Are we going to prom or to hell?

So, as a little Valentine's gift, I have pictures of my two newest finished pieces:

Do I look like Mother Theresa?" I was recently watching Heathers, and man, there are just so many good quotes in it. Like this one:

(which also creates an incredibly smooth segue into my next piece...)

Everyone's favorite chaos theorist, Dr. Ian Malcolm! And his best pal, a terrible velociraptor!

I decided to try out a new technique for the shading of Malcolm - originally I was just going to leave it blank, but I felt like the black clothes/hair/sunglasses are such an iconic part of the character that it just didn't work. I used a single thread to just make long straight lines, a little bit like cross-hatching, or I guess since it doesn't cross, just hatching? Either way, this was really fun to make, and then I spilled coffee on it, because I am good at things.

I hope you all enjoy your Valentine's Day and are not eaten by velociraptors!

A Photo an Hour: Saturday

12:00 AM: So, this photo-an-hour actually starts at midnight - Eric and I both typically work second shift, so we're night owls - I'm usually awake until about 3am everyday. So Saturday started with me ironing some fabric I picked up on Friday for a new quilt.

1:00 AM: Cutting fabric, but now I have some company. After watching the newest episode of The Office (which I just can't stop watching, even if it's not that great these days), we actually went to bed a little early around 2:00.

10:00 AM: Wake up to take Eric to work, discover some of the most snow we've had this winter. Balls!

11:00 AM: Breakfast.

12:00 PM: Getting my oil changed. Yes, I live the type of exciting life that can only be read in internet blogs.

1:00 PM: Lunch. Black bean soup left over from Thursday night's dinner.

2:00 PM: I went over to my friend Heather's house for Dress A Girl Around The World mini-sewing party, where I got to hang out with some of my old derby leaguemates.

3:00 PM: Dress #1 (the green one) finished! Under it are some other dresses I made at my house and brought over - Heather's aunt is trying to get together 200 dresses to send overseas soon, so we've been working together and teaching friends to make them too!

4:00 PM: Dress #2 finished! I also snapped my picture for the day, a sneaky shot of Heather's super crafting utility belt she made for herself:

Sneaky elf!

5:00 PM: Cutting triangles to make a chevron quilt.

6:00 PM: Planning!

7:00 PM: Dinner! Eric made couscous with a vegetable stew.

8:00 PM: FRUIT NINJA

10:00 PM: We tried to go to a local bar that has karaoke to sing commemorative Whitney Houston songs, but the karaoke guy didn't show up due to the snow (which, quite frankly is bullshit, because the weather is never too bad as to stop karaoke from happening... they should be like mailmen...), and then the jukebox only had this ONE song on it. For shame!

Aaaand, that was my day!

x x x x x x x x2

Today's embroidery showcase features a few interesting pieces that have come from the thrift store:

This was actually a gift from my Mom for Christmas - from the thrift store, mind you - my Mom is a crafty lady herself but does not cross stitch. I have to say, between this and the vintage cookbook my Dad gave me, I had a really warm and fuzzy "Awww, my parents really get me" moment this year. Of course, this hangs in our kitchen, where it is clearly most relevant.

I found this awesome sheepdog a few years ago back in Dayton. It's pretty big - The frame is probably about 12" x 12". Also, check out that sunshine. The last few days have been beautiful, I'm swoooooning.

Nyehhhhh!

x x x x x x x x

So, in honor of National Embroidery Month, I thought I'd show off a couple past cross stitch projects today!

First up is a Star Wars project...

(Hey, nice dusty frame!) So, I stitched this up as a gift for Eric a while back, but the creative genius behind this pattern is Sherezada Windham-Kent of Hand/Eye/Mind/Mouth. I tweaked a couple things - the colors of the lightsabers, mostly. It was really fun to stitch up, and always gets a lot of smiles when people see it. It also always leads to the awkward conversation I have when people ask about it - I generally try to give credit when I'm wearing handmade things made by other people or if I follow a pattern for something versus making something from scratch. So people will look and say, "Wow! Did you make that??" And I say, "Yes, but it's actually a pattern made by this girl on the internet and blah blah blah..." and spend five minutes answering a question when they probably expected a simple yes/no.

Next, a lovely sentiment from Jay-Z. This might be one of my earliest cross stitch projects, I think. This is also often a visitor favorite in the house. Sadly, it fell off the wall recently and the frame cracked. Everything I own is broken or dirty: Welcome to my blog.

Picture a day: 01.28 - 02.03

01.28 - 01.29 - 01.30 - 01.31 - 02.02 - 02.03

It's been another busy week here over in real life, so again sorry for the quiet. It is National Embroidery Month, apparently, so maybe I'll use that as an opportunity to showcase some of my past embroidery projects too! Also, my friend Heather and I are working on making dresses for Dress A Girl Around The World, so I'll have some of those to show off too. Enjoy your weekend!

Make and Do

Here's a photodump from a recent thrift store acquisition, one of the many many many volumes of Childcraft floating around out there. I'm always attracted to the Childcraft books, and will probably start amassing more of them soon. This particular volume is Childcraft: The How and Why Library, Volume 11: Make and Do, published in 1975. This book is crammed with amazing illustrations in many distinct styles, I had to share some of my favorites:

(Jesus, Becky - what did you put in the fondant?!)

(Timmy here looks like he's feeling a bit peckish...)

(I like to imagine that if this little guy had a word bubble, he would be saying, "Hi there! I made a FUCKING SUBMARINE.")

(My life)

By the way, sorry that these are all pictures of pictures... I guess if I'm going to be showcasing a lot of books on here, I might want to look into investing in a scanner! Hmmm...

Picture a day: 01.20 - 01.27

01.20 - 01.21 - 01.22 - 01.24 - 01.25 - 01.26 - 01.27

Sorry for the lack of posts this week - sometimes my job is pretty time consuming, and this week I worked 51 hours, so I unfortunately didn't have a lot of time to post, or much to post about. That's also why a lot of my pictures from this week were taken in my room at night - after work. So, my apologies, but I will definitely try to get back on track this week! 

I've got my Heather's cross stitch hoop mostly finished, so once I get that in a final frame I'll have more pictures of that. Also, please check out January 27th's picture and admire this amazing record cover I saw at the thrift store yesterday. Can you believe that baby's never even been taken out of the plastic wrap? Seems like it'd be an instant classic...

Pop-up-posites

So, on two separate thrift trips I managed to pick up two Hallmark pop-up books, one about space and one about the dinosaurs. Get ready on a pop-up trip through tiiiiiiiiiimme!

The book is Great Dinosaurs by Jennifer Zobelein, illustrated by Dennis Anderson.

The inside cover, featuring this fearsome nondescript dinosaur.

Most of the pop-ups are just the stationary stand up kind. There are a couple flaps you pull to make the dinosaurs move, but it's nothing more exciting than dipping a head down for a drink from a pond.

The last page features this cute little museum scene, along with a generic definition of dinosaur... which, actually, seems like it should probably be in the front of the book...

Next we rocket through the space time continuum to the present day for Astronauts on the Moon: The Story of the Apollo Moon Landings, by Stanley Hendricks and illustrated by Al Muenchen. This one is a little bit more damaged than the dinosaur book, but the illustrations are way cooler.

 

Blast off!

Orbit!

Landing!

Splash down!

I've really started to amass quite a collection of vintage children's books - now I just need some interesting way to showcase them, because currently they just get tucked in with all of our other books and lost amongst the shuffle. I'm not entirely sure why I've begun collecting them - I just love all the illustrations, I guess!