Summer Embroideries - Cartoon Version (vaguely NSFW)

If you add warm weather, a broken sewing machine and moving together into a food processor, apparently the end product is lots of time to embroider.  Again, not being artistic or having a creative bone in my body, I browsed around for some other people's talent to appropriate

Sebastien Millon - he has great/fun/mildly psychotic art, with lots of adorable bunnies, bears and kitties.  My husband is a Disney lover all the way, but I couldn't resist this one fun poking at Mickey. 3" hoop.

My husband also has a coworker who is getting married next month, who I haven't met, but they are having an Adventure Time themed wedding (to   think I'd never heard of it a couple months ago) and made the gender switched version of the main characters grabbed from a picture somebody posted of an invitation to another wedding somebody had on their fridge (aka source - kinda beats the hell out of me).

It's a fantastic cartoon, if you haven't seen it and have a sense of humor, you should really do so.

Originally I had a much more cluttery plan - The bride and groom also worked on Magic: The Gathering, and I had some elements of that in there too.  This is one place the Pilot Frixion pens really failed me.  I made the mistake of sketching all of it at the beginning, and couldn't get all the traces of shiny white off the fabric for the elements I didn't use, even though I hand washed it twice :(

Had issues stretching it really taut too, but all in all I'm not unpleased with how it turned out. 10" hoop.

Doctor Who? Embroidery

Excessively geeky post here.

I was lucky enough to be invited to be the guest of a guest at a wedding last weekend, and although they requested no gifts, I really thought "whats better than giving an overly personal handmade gift to somebody I met once briefly two years ago that asked for no gifts?" Thats not too weird!

It probably isn't too weird actually, as the wedding was Doctor Who themed, with a Tardis and all! (And there were men in kilts, which is totally unrelated but still welcome)  I love Doctor Who as a whole, though the episodes can be hit or miss.  My husband got me to start watching it as part of his sinister plan to make me geekier and geekier with each passing year.




I'd repinned an image awhile back from deep in the bowels of tardisadventures.

I'd thought it might make a good embroidery - one of the weaknesses with the bit of embroidery I've done is doing too MUCH & I thought this would be a good challenge to try to decrease the detail since I couldn't manage to copy it exactly.

This was a good chance to try a variety of stitching techniques, thank the stars (pun!!!!) I've the Reader's Digest Complete Guide to Embroidery Stitches as a resource.  I used DMC floss & metallic floss.  I may have gone a bit overboard, some of the embroidery there is the first initials of the bride and groom in uh... the Gallifreyan alphabet as well as the word Love.  I figure any Who fan should get a kick out of that.

This was quite the undertaking, but I was happy that although I love how it turned out, flaws and all, I'm not regretting it being meant to find a home elsewhere.  (that's an 8" hoop, by the way) I suppose next time I better make something for the spouse - he's still waiting for his Dalek/Llama embroidery....

I was still finishing up a drawstring carrying bag for it last minute so I had something to put it in.  I also forgot to take a picture, but I used Madrona Road's Memoir print to cover the back,  it has all sorts of whimsical sayings that I thought were very appropriate for the situation. 

french knots, blanket pinwheel, stem stitches, satin stitches...

The wedding was great fun and their vows were everything you'd WANT vows to be.  It's good to know that I am still perfectly incapable of not crying in public during happy things!

They didn't have a gift table (that whole please dont bring gifts cause we don't want to have to cart shit home after thing I'm guessing ;) so this hasn't been passed along to them quite yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed it arrives in one piece and makes the bride and groom giggle a little bit.

Portal Potholders - Part 1

This is my first post for a 2013's A Lovely Year of Finishes. I started working on this project 4-5 months ago and it's been languishing while I did much funner things, and I am determined to finish it this month.  I'll be doing more traditional projects in the future, but I need to get this one out of the way.

