Subversive cross stitch kitchen towels

Time for more machine cross stitch! I visited my mom three weeks ago and we spent an entire day in her sewing studio, but I only now got round to photographing what we made. Kitchen towels!

A friend of mine put this idea in my head a while ago, and I just had to try it out. I bought some cheap kitchen towels from IKEA and from my local fabric store - I figure that if I decide to make more I can get nicer towels, but for a first attempt I didn't want to spend too much. 

We all use them, so why not make your kitchen towels a bit of a statement? In this case a (slightly snarky and sarcastic) statement in favor of love and respect. The saying is sort of hard to translate into English - humor doesn't always translate well, plus it does have some cussing in it and I know not everyone is as relaxed about that as us Swedes are. :-) 

They were easy and relatively quick to make - the most time consuming part has been snipping off all the little threads and pieces of stabilizer on the back! That's the only downside to making these compared to the framed and hooped pieces I have made before; you have to be a lot more conscious of how the back looks since it won't be mounted. But they were still a lot of fun to make!

Geek week: More geeky cross stitch

The geeky week continues! On Tuesday, I went to a crafty meet-up with some of the girls from the awesome Facebook community Geek Women Unite (Sweden). So much fun! Three solid hours of crafting and chatting with like-minded nerds is exactly what you need on a dark and dreary november evening. Meeting so many awesome geeky feminists also inspired me to finish some more of the machine embroidered pieces I started last month. This is what I came up with:

I think the f*ck one is one of my favorites so far - that flowery fabric was just begging to be embellished with some profanity! I'm glad it's finally finished. I have quite a stash of finished pieces built up now - I really need to find a way to sell or display them. Any ideas?

More machine embroidery: Big Bang Theory and a unicorn!

I went to see my mom again this weekend, and as usual my visit involved the two of us shutting ourselves up in the studio for hours on end and playing with my mom's amazing sewing machine. Such fun!

Since I actually managed to sell four of the pieces I made last time, I thought I would continue on in the same vein: Geeky, girly and slightly subversive! This is one of the designs I created which I really like:

I also made this design as a homage to everyone's favorite geeky TV show, the Big bang Theory. Did you get all the references?

I'm having so much fun thinking up new motifs, sayings and quotes that need to me immortalized in embroidery form. I'm not even sure what I'll do with all of these yet, but I'm sure I'll find a use for them somehow... I ran in to a small snag when I got home though: I realized that I need to buy some more embroidery hoops for framing all the embroidery - I've used up all the ones I had on hand. Will post more photos as I finish more pieces!

Subversive Machine Embroidery

Hallelujah, we have Internet access! This past week we've been having a ton of problems with our Internet provider, and while I'm not sure everything's fixed yet, at least we finally have access. It's true what they say, you don't know how much you depend on the Internet until it's taken away.

Less time browsing Facebook and Pinterest has meant more time for crafting, though. Among other things I reorganized the two closets that house my craft supplies, and this gave me the energy to finish off a couple of WIPs that have been hanging around in there for way too long. A great feeling!

I am a big fan of the craftivism movement and sites like Subversive Cross Stitch. Ever since my mom got her Husqvarna Viking Designer Diamond sewing machine, I have been brainstorming ways to combine that subversive feel with the medium of machine embroidery. I'm not much of a cross stitcher myself (not enough patience!) so when mom introduced me to the cross stitch software that came with her Designer Diamond, I was understandably thrilled. I've spent many hours in her studio sewing and creating, but only this week did I get around to actually mounting the finished pieces. Here are a few of them!

I mounted most of the pieces in embroidery hoops because that's what I had on hand, plus I like the look. But I also had a couple of thrifted picture frames which worked well after a fresh coat of paint.
 

 That pink frame now houses another "Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Human Rights" embroidery which is winging its way off to a friend to become a birthday present  for her sister. That's part of the charm with machine embroidery - once you have a design programmed and ready to go, you can make several versions of the same design quickly and conveniently, experimenting with different color combinations, background fabrics, sizes and so on. The top picture in this post shows the same "Girls" embroidery on a really nice structured linen - I will be using that fabric again for sure!


I also made a couple of hoops featuring "subversified" Swedish sayings. Not sure what I'll do with them yet, I might have to start a hoopla wall to feature them all. Right now my mind is reeling with ideas for more subversive machine embroidery, so I'm sure there will be more to come!

Do you have any ideas for sayings, quotes, factoids or anything else you think would fit on a cross stitch wall hanging? I would love to hear your ideas!

Baby girl power

One of the first things I wanted to show you since I've been back are the neat little onesies I made for a friend's new baby girl. I've never done freezer paper stencils before, but it was so easy and fun! I even printed up some fabric for myself at the same time - that's the flower fabric in the middle of the photo. It has since become a fabric grocery bag.


Both of baby's parents are hard-core feminists, so the choice of stencil wasn't difficult. They went over very well! Here's little Liv modelling her new gear:


How cool is that vintage stroller by the way? Straight from the 70's!

Time for some embroidery!

I don't think I've posted any of my embroidery on this blog yet, so it's about time! I've been working on this piece for ages, little by little, while enjoying the Lord of the Rings audio books. I didn't want to show it before it was completely finished, but now it's finally done. Yay!

I've been planning to embroider this sentiment for a while now, but I wasn't sure what style I wanted... Then I noticed the awesome new banner over at feeling stitchy (made by the lovely PlanetCoco) and knew I wanted to make something similar. Plus, it was a perfect way to practice new stitches! I tried a couching stitch for the first time, so pretty and simple to do! My camera doesn't do too well with macro shots, but I'll try to show you a close up:

Basically, a couching stitch means laying your thread down on top of your fabric, and using a second thread to attach it to the fabric. It feels a bit like sculpting or painting with thread, and I love the resulting texture.

As you can see I used fabric for some of the letters; most of it thrifted, in keeping with the theme of the piece. The other stitches used are back stitch, split stitch, chain stitch, running stitch and satin stitch. I had planned to add a border as well, but in the end I thought it might be too much so I decided not to. I just finished it up and framed it. Here it sits on my desk, to remind me what matters in life - and what doesn't! ;-)

Craft green this weekend!

We're going to visit Keith's parents this weekend, so I won't be blogging for a couple of days... I thought I'd leave you with a couple of ideas for awesome, environmentally friendly craft projects.

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The story: A couple of days ago, my dad and I spent over an hour on the phone discussing creativity, awareness and the politics behind the whole DIY-movement. My dad is a librarian in the small town where I grew up, and he's very involved in the community. He told me that they are having trouble finding fun activities and projects to get young people involved - so naturally I suggested crafting! I love crafts with a political edge like subversive cross stitch or knit graffiti, as well as environmentally aware "reduce, reuse, recycle" projects. Dad asked me to e-mail him some links to "green" craft ideas that I thought would work well at youth centers and workshops. I had lots of fun looking them up for him! I'm sure you've heard of most of them before, but here are a couple of my favorites:

Great tutorial for making handmade paper: I'm trying this as soon as I get back home, I love the look of handmade paper!
Making a cake stand out of thrifted plates and china: An awesome gift idea is using old plates, serving dishes and candle sticks to make cute cake stands. This example uses clear glass plates, but I love how it looks with different colored plates as well.
Make your own envelopes: I'm always looking for ways to use all the old magazines and junk mail I get... This is a template for turning them into pretty envelopes.
Another cute sweater project: I've been brain storming about what to do with the wool sweaters I got last week, and this is one of the projects on my to do-list.
The record bowl: This is a classic, it's so simple and fun!

Have a great crafty weekend!