Three Things Thursday

Three lovely things found in the Flickr environs:

Photos courtesy of Bugambilö, art spirit, and threekitchenfairies.

Stitching Saturday: Sci-fi dinner napkins

Recently my honey was in need of some napkins and I decided to buy and stitch some for him. He tries not to waste resources, and is not a fan of paper towels and paper items, which has taught me to be less wasteful, myself.

I'm proud of his not-wasteful ways and thought I'd commemorate it with silliness... the way I commemorate everything. :)

I bought gray cloth napkins like the ones I used for the Days of the Week towels. I used 2 free patterns - Badbird's "Terrible Lizard" and Speckless' Deep Sea Diver. Tracing the image onto the cloth was just as hard as you'd expect. My actual setup involved a piece of plastic over a daylight lamp, and a fine-tip black pen. Truly a silly experience - I just need to get a transfer pen already.

After stitching my diver, my honey asked what it was, and I realized it looked remarkably like the awesome space suits in 2001, a favorite movie we have in common. So, I dorked the napkins up, but good:

   


I used just 3 colors of thread - a pale sea green, nice bright orange, and ecru for the lettering.





I'm really happy with how they came out, and I'll be happier still to see them in use, and greasy and stained... because then I'll get to make even more. :)

Three Things Thursday

These 3 things are awesome. You're welcome. From the following 3 peeps:
Wild Olive - The Trees Start Whispering Pattern
How About Orange - DIY Posters With Cut-Out Lettering
Ginger and George - Couching Tutorial

Oh, and if you follow the blog you can see that this is the time of year when I jimmy with my blog template. :)

I'm sure there's a much easier process than the one I use to choose and modify blog templates. I usually start from something free or Blogger-provided and tweak and tweak the CSS until I either:
1) frustrate myself completely, or
2) find a look I like, or
3) find a look I can live with, after a series of frustrating days of non-stop jimmying (this happens most often)

Is anyone else this way? :)

Stitching Saturday: Cats Love This Yarn

Well, it looks like this has become a monthly blog. Sheesh - I know! But these posts, however infrequent, do help me wrap up my projects and get a sense of what I have and haven't finished.

Up above you see the cat blanket - yes that's right, a blanket knitted especially for a cat. This odd project all started last fall when I was teaching my friends to knit. One of my friends reported that her cat had stolen her yarn - a big, squishy skein of Love This Yarn. Instead of ripping it up with his sharp little claws, gnawing it, or pawing at the ends, she reported that her cat lovingly rubbed his face in the yarn and slept with it, careful not to snag it on his claws. I didn't believe her, until I actually saw him do it. Curious, I knit him up a little square of Vanna's Choice - he sniffed at it, gave it a half-hearted swipe, and marched back to his Love This Yarn.

I was so charmed I decided to knit this little fellow a cat blanket with his favorite yarn. I started first with what I had - squares I'd been putting away for a baby blanket. About 3-4 babies have come into this world since I started, and I had to admit I didn't have the tenacity to put together hundreds of squares. So I made a cat blanket.

Then, I started another smallish cat blanket, just sort of winging it with the brightest colors I had on hand:



Here's the proof that cats love this yarn:


I'm also almost finished with this lovely blanket:


Stitching this has been a hoot. Everywhere I've taken it, for the past 6 months, people have complimented me on the colors, and the soft squishiness of the yarn. I'm on the fence about those two greens right next to each other, but over time I think I'll grow used to it and see that contrast less...

Pattern was based on the Purl Bee Super Easy baby blanket, but I used more than 5 colors and lengthened it to cover my toes.

Stitching Saturday: playing catch-up

Up above, you see that I finally stitched this sweet free pillowcase pattern by Lazy May. I've had my eye on this pattern for a long, long time, and my good friend's wedding in December was as good a reason as any to stitch it. I had half a mind to stitch the cases for myself, but, silly and sarcastic as I am, there's an added creep factor to being single and having matching pillowcases in one's room that say: "love you.... love you too." ;) Well, luckily for me, I am no longer single - and dating someone quite awesome. Having these in my room still seems a bit odd - but they are perfect for newlyweds, I think. :)

I also stitched up these baking themed tea towels for my newlywed friend, since nearly everything on her registry was baking-related. I decided she had a lot of baking to do, and these towels might help her hop to it!



I did give her one day of rest, at least. :)



My method was quick and haphazard - I found the towels at Stein Mart - they're actually linen napkins, but a perfect size for tea towels. I grabbed a handful of my favorite brightly colored floss, and started stitching. I tried not to be too obsessive about perfection, because I wanted them to be playful and silly.



Here's a guy I finished stitching in December, but never got around to photographing. He's knitted on size 6 needles, in brown Love This Yarn, which knits up very cuddly. He's based on the Hugo pattern in the Knitted Monsters book. I made him for a cute little boy I met on my trip to a Navajo Reservation last summer - like a total dork, I brought Hugo to hug while I slept, and given the amount of wildlife we encountered strolling in and out of the church where we slept, it was an immense comfort to me.

Anyhow, the boy called my Hugo "Domo" every time he saw him, and we whiled away many moments while he made Hugo dance or tried him out as a boomerang. When I got back I set to work on Domo immediately, but it took me months to finish - I had lots of other projects that kept taking center stage. Finally, he was finished in time, quite miraculously to be a Christmas present. Yippee!


Next up is this sweet Wee Wonderfuls Labyrinth cross stitch. Danielle of Kitschy Digitals had asked me if I knew anyone who'd be willing to test stitch some of the patterns in her store, and I eagerly volunteered to do this one. Sadly, it has languished in my to-do pile for months now - I finished The Golden Girls right away. I need some stitching mojo to finish this one. Maybe an 80's marathon-fueled race to the finish? So, sorry, Danielle, I have taken so long, we'll see...

