Postcard Swap Update

The theme for this Postcard Swap is "Discover." Know who's a good discoverer of things? Nikola Tesla! I turned again to Google image search and my trusty old work printer (shh) to produce some quality Tesla Action Shots with which to construct a postcard. If you'll recall, I recently "discovered" glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss. When I saw what Google had on offer I decided that floss was a good fit for this project. Even though the glowing is not very impressive.

My husband accidentally ordered flat cards for a project instead of the folding kind, but I assured him I could make use of them one way or another. It turns out they are perfect postcard-size. I cut out my Tesla pictures, used modpodge to adhere them to the cards, then poked holes where I wanted to embroider. I did one card for the back and one for the front, then sewed them together because otherwise it would just be a giant mess. Please note the "stamp":

Only the white floss on the front glows in the dark. The other floss is just regular olive green.

I'm pretty sure I sent this one ^ and the one above it to my swap partner. I made two each of the three postcards pictured above and one of the following:

... because I printed out two of each picture but that one was small so I stuck both on one sheet. These are the most mature entries I've ever produced for this swap! I hope she likes them. Frankly, I just hope she receives them. Don't get me started again on the postal service.

Aliengel? Angelien?

Whatever it is, it's perturbed.

I decided on her planet they don't wear shoes. And I was thisclose to writing "To Serve Man" on that book but decided there wasn't enough room. That's about all I have to say on this matter - I've let a bunch of things pile up and I'm trying to get them all posted.

See, I have been sick as a dog for the past 2 1/2 weeks, coughing and lying around on the couch drinking toddies and watching b&w noir films on Netflix and I really really really really hate being sick because I have waaaaaaay too much shit to do. So I was on fire the second I was mobile again, making up for lost time. Anyway that's why there's three posts so far today and probably more to come. I have three completed projects that I have been unable to photograph due to crappy lighting, so those will come later. Huzzah! Diving back into flickr....

United We Ham

Don't tell Kay I made these for her because I haven't given them to her yet. It's cool, she doesn't read this blog.

Kay's a big fan of the West Ham United football club.

I know very little about soccer. But Kay leads me to believe that West Ham is kind of like the Washington Redskins of soccer, based on how hard they suck, and she and I have bonded over our shared hardship. We have often wondered if each team signed up for soccer/football confused about which game they were actually playing. We figure maybe we should send West Ham to Maryland and the Redskins to England and just see what happens. Couldn't hurt, right?

2 Legit

My friend Kay's father was a very talented artist, and he has passed away. Kay asked me if I would like to inherit his easel. I told her I would be proud to own it. Here it is in my studio/Conserve-a-tree(tm Shiffy)/sunroom:

Understatement of the Year: I AM NOT WORTHY.

I sent a thank you card to Kay's mother and also one to Kay, to thank them for choosing to let this part of their family history slum it in my house. I made a pair of tiny paintings and affixed each one to a card embroidered with a poor representation of the easel.

My husband asserts that this is the best thing I have ever painted in my life. "No, really. That's the best thing you have ever painted in your life." I can hardly disagree.

Surely this little guy is a solid contender for second place:

Here's a blast from the past -- a while back I gave this painting to Kay to hang over her guest bed. Her current guest is not pleased. She hates it so much that she demanded I take it home with me (she was a little drunk), but instead I made her pose in front of it so that I could document her displeasure. Behold:

I love action shots.

Magnum P.I.llow

I made this for my mother's birthday. She should receive it soon, provided the post office does not lose it or run a forklift through the box. *fingers crossed*

Never has there been a more masculine pillow than this. Never! Even with the frilled edging and flowered backing fabric:

NEVER, I SAY.

This was my first time sewing a case for a pillow form, and my first time sewing a zipper into a pillow case, so it's a bit wonky on the front bottom left. I tried to mash everything into shape and I think that improved it a little.

I marked off a rough 14" square around Magnum, then pinned and basted on the edging, then sewed the zipper to both sides, and finally sewed the other three sides together, basically just crossing my fingers that I was leaving enough room for the pillow form after cramming all that in. (Make note of that edging: it is a whore to work with. If I never work with that edging again, it will be too soon. But it was the best color option at the time. And it looks like a lei! But still -- TOTAL WHORE.)

The real underlying issue for this project was that after a month-ish of embroidering Mr. Selleck's head, the idea of irreparably destroying him in the process of making the pillow case caused my brain to shut down completely and go into forced auto-pilot, otherwise I would not have had the courage to stick him under my sewing machine. It was healthier for me mentally to just keep going and not sweat about getting the measurements absolutely precise. Honestly, I fought the urge to do shots before tackling this, and upon reflection, I deserve a round of applause for that. *clap*clap*clap*clap*clap* Thank you, thank you.

