Only God Can Judge Me - The Results Show!

First off, my apologies to everyone who entered and everyone who has been waiting to find out what happened. A little "real life" got in the way and, well, we know how that goes (Northwest?). So before something else stops working, the kids start whining about wanting to eat for a second time today or I get carted off to the hospital we better start talking results. By the by, I was just kidding - I only get an ambulance to the hospital when I am at work.

In full disclosure I put all the pictures I received in a slideshow and my two-year-old Kadie picked one at random...or whatever random is to a two-year-old. A big congratulations to our winner, Quilterina! I think the spools of thread spelling words is pretty neat, but what do I know. Here's what she says about it:

"those spools spell peace grace love and faith. they twist into a black spool on my front shoulder that unravels to spell compassion with a sewing needle piercing my heart"

She sent a link to pics of her getting some cover-up work done with a patch-work heart and some other stuff going on and it was pretty awesome. In no particular order here is another entry I received. Becky sent a couple of pics of her embroidery and button tattoo done by Frank McManus at the Brass Monkey Studio in Harrisburg, Pa. You know how you have your links that are in every email you send and for a lot of us that's a link to our etsy store?! Becky is one of those and who doesn't love a nickle's worth of free advertising. Check out her store.


Up next (on the D.L.?) is rainbowsweetstitch. This was "done by Tom Kenney from Classic Electric Tattoo in Frederick, Maryland". So if you are there, go see Tom. And for what it's worth: I have always had a thing for the idea of a woman with a couple T.I.E. fighters and Yavin IV for her tramp stamp. Embroidery scissors on your shoulder...not bad, either!

Last but not least. Though further then most...somewhere in the upper-middle range is the always-fucking-awesome Giggly Mama. I don't know but I am seriously thinking that this may be the most...simple? Not in design or execution, it's amazing. But it seems sparce in such a beautiful way. It makes me wish I had a hoop on my arm too. Here is what Mama says:

My life long pal and tattoo artist, is Scott Osburn (Facebook | Scott Osburn). He tattooed this embroidery themed tattoo on my left arm. He freehand tattooed it, no pattern before hand. :)

Awesome job, Scott! If there were a runner up prize it would probably suck so don't feel bad. Remember the piece I did for MY tattoo artist? Well, I promised the winner of this gig a matching piece. I decided to do it in a different color scheme and it's a funny story. I was gonna do blue and red on the border. I couldn't find the blue I wanted and the baby was sleeping so I could not run to the store. I found the orange and purple sitting next to each other in the first drawer I opened and figured: What the fuck!?! It's coming to you, Quilterina, deal with it!

Thank you, ladies. In all honesty, this has been a blast. Getting in touch with people, getting touched by in people. All of it!

Getting Ink and Giving Stitches

Okay, babies and gentlemen. We have a winner and they are...going to have to wait just a little longer! FACE!!!

In the meantime though, some of you may remember my cross stitch tattoo. For those of you who do not, here is a trip down memory lane. When I left I asked my artist, Nick, what he was into. First he mentioned G.G. Alin and finally just said the more out there the better. He had a lot of art in his little tattoo cave that he had done that was more traditional but inspired by modern times as well. The old-timey female boxer with the Stormtrooper helmet was a personal favorite.

Long story short I grabbed some old fabric I had around and using just black, gray and white I came up with this:

Also, I have been so taken by my tattoo and the response that I think it has become my little "signature" for smaller pieces. So whenever I think "Whatever James" is too much stitching for a signature I will just do this:

Does this symbolic representation of my name make me the "Prince" of cross stitch? I hope so because I want to Batdance!