you + me...things for valentine's day

Here's a quick sampling of a few things in my shop and Kinsey's that would be perfect gifts for Valentine's Day (if you're into giving gifts on that day and everything).

#1: Jellys in Love Embroidered Wall Art Hoop

They're holding tentacles and seem to like each other quite a bit!

#2- My Wife is the Best Giclee Print

What more can you say?

#3- We Are Better Together Giclee Print

Great colors and very fun.

new clutches....

I recently took a little break from making plush toys and went back to sewing clutches.  I used to make almost solely clutches, which usually included trees and grassy hills.  I still make them, but not as much.   However, once I made one of these, I knew I had to make more.

The fabric that lines the clutches is one that I've had for quite a while.  Kinsey saw it at our local fabric outlet and thought we should get at least 2 yards (I think it was really cheaply priced...maybe $1.98 a yard?).  I wasn't quite into the colors and wasn't sure, but I went ahead and got a few yards.  It sat untouched for some time.  Then I found it again.  And loved it.  Moral: Always listen to your husband in the fabric store even if you think his selection is a little off.  (Kinsey always picks out great prints, even if I don't think much of them at the time.)

I really like the off center jellyfish next to the small fabric circles and french knots.  These clutches just came together really fast and quite beautifully.  I'll be keeping one for myself.

I've done jellyfish clutches before, but these really stand out to me.  These are currently available in the shop.

New Pins!

I've been making a bunch of new pins lately.  Some are in the shop and some I'm holding back for spring craft shows. 

This one is a little ode to spring and the succulent:

I love these plants!  I'm so looking forward to getting some seeds and plants started in the next week or so.

You + Me + the Jellys (or Jellies)

Ever since seeing the jellyfish exhibit at the Baltimore Aquarium this past fall, I've been really fascinated with them. So much so that I've started to find myself sketching them in groups for no apparent reason. Then, I embroidered this orange one for my current exhibit.

My favorite jelly inspired design so far? Definitely this one. Two jellys (or is it jellies?) holding tentacles in love? Yes.

Offering them as pictured or customized with your choice of names.

Show is up....thumbs are blistered

Show is up and done! We hung my art up in the Yellow Wall Gallery at the Midtown Scholar Bookstore on Monday.  Here's a portion of the pieces before their titles and prices went up.  

I'm pretty relieved to have everything done.  This was my first time doing a completely solo show.  I'm very happy with the final 12 pieces that made it to the walls.  As you may know, most of my work is usually in round embroidery hoops.  I love using them, but it can hinder the overall design and shape.  By doing my work in proper rectangular frames, I was able to play around with a lot of ideas I've had in my head lately.  

While I love sewing and embroidering, I don't share that same love with framing.  So that's why the framing waited until the very end.  Meaning the 2 nights before the show went up.  Most of my frames were made of unpainted wood and needed to be painted.  Here's Kinsey painting the frames two days before hanging.  Yes, it's nighttime.  And yes, there is a few inches of snow on the ground.  And yes, he did have to shovel some in order to stand where he is.  This is why I married him.  (And because he can reach things like honey on the very back of the top shelf at the grocery store.)

This was by far the most crucial supply!  It's a heavy board that has acid free adhesive on one side that you stick to your fabric.  It keeps everything nice and even and if done right, doesn't show wrinkles.  This board also doubled as the backing of the frames because most of my frames were open backed.  We (okay, Kinsey) used small tacks and nails to attach the board to the frame and needless to say his thumbs are a little numb currently from pushing so many tacks down on every frame.
Making a last minute adjustment. 
Here's 2 of my favorites....well, actually 3.  

"someone is outside the tent"

"the logger's wife" and "the logger"

I love these two portraits!  I had the idea in the very last couple days and actually finished them the day before they were hung.  

Also, the artist reception will be this Friday, Jan 21st from 6-9pm!  More details are here!

Busy, busy, busy

I've been pretty busy getting ready for my art show. I've also been busy making ornaments for our tree. I hope to have some ornament how-tos in the next couple of days, but in the meantime, here's a sneak peek at two of my new pieces!

I love, love, love the stitches and colors in this one! Any guesses on where it is?

saving trees and embroidering trees....

The other day I was in Urban Outfitters and picked up a set of stationary that was on sale. As the cashier rung the purchase up, I noticed she placed it in what looked to be a bag made from that soft reusable bag material. In fact it was a reusable bag, or tote to be more exact. I was thrilled and surprised. Has this been going on for a while? I don't often shop at Urban Outfitters much, but loved this idea!



The back of the bag is black with a dark logo of the store. Definitely beats walking around with a plastic bag!

Today's the first day of autumn (my favorite season), and I can't help but think about trees. Conifers to be exact...which are more winter like, but still. I recently embroidered a new "Study of Conifers" which is listed in our shop.



Here's a close up of two tree branches.

forest and the sea...

Lately, I haven't been posting too much on my latest art and craft projects. If you read our blog occasionally, you probably have noticed we've been focusing on a lot of home projects.
Last week, I was able to set aside some time to create a few new embroidery pieces. These pieces contain my first attempt at cross stitch lettering.





Also, these are the first pieces that I've signed. I like the idea of signing my pieces, but like keeping the color I choose for it relatively similar to the background, so it doesn't distract.


