Embroidery Day!

Today I’m dragging out some old, old stuff.  Many years ago I got interested in embroidery and went after it with my usual obsessiveness.  I think I like it because it’s really the first crafty type of thing I ever did.  I started this one embroidered bib when I was maybe 6 and finally finished it when I was about 22.  I’ll find it sometime and show it to you.

I did these 3 embroidery pieces when I was 22 or 23 years old.  Ever since then it’s just been stored, doing nothing. You will see I have a certain style - I like organic-ey, rounded shapes, kind of like vines.  I love those shapes, it’s so very much fun to draw and sew!

This next blue/green piece is my favorite of all the pieces of embroidery I’ve done.  Looping vines and 2 kinds of flowers.  I don’t quite know what I’m going to do with it, but who knew I had enough patience to do the satin stitch on those petals!

This last is a foretaste of my last show-and-tell project today … I love the scrolled look of the embroidery.  More curved shapes!

Finally, I had three pieces of Holiday embroidery in the pile that I’d apparently originally intended to be pillows.  I decided they would be one of my projects to finally get done when I reorganized.  I can’t remember the details of what I was going to do originally, so I got to make it up again.

So … here’s my Xmas pillows, in April!  Don’t laugh!!  It’s a 10-year old project finally done!!  I think they turned out nicely, kind of like presents, even if I do have to put them away immediately.

Seriously, regardless of the theme & decoration here, I still faced some sewing fears!  In this case, the red fabric is a really shiny satiny material, very slippery - festive!  I usually avoid this kind of thin, slippery fabric, and this was a good opportunity to grit my teeth and sew with it anyway. I also avoid buttonholes like the plague, and I had to make buttonholes for the envelope closure, and because of the fabric I had to use stabilizer in it.  But I prevailed.

Crafting for Charity - *Happy Dance!* I’m done!

I’ve got just bunches of stuff to show y’all this week, but first, since it’s Charity Tuesday - My Share-A-Square Afghan is finished, complete, done, and over!! It’s on its way back to Shelly with a little cloth bag for the tags when the recipient removes them. Whee!

I’m extremely pleased to have taken part in this project, and so happy I found it. What a great experience! I have pleasant memories of receiving my box and connections made across the world. I know that with my limited time I wasn’t able to contribute as much as I might have otherwise, but at least I got off my butt and contributed

At this point, Shelly has more squares than they need, and over 100 afghans are now complete. Two side projects have developed - one that’s making cloth bags to go with the afghans to store the tags.

The other project is actually collecting donations to send the kids with cancer (who are receiving the afghans) to Camp Sanguinity in July. Her last post indicates that they have enough to send 2 kids to camp at this point [update: 3!]. So if you feel inspired, the button for the PayPal donate thingie is there to the left.

I wish I could send a picture of the blanket to all the people who contributed, but I don’t really know who most of them are!

Without further ado, here’s my blanket. Here’s also the little cloth bag with drawstring that I made for the tags from the blanket. Such fun!

Below, bottom left, is the square I made for it. You can also see the border I made. I’m divided between calling it the bumblebee border and the taxi border. I thought yellow might be a nice, cheerful color for a kid.

And the polka-dot bag I made for the tags. I wanted tie ends, and so there are bells, too. My cat tried to attack them immediately. She’s a big bell fan. (That’s one huge pic of the bag. I believe that’s nearly actual size).

A Little More Progress

Jeff and I hate cleaning. Although we’d much prefer to pay someone else to do it, this is not possible, so we instead have turned to this thing called Chore Wars. This is an online … well, it’s sort of a game, it was modeled after online games, but in this case your “adventures” are your chores and cleaning projects. You gain various types of experience points and gold coins for completing your chores. You have the option to add “demons” to the chores you put in, and also rewards.

So far it’s working pretty well around here, particiularly the possibility of rewards. This below is my character badge recently - I earned a cookie! I was last seen Mucking the Stables (my euphemism for cleaning a cat box).

In other news: I usually divide up my crafting by working on my long-term crochet projects during the week at night, and do other sorts of things on the weekends - sewing, etc. Sometimes, the little-bit-at-a-time crocheting gets frustrating because it feels like I’m not making ANY progress and that it’s going to last FOREVER. It doesn’t help that I seem to like making blankets.

So I made myself a graph, which made me feel much better. See the orange? That’s what I’ve already done, which is most of it. I also already made a black border for each of those 48 squares. The blue is what I have to accomplish still - 3 seams and 2 rows of crochet on the outside - since I’ve decided to add a yellow border inside the black outer one.

And now, the weekend, in which I retreat to my sewing machine, bake a cake & some muffins, paint some stuff and play with Mod Podge.