Vintage puppy embroideries

My brain power has seriously decreased, therefore my stitching output is almost at a complete halt. My priorities included getting the baby's room done and decorated. Other than cleaning up some general clutter, I am finished with this room. Whew! And with five weeks to spare! So I give you the baby's room, with finished puppy number 3. I'm also showing some of the other items used to decorate this room, most of which were made by friends or relatives.

PS: Sorry for the terrible photos. I had to use an old point-and-shoot because I still do not have the proper lens to do short range shots on my Nikon. Aw well.

This was part of a tea towel set of iron-on patterns. Picked it up at Hobby Lobby and cut out the day of the week text. I put him on an 8 x 10 inch canvas with a blue gingham ribbon to hang. I also used pink and blue gingham bow to fill in some space at the bottom. In my scramble to finish this today, I didn't center the pattern as well as I would have liked.

Here are all three together, above the baby's dresser. I used the 3M removable, plastic hooks instead of nails.

The three pieces hanging on the left are pieces that my mother embroidered for me when I was a child. Guess the desire to stitch runs in the family! You can also see two handmade quilts on the chair. The red one is comprised of more vintage puppies and was sent to me by the lovely Pam!

Another view of those above mentioned pieces.

This is a terrible photo but it's so hard to get a nice shot with the dark paint and bright colors. These decals were about $10 off Amazon and you can re-position them. I like that they are an inexpensive, fun way to add color to a kid's room. After all, who knows what the child's taste will be in a few years?

Finally, this is the crib and changing table. I ran the decals over the crib to add more color. (I intentionally blanked out the name on the name plate. We'll announce that to everyone in about 5 weeks!) I purchased that handmade item off Etsy. The blanket in the crib was handmade by a friend.

So that's about it for now! I have a couple more things I'd like to cross stitch before the kiddo arrives but who knows what will happen. I can always try though right? Have a great day! Tschus. :)

Pups and bugs!

My friend's baby shower is over so I can post this!

This only took about two weeks for me to stitch on and off. My friend loves her Boston Terrier and she also recently added a bee hive to her property. I used three patterns to create this for her on a baby towel.

She is due a few weeks before I am so it has been really helpful to trade stories with her. It's nice to know someone else who is going through this along with me! I was really happy to be able to attend her shower and give her this personalized gift. Hope you all like it too!

Halloween stitches!

Wow it's been about a month and no posts! What have I been doing?

I decided to switch gears and get ready for fall, whether or not the weather would cooperate with my mood. Just as the heat wave broke I was able to finally put up two pieces that I think are really cute.

Both patterns are from The Stitcherhood and you can find her website here. Her designs are really cute and she has some free patterns there for Halloween, which is where I got these. I am thinking of buying some from her though because they are really fun and easy to put together.

I chose to put both of them on 14-count, oatmeal colored Aida fabric. The cemetery one I modified slightly from the original because I messed up some of the spacing in the design. I think it works though!

Now that the baby's room is painted, I can see how things will go on the wall. Next up is one more puppy to fill some space. I'm going to make this one to fit a 8 x 10 inch canvas and then flank it with the two 6 x 9 inch canvases.

I hope to make a bunting for one of the walls too but we'll see if I ever master my sewing machine!

Until next time, tschus.

Another puppy!

I keep going back and forth between the silly and gross and the cute. I did another puppy for the baby's room. I'm not sure how much more to do so I might wait until we get the room painted and set up before I do much else.

By the way, any good ways to hang things by ribbon without putting a nail in the wall? Seems a shame to get the room all nice and painted and then put holes in the walls. Also I'd like the flexibility to rearrange the art work over time. I know there are non-permanent sticky hooks (for lack of a better description) but they are kind of large. Maybe there are smaller versions?

So here is the Scotty dog, looking all prim and proper. Again, I got this from French Knots.





I wish I hadn't continued the thread near his neck but oh well. I still like this little guy!

So there ya go! I finished the stitching a while ago but finally got off my lazy behind to stretch it over the canvas. I think the next project will be another humorous piece using an established pattern.

Stay tuned!

Tschus.

Fapping Meme

WARNING: The following depicts masturbation humor.

My husband loves Failblog and even more, he loves the Meme page on it. I had to laugh at one of them and promised to stitch it for him. Before I post pics, you can find the meme stuff here. It's fun to do something kind of gross and silly.

Note to self, work on embroidering words.

I present to you, the fapping meme.

He's taking it to work, by the way. Good thing it's a small company.

Hope your days are cool, calm and full of humor!! Tschus!

The Sinister Stitch Chronicles

My friend Victoria Crowder Payne has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund her work and upcoming exhibit called The Sinister Stitch Chronicles. I can't describe it as well as Victoria has, so here is a summary from her Kickstarter page!

