You Seem Nervous. Is It The Scars?

First the really cool news: I have been invited to set up a table and attempt to sell my cross-stitch projects at the third Punk Swap Meet here in Sacramento on 2/06/10! Woo-Hoo!! I’m excited and kinda going in expecting to not sell anything but damn it will be fun. I don’t really know any other crafters in my area. The old ladies at Michael’s always look at me weird when they find out I stitch or, if we make it that far, when they see what I stitch (insert boo lip here). But who cares, I will be around people who are like-minded and out to find some neat stuff. I honestly think I am looking more forward to talking to people who are unfamiliar with needlework, this type of needlework, or with dudes doing needlework then I am about being able to quit my job and live the stitch and needle dream of making my income selling bad words on fabric. I think it’s safe to say I am gonna have a good time. And there is gonna hopefully be a concert afterwards.

So, in anticipation of the swap meet I am working on some new projects, just to have some new stuff to display and get my floss flowing! Since it seems like I have been doing a lot of wordy projects and sampler-type work I thought it was time to get another picture piece done and considering my last “portrait” was Bender Rodriquez of Futurama fame, I decided to do another portrait. I have been watching the Dark Knight a bit lately and my friend, Richard, is guaranteed to wear one of two types of shirts on casual Friday (he has multiples of each): UC Berkeley or Heath Ledger’s Joker. So I found a pic I liked and spent a few hours editing it in KG Stitch - an awesome freeware program by the way. I highly recommend it for anyone too underpaid to get their hands on PC Stitch.

There are roughly 1500 stitches and I can’t wait to clean, iron and frame it but I am waiting to do everything in one day! I was hoping to do a series of projects, each taking about a week. This one took almost two. So now I really have to get crackin! The next piece was actually requested by the organizer of the swap meet…and I think it’s my first requested piece ever! Sweet!

He Must Know Somebody Over There Thats Got To Be The Reason: Best Of Craftster 2009

I'm a Craftster Best of 2009 Winner!

Holy Cow. I logged on to craftster.org today to see one of my old projects (it was a Valentine’s gift) had a new comment on it. Come to find out I made craftster.org’s Best of 2009 list!!!

There is a little explanation of how they pick their list and you can view the whole best of 2009 here. The original post I made of my project, and comments from others, can be found here.

I’ve never claimed to be the most creative or technically sound stitcher out there. Just using those two parameters I can think of ten projects that I would have expected to see up there in place of mine. What I REALLY appreciate about this is that I think I got picked based on emotion. The emotion of the project, the emotion it brought in others, etc. I really didn’t know how better to tell Windy I love her more then anything then to hold her up against the obsession I am best known for people. I mean, seriously, I have Star Wars tattoos…and one is on my neck. MY NECK, PEOPLE! I named one of my daughters Mara Jade!

When I am writing a song or crossing stitches, it is emotional to me. I write songs I want to hear about things that I know about and I rarely ever cross-stitch something I can’t enjoy. Most of the time, the only response I am looking from anyone else is the occasional laugh. Windy would say I like to think I am funny. I would say I like to think I am hilarious.

But this one was private (in a sense). It was all my emotions about her, to her. The emotion I wanted back was her love and for her to really understand mine, which I got (Go Team). So even if you aren’t on craftster, if you have never seen the project, or if you just don’t care – thanks everyone for your comments, your emotional responses and for your support. You really are the reason I get up every morning and give it 65%, or so.

Now, how about your favorite craft project of 2009? You can give props to someone else if you want but I won’t mind if we all sit around and toot our own horns. In fact, I used to go to parties like that. Not really. Ok, really.

It Came From Outer Space

Ok, maybe not. But it did come from an 80's video game and an 1898 novel...both based on outer space. Sadly I must admit this brilliant design is not mine. It comes from the good folks over at Sprite Stitch and they were inspired by one of my favorite thread artists beefranck.

Obviously I wanted to use the black for a space/arcade screen look. The green is DMC 704 and I just liked the way it looked. I used two threads because I still wanted to give it a thin or something I might make the border look "pixel-y". The lettering is three threads of DMC 307. I did think about using glow-in-the-dark thread, maybe for the border, but that thought didn't come until tonight when I was finishing the lettering. I have no idea the amount of time spent. I started it Sunday and have worked on it at lunch and at night. It's 12:32 a.m. on Friday and I just finished. You can see I have not even ironed it yet.

And holy shit - I think my time away has made my ability to take pictures even worse then it was... well, if you can't read it it says "We can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space - H.G. Wells". I just thought the pairing of that quote with the border was awesome.

So I have been working on my big Bad Religion piece of the holidays (no, really. I have). But I am gonna set it down for a bit. I am gonna be selling my wares at a swap meet in February and I want to have a few more/new pieces to take with me! If anyone is in, or knows anyone in, the Sacramento area, stay tuned as I will be posting more info soon!

2010: I'm Not Making Resolutions, I Am Making Plans!

Alright party people! How Is everyone doing? Obviously I took some time away from the blog to focus on work, family and being lazy over the holidays (Go Team)! But I’m back, baby!

The reason for the title of this post is everyone always makes then breaks their resolutions (myself included). By December 31^st you can’t even remember what you resolved to do, and probably end up making the same resolution anyway! So this year I am making plans. One of my plans is to get out there and start meeting other people (locally) who do crafts with the same subversive mindset as myself. Another plan is to get out and start attempting to sell some of my work that is just sitting around. I’m not looking to make millions (yes, I am) but if I can make enough that the projects pay for themselves, and maybe a new set of guitar strings once in a while, that would be cool. But that’s not why I stitch, it would just be awesome!

With all of that said, I am hoping very soon to announce where I will be first. There is a Punk Swap Meet on February 6^th, and I am trying to reach someone about a table there. In the meantime, I am using this as the fire under my ass to start getting some of my to-do list done!

Looking forward to 2010: What project are you REALLY gonna try and do/finish?