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?

Six Stitches With Brain Death - Part 2...AND 3!!!

Two new pieces from my Six Women project.

The World Is Wonderful
This is a line from the opening song. Obviously there is lots of sarcasm

We've Arrived
This is the song they sing in the skit where six "best friends" reunite for their 20th high school reunion. Naturally there are lies about how the have arrived but as the song goes on and the champagne goes too...well the horrible, funny truths come out!

I know this is a short and to-the-point post but I have three more to finish, some carpet to rip up and a friend's CD release show tonight. Needless to say I am a little busy. Sorry and look forward to a REALLY fun post with part 4! Until then, be excellent to each other.

Six Stitches With Brain Death: God Is An Alien

I am still plugging along on the Bad Religion cover but recently got inspired to do a series of small projects. Has anyone seen the play "Six Women With Brain Death or Expiring Minds Want To Know"? Well it ran here in Sacramento for ten years at the studio theatre until 2006. I made an effort to take anyone I could think of to this play and I literally saw it 20 times! It is now showing again for a limited time by the Lambda Players as a tribute to the original 10-year run and I saw it last friday and it felt like the play never went away, only I did. There was always something different each time I saw it and this time it was as if 3 1/2 years of "little differences" were added. I LOVED IT!

As the title implies the play stars six women. So I am doing six small projects. All will be titles of some of the skits or some of my favorite lines. I hope to give them to the actresses which is why I can't put this off until after my big project. This is from the skit and song "God Is An Alien". It involves a musical religion started after an alien abduction and the deely-bopper at the bottom is what they all wear during this skit. The letters are purple because so are thier robes.

I consider this a testiment to how much I enjoyed the play. Not just about the projects but I used metallic thread for part of the headpiece, despite promising myself to never do it again. Sure there are only a handful of metalic stitches but like Dan Andriano I was hating every minute!

Baby's First Stitch or First Steps Are For Sentimental Losers!

Finally got the band and title lettering done and am gonna post it in a couple of days but that's not what I am here to talk about today.

It's no secret I only have daughters. I mean Windy has a couple of boys who I love dearly but they have a good dad who cares about them and is in the picture so when it's time to do/learn certain things it will probably come from him. As much as I would have loved a son of my own I have always felt woefully under-qualified for raising one. I didn't get my driver's license until I was 25 and even then it was only because my ex was 8 months pregnant and I was pretty sure that making her drive us to the hospital while in labor was something only a real jerk of a guy would do and let's face it - I'm all class *cough* *cough*. So cars are out. I don't like them and only know how to put gas in them. I'm not very sporty either. I mean I get the gist of each game but damn do the real men get a little over excited about a sports team or what? And the one time I tried to watch a football game I could not understand why they called it the "red zone" when it wasn't red. There was a little yellow line showing how far they had to go to get a "down" or whatever but...nevermind. I don't do sports. Then there's diapers. Changing girls are easy: Front to back!!! That's all. As I gown man all I gotta do is shake it a little (a little more and that means I am playi, er, I only shake it three times. Ever. I swear). But if you are changing a boy's diaper I am pretty sure you gotta clean the little guy's three-piece and that's work people! Girls are sooooo much easier as long as you F2B! I'm told I don't even dress right. Something about the hearts on my belt and my purple velvet blazer. You know when you line it all up like this I bet Windy is pretty embarassed sometimes. Fuck it, she knows I love her!

So why all the rambling? Because my little girl is growing up! She loves to watch me cross-stitch. She will stand in front of me and when I push the needled down she drops to her knees to see it then she comes back up and laughs when I push it back through. She has started "helping" by grabbing the needle when I push it up (I can't control her as well when I can't see the needle too) and pulling it through. She hands it back and waits for the next time the needle shows itself to laugh and grab at it!!!

Her mom is gonna have to show her how to change a tire and paint a house interior but I can't wait to show her how to back stitch. Sorry the pics are a little small but I wanted to hide my "I'm 29 and balding" look make sure they all fit!!