This last one isn't a good photo, but it sold the day after I made it, so this was the only shot of it I got. I'm planning a small series based on the sea. Of course, the main inspiration is from the coast of Maine.

recycling and embroidery...

So during the day, Kinsey and I are bookstore managers/baristas.  The cafe we work in uses all organic and fair trade coffees and teas, as well as gets our milk delivered in glass bottles.  Of course, we're the type of people who think the milk from glass bottles just has a better taste to it (which is very true!).  We're also the type of people who try to find ways to reuse things.  Old flyers for a past event?  We cut them in quarters and make scrap paper tablets out of them.  Old books with falling out/destroyed pages?  We cut them up and use them for color and design on signs we make for our coffee and other items for sale.  So we were eager to find a way to re-use one item that seemed to pile up fast....milk caps.  

I've been occasionally saving a few for a number of months, but didn't know what to do with them.  Magnets seemed easy enough, but it wasn't something I'd like to make tons of.  Then one day, after looking at a towering stack of them, I thought about embroidery.  Maybe pendants for necklaces?  

Start with a milk cap.  Something I love about these is how sturdy they are.  Not your typically thin, plastic, supermarket milk jug caps.  These have a little girth and hardness to them.  The color scheme is limited to bright green, red, blue, and clear, however because of the nature colors I tend to use to stitch, the cap colors are a perfect fit!

I cut the tall edges away and smooth down the sides.  This leaves me with something that looks like this:

After hand embroidering a scene onto some fabric scraps, I'm left with some great, one of a kind pendants.  To make a necklace, I just string the recycled cap on to a piece of brown cord.  

Small,  embroidered art that's wearable.  


Both of these examples can be found in our shop.

New listing...

Just listed:





I've been working like crazy after work every night this week on new things. This is one that came to my head one night and I was quickly able to finish it in the same sitting. I got the sea green canvas a while ago from our local fabric outlet, but never really used it. Now I've been using it for a lot of my embroidery. I love the color and because I often stitch in earth tones (especially greens) it really stands out nicely.

Art Show

The bookstore-cafe that Kinsey and I are managers at (www.midtownscholar.com), had an employee art show for the month of April. We each exhibited 3 works which all but one were made especially for the show. Here's what 4 of them looked like.

Here's Kinsey's burning building collage. Kinsey's medium of choice is recycled magazine pages. I don't know how he can find the exact colors he needs so well. You don't really noticed that his art is made from magazines until you really get up close.


And a close up of the building and a car. I love all the detail in this one.


Kinsey had the idea for each of us to do the same design, but only in different materials. He chose magazine paper and I of course, choose fabric and embroidery. We entitled these "Ship at High Seas I and II". The first two shots are of mine. The overall work didn't photograph well in this light. I'm hoping to get a good shot before the buyer picks it up.


You can see the colors better here:




Kinsey's version:


I've always had a fascination with maps and trail booklets. I've had this idea in my head for a while and thought this show would be a good experiment with what I like to refer to as map embroidery. My subject (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone) was Acadia National Park.


My favorite part. I liked this close stitch look a lot. All the different colors and the circular stitch motion have a really nice feeling to me.

Our new cards....

Yesterday, two little boxes arrived from Moo with our new business cards in. I ordered 200 of the mini cards and love them! I like how you can customize the image on the back of every card if you'd like. I kept it pretty simple and just chose two different images of my art/fabric collages for the back. Here's what the backs look like:



Here's the front of the card. I was a little unsure about how the orange would look for the background, but it turned out to be really nice. I choose one of my new fabric/embroidery girl series for the front.





Just in time for spring crafts show!

Black Bear, Black Bear...

This is probably one of my favorite images I've done. Lately, I've become really interested in bears. More so from a visual aspect. I stumbled across a headboard someone had created with a stained piece of wood and a painted bear face. This embroidered art was inspired from that headboard.



I've been playing around with different images and this one is my favorite so far. I'm in the process of designing one which is just a bear's face. I'm hoping to embroidered it in a warm brown color, instead of the black I used for the full body bear. I'm sadly almost out of this wonderful light woodgrain fabric. I picked it up about a year ago at my local thrift store for a mere .99 cents. I know there's a lot of other woodgrain prints out there, but I haven't found one I like quite as much!

New Home!

So it's been a while since I've not only wrote here, but also listing new projects in general. Kinsey and I bought our first home in October of this past year and have been busy doing various projects and such. We were pretty lucky in that the house we bought was in really good condition and recently remodeled. Most of the walls were painted in colors we would've picked ourselves. We didn't really have to spend time ripping up carpets and repainting the walls. Here's a picture of one of my favorite rooms (obviously this was before we moved anything in!), the dining room.



One room that is still a "work in progress" is one of the upstairs rooms. This room is to be Kinsey's craft/collage/music room. The walls as you can see were just a simple shade of white which kind of made the whole room seem a lot smaller than it is.




Yesterday we just decided to go ahead and paint. So we headed off to our local Home Depot and picked out a warm brown color. Here's a picture of one of the walls painted in the final color:




We're quite pleased with the final outcome.


And here's a look of a new design I'll be posting in our shop this evening: