My boyfriend lives about 4000 miles away right now, so I had to get these finished this morning and shipped this afternoon to make sure they arrive somewhere in the vicinity of Monday.  Both are done in watercolor, although the heart was cut from white paper and then pasted down on top of the watercolor, with acrylic details in the corners taken from a Slovenian embroidery book I've got.  The bridge is in Manayunk, near Philadelphia, and not only does it hold special meaning, but it matches the colors in his newly painted living room.  I didn't frame it, unfortunately, because mailing that costs somewhere close to $50, and I'm a broke college student.

Here's the final product:



some progress shots:

(next to the reference photo)




And here's the valentine card:


Now that I look at it, I really don't like the way they acrylic bits turned out.  I didn't have enough control with the brush, it came out looking rushed and uneven.  Eurgh.

progress:




I made a little envelope for the card, with a pink paper ribbon sealing it:



Comments/criticisms welcomed, thanks for looking!

It's a good thing my little sister doesn't read Craftster, I made her these earrings for Christmas, but I had to get them done tonight since I'll be flying to Germany tomorrow afternoon for the holiday.

She's seventeen but still appreciates things intended for small children, so I made two pairs of earrings for her, one from the Shetland Pony of Kate Beaton's www.harkavagrant.co m and one from the fluffy unicorn of Despicable Me.  (Note: last year I made her three bleach-stenciled shirts featuring different unicorn designs, she loves them and wears them on a regular basis to school without shame.  She's pretty awesome.)

Here they are:


shetland pony:


fluffy unicorn:


in the box, all pretty and festive:


with a fabric handmade bow on top:


Thanks for looking, let me know what you think!

Hey guys.  I've done some cross-stitch before, but it's been years since I finished an embroidered project.  

My boyfriend and I did a lot of traveling this summer, driving all over the place.  It was somewhat long-distance to begin with, he stayed in State College for the summer and I went back home to Philadelphia.  Now it's even further, he graduated and got a job in Germany.  So I stitched up a map of the eastern part of the US, with a french knot for everywhere we stopped and stayed.  It's folded up now in a little paper box with a tag pinned to it that says "Home is wherever I'm with you" (Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes has pretty much become our song).  I wanted to frame it and send it like that, but it's so freaking expensive to ship internationally, so I put in a little post-it that says "frame not included".

Enough talk, here are some pictures:



ugh, it's blurry.  I'll put up a new one later



and the back!



I made the map by drawing one on tracing paper, turning it over, and pinning it to the cloth.  Then I tore it out when I was finished.


I'll get some nicer pictures up soon, let me know what you think!  Thanks


Bonus: proof we travel!  Here we are in DC

Tomorrow (technically this afternoon, as it's past 2:30 in the morning) afternoon, I get to pick my boyfriend up at the airport.  He's been in Germany, and I figured it would be fun to wear something new and summery to get him.  I just came back from Ghana, myself, and I picked up a huge amount of fantastic high quality wax prints (made in Ghana, of course) but I wasn't sure what I was going use them for right away.  This just seemed like the right opportunity.  So, after a few hours of trial, error, and pattern splicing, I pulled this together.  I love it.  

Crit/comments absolutely welcome.






Sorry about the webcam pictures, I'm burnt out for the night, I'll take nicer pictures soon.

I'm missing several in here (most notably a little yellow jumper and my two prom gowns, but I'll put those up when I get home again and they're in my closet.  College is crippling in that manner), but I'm really glad to have a working camera and tripod and a solid background upon which to take pictures, finally.

So, without further ado, here we go.

I finished this number this morning before classes.  The fabric was $1/yd from Jomar, mystery blend but nice and soft and stretchy.  The pattern is the Sadie dress from Burdastyle.com, with a cowl neck rather than the given collar options.







Forgive the face, this dress was made before Folk Fest 2008, it's my space dress made from New Look 5667







This dress was taking from one of the free Burdastyle.com patterns, lengthened for the sake of modesty and using my own 3/4 sleeve pattern.  Again, $1/yd fabric from Jomar







This next dress is another free Burdastyle.com pattern, made in grey linen with tiny white pin stripes.  The straps need to be ironed and the back is stained still from Folk Fest 2009 (camping for five days, working security dressed in this, good times )







I made this about a year ago.  It's from the Burdastyle.com "Sabrina" pattern, straps omitted.  I wore it to a birthday party and then to a wedding in Germany.  It went over pretty well.





