Cutest embroidered pigeon!

I am happy to participate in the May Phat Quarter swap again. My swap recipient hasn't seen it yet but I don't think she reads my blog so we're all good.

My person told me she enjoys children's books and mentioned Mo Willems. Not having kids yet, I had to do a Google search and this is the image I chose:

It's been a while since I did a tinted linen piece but it was like riding a bike.

This was my first attempt, btw:



I started by printing off the picture, tracing the outlines with a black sharpie and then hanging it in a sunny window. I put the fabric over the image on the window and traced it with my washable marker. Then I colored with my crayons and pressed the fabric until the crayon had set.



Traced and tinted



Close-up of the tinted piece



I used stem stitch, satin stitch and back stitch



Touched up, washed, ironed and mounted to an acid-free 8x10 board, ready to pop into a frame

If I hadn't been so busy with housework the last few days, this really would have only needed two days to do. I'm really pleased with it and am excited to do some cute pieces for our nursery. Hope you enjoyed checking this out!

Happy Memorial Day, tschus!

Stitchin' status

I have been in a huge funk, so forgive me for not posting. Depression can go either way: it can be a great inspiration and outlet or it can be creativity killer. In my case, I haven't been doing much of anything, which has elicited feelings of deeper depression, guilt, restlessness, etc. The cure? MORE COWBELL! I mean, MORE STITCHING!

So let's not concentrate on what hasn't been done, and see what HAS been done.

I did get a book review completed for Connie G over at About.com for a book entitled "Blackwork." You can read it here. It's definitely for a more advanced stitcher but I am looking forward to using some of the stitch patterns to create some of Connie's patterns in the future. You can't perfect a technique if you never even try, right? Here is a great example of someone taking blackwork stitches and putting them to use in a contemporary image of a bird. (Sorry to link that instead of inserting an image, but I don't want to use this person's image without permission first!) I think this is really well done and would love to be able to do something similar, maybe in a flower pattern.

I've also had a few sales, mostly Bruce Campbell related and the latest one was purchased from a person in Turkey. Thankfully, shipping to Turkey isn't as bad as I had imagined. I am pretty excited that one of my pieces is on its way across the globe. There are Ash fans everywhere! We're like the plague.

And finally, I created a pattern inspired by one of my other favorite B movies, "Dead Alive." Click here for the pattern.

And the video clip:



So while that may not be a ton of accomplishments, in the world of Emo Bex, it is a good start. I'm still finishing work on a stitch-for-hire project and have signed up for another Phat Quarter swap on Flickr as well as a project for the folks at Mr. X Stitch.

If you are still reading my blog, thank you for sticking with me. I promise to stay in better touch from here on out.

Tschus!