I'm not sure how you feel about crafting, but I have to admit that, as a creative personality I always feel like I am playing catch-up. I have so many ideas at any given moment, and so many items in progress, that when I carry out a task to completion I find it super-satisfying - for oh, about 10.2 seconds, then I'm on to my next 50 ideas... sigh. Hope you all have been doing marvelously!

Three Things Thursday: looking at you

I recently began digging through my 2012 archives, and was delighted at all the little goodies I found. :)

V-Day embroideries

A few nights ago I found myself in front of my computer, watching old Star Treks, stitching up a little something for my honey. He expressed an interest in the Oxytocin embroidery I did last year, from a pattern in the Hoopla book. It's a super-quick stitch - I had it transferred, stitched, and finished within 2.5 hours.

I stitched it up on some vintage blue fabric I had on hand:



I love the nubby texture, which was less tricky to stitch on than I thought it would be:



This time, I decided to glue the excess fabric to the back inside of the hoop with tacky glue:



The process was a teeny bit messy, but I must say I loved the blast-from-the-past feeling of peeling dried glue off my fingertips. :) Hope your Valentine's Day is golden and sweet, however you choose to spend it. My vote's for dumb movies, plenty of candy, and good friends. :)

Three Things Thursday

Photos above courtesy of:
2knit2purl, tyler.elizabeth, and Oh, Diane

And how are all of you on this chilly morning (well, it's chilly at least, in South Texas)? I took a nice month break, mostly, from blogging, and aside from some basic necessities, here and there on FS, I was pretty quiet. I had lots of time to think and consider my year, and I'm excited and happy to resume here (and elsewhere). :)

Lately, I've been very inspired by knitting images, although I've been doing just as much embroidery... more on that soon! Happy morning to you all! :)

Three Things Thursday

Three lovely pictures from the following Flickr streams:
1. 1971 Zenith Color TV-38, 2. Silver and Gold Felt Ornament, 3. embroidery floss


Here's a few lovely pics from my Flickr faves that have been inspiring me of late. They belong, respectively, to retro-space, wildolive, and Pumora. This color palette has been on my brain for awhile now - funky, jewel-ly brights with a happy, retro feel.

Sheesh, guys - it's been awhile. This has been one of those years that starts off fast, and just speeds faster and faster as it careens into the end. Through it all, I have tried to stay mindful of the goals I set at the beginning of the year, and I'm happy to report I'm not far off. The only difference is I've done a lot less documenting of the things I've made and done. While I wish I could do more, the demands on my time just don't allow it all to happen.

I think my favorite month in terms of crafting was February - I had clear goals and the luxury of time, and just plugged happily away at things. The year just got more and more crowded as it went on, but I still got a sizeable amount of things done.

My goal for 2013 is this: thought. I'd like to stop and consider more, to give myself reasonable time to unplug and think. To tie in with that, this post on Design for Mankind really spoke to me.

How are your holidays? How did your goals for this year go? I hope everyone out there is well and happy and crafty. :)

Stitching Saturday: Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum

detail from Angel of Autumn

I have carried many angels with me in my moves, life changes, and travels for the past 14 years. They are Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum's angels, and they have tagged along for the ride as I moved from college, back home, to New York City, then back home to Texas again.

Angelica was begun in my second year of college - I'd say it was 1998. I'd just lost someone very dear to me, and maybe this was what inspired me to begin a project of such impossible scale: thousands of tiny stitches on 32 count linen, with beads, metallic threads, and 1 over 1 thread stitches. I hadn't even worked with linen before. Had no clue what a beading needle was! Personally, I think I was a bit crazy to even attempt it:



About a month ago, I pulled Angelica out of the box she'd traveled in, almost finished, for 14 years. So you might notice a few discolored edges and a spot or two.

I had worked on her little by little, growing at turns discouraged with the task before me. Then, rather inexplicably, when all I had left to do was finish the beading, I folded her up and carried her around NY for another 6 years.



All it took was a few turns with the beading needle to remember why I'd almost abandoned her. :) But I refused to give in now, so close to the end, and I finally finished her!

I thought it was weird that I'd so randomly unboxed her - why, after all this time? Then I popped over to Marilyn's site for a quick visit and saw with great sadness that she'd just passed away.


This is 1x1 stitching, by the way. I remember almost pulling out my hair in the process. :)

I'm too old to believe in coincidences, and I've had too many loved ones pass to the other side to think that they do not nudge us at times to finish what is left undone.

So I picked up the 2 other angels I'd left incomplete (yes I'd started 2 more without finishing the first - bad crafter! :) and I vow that this is the year I'll finish them.

Angel of Autumn



Angel of Spring



Here they both are after 8 hours of additional stitching:


Yes, I know it's almost impossible to detect my progress. :) It's very easy to get discouraged working on projects at this scale - Pam just finished her own huge cross stitch project (it's AMAZING) and that gave me a little nudge of encouragement, too.

If you've never visited Marilyn Leavitt-Imblum's site, Told In a Garden, I highly recommend it. You can easily see her training as a fashion artist in the way her designs move. That, and the detail on her faces is simply out of this world. I know frilly dresses are not for everyone, but I think that anyone can appreciate her artistry. But more than that, the words she left behind, the things she found important, what she chose to commemorate, these are all things that speak volumes to me about the kind of woman she must have been.

And, if the Angelica images look familiar to you, you may have seen them on the DMC Threads blog - where they appeared in a tribute post for Marilyn.

So there we are, what I've been stitching lately! I've also been working on more Wee Little Stitches (pics soon) and have made a bit of progress on my blanket. Have any of you ever stitched any of Marilyn's designs? Or maybe just something incredibly huge that you thought you'd never finish? :)