"Sinister Stitch is a mixed media embroidery project composed of two parts: the Exhibit (which will debut in October 2011) and the Chronicles (airing July through November 2011, with the feature film compiled at year's end)."

The exhibit will be "a mixed media embroidered collection consisting of 13 ancient poisonous botanicals anchored by a central personification of the Mandrake Root’s fabled consort: the Womandrake.  (Additionally, the Sinister Stitch poisons are Monkshood, Wolfsbane, Foxglove, Poets Narcissus, Black Hellebore, Snakeroot, Moonseed, Angel’s Trumpet, Rosary Pea, Hemlock, and Oleander.)" I love that she is using dangerous, beautiful plants and humanizing them. It's like a modern day fairy tale.

And the second part of her campaign is the documentary/webcasts: "The Sinister Stitch Chronicles include the web-casts beginning July 2011 that detail creating the exhibit and the documentary film project (scheduled for release in December 2011)."

Please jump on over to the Kickstarter page to read more about how to donate and get involved!

And here is one of the episodes available on Youtube. Victoria was so kind as to include a couple of my little pieces along with our other amazing, talented friends to illustrate different types of embroidery.



I love this episode so much because you can see the artist in her space, how she organizes herself, her beautiful family around her lending hands and paws to the project and just get a feel for who she is as a person. Her first episode was amazing as it described her inspiration for this project. I am a big believer in the subconscious influencing us, especially in our art. I've woken up in the middle of the night and connected an image to a feeling that I wanted to express in my embroidery. Those instances have always pushed me out of my creative blocks and the feeling when it happens is so very cool.

To get up to date news on this project with even more details, photos and inspiration, please see Victoria's blog here.

I hope you will take the time to get to know Victoria and her awesome art work. I am so excited to see this in person in the fall! Good luck Vic!!

Current faves

I've enjoyed visiting my mail box lately. No, not bills. Who enjoys those? However my mailbox has been regurgitating some lovely things I've purchased or been fortunate enough to be gifted as of late. Take a peek!

I was given these by a friend: a screen print baby onesie along with an adult zombie book cleverly disguised as a children's book. I love it!



Check out her Etsy store and see the other awesome things she makes!

This is a whimsical, clever brooch my friend Bascom made for me!



It makes me smile! Kind of reminds me of the ancient fish that decided it wanted to stop eating in the water and live on land. So it grew legs. This fish looks like it's got a great idea and gearing up to start walking! Smart little bastard.

Finally, here is a quilt I bought for the baby's room. I think it will fit our crib nicely.





You can find this gal's store on Etsy as well!

I love the happy dogs and the colors. There were a lot of puppy quilts on Etsy but I was in love with another quilt with the same kind of fabric and color, however the seller raised the price before I could purchase it. This quilt fit my budget and I will purchase a blue dust ruffle for the crib and a breatheable bumper in blue also. We're thinking chocolate brown for the walls and then all the handmade goodies we can make and find for decoration. I don't care if things don't match. It's almost better if they don't because then the baby will have tons of colors to look at all the time!

These are my favorite handmade things right now. What is on your list currently?

Mish mash finished

I have a few things that I've finished FINALLY that I can share with you!

First the puppy is now stretched on canvas and has a loop attached for hanging. I plan on doing one more similar puppy to match.





The back of the canvas. I stitched and glued a pink gingham ribbon to hang it. This was super quick to make. The reason it took me so long to post this was because I didn't have a canvas on hand. I made the image 5 x7 on my printer and bought a 6 x 9 canvas so it would be just a bit bigger than my finished image.



This is my first baby onesie that I've stitched on. In fact, it's the first tshirt material I've ever used. The stabilizer and patterns are from Sublime Stitching. It's a little plain; no embellishments.



And this dragonfly was a pattern I obtained from About.com! The lovely Connie G. asked for some stitchers to do some of her patterns and this is the first one I chose to do. I added a fourth color to play with the wings a little. I'll hang this in the baby's room too.

And this piece is part of a larger project in the UK. Each stitcher has a phrase from the definition of the word "fractal." You can see the entire phrase here.



This was the phrase I was assigned. It actually looks very pretty in person but the mobile phone photo is pretty washed out. It's royal purple for the letters and then a rainbow to give it a little flair. I really like the font.

Finally, I finished and framed my Fido movie quote:



This is available for sale in my Etsy shop if you are interested! I loved stitching this one up as I enjoy brains and splatter.



Whew! That's it for now. Next up include a vulgar meme, a puppy, a lady bug and another Boomstick for my first sale on Etsy in about four months! Good thing it's too hot to do much else other than stitch. :)

Tschus!

Whatchoo workin' on?

