At the beginning of the Pandemic I started seeing these signs everywhere. My younger daughter just noticed one of them recently so I guess there are more in our neighborhood than in other parts of the city.
They reminded me of the “You Are Beautiful” signs I noticed everywhere when we first moved to Chicago and it turns out that artist Matthew Hoffman is behind both initiatives. In collaboration with Superba Asset Management he initially installed 24 of the new signs around the city. A version is also available on the You Are Beautiful website and it looks like people in our neighborhood really got on board.
The prompt for the last day of #embroidermay was What’s Next and after making my crossstitch pieces fit the hoop prompts I decided to try hoop embroidery.
And here it is! I made a few changes – the biggest one was using DMC 304 for the red and DMC 725 for the yellow since the thread that came with the kit seemed too dark.
I had written that when I had tried embroidery before that I had trouble with tension but now I think it was more that I had trouble with making the edges even when doing satin stitch. I learned from doing this kit to outline with stem stitch but I’m still not sure if it’s better to start or end with the outline. I’m looking forward to trying thread painting as a fill in stitch since I still find it challenging to make satin stitch look good.
But over all I’m happy with how this came out. At Christmas I’m going to hang it on the edge of the white bookcases suspended from a checked ribbon.
Without a coffee table in front of the futon this space has looked a bit empty, so when I saw this pouf at a TJ Maxx recently I knew it would be perfect for the workroom. In addition to filling the space it also covers a spot on the rug created by the cat who has now decided it is a great place to take a nap.
It seems I always find something surprising when I’m walking to and from one of my doctor visits. A few weeks ago I was surprised by this Sprite on a fence.
And last week I noticed two of these stenciled poems on one sidewalk block and decided to see how many I could find.
I found five different ones and some repeats and then on my most recent walk I found one by another uncredited artist.
It may be because she’s used to posing for photos like this that my youngest granddaughter can’t pass a statue without posing in front of it and requesting a photo. The last time we walked to get an ice cream cone she posed in front of the Angel of Death on the way there and pulled her sister in for another photo on the way back.
Of course when we went to the Oz park she insisted they pose in front of the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and Dorothy.
But the funniest thing is that everytime she goes to Target she expects to take a photo with the mannequins.
I thought it would be fun to participate in this Instagram challenge. I had wanted to do one ever since I first heard of them but thought embroidering something suggested by a prompt everyday (like Stitchtober) would be hard. #embroidermay gave me the opportunity to post new and old work and to reflect on my practice. I haven’t shared the old pieces here on the blog so I thought I’d feature a few.
I posted these Irises for the Day 2 prompt May Flowers. I designed it many years ago by adapting a print my youngest sister had.
This is the only piece I shared that I didn’t design. I shared it on Day 8 Most FAQ’S since most questions people ask me are technical rather than creative. This piece used to hang in my parent’s bedroom along with another botanical piece I stitched from the same book Cross Stitch Embroidery I by Gerda Bengtsson. The matted and framed pieces had some foxing damage so I took the frame apart and salvaged this one. I was so glad to find this gold frame which went well with the other gold frames in the workroom. It hangs above the iris piece which is hung pretty low since it is covering a large circuit box.
I shared my Japanese lady based on a Bloomingdale’s shopping bag on Day 29 Favorite Project. It is funny that this piece which is such a favorite is in what doesn’t seem like a great home in our Chicago condo. It leans up against the wall in our bedroom next to my bed under the mermaids. It actually isn’t such a bad place as I have a perfect view of it when I’m reading in bed.
When my Chicago niece sent me an Instagram link to @andreaanimates, a fiber artist who films her pieces and processes I was taken with her felt pizza video. And when I was wondering what I could make for my grandnieces’s first birthday presents, I remembered messaging my niece that after seeing the animated pizza I wanted to make some felted pizza and also that she had once asked me if I would make felted food for her son which I hadn’t done (although as regular readers know I had made him a felted playmat and accessories). I also remembered that when I had downloaded some play food packaging from Miss Printables to make some items for my granddaughters’s play refrigerator that there was also a template for a pizza box. So I downloaded the template, enlarged it a bit, printed it twice on cardstock, assembled the boxes, and got busy needlefelting some pizzas! I also wet felted them a bit at the very end which eliminated the needle holes and really gave them a nice finish
I made a one with basil and one with pepperoni. Now I just need to figure out which twin is a vegetarian!
At least outdoor birthday parties are happening this Spring. My oldest granddaughter had two this year. The first one was in a park with a school friend who was also turning eight.
Themes are back too! She had a tie dye party at her house with some friends and their siblings the next weekend.
My grandnephew also had a themed party in his backyard.
And my youngest granddaughter attended a Big Cat themed party.
Our Northampton condo had 3 sun areas – behind the dining room table, in the first floor bathroom, and outside and right inside the front door. We hung the dining room suns up as soon as we moved here but that’s as far as we got. This week we hung the front door suns. Since we live on the 11th floor and don’t have an outdoors we hung the outdoor ones right inside the front door.
My youngest sister bought the oil can one but not exactly as a present. She said something like, “I already bought your birthday present so you’ll have to pay me for this sun I bought you.” I was a bit taken aback but I’m glad I did. I love it and it actually looks better here than it did on our outside shingles. The two green ones also hung outside. The top one was a gift from my Pennsylvania brother in law who wins the prize for person who has given us the most suns. The bottom one is from one of the Baby Group Moms.
The suns that hung together right inside our front door in Northampton now hang in our entry closet a few feet down the hall.
I’m pretty sure the key holder is from my Maryland in laws who have also given us a lot of suns and the one over the coat hooks is another one from my Pennsylvania brother in law. It is a replica of an antique fire insurance mark.
I’m so glad we finally hung these suns up. We haven’t hung the colorful ones that were in the downstairs bathroom yet and we may never hang them here. However, when we first moved in I was happy we had a place to hang our first purchased original piece of art. We bought it in Buffalo and I don’t even know when we hung it last but now it’s around the corner from the entry closet and it’s great to see it again!
I really enjoyed figuring out how to make the letters when I cross stitched the Nero Wolfe covers so I decided I wanted to do a letter focused cross stitch. I know my sister likes illuminated manuscripts and I had seen some embroidered letters on Instagram using metallic thread so I thought it would be fun to make my sister a cross stitch of an illuminated manuscript using gold thread.
I found this picture and began developing the pattern. It quickly became obvious that because of the thread count I was using (20 count) and the amount of threads I needed for the letters, not to mention the size of the piece of linen I had left (finished size is 6″×9″), that I was only going to do a fragment of the page. It also became clear that, due to transforming the design to straight lines and boxes on graph paper, the finished piece was going to be inspired by the original rather than a replica of it!
And when I began stitching it another thing became clear. While I had seen attractive embroidered pieces using metallic thread on Instagram, I had missed this meme until after I started attempting to stitch with the gold thread.
I’m sure the verses of this song cover the reality that metallic thread separates, shreds, and makes for very messy stitches.
I recently read an interview of a person who designs cross stitch patterns and she said that one should always stitch their patterns before offering them for sale. I can see why now as I made lots of changes to my pattern while I was stitching. This was probably the most challenging cross stitch I’ve ever done and while I wish the gold stitches looked better I am pretty proud of finished piece.
Collections and Other Stuff I Like 