Portal Embroidery Hoops from troublewithcrafting

I have a number of geeky video game lovers in my life (I guess I can include myself in that population), and it's fun to translate game stuff into crafting projects once in awhile.  If you haven't played portal (admittedly while it is cute and fun, I have not gotten around to playing through it myself)  the premise is simple, your character makes portals in different areas and walks in one and out the other to progress through the game.  Gosh, that sounds boring but it's not.  It's basically a rated G puzzle game with a slightly sarcastic robot narrating your progress. 




I made a few insinuated hot pads for Christmas, and when I saw the embroidery hoops from thetroublewithcrafting I realized it could translate (hopefully) into some potholders. 


I was merrily zooming along when I got stuck.  I got stuck was because I had trouble printing out just the right size Chell (that's the character's name) to use to go on them.  Then when I thought I had it, with some experimentation realized there's not a graceful way to rotate him to keep him inside the potholder area without him being too present or not present enough in each one.  Also I have to do applique, and I am pretty intimidated at the idea of managing that with this project.

So everything is cut out, it had been hiding in a drawer like any good UFO should.  I guess now is as good a time as ever to let it sit on my table taunting me until I get it done!

Mario Pillow - Mission Accomplished!

Angela at Cut to Pieces is in the process of doing a Mario Brothers quilt a long.  Now I played Pong on our Atari console as a kid, Kangaroo anyplace I could find it, and even Sonic the Hedgehog for like THREE hours as a  teenager to impress my boyfriend, but I certainly skipped right over the whole Mario thing.

I did manage to grow up to be somewhat of a video & board game lover (my husband works in the game industry so it's the least I can do?) but since I never played it, I don't usually really understand what all the excitement is about.

Pillow Back with extra 1.5" strips

My friend Scot really loves Mario.  Like "hoping for a Mario themed wedding cake" loves. I made the mistake of telling him about the quilt along even though he had already been haranguing me (if you read this Scot, don't try denying it) yes haranguing me to make him something Mario related.  I had no desire to  because well...Mario just isn't "pretty".  Then this quilt along showed up and the amount of work that is going into those blocks, well, you have to be really committed.  I've been doing so much hand stitching and quilting that my body isn't up to something of that magnitude right now.




 Scot is commuting 1100 miles today to go to a Seattle gaming convention (or visit me, I think its a toss up), and with my husband prefacing his visit by saying very unhelpful things like "Why don't you make Scot some Mario coasters ?" I decided I better make something before I was driven to violence.  Since Angela is awesomely posting PDF's of the blocks as they go in the flickr group for the QAL...



I decided to take the PDF of the Mario block, and break it down into longer strips instead of 1.5" squares  By just adding 1/4" seam allowance to the end of each color block, I was able to cut down the wear and tear on my body.   Luckily I finally got a 1/4" piecing foot which made this SO much easier (and straighter) when I put it together. I ended up with close to a 19" square, which could've been made a wee bit smaller to fit my 18" insert.  It's possible other people have done this for the QAL, I haven't had time to look through the whole group lately.



 
I thought I should use some embroidery too.  Scot likes to be told he's awesome (a Canadian thing?) so I put it in writing for him, I need to keep practicing that skill (embroidery, not flattering my friends).

He'd wanted to make himself a Piranha plant footstool after seeing a tutorial for it, so I figured he'd appreciate one on his pillow too, and I found an interesting take of it online .

Joann's Fabrics had all all the colors I needed in Kona cotton for this in stock (a miracle)!

I used fusible interfacing on the back of the embroidery to protect it, and since I had practiced zippers for my pouches earlier this year, I opted for a zipper closure.  It took a long full day to do the cutting and sewing, and a shorter day to do the embroidery.  I am not totally displeased with how it turned out (that counts as my version of a compliment to myself :).  I've put it in the "guest bedroom" (futon sofa residing in my husband's game room) on the bed for a surprise when he gets here in a few hours , and I now I feel I don't have to do anything else nice to prove I'm a good friend until his wedding next summer!