stuff i love sunday #48

1. early Spring, 2. Headphone Whale, 3. robot love, 4. 159/365 wwbamcal February 2012 I Cross My Heart, 5. 19th February, 2012, 6. 7/52, 7. Embroidery thread rainbow, 8. tapestry table, 9. Heart Butter Biscuits, 10. Robot, 11. Scrabble D rosette, 12. DaisyYellow doodle, 13. E, 14. Pretty Pickens, 15. ☺, 16. piastrella 8 004, 17. looking toward kitchen, 18. Day 11: "A WIP", 19. incoming Feb 12 18, 20. chocolate cupcakes, 21. Man vs Octopus, 22. diy: wooden frames, 23. Valentine, 24. Sushi Panel

I have blogged a little about my love for Lucky Jackson's 365 embroidery project, but I have to say it again! Amazing! These are some of my favorite recent ones. 

Bubbles, Jemaine, Milton, & Ron Swanson by Lucky Jackson

365 lucky days

day 31
Originally uploaded by luckyjackson::

I'm totally smitten with Lucky Jackson's 365 project. She's been making these amazing embroidered pieces each day, and even though each new one I see becomes my favorite, I think this Batman & Robin one is for reals! Maybe until tomorrow.

it's my birthday! & more photo pages

Hey! Today's my birthday! I hate it when it falls on a weekday, but what can you do? Since I was super busy with work related stuff last night in hopes of getting out on time today, I didn't get a chance to post a new granny square. Maybe these photo pages I made will suffice until next time (hopefully later tonight)!

I blogged about the first page I made a couple of weeks ago, and I've been on a roll since then. I still hesitate to call this "scrapbooking" because I guess I feel like there must be some kind of minimum criteria for that classification. I'm probably overthinking it! The page above is my favorite so far. I cut what felt like a billion little scraps of paper into teardrop shapes by hand and glued them down one by one. Aren't Gerty and Jim the cutest when they are on the couch together?

This one features a bunch of photos from our recent trip to La Costa, a Mexican seafood restaurant here in Oklahoma City. Our food was amazing! Junior had some kind of big fish, and I had tacos (not pictured because they were not as impressive-looking). This place is so cute and tiny. I wish I had gotten a picture of the dining area. It was just two rows of booths all the way down with a narrow walkway in between. It felt like a school bus. In a good way.

Jim is in love with Hello Kitty. Above he is pictured dreaming about her.

The page above was more of an experiment than the others, and I wish I had put a couple more photos on it. It may not be finished. These pictures are from one of our favorite Mexican grocery stores. Weird, right? I just love how colorful it is there compared to the bland beige and dingy white of most grocery stores around here. (I'm looking at you, Homeland.)

This one has a bunch of random photos all taken in the living room. I'm not sure what I'm doing with that label-y sticker there. I feel like it is a brand new notebook, and I don't want to mess it up by writing anything other than exactly the perfect thing there.

This is another random pictures one. Let's see, there are a couple of photos of the afghan I'm currently working on, my favorite necklace, the dinosaur vs. robot tattoo, and a pendant that I embroidered. You can kind of see my awesome flower nails in that last one. The little paper dinosaurs are from a Martha Stewart craft punch I just couldn't pass up. Most of them are made from scraps of the photos I had printed at Walgreens last week.

Tons of my pictures are square, and 4 x 6 photos are always on sale, so for most of my prints, I photoshopped pretty backgrounds and two 2.5" square pictures onto a 4 x 6 template for each one that I had printed. On the page below, you can see more photos that had been printed with patterned borders.

This photos above were all taken at Birrieria Dias, our new favorite Mexican place. They don't mess around when it comes to condiments. You get about 10 little bowls of stuff to add to your food, depending on what you order!

And last but not least, here are Gerty and Jim again!

100::365 & giveaway!

***comments for the giveaway are closed & winners have been announced here! thanks for participating!***

Pattern: an experiment in filet crochet.

