Finished Project: Water is Life

Happy Friday everyone, I’m back with another politically-minded embroidery project.

This one is done with three strands of floss in different shades of blue on what I think is cotton (it’s a random fabric from my stash). I intended the concentric circles to represent ripples on the surface of water. I also learned that I can’t freehand draw very even circles.

The finished hoop is available for purchase in my Etsy store. If you like this project, consider donating to Earthworks or Charity:Water, which both work to provide clean and safe drinking water to people throughout the world.

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No Ban No Wall Embroidery Hoop

Following up on my No Ban No Wall cross stitch pattern from a while back, I decided to get back into freeform embroidery and make something similar. I stitched this on some loose-woven linen from my fabric stash with cotton embroidery floss.

There’s nothing quite like stabbing something a bunch of times to sublimate rage at the state of the world. I stitched this in late February, mostly while watching old (pre-election) episodes of Last Week Tonight. Who knew I would have nostalgia for the summer of 2016?

This completed hoop is available in my Etsy shop.

 

Finally Finished: Hand Embroidered Notecards

In anticipation of holiday-related social calls (read: people coming to our apartment), I’ve been cleaning up around the place. Last night I went through the big bookcase, finding treasures (and plenty of junk). Among the treasures: a tiny dried out gingko leaf, and these embroidered notecards I made back in 2012 or 2013.

I completely forgot that I made these until I found them in a paper bag tucked inside a book. I’d already done the hard part of embroidering through the paper; each card just needed a piece of cardstock glued on the inside to hide the messy backs of the stitches. I took care of that and now they’re ready to go!

Each card is about 4 by 6 inches, typical notecard size. The elephants, tortoise, and single sloth are my own design; the sloth with baby is a free pattern from Wild Olive.

Hooray for cleaning up!

Finished: Handmaid’s Tale Embroidery Hoop

I took a break from cross stitch to do some regular embroidery and made this tiny (5 inch) hoop with a quotation from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale:

The hoop says “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum,” which is fake-Latin for “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” It’s a phrase the features somewhat prominently in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which is one of my favorite books ever. I need to put it on my re-reading list.

The technical specs for this piece:

• Pattern: self-made in Adobe Illustrator
• Fabric: Grey printed quilting cotton from Joann Fabrics
• Thread: 2 strands of DMC 321 (all back stitching)
• Hoop: 5 inches
• Time spent: 1 afternoon

I am not actually as thrilled with this piece as I thought I would be. It’s nice, but when I was finished I just thought ‘meh.’ Don’t hate it, don’t love it. Don’t know what to do with it now. I think I’m going to stick with cross stitching.