First of all, thanks to those who took part in the "guess the sex of the baby" poll on my baby site. If you haven't done so, please click on over and also register to win a free bookmark. The details are all on the previous post!

Second, I finished up another zombie themed piece but will post pics as soon as I get a nice frame for it. It took me a few weeks to do because the font was a little larger than what I normally do. I hope you like it!

Third, I just started a cute puppy piece for the nursery. This is a free pattern from a gal at French Knots. So far I have only transferred the pattern to a piece of muslin, so it will finish in a size of 7 inches by 5 inches. I may frame it or stretch it over a canvas. This is the first time I transferred a pattern using the Sulky iron-on pens. Normally I use a washable pen and transfer the pattern using the window as a light box. However it has been cloudy all day and my shoulders ache terribly.

So far, so good! This is very easy to use. Just read the directions first, like how to get the ink started the first time you use it. When I printed the pattern, I reversed the image first. Then I traced it.

Then I laid the pattern, ink side down, onto my fabric and ironed it at a high heat setting. Be sure to turn the steam off on your iron. You don't have to do it for long. Sulky suggests just 30 seconds, gently moving the iron around the pattern. It also says you can use the same pattern a few more times before it won't transfer anymore.

The directions also state that you should wait a few days before you wash the fabric. I usually wash things out after I'm done stitching.

I decided not to be anti-feline in our nursery after digging out a couple pieces that hung in my own bedroom when I was little. My mother did these for me and they are a bit stained but so dang cute. I've decided, boy or girl, that a nursery with blue accents is just fine by me. I had a blue room and turned out fine! (I think.)

I don't know how to make the cute little ruffles around the hoop like she did but maybe I'll figure that out someday.

And finally, I won a giveaway from my friend Lisa on her blog site. She sent me some divine French Chocolate Mint tea and the cutest little stitch to help keep me smiling. For those who don't follow my personal blog, my dog Sadie passed away and I've been self-soothing with ice cream. Bust my head open and soft serve will come pouring out.

Isn't that cute? What a sweetie!

So what is everyone else working on? Leave a link to your blog if you have some works in progress going on!

Thanks and happy fourth!

Tschus. :)

Time for a Giveaway!!!!

In just one week we will find out the sex of our baby. We are so excited, it's insane. We don't care what it is, but just want it healthy and happy! (Pssst we kind of want a boy.) So to have a little fun in the remaining week of guessing, I thought I'd do a fun giveaway.

Up for grabs is one Laugh My Ass Off bookmark.



Here are the rules:

1. Visit our baby site and scroll down to the poll box. Vote "Boy" or "Girl."

2. Click on the Guestbook link and sign your name. I don't care if you only put your first name and last initial but you must leave me a valid email address.

Winner will be chosen at random after we find out the sex next week. Now, I hear sometimes the baby won't cooperate but we're going to plan on this baby lettin' it all hang out!

Please cross-post and thanks for having a little fun with me!!

Seen around town and new swap piece

I really need to work on my blog titles. :) Anyways, I thought it would be neat to post some photos of embroidery and fiber art pieces that I see when I stop at museums.

It's amazing how much stitchery you can find when you really stop and look for them. Normally I see them at antique and thrift stores but I rarely have my camera on those trips. This time I made an effort to look for them while at the Mahaffie Stagecoach Stop & Historic Site in Olathe, Kansas. It is the last working stagecoach stop and living history farm on the Santa Fe Trail.



This is a fantastic quilt in great condition. I'm not sure what type of quilt style it is, maybe one of you know?



Friendship, Love and Truth. I saw chain and satin stitches for sure but it was a little far away so I was unable to examine it further. Plus, flashes are a no-no on these things.



These two were way too far away for me to get a good photo but they were very pretty.



The staff work on all kinds of needlework and knitting while they wait for visitors to tour the home. Here is a sample of some of the on-going work they are doing now. It's kind of fun to look at the hoops and be able to identify the types of stitching being used.



And finally, you'll remember my previous post about the little pigeon for the Phat Quarter swap over on Flickr. This is the awesome piece that I received from FiberArtsy. This is a quote from the book World War Z, by Max Brooks. I think this is one of the best zombie books I've read so far. Phalanx was a drug mentioned in the book that was created so people didn't develop "African Rabies." Brilliant!! I think her ability to envision a small segment of the book into such a clean, crisp and beautiful embroidery is amazing. I could never hand draw something like this to begin with and then to stitch it so well. Well maybe after loads of more practice! So thank you FiberArtsy! I can't wait to hang this up!

