Embroidery Practice Piece

Remember when I bought that book and decided to learn to cross-stitch? Well, I completed one of the projects in the book– and I’m taking the piece a few steps further. It’s going to have two rows of hearts that say “Fuck Yeah” and with a cute border.

Cross-stitching was my entry point to learning how to embroider correctly. I’ve done some improvised embroidery before– but it usually looks pretty bad. I’m sure my embroidery stitching will not be all that great for a while…but that isn’t going to stop me from trying some ambitious projects.

This is a sample piece I was testing out on a scrap piece of t-shirt. The stitches are uneven and you can see how it gets wonky in spots…but that’s okay. I did this to get an idea of how a similar design would play out. Surprisingly, this hardly took any time to power through (less than 2 hours).

I (foolishly) believe I may be able to make a killer headpiece and bridal sash for the wedding. This has led me to try my hand at making ribbon roses. These were my first two attempts with 5/8″ ribbon. Most of the online tutorials I’ve been reading recommend much wider ribbon, so these are just a test too.

I Broke The Other One

Things have been quiet since I was laid up for a while after breaking my other ankle (the good one) last Monday at practice. Looks like I’ll be sitting on the roller derby sidelines for a while now. Oh well. More on that later.

Now that I’ve emerged from my post-surgery, pain-killer induced haze, I’ve been lusting over new yarns and the possibility of new hobbies.

I think I’m finally taking up cross-stitching. After embarking from my pillowed crypt into the sunlight, for the first time in days,  Amy and I went to Wild Card where I picked up this little gem:

It has some really great ideas and information to get started, with a semi-updated website. I’ve been inspired by my internet/derby aquaintance’s work at Knit1, Pour2 to make my own cross-stitch design (featuring dogs I know)– so this is my baby-step towards that. Happy crafting everyone!

Food is Good: Easter Eggs!

Some of our favorites

Two great things happened this past weekend. 1) I went to the Feminism & Zines Conference at the Carnegie Public Library and 2) DZR was in town and we hung out. A bigger update on the Feminism & Zines Conference forthcoming, but until then, I wanted share some pictures of our eggs!

Our "egg-cellent" set up.

Our Process: DZR and I used a standard egg dyeing kit and used vinegar, according to the instructions on the box, to make the colors super saturated. We used Micron pens and the crayons from the kit to draw on the hard-boiled and blown-out eggs. The mix of crayon colors and egg dye really made some of them pop. Dyeing the egg a similar color to the crayon used on the egg was almost pointless. We really took our time and let the pen ink dry. We also let the eggs soak in the dye and let them dry for a long time.

One Trick: The blown-out eggs (ones where the insides have been “blown” out via two holes) didn’t sink to the bottom of the dye cup, for obvious reasons. I put a measuring cup with a lime in it over each egg– which was the perfect size and weight to hold most of the egg in the liquid, and I turned it once.

I haven’t dyed Easter Eggs in so long, but this was such a fun activity that we’re making it a tradition!