Filet crochet is worked in a mesh of double crochet stitches and chain stitches. I was looking for ideas for a square for today, and I came across this page in my Mon Tricot Knitting Dictionary (Workbook 0D14). I didn't really care for the pattern shown, and it would probably have been huge with the yarn I'm using, so I made up my own heart pattern! If you try to follow the directions in the photo below, just keep in mind that "treble" translates to double crochet in American terms.

The solid squares didn't really stand out enough for my liking, so I cross stitched on top of them. It was kind of challenging to cross stitch over areas surrounded by open mesh because I had to run the yarn through stitches on the back to keep it from showing through on the front. The result is not exactly perfect, but I like it.

I have a hard time believing that I have really made 100 squares so far this year! I've been slacking on joining them into blankets, but now that I have perfected my joining method, I'm going to be finishing up the first two afghans soon! Honestly, the first one is all but done, but I have been procrastinating and setting it aside until I settle on the perfect border.

Oh, hey! Most of the time, the backgrounds of my daily squares are the vintage fabrics and sheets that I collect. They are really my most favorite thing, and to celebrate my 100th square, I'd like to give you a chance to win some fat quarters featuring some of my favorite patterns. If you're interested, just leave a comment here by Saturday, April 23rd, and I'll pick two people at random to receive four fq's of awesome vintage fabric on that Sunday! Make sure I can figure out how to contact you. You don't have to say anything in particular, but please do let me know if there is some question I could be answering in my about this project section that I haven't thought to address yet. I'd love it if you'd take a moment to tell someone else about my giveaway. Thank you for reading my blog!

Okay, now for what I've really been waiting for...to see all of these squares at once.

postcard swap!

I sent out my postcards for the DIY Postcard Swap yesterday! Check out the swap's flickr group to see lots of awesome postcards made by participants!

I spent weeks brainstorming how to make my cards, and I finally settled on a little bit of embroidery on paper. I love to add to the challenge of a swap by using stuff that's been languishing in my craft supply collection, so I didn't purchase any of the stuff I used to make these. I had even pre-made the hexagons (2.5" I think) once upon a time for a paper-piecing project. I left the paper pattern piece inside the hexies and using my sharpest thick needle, I sewed them onto patterned cardstock with embroidery floss. Then I embellished the paper with running stitches, french knots, and a few other simple stitches. It is way easier to sew on paper if you punch the holes with your needle and then sew through them. Even so, I have quite the callous on my thumb! Is that what thimbles are for? I've never learned how to use them properly.

I had decided to glue my printed postcard backs onto the embroidered fronts, but when I couldn't find the particular glue I wanted to use, I went with my old stand by, sewing them together by machine. I can't wait to see if these hold up well in the mail. I'm pretty sure these dinosaur envelopes I made a couple of years ago arrived okay.

Here are my postcards!

69::365

Pattern: "SmoothFox's Flower Button Granny Square" by Donna Mason-Svara.

This square is a little rounded, but I'm sure if I had blocked it, it would shape right up. I'll blame my laziness on my recent addiction to Words With Friends. I love the embroidered table runner that is the background!

world of geekcraft

I'm so excited to let you know that World of Geekcraft, a new book by Susan Beal, is coming out this spring from Chronicle Books. I contributed a project to this book, and oh my gosh, it made the cover! I've been holding in this news for so long! Even if I weren't involved at all and it weren't about awesome geeky crafts, I'd be super excited about this book. Among the other contributors are some of my very favorite bloggers and crafters.

More links to reviews, photos, and information about the book:
Review at 2 Modern
Public School, who are responsible for making the book look so cool!
World of Geekcraft Flickr Pool
World of Geekcraft Blog

I'm a book nerd, and my project was inspired by my collection of sci fi paperbacks. I really do read these books, and my adjustable book cozy project is perfect for keeping their cool covers from getting scuffed up in my bag. And because I love books and crafts, I have a shelf full of Chronicle books. Getting real actual stuff in the mail from them was quite a thrill. Their books are always very modern and well designed. I can't wait to get my hands on my copy of World of Geekcraft!

bedroom walls

pac-man curtain! now all I need is a curtain rod...!

pretty little framed embroideries and scraps of Heather Ross fabric.

