Mary, Skeletons and Bacon, oh my!

I can show off some embroidery I did now since my friend has received her gifts.  A few years back I was sitting at my weekly Stitch n Bitch and I was working on some embroidery instead of my usual knitting. And it struck me as funny because all these knitters kept saying "oh my that looks so complicated, too hard for me" and they were totally serious.  Included amongst them was my friend Ariel who was probably in the middle of knitting socks on size 2 double pointed needles.
Any one who has visited Ariel's place soon notices her collection of religious and Day of the Dead well, stuff so I knew the Dia de Los Muertos patterns from Sublime Stitching would be just up her alley. I stole this first photo from her blog she took because for the life of me I could not get a decent shot of the skeletons. I embroidered these and then made them into teeny pillows and while I am proud of my embroidery, my sewing skills are still a bit well, sucky. It's not my fault, the sewing machine is possessed!

And for some added silliness, I crocheted up some bacon 'cause also if you know Ariel you know how she feels about bacon. 

Luck Be A Lady

Hi! I will have a post on my weekend in New York soon but that requires uploading pictures and more thought than I am currently capable of right now. In other news, my luck seems to be holding out because last week I won another blog contest!

The wonderful folks at Feeling Stitchy gave away copies of Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching's new book Embroidered Effects and I was lucky enough to win one. I have always been a big fan of Jenny's work and own many, many of her patterns so I was really excited to get this book and get re-inspired to get back into doing some embroidery. The book has lots of cool new stitches for me to try so keep an eye out for some fancy embroidery in the new year.

Some Kitchen Stitchin'

A few months back, I wrote about the Kitchen-Aid mixer I bought. Here it is , happy in it's new home...

But I realized once it got home that since my kitchen is decorated in blue and yellow I needed to add a bit of red accent to go with the mixer. So I pulled out my trusty Sublime Stitching patterns and started stitching a tea towel. I have stitiched the Diner Girl a few times before but never on anything I kept for myself and of course, I had to have a little red mixer on it.

Bahhhh.....

Clearly I have sheep on the sheep on the brain due to Gore Place Sheep Sheering Festival. To get myself prepared for sheepy goodness I made some silly sheep. I may have finally mastered that tricky french knot.





So then I was off to Gore Place with some of my knitter friends to eat fair food, check out cute livestock and pet some yarn. Success achieved on all counts.



The Alpacas one pre-sheering, one post, I always think sheered alpacas look like fuzzy lollipops.


Cute lambies.




4H Bunny, not Nugget who I formed an immediate bond with and wanted to take home in my bag, but another cute bun. I forgot how much I love holding bunnies!


No matter what the other goats did this guy would not come out of his hiding place.


And finally my splurge of the day, this gorgeous cashmere yarn made from reclaimed sweaters. Me, buying yarn with no specific project in mind, a step forward in my stash acquisition.

The Towel Makes It Home

So I've been a bit of a slacker these past few weeks in terms of blogging. While I've been pretty busy in my real life I haven't had much to show for it in my crafty life. I've been knitting away on a stashbusting log cabin afghan, some mindless knitting that has been keeping me warm as I knit it while watching "The Wire" DVDs.

Remember several months ago I posted about a Super Secret embroidery project I was working on? Sure you do. Well just about a year ago, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the original Tea Towel Tour for Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching. Well, unfortunately that towel never made its way home to Austin to the Sublime Stitching offices. Since most of y'all reading this are knitters you are probably not familiar with Jenny's work but I have always love her patterns and her work is really amazing. Not to mention to that I was able to go to an event of hers a few years back when her book came out and she is really an inspiring person for women-business owners, craft-y type people or really just anyone.

So after a six month journey across country the new towel was hand-delivered to Jenny.

Jenny Hart with the Secret Tea Towel!
Originally uploaded by burb_mama

There is some really great work on there so be sure to check out the close-ups on craftster . I mean there is a pin-up girl sitting on a wheel of cheese, people!

Think it may be time to pull out the old embroidery hoop. and learn how to balance my time between more than one craft at a time. So lookout, there may be more dancing garlic and flaming martinis coming at you soon!

A momentary knitting pause

I had to take a quick break from my knitting to work on this embroidery piece. The project it's for is Super Secret so I can't tell you who the recipient is but I really like how the Diner Girl came out so I had to share her.

Sublime Tea Towel Tour '07

I have just completed my portion of the Tea Towel Tour. Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching, whose patterns I love, posted a message on craftster for some testers for the new tea towels she may carry. So I signed up and just finished my piece. There are 12 of us who will each embroider something on the towel and then send it on to the next person. I love the idea of a shared work like this. I can't wait to see how it develops.

I also have this urge to have like a concert tee shirt with Tea Towel Tour 2007 on it. Ya know with all the cities listed on the back. 'Cause you know nothing is more kick-ass, rock 'n roll than embroidery and tea towels.

Even though I picked the sushi pattern as my freebie (a thank you to the testers) I had to go with the Veggies for my contribution. First of all I needed something pretty straight-forward and quick as this week is oddly busy and I didn't want to hold up the towel. Also I love the little apple, something about him always makes me smile.

As for the towels, they are really good to embroider on, have nice even seams and are a good thickness so hopefully they'll be carrying them soon. Aren't I a good spokesperson?

If you want to keep up with the tour, check out its' progress here.

Stitch on!