Gnome sweet gnome

Yup, there it is, I actually finished it - a pillowcase based on two of the cute free designs from the Lark Doodle Stitchalong. Yes, I know it is way cheesy, the phrase "gnome sweet gnome" but I couldn't help myself. :)



Here's a closeup of the tree stump-house. This was pretty much my first time experimenting with fill-stitches, and I like it - it adds a little bit of texture, so that the whole design is not just flat colored outlines.

My only regret is that one of the hoops I used was dirty on the inside, so there's a tiny faint ring of dirt around my gnome. :( Oh well, maybe with enough washes it'll come out.

Now, I'll be getting ready for the first stitchalong I'll be doing on Feeling Stitchy this month.... Meet me there later if you're interested! :)

Revisiting the vintage transfer pillowcase

Ha ha ha - remember this?

http://unafloresita.blogspot.com/2009/04/trying-out-vintage-transfer.html

About a billion years ago, or to be more exact, in April of last year, I started embroidering this pillowcase using a vintage transfer.

I started it as whitework - in other words, all white threads on light blue. Maybe that was what gave me the blahs and didn't inspire me in the least to finish it. For over a year, there it sat...

But, as is usually the case, once I finally decided on the colors, I plugged away and finished it in no time...


That was the first flower I started on, and you can see I used a few different threads and stitches.



I can't believe I finally finished this!


Here's the pattern, if you want to try it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytransfers/3392786027/

That was one of the few nice things about having to pack up everything I own and mail it around - unpacking the boxes and looking at all my unfinished projects and actually feeling inspired to finish them all.

Thank you for all the kind comments you left on my posts about moving home and leaving New York. I'm slowly adapting to the quieter pace of life, with a great deal of joy - New York was wonderful, but it was always so loud and frenetic, and "on." I finally feel like I can draw in a breath and think. I still feel like a strange animal - a hybrid species that is not quite Texan and not quite New York. But you know? I kind of hope that never fades. :)

Oh, things I've been enjoying since I moved back:
walking 1-2 miles at my favorite parks
swimming as often as possible
tacos
pan dulce
air conditioning
friendliness
Twin Peaks episodes
reading: The Host, Let The Right One In, N.P.
barbecue
the tortilla aisle at the grocery store
dragonflies, butterflies, and insects

Amusing Youtube comments

You may or may not be aware, but some time ago I posted a tutorial on Youtube on how to make an owl. It was ages ago, and to tell the truth, I am loath to point it out to you. :) I posted it to share with a friend who asked me to put together a little something for her. I knew it was public, but I thought to myself, out of all the cute cats, charming musical acts, and pirated tv shows, who's really going to bother to watch this stupid owl video?

Apparently, 133,564 of you. :) Unless there is one maniac continually hitting play, in his/her lonely cave, bedecked with felt owl corpses. But, let's not go there. :)

What amused me most, this morning, was looking at the complex and fascinating hierarchy of comments that have appeared on my little owl video. At first, mean comments used to bum me out, and I wouldn't publish them. But, I cracked up when I saw towaandes3's comment "that was boring" and just approved it.

But, more interesting is the way you can vote comments up or down - and it warmed my heart to see peeps defending the merits of my boring video, by thumbing that comment down, a whopping 4 times! :)

look! you guys are nice!

I also liked that 6 people voted up the cute comment - Your voice is so "tiny"

Not to be outdone, was the person who mused: I think you should use that voice of yours for work or something... I find it very soothing and relaxing. (p.s. I think that's a really nice way to say "that. was. boring.")

Well, even more amusing are the emails I get from this owl video. Ladies, looking for online love? Post an owl tutorial. Seriously.