My husband is really disappointed that Magnum is on his way to my mother's house and we don't get to keep him. I wonder if I subliminally hoped to wean her off that Twilight kid and back on to Real Men. *shudder* Sorry, Magnum. You're gonna have to take one for the team. Our thoughts are with you during this difficult time.

Embroidery Round-Up

I think I know why people like doing embroidery: It's hella fast. I mean, it CAN be hella fast, but of course it can also take HELLA FOREVER like the one I'm working on at home right now. But it is possible to take a project from start to finish in about an hour, which is addictively satisfying. Even if you stupidly start the project at 10:30 the night before it's due, such as this card for my friend Patti AKA the Only Person That Reads This Blog:

Patti got a new job and is leaving me here to rot. Best of luck! ;) (I should mention that I got that pattern from Jenny Hart's book Embroidered Effects. Go buy tons of stuff from her.)

One of my metal forum buddies just joined the Air Force, and she put out a plea for "real mail, not fb posts!" so I obliged her and made this card:

(Next time I'll try to get all the green paint out from under my nails.) The embroidery pattern was too big for the card and I didn't feel like jump-starting the scanner, so I had my husband sketch this one because:

1. I didn't want him to see me drawing an F-16 and get jealous since...

2. Drawing F-16s is a boy's job; and

3. I didn't want him staring over my shoulder and critiquing my shitty plane-drawing skills.

So he drew it and I sewed over it. And my friend liked it! I'll probably send her some other plane cards while she's trapped in Basic Training. I'm not sure how much longer that will be.

My neighbor has a nasty habit of baking delicious treats and then bringing them to my house and giving them to me. She really needs to stop doing that. I want a plate of her Oreo truffles on my death bed. Anyhoo, her recent delivery was two red velvet cupcakes. They were both delicious. That's right, I ate them both. Then I made her a card with a cupcake embroidered on it. It was very cute. Too bad I didn't take a photo of it. Sigh.

But I did take plenty of photos of the following. Are you playing the game Draw Something? Of course you are. Everyone is. All of my Scrabble and Words with Friends games completely dried up once that thing hit the market. It was highly addictive at first, but then we all got kind of tired of the same words over and over again, and the obvious fact emerged that you could usually just guess the drawing based on the letters offered before anyone started making any lines. So I got a little bored after a while.

Then my brother-in-law Mike started playing.

Mike is a terrible artist. In addition, he is also the most colorblind person I know. So you can imagine that Draw Something got real interesting real fast when he jumped into the ring. Remember that time you picked the word "greenday" (not on purpose, no one ever picks that one on purpose) and you started by smearing a huge swath of green at the top? Forget that. "Lake" was a blue swath? Forget that too. We're dealing with an entirely different Draw Something game now. I said, "Hey Mike, all your people are orange. You need more colors." He answered, "I wouldn't know what to do with them." HA! Oh yeah, I forgot!! THE STAKES JUST GOT MUCH HIGHER.

In a case of serendipity, the same week Mike joined Draw Something was the same week my husband and I learned how to do screen caps on the iPhone. Which was very close to when I started discovering the Blessing of Embroidery. Behold the result of this confluence of events:

Can you guess what this is? That's right, it's what Mike thinks a poodle looks like. See, I would have guessed that the Jetsons had more than one dog, based on the antennae and weird rings around the body. But no, it's a poodle.

This one might be a little harder:

Hmmm. Gee, it's right on the tip of my tongue. OH WAIT NO IT ISN'T BECAUSE THIS IS WHAT MIKE THINKS IKEA LOOKS LIKE. That's right. IKEA. The furniture store. Now I will admit that I've only been in IKEA twice, and both times it was just to get lingonberry jam for my father-in-law and then haul ass back to the car. So maybe IKEA is some bleak, hellish nightmare filled with giant white dinosaurs, broken tables and yellow meatballs. How would I know? Commercials lie anyway.

To commemorate Mike's eye-opening leap into the Draw Something arena, I decided the only proper tribute would be a satin pillow:

But the poodle was a memorable achievement as well, at least one worthy of some embroidered notecards:

This goes to show that even handicapped freaks have something to offer the rest of us, even if it's just a hearty laugh in their direction. Here's to you, Mike. Keep cranking out the gold!

Brootal Birthday Party

I had another painting request from my metal forum buddies. "The band Nifelheim, but doing something completely ludicrous like going to a kid's birthday party." Ask and you shall receive:

They are NOT going to get the deposit back on that bouncy castle. Some highlights:

My buddy is very pleased and promises to hang it above his girlfriend's doctorate for all time. I couldn't ask for anything more. *sniff*