I made this for my secret pal in the first secret pal swap.  Since she already knows who I am and has already received it, I figured it would be ok to post a pic of it!



It's made of camel-colored felt with darker brown free-hand embroidery.  Thanks for looking!

Another tote I embroidered, this one for my Secret Pal in the first Secret Pal swap.  I figured since she knows who I am and has already received it, it would be ok for me to post it!

One side (the pearl is done in Silver Metallic floss):


The other side:


A close-up:


Another one:


There are a couple of other pictures in my craftster gallery that are without flash but show the color a bit better.  Thanks for looking!

You can start ruing today because I have a working digital camera now, so time to inflict pictures of my craftiness on you all!

I embroidered this tote for my grandmother for Mother's Day.  I found the patterns in a post by Dyabolica!  Thanks, Dyabolica!!!!


A picture without the flash that shows the color a bit better:


Close-up on the guy's face:


Close-up on the girl's face:


The swirls in metallic floss were a pain till I accepted that I shouldn't try going in and out of the same hole multiple times.  There are more pictures (all close-ups) in my craftster gallery if you're interested.  Thanks for looking!

I used the search feature, but I didn't find the answer to this, so....

What would be a good enbroidery stitch for filling in a woman's face (and al her skin, for that matter)?  I'm planning to use satin stitch for her garments and whatnot, and I thought it would look weird if her face is only outlined while everything else is filled in so nicely.  Or am I just being picky?  Would the satin stitch work or is there a better stitch? 

Thanks!
Inia/spaz_muse

Ok, all I've knit up to now are scarves with tight tight stitches that choke the life out of my needles.  Now I'm working on the To Dye For Sweater and it says to cast on loosely.  Presumably, I should keep the looseness the whole time I'm knitting, but I'm having a lot of problem with keeping my tension even.  There's nothing to guage it off of.  The test swatch almost killed me and now that I'm starting up the back (all two rows that I managed last night), this is starting to seem like an impossible task (especially for the first and last couple of stitches on each row - they are obviously tighter, but maybe I can rectify that during blocking).  Anyway, I know all it's going to take is one bad day at work to completely blow looseness out the window, not to mention being s-l-o-o-o-o-o-w. 

So any suggestions on how to maintain it?  I got perfect gauge with loose stitches on the recommended size 13s if that helps.

These are some pieces I made a while back, but now that my camera is finally playing nice with my computer, I can post them,


This is tiger's eye and silver lined rondelle beads on flexible metal wire.


This necklace is made out of tiger's eye as well with copper spacer beads.


A close up on the pendant area.  You can sort of see the copper spacers.  

Thanks for looking!

I love tiny things and thought it would be so fun to start sewing some tiny stuff!  Welcome to my first attempts!


This is Bucky the Acorn with his allowance as a point of reference for his size.  He's sarcastic, drinks coffee, and wants to conquer the world!


And this is Chelsea the pumpkin.  She is shy, loves Amelie, and wants to be a Las Vegas showgirl.


She's never too shy to show off her sequins!  


She's also shown with her allowance for size reference.

Hope you liked seeing them!  I hope to make some more for the holidays!  I better get crackin' though. The holidays are almost up!

Woohoo!  I have become an embroidery fool!  The first thing I tried to embroider ever was a pillow. I started it three years ago and have yet to even come close to finishing it.  It made me very cranky and I decided I was destined to hate embroidery forever.  I was a bit nervous about this part when I signed up for the three month long craft along unswap ( http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=17537.0 ), but now:


This is one of two handkerchiefs I embroidered for a lady I work with who actually still uses handkerchiefs!  That's one of my favorite things about her!  Anyway, it's based on a design by Charles Rennie Macintosh.  I didn't have a small embroidery hoop (just a large one from the aforementioned cursed pillow project) and thought I could press out the funny lumpyness.  I couldn't.    Learning that, I was much more careful with the next one:


This is an angel I found in a Dover book of Art Nouveau designs.  She really likes angels and I really liked the deisgn.  Works well. 


This is a mermaid on what was supposed to be a drawstring pouch.  Sorry about the darkness, but that was the only way I could get an accurate picture of the colors.  Also, her face is a bit prettier in person.  Really.


But I was really proud of the tail, so here's a close up of it (see what I mean about the stupid flash washing out the color?  Don't get me wrong - flash is great, but sometimes....)

I also embroidered some napkins as a host gift for a party I went to this weekend.  They had snowmen on them.  I do have pictures, but not here with me.  Will have to upload them later.  Wow I love my camera now that it's playing nice with my computer again!!!!

For pictures of our journal covers or pages that we're particularly proud of!   

Swap name: A Day in the Life of Me Journal Circle Swap
Craftster member who is organizing this swap: spaz_muse
Sign-up date range: 10/28/04-10/31/04
Date to send item by: You will send your journal out by 11/10/04.  Mailings will continue on a two week basis, so the next one will be mailed out by 11/24/04, 12/8/04, 12/22/04 and so on until you get your journal back!

Limited to a certain number of people? (optional): No!  The more the merrier!  I will divide the participants into smaller groups.

Non-U.S. participants allowed?  Of course!  For deadline purposes, my main goal is to have the swaps within each country(Canadians to Canadians, Americans to Americans, etc).  However, this may end up changing (depends on who signs up)

All ages allowed? Or 18+?  All ages as long as 1) Your parents won't freak out   2) You can reliably mail your package off  3) You or your parents will not get weirded out by anything anyone else chooses to write in the journal.

Organizer is aware of current list of "suspended traders" and will not allow those members to participate: YES!

Organizer has been a member for at least 1 month and will make sure that every participant has been a member for
at least 1 month: YES!

Details of swap:  You will buy or make 1 journal, figure out how many pages are in it (I consider the page to be one side of a sheet of paper), and do a wee bit of math to figure out how many pages (one side of each sheet of paper) each swapper is allowed.  This will be determined by how many people are in your group (I guarantee I'll do my best to keep it small).  You can include yourself in that group if you like and write a little intro so everyone will know a little about you (and maybe tailor some of their entries to your personality) or you can leave yourself out of the equation completely and leave more pages for the other swappers to fill.  It is your choice!  On Wednesday, 11/10/04, you will send your journal to the next swapper.  You will always be sending to the same person and always receiving from the same person.  You MUST use Delivery Confirmation every time!!!!  Once you get the next journal, post here to let us know who and when you got it, carry it around with you, fill your pages with quotes, photos, ephemera, art, let your best friend write in it or whatever!  You are sharing a slice of your life with your fellow craftsters!!!!  You MUST mail it by Wednesday 11/24/04 so the next person can get it and start sharing his or her life!  If you wish to mail it beforehand, please PM the person you are mailing to and me.  I'm trying to avoid bottlenecking!  The mailing will end when you get your journal back.  This is a long term commitment involving lots of people's time and effort.  All that having been said, I would also like to mention that this is my first time to organize a swap, so if I seem a bit overbearing at the front, it's only because I'm trying to head off problems for everyone (and maybe especially me!)   


If you want to participate, please PM the following info to me:

QUESTIONNAIRE TO ANSWER:
Name of swap
Craftster username
Email address
Your real name
Mailing address
Would you be willing to ship to an address outside of the US?
ADD OTHER SWAP SPECIFIC QUESTIONS HERE...


IF YOU WANT TO PARTICIPATE, REMEMBER TO SEND YOUR INFO TO ORGANIZER VIA PRIVATE MESSAGE AND NOT TO REPLY WITH IT HERE.


Also remember to read the Swap Info Guide to find out how to ship your item and other details about participating in a swap.

I'm looking forward to this!