Maude and the Super Long Post

Hey there stitchy peeps! I have a lot to share with you today, and I am so excited!

Last time I posted, I mentioned that I had to stitch a birthday shirt for my baby, who celebrated his first birthday recently. I made a shirt for my four-year-old's birthday last month, so it only seemed fair to make one for the baby, too. Unfortunately, I spaced it until the day before his birthday, so I was pressed for time. But I already had the shirt and the pattern, so no biggie. All I needed to do was trace the pattern with my Sulky, iron it to the shirt (which, by the way, was an adorable little white ribbed tank I'd found for a mere dollar...perfect for summertime and my budget!), and stitch stitch stitch! The pattern I selected was a cute, simple one that I knew I could complete in a short amount of time.

Here, take a look, you'll see what I mean:


This adorable little party owl is from Pimp Stitch, a cool new online embroidery company who recently celebrated their grand opening. Be sure to check out their blog for this sweet owl and other cool freebies.

So, anywho...

Sigh. I hate to tell you this, but that picture up there is as good as it gets. There is no shirt, no adorable completed stitchy piece to show you. Because things went wrong. Very very wrong. You know what happens when you try to stitch on a ribbed tank without any stabilizer?

Bad things. Very bad things. *shudder*

The whole thing was a bust. The shirt was super stretchy and pretty much impossible to stitch on, even though I had it secured in my trusty & beloved Q-snaps. The whole darn thing ended up in the trash.

The trash? you might be thinking. Why not just rip out what you did and try again with stabilizer?

Well...

When I was poking around at my stitches, trying to undo them, I may have ripped a teensy little hole in the shirt. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was angry, tired, frustrated, and ripping out those stitches rather furiously. Whoopsies.

Anywho, enough about that. I will make a shirt for the baby soon, I promise. But in the meantime, I have more to share with you! I am so pleased and excited to announce that (drum roll please) Bathroom Stitching is complete!!!

Ta-da!!!


Oh my gosh, you guys, I am sooooooo in love with her! I colored her in a bit with colored pencils, 'cause the fabric was oh-so-very white and made her look a bit pale and ghost-like. I had originally tried to add some stripes to the dress, but that didn't pan out. I love this version, stitched by a fellow Flickr-ite. Very cool, don'tcha think? I am LOVING that dress. :)

Anywho, the pencils I used are meant for memory books, so they are acid-free, lightfast, archival quality, fade proof, and waterproof, so they shouldn't ruin the fabby over time.

I debated on whether I should make her shoes aqua to match her purse, or brown to tie the piece into my new bathroom decor. I obviously chose the brown, though I think it looks like black in the pic. Oh well. Anywho, here's a pic of Maude (oh, by the way, did I tell you I named her?) against the shower curtain.

This is pre-ironing, so please don't mind the wrinkles.


Here she is again:


And again:


And again:


Now I have to frame her and hang her on the wall. I found a frame today that I think will work, so keep your fingers crossed for me.

I also plan to frame & hang this page from my current wall calendar:


I think these two lovely ladies will make quite a stunning pair in my bathroom, don't you? :-D

Ok, I'm almost done with this super long post, I promise! There's just one more thing I wanna share with you today. One of my fav-o-rite embroidery blogs is Feeling Stitchy. If you love embroidery and haven't checked this blog out, you need to. It is jam-packed with great tutorials, links, info, pics, interviews and articles, all related to--of course--stitching! This blog is one of my daily reads, so I was thrilled to find that one of my pics made it into a post! Tee hee! (My humble little pic is #8, "vitamin parade", which you've seen featured here on my blog.)

Whew! I think that about does it for today!

Happy Stitching, everyone. :)

Short on Words, Long on Pics

Hey there, stitchy peeps! I'm short on time today but I have some stuff I wanna share with you. I finished the french knot 'fro on Bathroom Stitching! Yea!! Now the whole thing is almost complete. I just gotta stitch her legs and shoes.