Please head on over to Phat Quarter and join the group if you haven't already. You don't need to be an experienced stitcher to join. Just join, start making stuff and people will help you with advice and inspiration. :) Once you post some photos to the group, you can join in a swap. They have them every time there is a month with five Fridays. Or if you are looking for a broader based crafting community, please go to Craftster! There is literally something for everyone on there: bakers, painters, knitters, stitchers, sewers, etc. And they often have swaps and stitch-alongs too. I can honestly say that I've met (online) some of the nicest, smartest and most wonderful people through these craft groups.

Are you oozing with love and creativity yet? :)

Hope you all are having a great week, tschus!

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!

See the exhibition!

The other pieces in the awesome Gay For Eagles show are now online and you can see them all HERE. Some pieces are for sale, some are not. I think they are all amazing and I'm very proud that I was allowed to participate. Not sure what's next on the horizon for me. I've had a hard time getting anything done lately and have some stitch for hire things to finish. However I want to get my Kick Ass For The Lord pattern stitched up and then who knows. Hopefully a burst of inspiration and energy will collide inside my brain any day now.

Tschus!

Separate but equal

I separated my personal blog from my stitching one due to many reasons. If you would like the link, please email me here or at nodakbex@gmail.com. Thanks and please follow me on my personal blog!

Update: Miscellaneous Stitchy and Stuff

Well how the hell is everyone? Things here are rolling along, same as usual.

Let me start with finally posting about my piece for the Gay For Eagles show.



The exhibition "will showcase new work and explore issues of war and peace, gender and sexuality." I chose to represent the fight for gay rights with the detonation of an atom bomb, hence the name of the piece, Social Detonation. I guess I simplify things too much, but I don't see how two same sex people getting married or having the same rights I have will really change my life. I think people are afraid of what is unfamiliar to them and some people just have this paranoid feeling that their health insurance premiums will go up if (OMG!) gay people are allowed to get married. Hate to break it to ya, but people who are chronically ill and young like me drive up your insurance. Straight, gay, transgendered, whatever. Can't we all just live our lives in peace?

So on the technical side of things, I have learned that stitching a lot of stitches together will warp your fabric. Thoughts on prevention? My lines are crooked and maybe that's because I didn't use a Q-snap frame and used a round hoop instead. I also learned that submitting for an art show does have some costs involved. There is the cost of materials to make your piece, framing it, commission fees, submission fees and then sending it along with return postage. Seems pretty obvious but not something I thought out entirely. Even so, I am still thrilled to death to be a part of it. I hope my work doesn't stand out because my work is still unrefined and amateur. It took about 30,000 stitches to make my big, gay bomb and I love every imperfect bit of it. :)

That's my general update for now. I'm mostly working on training our foster dog so we can find him a good home and then finishing up some other stitching projects. I'm consistently busy which is good!

Tschus!

Stitchy goodness

It's been a very busy time, stitch-wise. I've had some requests to do patterns that other artists sell. I've also done a few custom requests. I love doing the custom pieces a lot because they force me to be creative and figure out how to put someone's idea into a finished piece.

I was approached by the person who runs Evil Dead News to recreate the Home Sweet Home sampler hanging in the cabin from the movie Evil Dead 2. So after watching the movie again and some internet surfing, I was able to come up with a pretty good representation:





For something seemingly simple, it did take a while to stitch up. I can't wait to get another one made and hung up next to our front door!

I also had a request for someone's massage business. She incorporates a wrench into her logo (body repair) and wanted to combine the wrench with her dog, Hank, who is a Boston Terrier. This is what I came up with:



This request was for a penguin and a Fuck Cancer piece, that is actually a combination of patterns by Julie Jackson. I chose to do the Linux penguin and gently censored the Fuck Cancer piece on request.



I also re-stitched one of my more offensive pieces to swap with someone. I love this piece because it's so pretty and so funny. :)



I have patterns and pieces for the Evil Dead sampler and the Ass piece on my Etsy.

So I guess this is what I'm doing now full time. I spend anywhere from four to nine hours a day stitching and/or creating patterns. I finally emailed my family about my career change and sent them a link to my Etsy shop. My dad is the only one who said anything. He told me that he is really impressed with my stitching and said my mom would have been really proud of me. That's the best thing he could have ever said to me. I was worried that he would be disappointed in me but he's so supportive. My mom was pretty handy with a needle and she made me this before she died: (It's the big alphabet sampler.)



That's all I needed to hear to know that I'm on the right path. My dad is awesome and I love him a lot. I just hope he doesn't log back onto my Etsy now that I put up the Ass pattern. Heh.

That's what's up in my stitching world. Next up is an art piece for the Gay for Eagles show in North Carolina. My first art show. I need to get stitching!

Take care everyone...tschus.

PS
I just noticed that someone added the Evil Dead sampler to an Etsy treasury called The Farm House. I don't think they know my cute little cabin is from a horror movie. Heh.