New Turntable Embroidery Spins s l o w l y

Spoiler Alert for my swap mate Jo: Don't read any further!!

Making s l o w progress on my embroidery for Phat Quarter Music Swap sponsored by Mr X Stitch.  I chose a turntable because, as I blogged a few weeks ago, Rico and I have rediscovered the fabulousness of vinyl, thanks to The Record exhibition at The Nasher.  Thanks to Rico for taking these shots in the terrible winter light.

This design is based on various sketches I did of turntables.  My deadline to ship this to New Zealand is Jan 31st and I'm having to hustle to get it done. Stitching every night until my fingers are bloody and raw.

OK, that is a slight exaggeration.  But I'm stitching a lot, especially the back stitch fill of the record itself.  Trying to suggest the grooves of the vinyl, but we'll see how this turns out.

I really like the colors!  Black, red and two shades of gray which have fantastic names: Very Dark Beaver Gray and Very Light Beaver Gray.  The ground fabric is Kona Cotton in Cactus and, allowing myself to sink into true embroidery geekery, I'm using a Number 5 embroidery needle.  (I think I've finally found the perfect embroidery needle for me!)

I just had to share my absolute favorite flickr comment that Taff1973 left about the hazard sign on my Do Not Enter embroidery.  "I'm a departmental safety coordinator at my labs and once, a newbie said it meant 'No big hands!!'. I think I giggled for a week...."  I was just as confused about the image when I first saw it, too!  I was like, what the hell is this big hand??  And why isn't it allowed?!

Back to stitching... or I'll never get this sent off on time!

Inflammable means flammable? What a country!

So says Dr. Nick Riviera.

This is a piece that I stitched up about 6 months ago but never got around to stretching.  I stitched it on a single layer of Kona Cotton.

I can see so much more puckering and pulling in the piece, especially with the heavy long and short fill stitch in the flame.

I can see improvement in my more recent stitching. I put a lot into this piece, though, and I learned a lot.

It is a process, learning to stitch.  That's really all I can ask for.  Feeling oddly blah today.  Got to take it stitch by stitch.  Maybe I should watch some Simpsons and gather some more wisdom from Dr. Nick and his Upstairs Hollywood Medical School training!

Luna likes it. My sweet little high contrast puppy!

Little Hans Cracks Heads

How to memorialize your little nephew Hans, all grown up and cracking hippie heads?

This is how. 

I'm not mocking riot cops, here, mind you.  I'm not praising them, either.  I was in a riot, once, in Paris in 1998, and it wasn't fun.  I hadn't intended to be in a riot and I did not like the dudes with the masks and the sticks.  But this piece isn't about the politics of dissent or peaceful demonstrations gone wrong.  It is just about the image.

I found this crazy sign on a website somewhere while researching hazard symbols and fell in love...

Stitched it up on this fabric that, to me, looks the the wallpaper of sweet, alcoholic Aunt Hortense (not a real person)...

And this is what I got.

Satin stich is hard!  I used it for the outline of the face mask and I need more practice.  I really, REALLY love the spiderweb wheel (a.k.a woven circle) stitch that I used for the face mask bolt.  I want to use this stitch all of the time, now.  I stitched a decorative border around Hans with fern stitch, which I also really enjoy.

Today I had my fiber arts group, String Thing, in the morning, and then crafting with Juline and Katherine later this afternoon.  Yippee!  I have a kernel of an idea for a little project that I may feature in the etsy shop I share with Juline (that I've been neglecting horribly.) We'll see if these dark little objects make it from my mind and sketchbook into reality. And whether they are worthy of putting up for sale. 

Ah, Hans...  what a cold, hard hunk you are...

Phat Quarter Swap, Oh My!

Cold and ice, be damned!

THE most fun, exciting new project of this week is taking part in the Phat Quarter flickr group swap. Phat Quarter is the flickr group for the Mr X Stitch blog, which is one of my favorite embroidery blogs.

This is my first swap with this group and I'm geeked!

The theme of the swap is very broad: Music.  We are free to create whatever we want, however we interpret this general theme. Forty stitchers from around the world will be making pieces and sending them to each other.  When I look at the work that has come out of past swaps... wow!  Some really beautiful, whimsical pieces are being created and shared.