Most romantic was this charmingly misspelled poem, entitled simply, "TE AMO":

TE AMO
no tengo palabras para de site cuanto

te extraño es mucho pero hecomprendido

que ya te perdi y no puedo enitar las ganas

de escuchar tu voz tu sonrriza mas que na da

tu bellas palabras y tam bien com prendi

que nobalgo nada solo soy un estorvo mas

con prendi que para mi no hay nad si ti TE AMO Y

NUNKA ME NKASE DE DESIRLO

Then, there was the beautiful Italian greeting I received a year or two ago:

..ciao floresita perchè non fai altri lavoretti ..ti confesso che la dolcezza con la quale racconti questo mi rilassa tantissimo e mi piacerebbe vedere altri tuoi video..ah io scrivo in italiano perchè non conosco bene l'inglese spero che tu lo possa capire...un bacio

In short, nothing warms the cockels of my heart on a cold morning like Youtube. :)

And here he is...

So here's an update on the silliest cross-stitch project, ever. Well, at least, that's my goal. The unlucky party on the receiving end of this gift should be receiving maximum embarrassment from this. :) I wanted to use a font that was a bit more fun, but it was hard to find something that fit the circle hoop above (which I'll probably keep it in). I was re-thinking the phrase because it's absolutely everywhere and so Hot Topic, but if the goal is maximum embarrassment for my friend, I think it scores....

I also experimented with metallic floss - silver, in particular, but the combination of it on a black background just looked super-cruddy:

You'd have to see a macro close-up to see just how bad it looks, but it's bad, people, it's bad. It's odd how regular floss has a much nicer sheen to it, something about the texture makes it sit and look so much better in cross stitch.

What do you guys think? If you could have a red-eyed, creepy Robward say anything in cross stitch, what would he say? I'm sure the creative collective consciousness has something better than my awful Hot Topic phrase. Or worse? Worse works, too! ;)

Hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving - I spent mine with a friend's family and it was just perfect, fun, funny, and awesome. Oh, and I'll be showing you my wonderful Christmas decorating soon! Yes, that is sarcasm. :)

Photoshop Actions

About a week ago I started playing with Pioneer Woman's Photoshop Actions on some of my excessively boring pics. :) By the way, isn't she amazing? She's hilarious, she can cook, she takes a mean photograph, and Photoshops like nobody's business. If I was doing all that and had children, you can bet those kids would look like they'd been raised by wolves. She constantly inspires me.

Here's the original bore-fest:

Maybe photographs are subject to the photographer's mood (just like any other artistic creation)? Because lots of my pics seem to have the blahs lately. :)

I made black and white versions of my recent night pics (again using PW Photoshop Actions):

I'm sort of a fan.... I like the extra drama of the black and white, and how it simplifies photos into a very dramatic conversation of lights and darks and shadows... What do you think? :) Has anyone tried out Actions before? I'm gonna warn you though, I can give you zero technical assistance on them, I barely understand how I got them to work, myself. :)

Conversations: doe-c-doe

1. Untitled by me 2. white-clutch by doe-c-doe 3. strange by me 4. blue-flower-purse by doe-c-doe

What I love most about the internet is the ability to share your thoughts and dreams in the form of images - with people across the country and around the world. Doe-c-doe has always inspired me, and I've been lucky enough to trade emails with her - she's such a sweet, generous, and incredibly talented person.

So, on to the idea of conversations - it's a new idea I have, to give me something to blog about. Each week I'm going to go through my contacts, all the people I've met over my years of blogging, and share a little glimpse of them to you. If I can, I'll pair my favorite images of theirs with some of mine, to have a sort of "conversation" through images. I think those pictures above clearly seem to be speaking to each other. :)

Also, in preparation for Blogtoberfest, I've decided to do my best to blog every single day through Oct. 31. I'm still grieving, but I thought it would be a good way to help me feel more productive and work through my memories. When I have something to say about my dad or my friend I will, but I promise to keep it hopeful! I want to celebrate life and its beauty and all the wonderful people I've met. Thanks, all of you, for bringing beauty to my life.

New project: Siamese Twins

And here's my next project. The Badbird patterns have seriously restored my crafting mojo - the second I finished embroidering Lottie I printed out and started on the Siamese twins, Rose and Daisy. Again, I enlarged the image 170% on the copier and taped 4 printouts together to trace the final image.