That super cool matryoshka cross stitch on the bottom was made for me by Caitlin (here's what I sent her in return). She blogged all about it here. The floral crewel piece above it was thrifted, and the three on top were a set of thrifted linked frames that I used to display small pieces of Far Far Away fabric. The "mats" are made of cardstock and punched with a scalloped craft punch.

matchbox dollhouse

I made this ridiculously cute little matchbox dollhouse for a swap! I considered running out and buying a 250 count matchbox until I realized you can do it without one! I made my own using this template with help from measurements from this other template because the first template doesn't have the measurements on it, but DOES have a flap you need that is omitted in the second template. Make sense? You definitely need those extra flaps! I learned this the hard way after accidentally cutting them off of one side! Instead of printing out the template (which is an image file and could print a crazy size), I drew it using the measurements. I used a cake mix box, but any sturdy-but-thin cardboard should work. Use a craft knife and a straightedge. My only other tip is to not make the outside cover until you are done with the inside to make sure it will be loose enough to open but tight enough to stay closed AFTER you have covered the inside drawer with tons of paper that will make it slightly thicker.

The matryoshka doll and knitting bag are made from felt. The embroidery and crochet were done with size 10 cotton thread and a small hook. I made the shelf and sofa out of leftover pieces of cardboard. I painted the shelf with acrylic paint and covered the sofa in fabric. The miniature knitting needles are made from toothpicks and small beads. Why is making super small stuff so fun?

mini embroidery

I made this for Caitlin for our mini embroidery swap from this vintage transfer from doe-c-doe; she has lots of super cute ones in this flickr set.

I finished the back using this tutorial that Caitlin linked to, but I forgot to take a picture of the back. She has a photo of it on her blog here though. My beloved Sulky iron transfer pen ran out in the middle of tracing those millions of cross stitches, so the middle of the kitty's head was pretty much freehand. I went to Michael's to buy another one, and they don't even have a place on the shelf for them anymore. Time to find another source!

Check out what Caitlin made me!

My favorite part was the variegated floss I used for the "thread" on the spool and on the cross stitches on the fabric in the basket. It kind of just looks like a lighting issue in this picture, though.

embroidered bookmark

I love Japanese craft books, and there are billions of books of embroidery patterns available. Since I couldn't begin to translate the name of the book from which this pattern comes, I'll just call it ISBN 4-8347-2498-0. Look at these cute little pastries from the book on Posie Gets Cozy and a tiny French bakery on Early Bird Special.

I made this for a swap partner using DMC pearl cotton in who knows what colors (I lose the labels immediately). It was a really quick but rewarding embroidery project. I love making things that are actually useful!

!!!

my embroidered buttons!

These are the embroidered buttons I made for my partner Caitlin for the Feeling Stitchy embroidered button swap! She likes blues and greens and when I found out that she loves French knots, I was excited to experiment with them to make these covered buttons! The result is pretty textured on the linen I used (with a layer of thin interfacing underneath to cut the shine of the metal that showed through the loose weave of the fabric), and I love it! I found it hard to make anything that wasn't pretty abstract with the French knots, so I settled on this flower-ish design. The larger one in blues is off-center due to a mistake I made in cutting, and I considered re-doing it, but I actually really liked it after I got over my error, so I left it as is. Hey, look, my buttons were featured in this post on the Feeling Stitchy blog, along with some of my favorites from flickr!

here you can see the vintage card I put the buttons on!

And I did finish my pear potholder! I really like it! :) The back side is the green wool felt.

And I made another crochet potholder. The side in the second photo below is a pattern from Beyond the Square - Crochet Motifs, a pretty cool book (another Christmas present!). The "star" side was improvised!