Awesome! I have to commend you on your taste in writers, particularly Haruki Murakami. I've just been going back through my collection of his books and being amazed all over again on how brilliant a writer he is. He's gotta be my favorite of all time. Good luck on your goal, girl!

This must've slipped under the radar...can't believe I'm the first to comment! Great black outline, and I love the framing, it really fits the piece! Great job!

awesome! great job on the lettering!

thanks to the fellow craftsters who cared enough to comment! I was so looking forward to posting this, and don't really know what to think when over 150 people look at your work but only 5 can think of anything to SAY.

So I've been gone for a long time! Mainly due to the fact that I wasn't finishing the pieces that I started. This one inspired me enough to want to get er done.
First the pic, then on to the What, Why and How:

What:
It's an embroidery mash-up. The body is of my friend Alex playing drums. The head if from Georges Melies' then-groundbreaking silent film from 1902.
Here's the moon pic I used from a Dover coloring book about space:

Here's the picture of Al I used, taken by my husband at our old practice space.

Why?
Good question. I wanted to do a portrait of Alex, but he's not the type to hang a picture of himself on the wall. I'm also very interested in piecing images together, creating a mash-up, so to speak. I love how taking the time to stitch these images together really seems to add validity to them, you can almost take for granted that this dude has a moon head because this person spent so many stitches saying so, and who is the viewer to argue? So I loved that photo of him, but then when I saw that image from A Trip to the Moon, it just seemed to GO together. Alex is an old soul, he's interested in space, creativity, transitions, and learning new things, which fits with not only the moon, but the film as well, which was way ahead of it's time.
How:
I put Al's photo on a sunny window and traced it onto tissue paper, just the body. I cut his head off! I had printed out the moon in the size I wanted, and traced that as the head, then I used a fabric transfer pen and traced it onto some white demin fabric and ironed it on there.
Stitches:
I was interested in really doing neat stitches; I didn't care quite so much previously. this time I studied books and learned new stitches. Let's see, back stitch of course, chain stitch, cable stitch, split stitch, maybe more in there?
more pics:

I used little tiny chain stitches to fill in the face. Chain, split, and cable stitch around the head.I wanted to give him a glow-y effect. The thread is not glow in the dark though. Didn't want to go that literal. Also didn't have any.


I got the banners from a Jenny Hart pattern, and put em in because I liked how they looked. But I wasn't sure what to put in them, and stewed on it for a few days. Then one morning I woke up with it in my head. The words are stitched in light gray, then done over in dark gray cuz it was too light. I'm still not in love with the way the words look; that's the only thing I would've liked to play with more, but I already ripped em out a few times and started over, and frankly, I started to worry about the integrity of the fabric. But I'm alright with the way they look overall.
Here's Al opening his gift! Happy!

Thanks a lot for looking at all this! Next piece is on a huge canvas; that's gonna be interesting!

so awesome!!!! Mr. T on a field of daisies. He can really pull it off! Great stitching too!

the style is really cool, it's hip and functional. If that's you in the pic tho, you could wear space GARBAGE and still look amazing. 

that looks fantastic on you! I LOVE it. Btw, seems to me that picking stubs off an old belt would take alot of patience as well! Great job!

so creative, and you're adorable, by the way.

I love your wood!

hee heee. never thought, as a female non-lumberjack, that I'd hear that phrase uttered to me. Thanks!