This is a thrift store reconstruction and shouldn't be in this forum, but I wanted to keep everything together.  When I bought it, it was floor length with t-shirt style sleeves.  I shortened it, added slits, lopped off the sleeves, and tossed a belt (not pictured) around it and wore it at Folk Fest 2009 as well.  I love the colors, it was such a gem hiding on the rack.

So I just spent the last five weeks at PGSA  (The Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts) and I'm starting to feel a bit of withdrawal so I decided I needed to post this up here.

The challenge was to take either a XL or XXL tshirt from the year before and create a piece of clothing for the fashion show in two weeks.  Two weeks seems like a long time, right?  Well, between classes and random drum circles, I ended up finishing the dress at 3am the night before.  Typical for those of us on craftster, but they all thought I was crazy.

Onto the pics.  Forgive the quality, I dropped my camera and it's been giving me issues.  Here's the shirt I started with (design)



In progress shots, taken in the mirrors.  This is pretty much before I had added the wraparound zipper and the extra godet-type inserts at the bottom.





And my model totally rocked it.  She was this tiny dancer who came out of nowhere.  Luckily, she also had shoes that matched perfectly. 



Thanks, comments and crit are totally welcome.

I did my first official commission in June but I then went to a summer arts conservatory where I had no time to post pictures so here we go.

This wouldn't have been tough to make six beaded cuffs had she not ordered them two weeks prior to needing them for a family reunion.  Note to self: next time, allow a week per bracelet.  Things get in the way, portfolios for theater need assembling and knitting is usually lost in the mix until the car ride where, for eight hours, I sat knitting fiercely in the passenger's seat.  I ended up adjusting the pattern on the last two to make them more narrow and save myself time.  I sorta liked them in the end the most.

Enough chatter.  PICS!


the group shot sitting on and around a frisbee disk the instant I arrived at the dorm and had to hand the cuffs off to my dad.

The bracelets, in order of their completion.



kiwi flavored


this one I call eggplant and asparagus


a nice oranges and creme


"water" melon (get it? the beads are blue!  Sorry, bad puns...)


cotton candy


why did I start naming them like food?  I don't know.

Let me know what you think!

It was about to thunderstorm, the sun was going down, and the light was lovely.  Here are a few shots I managed to steal before it went dark and started downpouring.








and my personal favorite (took me forever to get):


I don't have a terribly good camera, but I'd still like a bit of feedback

I've been knitting a lot of these lately (and getting paid to do so!) so here is the fruit of the last month or so minus the ones I forgot to photograph before I gave them to the person who bought it.  (That would be this lovely cream number with see-thru white beads and a teal ribbon running through it, and a blue cuff with red beads and a cabled center).

Here are the pics, I hope you enjoy.


Unfortunately, the girl who received this (her friend bought it for her as a birthday gift) got into a "bleach fight" the very next day, so the vibrant gold thread is now a patchy yellow-orange.





This next one is my most recent, and it is being sent to Turkey in a few days.  So you might say I'm going international



a closeup of the edging detail I added

Forgive the crappy quality of this last one, it was taken on a camera phone just as I was giving it to the girl who bought it (she's actually modeling it, not me) because I forgot to take pics earlier.  In reality is a bit more emerald and the beads are a nice warm brown, slightly larger than what I usually use.

This began as a super-stiff, tight-on-the-top-but-not-on-the-bottom, painful-sleeved and tight-collared shirt that I loved the design of but couldn't stand the way the shirt felt at all.  I found a pretty nice dark green shirt my brother left behind when he went off to college, and so I grabbed it and cut some new sleeves and a new and wider collar for this shirt.  It's nothing terribly complicated, but I love it anyway.


standard mirror shot


closeup of the work I actually did


even closer shot of the collar stitching

whaddyu think?