Hoopla Round 2

Look what Luckdragon stitched for me in the Embroidery Hoopla Round 2 swap on Craftster!

I love the french knot lei on the little boy. She did a little bit of crayon tinting and it makes a very nice effect. I also like the thick texture of the girl's hair.

I just signed up for round 3 of this swap. This one went very fast and was a lot easier than the Tea Towel Tours I used to co-organize. Those were an extravaganza of messages, mailouts, and communications. This is a simple exchange with no extras. I imagine a nice display wall of hoops as I do more swapping. I have a lovely collection of fully decorated tea towels from my last several embroidery swaps, but those are hard to display.

Check out this link with just the image posts from the swap and you won't have to read all of the chit-chat.

Kawung Style Embroidery

I reviewed Dritz Mark-B-Gone Marking Pens for Craft Critique. Click HERE to read my article.

I also finished my last stitching for my Tea Towel Tour swap at Craftster. Click HERE to see our gallery. Find the "See Images Only" tab to edit out the chit-chat.

Kitten Wrangler indicated that she was interested in traditional Indonesian design so I did some research. I found mostly batik designs, but a motif I thought would translate to embroidery was this style of interlocking circles called "Kawung".



It is a beautiful loose weave linen cloth, so the circles came out very slightly wonky. Batik motifs are also imperfect, so I'm being authentic, right? I used DMC Color Variations embroidery floss for the circles. It is lovely floss! Note to family: Good Christmas gift for Susie is the multipack of Color Variations Floss.



Here is Kitten Wrangler's finished towel. Actually it is a napkin, but in this swap I call everything a towel regardless if it is an apron or something else. Click on the photo to go over to Flickr to see the labeled photo. I didn't do most of this lovely stitching!

Clown Fish Embroidery

This is the clownfish embroidery I did for j_q_adams in our Tea Towel Tour 5 swap on Craftster. He wants an aquatic/oceanic theme for his towel, and I thought that the clownfish might be the most charming fish in the ocean. I remember teaching about the coral reef back when I was a teacher. The reef pictures I found just didn't have the appeal of this little guy.

His towel is a nice ecru color. I did my favorite chain stitches with 2 strands of embroidery floss. I used a coloring book image, (I think.. clown fish images were easy to find) and just started stitching the outline in black really late at night. About halfway around, I realized that doing the outline that way meant that I would have to fill-in a lot. I have a phobia about fill-in stitching. I don't know why, because I think these rows and swirls of chain stitches look cool.

Something else I noticed is that DMC embroidery floss is really nice and silky. The black I had was something I've had in my stash for a while, maybe Coats and Clark or something and it was just noticeably not as easy to work with.

Getting Stitchy Again

A little action at the Etsy shop is very motivating!

I made some custom patches for an Etsy seller, Chat Noir Designs, who will use them on some children's things she knits.



These are smaller than I usually do. The disks are just 1.5 inches. She wanted two sheep, two elephants, and two turtles. It is hard to believe, but these are the very first turtles I've ever stitched. Not because they are so fantastically original or anything, but hasn't everyone crafty made owls and turtles?


Just because they are smaller doesn't really make them easier. You have to be really precise with small shapes like these.



Their wee cuteness brightens my mood so I also made an amigurumi valentine. It's dark here now, so I'll have to photograph it later. I used this pattern by Owlishly HERE.

Finally, back in the fall I had a HUGE order to craft a variety of my pouches for all the moderators at Craftster. Yesterday, my pouches were on the front page of Craftster. See it HERE. Craftster has really updated their look and I love it. It is really easy to see projects people post because there are thumbnails for each photo post. They also have a long overdue blog.

I listed and relisted a bunch of stuff over at Etsy. Our slightly brighter days are good for my photographs!

Craftster Linking

The truth is that my little dyed lace project that got a Best of award at Craftster is cute and all, but is kind of lame when you see some of the other winners.

I'm going to do links here because I don't want anyone to get the idea that these are my crafts!

Merwing (Aimee Ray) honored her childhood heroes with charming embroideries.

Look at THIS fantastic crocheted mushroom house.

Mario is beloved by all, HERE in an epic crosstitch and his buddy Yoshi is HERE in glass mosaic.

This treasure map quilt is cute and inspired. This Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt is incredible. This pattern is very difficult and must be stitched entirely by hand.

This dinosaur play mat is ingenious and she even includes a pattern and instructions.

Doesn't she look cute in her Old Timey Bathing Costume?

Seriously, y'all have to dye your own wool with Kool-Aid or try dyeing your own self striping yarn. I also use food coloring droplets in a vinegar solution.

If you are quietly crafty, I encourage you to find a halfway decent camera and a bright area of your living space and start taking pictures and posting your creations on forums like Craftster. Craftster is my favorite because people are nice, not snarky, and the discussions stick to crafting. It really is inspiring to see all the things people make!

Craftster Best of 2008

WooHoo! Craftster put up their Best of 2008 list and my colorful dyed lace made the best of list for Fiber Arts: Dyeing. I blogged the lace project HERE and shared it on Craftster HERE. I used this lace in a bunting for my daughter's birthday.



The Craftster list is a combination of most views and judgment of awesomeness by the moderators so I feel quite honored.

I'm on the list twice! Our Tea Towel Tour Round 3 was the most popular swap of 2008! Rectangel organizes the Tea Towel Tours and she is a huge part of why it is successful. It is not easy to keep everyone on track in a swap like that. My role is a co-organizer and group leader. That's my hapless Owl in the thumbnail pic they used. I stitched this for Fruitloops.



Speaking of stuff like this. I can hardly believe that I have contributed 258 photos of embroidery to the Flickr Embroidery Group. That makes me #3 of the top 5 contributors there (out of 2,826 members). Most of the embroidery is my own although I also share vintage work done by the women in my family and embroidery done for me in the swaps I've participated in. If you look at my submissions, you'll see that I embroider a lot of small felt applique.