few days, depending on my level of laziness.
(Edit: Pattern for this and l33t crafter on the Patterns page now!)

I also started a new crafty thing- spool knitting. I used to do it when I was a kid and somewhere in my mom's garage is my original stuff. I decided to start up again to give myself something relatively simple to do while watching tennis or golf over the summer. Particularly when I'm not stitching something. It worked nicely while I watched the final round of the US Open on Sunday.

It's been awhile since my last lyric stitch, mainly because I haven't been able to finish the patterns. I probably wouldn't have stitched another National lyric, but I thought this would be a good one. The design is partially inspired by the ever-popular Keep Calm and Carry On posters.

One of my friends got married a few days ago, so for a wedding gift I decided to stitch up a wedding sampler.

It's the biggest cross stitch project I've taken on. It took me over a month to finish the pattern (I am a notoriously slow pattern maker), and 3 months to do the actual stitching. So that's what I've been doing with most of my free time.

The finished product!



Close up view...



For the pattern I didn't want to do something traditionally wedding-y, because that's not what I do and that's not what the bride/groom are about either. I did some info gathering and found out favorite colors and other stuff I could use in the pattern. Their wedding colors were eggplant and olive green, so I wanted to have a lot of those colors in the sampler, along with the colors they said they liked. I incorporated elements from their invitation, the bride's necklace (which she ended up not wearing, oops) and a secret message in morse code. For the text, I used the groom's favorite font since he's a font nerd.

The boring stuff:
Size: approximately 9"x11"
Count/Fabric: 36 ct antique white Edinburgh linen (I've never stitched on 36 ct or linen before)
stitched over 2 squares
Colors: 17
Bands: 20

Below are the progress pictures I took along the way, there are also additional progress pictures here











 

Sorry for no updates in a while, but I am making up for it today. I was up in Seattle for a friends wedding. But before that, I was frantically finishing up some things for her. She is crafty like me and made tons of things for the wedding. Along with a cake, they had fancy cupcakes and I came up with the idea to cross stitch some simple signs for the different kinds so people would know what they were. She loved the idea and let me take care of them. So the random stitchy bits I've been posting...that's what I was doing.

Here's all 6 of the signs together framed. I used the $1 frames from Joann's which are awesome for small projects.



And the individual signs. The pictures (as usual) aren't great because they were taken very quickly and in the evening as I was frantically trying to get all my junk done the night before I left on my trip. Seriously, I don't recommend this.

The colors are purple and green which were their wedding colors.











Slipped Lakers colors into this one :)



Here's the signs in action at the wedding. The guests didn't eat much of the cake because they filled up on the cupcakes which were yumtastic, particularly the lavender ones. The stands were made by the bride from vintage plates.

No in progress shots this week, but here's the finished product from last week...a bookmark I stitched up for Mother's Day, with my mom's initials. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and even though I was in a rush to finish it, it was fun to do. It arrived today and my mom loved it, as she is contractually obligated to.


 

Sorry no WIP Wednesday last week. My site was down while it moved to greener pastures.

So this week I've started yet another project because I am freaking insane. I'm not built for multiple projects, particulary time-sensitive ones. Anyway, below is my super messy desk including my newest stitch, a Mother's day bookmark. Because it took me too long to finish the pattern, I won't have time to finish it and get it to my mom before Sunday, so I fail. It'll be late but pretty!

To keep with the updates, I'm going to (try to) post pictures of my ongoing projects once a week.

This week, it's the 3rd in the "series" I'm working on for a friend. It'll make sense once they're all done.




Also, after 3 months, I FINALLY finished The Tipping Point. It was really bugging me that it was taking so long for me to finish when I could easily read a book that size in a couple days. So I really made a point to find time to finish it. Which basically meant reading on the way to work. I enjoyed the book, although I think Outliers was better.

Now I'm about halfway through Juliet, Naked (which is twice as long as The Tipping Point) after a couple of days. So far it's really good.

It may not seem like it but I have been keeping busy with new stitcheries. When I'm not watching Can't Hardly Wait on tv, that is. I'm actually working on 2 projects and about to start making a pattern for a third.

Finished today...



Part of a set for a friend.


My other WIP....I am loving this color combo...

It's been awhile since I've posted any stitchy bits, or really anything at all. I'm working on a new pattern that is taking forever to complete (which for me is saying something) and in the meantime trying to stitch some quicker things.

Here's my latest piece, finished today. The picture isn't great, the colors are actually pretty bright.




Yet another random video game reference, this one is from Borderlands. More specifically, this promo video for Borderlands:



"So who's Tony Romo now, motherfucker?!" Ha.

I've also very very slowly been making some changes to my craft room, including reorganizing all my cross stitch stuff. I'm pretty close to being done, there's just some new things I need to frame and display. Hopefully it'll be pictureworthy when it's done.

I'm also going to be making some changes to the site, incorporating some new things. There may be patterns involved.