First, I started with a red transfer pencil, just like last time:

But, lo and behold, when I flipped the tracing paper over to transfer, I didn't like the flipped version - the proportions and balance looked off. Drat! The idea of tracing all over again, and fussing with my iron was not appealing. So, I tried a shortcut. I pulled out some carbon paper (Sublime Stitching):

It was easy to use, not messy at all, and saved me the extra hassle of ironing on. The lines are crisp, sharp, and dark:

If you look closely you'll notice I made some changes - Andrea Zuill's design has lots of beautiful details that I left out from pure laziness. I wanted to finish quickly, so I stuck with the simpler elements like the hearts and dotted border. I also added one of Andrea's hearts under the girls' hands and added their initials:

I started stitching right away - here they are after 2 hours:

I was admittedly distracted by The Painted Veil (most notably, Ed Norton) and slightly less so by Max Payne (cool effects, but overall it was a drawn out stinker).

These are the only colors I've used so far - two different shades of brown for the girls' hair (for a tiny bit of contrast) and a peachy pink shade for their skin (that's Presencia floss at the top, if you're curious). I still need to pick out the rest of the colors for the girls... I'm thinking, oddly (because I usually hate them) purples... or some deep wines and magentas...

Yay! I'm so excited!

Finished!

Okay, so I'm not totally finished. I still need to wash this (to remove the transfer pencil lines) and decide if it will be a pillow or a wall hanging. I'm undecided so far, as I think both would be nice.

Maybe I should leave it up to the person who'll be receiving it? Let's pretend you are that person - which would you prefer? I loved doing this project so much that I already started on another Badbird pattern. And I'm super-excited about that one!

More Lottie

I think I've finally reached my favorite stage in any embroidery project - about 3/4 of the way through, when I have finally decided which colors I'm using and just fill in the rest rather placidly and happily. One thing I've noticed is how colors play tricks on you - a color you started out stitching with seems to change as you progress and juxtapose it with other colors - I'm not 100% sure that blue is the one I started with. I remember it being a more china blue, Alice in Wonderland-y shade. Now I see more turquoise. (It's entirely possible I lost the original and grabbed for a similar shade from my pile.) Either way, I'm content with the colors.

I started out using a darker, moss lime-y green on the leaves but I didn't like how the tone looked so similar to my girl's hair and fur. So I ripped it all out and stitched in a lighter, springier green that reminded me of faded storybook illustrations.

I am almost done and am loving this stage of just plowing forward. So, here's my (wrinkled) girl after about 16 hours of stitching (again, not counting all the pulling out and re-stitching and staring that occurred in between). You can see I still have some darker moss green in the right hand corner to remove and re-stitch. Almost done!

Hmmmm... I am not liking the very pink shade I used for her hands. Might re-visit that. As for my plans - this will either be a pillow or a stretched wall hanging - whatever I like best. And I think I already know who's going to get this. :)

Day 3: More Lottie Progress

So here Lottie stands after about 14 hours of stitching. As I noted on the photo, it was "about" because I kept getting distracted. Number 1: I started this while watching The Princess Bride and I kept getting interrupted by tears coming to my eyes at the romantic parts. Yes, I am that big of a sucker for Princess Bride. Normally I am quite calloused to love stories and spend the whole time rolling my eyes at romantic comedies. But that one is so sweet and silly it always hits me with a sucker punch.

Also, I made the poor choice of watching "Serial Killers on the Loose" and there was a whole lot more looking up, feeling sad, saying ewww, and feeling rather disappointed in humanity.

As you can see, I didn't add a lot, mainly because at this stage I do a lot of inner debate at very small things like, "what color should the stems be?" or "what's the perfect shade of green?" or "how yellow should the yellow be?" I'm on the fence about the olive-y green and may change it. White daisies, so-so. But I do like the lemon yellow bows: