New Directions... this post has nothing to do with Glee

I love making silk ribbon jewelry. I really do. I also love all the feedback I get. Feedback like...  “my grandma is going to love this!” “I gave this to my wife for our 50th anniversary!” “I’m going to wear this to my granddaughters wedding!” etc. 

That the majority of my market is considerably older than me doesn’t bother me. In fact I take pride in it. Honestly, I’ll take praise wherever I can get it and I’ve always thought the older generation has fantastic taste... there is a reason everyone loves Mad Men... the fashions are spectacular. 

That said, I’m ready to try new things. What do you think? 

Embroidery Samplers: A Study in Passive Aggression

I have a problem with most needlepoint samplers. To me they come off as condescending reminders to be polite, frugal, respectful, etc. No matter how delicate the script, or how many butterflies are stitched around it, there is no getting away from the fact that it's really just a smug reminder that you are somehow deficient. I see them and think, “someone spent hours stitching a passive aggressive note?”

I grew up with lots of samplers. In our house it always something vaguely threatening written in Norwegian (my grandmother is Norwegian and in addition to incredible talent she also has a lot of free time... hence the samplers). 

ok, i guess this is technically advice...

Anyway, I didn’t understand why there are so many of these until recently, when I started to really pursue embroidery as a hobby. The fact of the matter is, it’s hard to find practical applications for embroidery. Yes, you can embroider clothes and purses and other accessories, but that means you have to either find or make those things in the first place. The beauty of a sampler is that you just start with a blank piece of fabric and go from there. You never had to bother with that epitome of all frustration: the sewing machine. But then you’re left with the question, “what is this for?” 

I ask myself that question constantly. So far I’ve resisted asking it of any of my customers... but it’s been a close thing. I honestly want to know what people are planning to do with my random quote embroidered on plain fabric and glued to a hoop... 

Don’t get me wrong, I love making these and I’m happy they’re appreciated... but the question still lingers. I think that’s where the trend of embroidering bible verses or morality couplets came from. It gives your work a purpose... a pretty obnoxious purpose, but a purpose nonetheless...

Or maybe the people who make these things really do think that, without their help, you’ll forget how important it is to love thy neighbor or wipe your feet. Maybe they’re the kind of people who write angry notes about keeping the office microwave clean and try to hide their aggression by dotting their i’s with hearts. 

Of course, whenever there is a tradition, especially one as stupid as this one, there people trying to subvert it. Especially when that subversion is cute or funny or profitable. Take a look on etsy, there are plenty of (not so) surprisingly crude samplers for sale. I can’t decide how I feel about it. On the one hand, if it keeps my hobby relevant (or as close to relevant as it’s ever going to get) I’m all over it. On the other, this is a traditional art, one my grandma taught me and one that is still mostly appreciated by the older generation. I don’t want to ruin it for them. I also don’t want to be crude for the sake of being crude. That’s what junior high is for. 

But, then I remember those people carefully reminding me what a “stitch in time” can do, and I kind of want to write “BLOW ME” in beautiful, carefully measured cable stitch surrounded by delicate silk ribbon flowers. But I won’t. At least not yet. 

New Treasury: Purple Stitches!

Please take a moment to check out my newest treasury, a collection of embroidered pieces in my favorite color, purple!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/MTU2MjI3MjF8MjI3OTkxMDQzMQ/purple-stitches?ref=pr_treasury

Harry Potter Quilt Progress

Two posts in one day, I really am back. Also... I’ve got a massive to do list for the long weekend which I’m avoiding, so suddenly new blog posts seem very appealing. Anyone want to take two months worth of clothes to the dry cleaner for me? Anyone? No one? Sigh..

Anyway, I’m still working on my Harry Potter quilt... I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it once it’s finished (there are only so many quilts you can hang in our apartment before it starts to creep people out and worry your roommates) but in the meantime it’s a fun way to strengthen my embroidery skills.

It amazes me that the things I thought would be super difficult, like the Weasley’s car, turned out to be fairly simple, while the things I thought would be easy are barely recognizable. No one knows what Fudge’s lime green bowler hat is supposed to be, the most common guess is VW bug. I thought the color would tip everyone off but it just seems to confuse them. Along the same lines, my potion bottles all look like snowmen, no matter what color I outline them in. Oh well.

I’m posting some of my favorite photos below but there is so much going on it was impossible to capture everything. For a full gallery of photos please see my flickr link 

http://www.flickr.com//photos/beantownembroidery/

It's been awhile..

I’m back.

Work has been monstrous lately, also I’ve discovered Downton Abbey.. either of those things are enough to turn me into an antisocial asshole but the combination has made me a real recluse.

Anyway, I’m finally up to date on Downton and work has decided to subside at least momentarily, so I’m back. I added a few pieces of jewelry to my etsy site this afternoon, I don’t know if they’ll be popular, but I had so much fun making them I don’t really care if they sell.

I’m also still working on my Harry Potter quilt, photos to follow. I think it’ll be finished soon!

Burgundy and brown are probably my favorite colors to work with so of course I love this one... though lavender seems to be the most popular color in my shop, so the one above is also a favorite..

Destined to be left unfinished... Harry Potter Quilt!

I have a problem with large projects... I can’t stop starting them but I almost never finish them... this is why my etsy shop features so many small pieces of jewelry but nothing on a larger scale. In my life I think I’ve only finished two big projects on my own and both were quilts. I say “on my own” because so much of my crafting experience is working on shared projects with my mom/sisters/aunt/grandma. Those projects don’t have a much higher rate of completion, but since there are always at least four people involved it’s easy to blame it on someone else.

Anyway, neither of my two “success stories” really count. The first was a school project which I’d committed to donating to a charity auction so I really had no choice but to finish it... and I did so in the most half assed way imaginable. I never added hanging loops so to this day the man who bought it (who was, incidentally, my baby sisters kindergarten teacher) has it push pinned to a wall in his house. The other is a real masterpiece of a quilt which I truly love, but which I was a little over committed to while making. After six months of what can only be described as a manic embroidery binge, I was sick of the thing and decided to just slap it together and never work on it again. The result currently hangs in our entry way and gets lots of compliments... but I can’t help noticing the terrible construction every time I walk by it.

I mean, really, six months of piecing, embroidering and beading and I couldn't be bothered to make sure the corners all met in the same place? My grandmother saw the completed quilt and said "well, there have to be some mistakes or no one would believe you made it yourself..." I choose to take that as a compliment.

So, it is with this truly abysmal record that I leap enthusiastically into my next big project, a Harry Potter quilt! I got the idea when I started noticing that “harry potter quilt” was one of my etsy shops most popular search terms, despite the fact that I’ve never made anything remotely resembling a harry potter quilt.

I then started thinking of all the fun Harry Potteresque things I’d love to embroider and decided to give it a try. My crafting budget has grown to some pretty alarming levels, so I was determined to only use the fabric and supplies I already had... this has been surprisingly difficult.

The first challenge was deciding what colors to use. I wanted to use the only colors of the Hogwarts houses (red, gold, green, silver, yellow, black, blue and.... bronze/brown/grey) but I may have fudged a bit. First off, the Ravenclaw colors are hard to pin down. I think it’s pretty clear that they’re blue and bronze, but I didn’t have any bronze fabric and anyway, the movies show the colors as blue and grey. I decided to use both brown and grey since the grey could also be considered Slytherin Silver... which I was in short supply of. I also noticed that my Gryffindor gold and Hufflepuff yellow were almost the same color... and chose not to dwell on it.

I’ve got nine squares pieced together and have been embroidering them with whatever random harry potter objects and quotes come to mind... though I’m starting to run out of ideas... suggestions?

New Jewelry

Just added new jewelry to Etsy!

This design with lots of small flowers has proved pretty popular. I should make more like this but with multiple colors and such tiny stitches the back gets pretty messy and it's hard to keep the tension right... I'll have to work on it though because I LOVE the way this came out.

Also kind of in love with this red one. I've been putting large multilayered flowers on a lot of things lately and they all come out different... I'm a fan.