Here, check it out:




I like to take pictures of my stuff at crazy angles. Here, lookee:


Here she is, with the 'fro almost done. The little bald spot is kinda cute.


And here she is, almost complete:


I really do love that 'fro.

That's all for now, for I have a birthday party to plan! My baby turns 1 year old tomorrow. And I realized this morning that I haven't even begun the preparations for stitching his bday shirt. Oooops, bad mommy! So I gots to get on it! More on that soon. But in the meantime...

Happy Stitching!!

(If you wanna see any of these pics close up, just click on 'em and it will take to you to my Flickr, where you can view them larger. I ♥ Flickr. *dreamy sigh*)

French Knot 'Fro

Hey there, stitchy peeps!

Well, I don't have Bathroom Stitching completed yet. Eeek! This stupid little thing called my job (ick) keeps getting in the way of my stitching time. Grrrr. However, I am happy to report that I got off work early tonight and have time to devote to stitching! I will be working on Top Secret Project #1. I am soooo excited about this! Amy from Early Bird Special and I are doing an embroidery swap, and I am beside myself with glee about it. :) For reals, people! Amy is the sweetest person in the world and I am honored that she wants to swap with me.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I do have a little somethin' to show ya:


The lighting in this pic is lousy, hence the colors look all wacky. The blues aren't as blue as they look, rather they are turquoise (the darker stuff, like the earrings) and aqua (the lighter stuff, like the trim on the collar), plus the hair is a teensy bit yellower. I still have a lot of filling in to do for the fro, but it goes by pretty quickly, especially when Dateline is on the TV. The french knots are a little thicker than what I am used to; I tend to do two strands wrapped twice around the needle, but this is three strands.

(I think I love it. ♥)

Well, that's about all I can say about that. Not much progress=not much to blog about. But since I love to post pictures, I will post one more stitchy pic. You know, just for the heck of it. Tee hee.

Here ye be:


I did this a few years ago. I don't know what year...sometime in the late 90's, I think. When was "Butterfly" by Crazy Town a hit? I remember that video was in heavy rotation on MTV when I was working on this. Anywho, it came from a kit I bought at Michael's. It's not really "me" anymore, but I still love it. That border took me forever to complete, by the way. Ick. It was sooooo monotonous. It's a good-sized piece, at about 9"x13", so there was a lot of time spent on that border. Sigh. ;)

Ok, according to Wikipedia, it was early 2001. Ok, so my memory is a bit fuzzy. 1997-2002 was pretty much a blur for me. But that's a whole 'nother story!

All righty, hubby is blaring Reverend Horton Heat in the living room, and it's putting me in a good mood! I am feeling inspired to stitch. Yay!!

PS Does anybody besides me think that the Bathroom Stitching's mouth should be redone? I ripped out the first one I stitched because it was clownish, and now this second one reminds me of Janice from The Muppet Show. What do you think?

Bathroom Stitching

bathroom wip
Originally uploaded by kunderwood

That's a funny title for a post, right? Forgive me, darlings...It's late. :)

We are in the middle of renovating our stupid, old, icky, moldy, crumbling bathroom. It's a messy project and it's driving me crazy, but it has to be done. And it's gonna look great when it's completed! I finally get the aqua walls I've been dreaming about. :)

Of course, re-doing the bathroom means getting to pick out new accessories. And now I need something to go with the new towels and shower curtain. So.....I decided to stitch up this freebie from Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching.

I am going to make her blonde like me. (Tee hee!) In fact, I think I'd like to make her hair entirely of french knots. I ♥ french knots, though I may KNOT (ha ha) be so fond of them when I've done 40 ka-jillion of them.

This is the only thing I've been working on lately. I usually have 2 or 3 projects in rotation, but between the bathroom, the kids, and work, I barely have time for stitching. Oh well! If I had too much time on my hands, I'd be complaining about being bored! :-D