Stitched paper

A couple months ago I signed up for Reform School's pen pal club and was paired up with someone in Seattle. It's been my turn for about a month or so but I've been slacking (sorry, pen pal!). The other day I decided I really needed to just sit down and do something, so I cut out a bit of brown kraft paper from a shopping bag, not sure of what I was going to do with it. And then it came to me. I wrote a simple message lightly in pencil, poked some holes in the paper along the pencil lines, and embroidered the message into the card. I made one wrong move and it kind of ruins the impact, but on the whole I love the outcome, especially the feel of the stitches on the paper. I definitely want to try this again.

Christmas catch-up

I wanted to share a few more images from my Christmas, even though it's now post-Christmas (I'm not so good at the whole timeliness thing).

Brown paper, rubber stamps, and baker's twine=my favorite wrapping method.

I tried out incorporating buttons into one of the gifts after reading this post. It's cute, although I think I'd want to go with a little less next time.

I also made rubber stamped gift tags for everyone.

I embroidered an ornament for my ornament-obsessed mom (note that I did glue the extra fabric to the back--this photo is in an unfinished state). It was looking really good until I got to the word "Greetings." Not sure what happened there.

I usually try to bake a few varieties of cookies around this time of year, although I ended up doing less than I had planned. But these pfeffernusse cookies (recipe here) were so good that any other cookie might have seemed inferior.

Finally, the New York Times sent these cookies to my boss, and I couldn't resist including a photo here. It's an Oreo covered in icing and sprinkles. And of course stamped with the NYT logo.

Embroidered lockets

I'd been trying to figure out what to put into the locket of this beautiful Erica Weiner necklace, ever since I got it last Christmas. I didn't want to go with the traditional photographs of relatives, but I just couldn't decide what it should be.

Once I started playing around with embroidery, I realized what I should do. I'm actually not sure these particular designs are going to be the permanent candidates. I was going for a kind of abstract nature theme, but I'm clearly no embroidery expert just yet so they seem a bit sloppy. But I'm happy with it for now.

Half Japanese embroidery hoop

After making the pillows, I've been really excited about embroidery, and inspired to try more techniques and projects. The possibilities seem endless.

I used the embroidery hoop I got from the estate sale a few weeks ago and stitched the title of a song by one of my favorite bands, Half Japanese. I suppose they make an unlikely pair, but I wanted to try embroidering words, and they've got some pretty great titles and lines in their songs. (I also considered "You cannot graduate from my school of love" but the prospect of stitching a brain was irresistible, and I think I didn't do half bad with executing all the wrinkles.) I used a satin stitch for the heart, and created a wavy border using the chain stitch (I've been trying to practice a variety of types of stitches).


I'll probably hang it on the wall but for now I like it propped up on the letterpress tray. Who knows, maybe I'll leave it there.

New pillow design

After how pleased I was with the USA map pillow I decided to try out a variation on the idea. Because as much as I love road trips, I like boat rides...well, maybe not quite as much but they're pretty fun too.

The lino-cut of a sailboat.

A successful test print on paper (this gives me an idea for a card too now...).

I was originally planning on just having one print but the first one was a little light (guess I should do a tester on a scrap fabric too) so I ended up printing several boats.

A close-up--not bad. I think this method will always yield a textured-looking line as opposed to a smooth line.

And the rest of the design--I embroidered the imagined routes that the boats have taken (the fourth one at the top right is that of a boat that you can't see, which I did because that section was looking a little bit empty).

Stay tuned for the final product.

First printing project, part 4

And now for the final stages.

I turned it inside out and pinned two of the sides together.

After sewing the pinned sides I turned it right side out. (Note to self: do not iron over red embroidery thread if you do not want red streaks on your fabric.)

I stuffed the open side with batting and polyfil.

Then pinned and sewed the opening closed.

Now it's a rather stylish (if I may say so) travel pillow.

First printing project, part 3

The next phase of this project was a bit delayed because I couldn't find any sewing needles (the craft room needed a serious cleaning, which it has received). I was finally able to proceed over the weekend, which entailed sewing various road trip routes inside the outlines of the U.S. I got the idea after my Arizona road trip, when I thought to just do the states of Nevada and Arizona. Then I thought, why not do the whole country, which opened it up to many more possibilities, of crazy imagined routes that no one in their right mind would try, to documenting road trips from literature and film.

From left to right: Salt Lake City, UT, to Fargo, ND, to Louisville, KY, to Portland, ME; Los Angeles, CA, to Detroit, MI, to Mobile, AL; New York, NY, to Austin, TX

From left to right: Butte, MT, to Chicago, IL, to Washington, DC*; New York, NY, to San Francisco, CA; Bisbee, AZ, to Tulsa, OK, to Savannah, GA

I've only actually driven one of these routes: New York to Austin (on the right here). The rest of them were chosen for either purely aesthetic value, routes I'd like to try, or literary reference. I did type all of them into Google maps in an attempt to stitch the actual route that would be taken, though all of them are rough estimates, since it's kind of difficult to tell where anything is without the outlines of states in the design. I think I did a fairly good job though.

*This is the route that T.S. Spivet traveled in The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, which I read recently. It might not be totally accurate, as I didn't check back to see how the rails traveled from Butte to Chicago, but you get the gist.

Embroidery inspiration

One craft I've never done but have been meaning to try is embroidery. It seems like an art that you can really customize and take in many different and interesting directions, from the intricate tapestries of Jenny Hart to simple embellishments like this pillowcase sampler project from the Purl Bee. Lately I've come across a variety of inspiring designs that have made me want to try it even more.

For instance, these constellations from MiniatureRhino. A simple enough idea, but I love the result, and they're not what you'd typically expect to find in an embroidery hoop.

In addition to traditional vintage patterns, TreeFox sells these embroidered badges, which is an accessory I would not have previously thought of as stitchable--so many things I don't know about this craft. I kind of want to buy a lot of random letters (like this fellow is wearing).


Here is a simple but lovely specimen from Enhabiten. If I could one day do this I would be more than pleased.

I'm not totally in love with most of the designs available from Sublime Stitching, but I was highly amused by one of their latest artist series, images inspired by one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Daniel Johnston. I don't think I'll actually go out and buy the set but I love that people are out there stitching Jeremiah the Innocent and Casper the Friendly Ghost and his other host of characters.

Well, I guess I'll be off to the craft store one of these days...