Hi There Hammy

I was skimming through my google reader when I notice this little tid bit:

My, that sounds like…. me! I clicked on it and found myself eye to eye with one of my Manimal tins! Thank you Mr. X Stitch for featuring the shop and blog today! I have a mutual love for all of the things on your site too.

Joe and I are trying to start a knitting/crafting group around these parts and now that Stardust bookstore/cafe is part of the school, it’ll be a mite bit easier to do it in a comfy place now! Here’s the poster that will (hopefully) stir up some interest. Woot! Let’s knit/crochet/spin/sew/embroider this weekend!

It’s been a little while since I posted anything that I’ve been working on. I’ve been knitting a sweater (the Featherweight Cardigan from Knitbot) as fast as my nimble little fingers can go, but it’s still taking a small eternity. I decided to take a little embroidery break last night and whipped up this little bunny…. The story is that long, long ago I found a story about a disabled bunny in a little chariot and it’s floated around in the back of my brain ever since. So I did a wee bit of researching and finally drew this little guy. However, I need your help! I want to embroidery something achingly clever below him (aka: Cruisin’… or Low Rider… or Hello Ladies). I haven’t come up with that perfect little somethin’ yet, so it will have to remain unfinished until ya’ll help me out!

And here is the foxy-man I posted a while ago, with his little chicklets… 

And here is the Hiker’s Waistcoat that I knit months ago, but never posted about. This is knit with wool that I hand-washed, spun and knit all by myself! It actually turned out pretty successfully considering that the yarn was a wee bit uneven and I had never made something all the way through like that! This is all wool from Bonnieview so it’s local to boot!

Who doesn’t love Tim Gunn?!

Embroidered by Totally Severe

One of my favorite shows and now one of my favorite examples of cross stitchery!

I forgot to put this picture  of the tins all together up during the last craftitude post, so here they are! Finding that embroidery this morning reminded me to hunt this up and put it up.

I’ve been putting more and more photos up on Flickr recently and finding some great design ideas at the same time. This morning I was cruising through the people who have favorited one or more of my embroidery photos when I discovered this little beauty tucked away in Chickenfoot’s “favorites”! Oh this makes me so happy!

Marilynkb bought one of my Manimals patterns and here I am, actually getting to see how it turned out! I never imagined how thrilling it would be to stumble on someone else’s interpretation of a pattern I’ve made. I think they turned out so well. Oh it’s a good day!

I haven’t been completely idle the last week or so. Instead, I’ve been doodling around with these things…    

I’ve been particularly excited about these two new tins. Can you guess who they’re portraits of? They turned out just as well as I thought they would. And they gave me the chance to try out a few new ideas like clusters of french knots for some interesting texture.

French knotty beard.

I’m officially an RS here now (the equivalent of an RA) I decided that we needed a new door sign for our apartment. Just in case someone gets lost. I just finished the stitchery bits but I haven’t quite decided how to finish and hang it. I got to use this new technique where I draw something (like letters) on a piece of paper, then pin it to the fabric and stitch along the lines on the paper, and then cut and pull the paper out from under the stitches. It means that I was able to get some really straight and accurate lines (can you tell which font I used?) but the stitches were a wee bit strained when I pulled the paper out from under them. Over all, I’m pretty pleased with the results… AND I wanted to try to recreate a display I saw in the windows at Anthropologie in Portland. They clustered a few dozen papier mache spheres together and put some little treasures in them. I love the idea and I’m going to make some more shortly. If you’re curious about the kinds of extremely wonderful things that Anthropologie does with their displays, you can see some over at 2 Sisters, 2 Coasts, 2 Opinions.

Over the holidays I made some embroidery patterns, tested them out and decided that they would be a great new embroidered recycled tin series. These wee suited people will be making an appearance in the etsy shop soon but you can feast your eyes upon them here for now. Enjoy!

I may be home for the holidays but I’m still doing some things. I’ve been churning out some embroidery patterns which has been fun, but also means I spend more time on the computer than usual, trying to retrace all of my scribbly little hand drawn patterns. Having these patterns means I can have things in the shop even when I’m away from homebase, like I am now.

These three guys make up the new Octopiddle embroidery pattern up in the shop only a matter of minutes ago!

And then there’s Bea the Bunny who joined the shop as a pattern yesterday. I really like this one…

And I’ve been making some little pocket bunnies. They’re about three inches tall from their bases to the tops of their round little heads and quite fun to make. They’re stuffed with wool and have some rice in their bases to give them a little bit of heft. I love stuffing the things I make with wool instead of polyfil. The wool compacts nicer and gives everything a more solid, satisfying feel. I’d love to get my hands on some lavender or other herbs to put in the next batch.