I have been hooked up with two LOVELY stitchers and I could not be more excited about this.

by i_hear_noises

i_hear_noises (a.k.a. Denise) is a playful, inventive stitcher in Cologne, Germany.  I am lucky enough to be the recipient of a piece by her.  I love her wicked, embroidered handkerchiefs!  There is something wonderfully subversive about a pretty, flowered hankie inscribed with "bitch."

by i_hear_noises

Denise has extremely diverse musical tastes (Joy Division, electric and house music, Hip Hop and Motown!) which impress the hell out of me!  She is a university student studying English and social sciences.  I imagine she is a wild but super intelligent young woman.  Her tumblr site has fantastic music videos.  I have a feeling that she will be creating something a bit on the funky side, which I love. Lucky me!

I'm creating a piece for the talented stitcher jojobooster (a.k.a. Jo) in Parau, New Zealand, who sounds like someone I'd love to hang out with if only she didn't live 8,500 (13,200 km) away.

Jo blogs about crafting at The Unexpected Hug.  She has participated in Phat Quarter swaps before, where she made this gorgeous piece for an anatomy-themed swap.

by jojobooster

Jo is a Brit who has relocated to New Zealand.  I love this pillow she made for her mother-in-law that has Maori designs.

by jojobooster

And then she makes plush.... could I just swallow Jo up?! A plush maker who creates charming pieces like this ninja hugging creature?

by jojobooster

My only hope is that I can make something worthy of her wonderful spirit!

So, yeah, I'm kind of excited about this swap. Can you tell?  I have some sketches started and I have a pretty good idea about what I'm going to make, but I can't share it here, which is hard for me.

.......

Taking this post in a different direction (sort of), Juline took me to a super duper fun, black & white themed art party this Sunday in a beautiful home/gallery in Chapel Hill.  The exhibition was from local collectors' black and white photography collections.  I got to see a Harry Calahan original print, which was very cool for me.  He was one of the first photographers whose work really captured my imagination.

Here is a photo of me (right) and Juline at the party.  The spinning light installation in the background is giving me ideas for my embroidered piece for Jo!  Things that go around and around... hmmm....

Do Not Enter! (Not really... Please enter)

I finished and hooped my Do Not Enter embroidery!  Yah!

I just love stitching up these signs.  I have a flammable warning sign finished and ready to stretch, too.  I'm still fairly new to embroidery and I find that the pieces with heavy fill stitch have a real tendency to pucker and pull. I've gotten a bit better in my most recent piece. I think that the trick is to pull the fabric really taut while I'm doing the stitching.  Hopefully future pieces will come out smoother.

The fabulous Juline took this shot of the sign in action in Italy this fall.  Thank you, Juline, for capturing this image out in the world, doing the hard work for which it was designed! I had initially thought this was a German sign, but it looks like it pops up in other countries.

Some details for the embroidery geek in my heart...

Thread: DMC, six strand floss in colors 310 and 321.

Stitches used:
Long and short stitch in for the hand
A kind of "brick" back stitch for the red ring
Back stitch for the figure
Chain stitch in black around the red ring.

Despite the message this embroidery depicts, I don't want to keep people way!  I actually want to bring people closer to me and my world (hence the blog) and get closer to other people's passions.  In 2011, I want to embrace the world... or at least some of the lovely folks in it.

So don't let this pushy, stitched little man keep you away from me.  PLEASE!

Riot Police Ahead - New embroidery in progress

I'm not sure why you would need a hazard sign to warn that Riot Police are out and about, but I found this wonderful sign design on a German hazard symbol webpage.

This is a new embroidery piece I just started.

The first attempt was on blue fabric with white floss, but I decided it needed something a little more friendly and unnerving, so I'm stitching it up on this pink and orange fabric I found in the clearance bin at a local quilt shop.  The selvedge says, "Bellbottom by Jennifer Paganelli for Free Spirit, Westmister Fibres," which sounds like an oddly complicated name.

I bought tons of this fabric. To me it looks like the wallpaper of a wonderfully wacky great-aunt.

My first new project of 2011.  I really do love these hazard signs, even if I don't entirely understand them. I finished the Do Not Enter piece with the angry head and the big black hand. Now I just have to hoop it up for display. I'll post photos when I pull it together.

I suspect there are a lot of these pieces in my future.  Menace is all around us!  Nothing protects loved ones like an embroidered warning sign.

Ode to Vinyl and Ode to Juline

2010 has ushered in the fabulous world of vinyl records back into my life!

Thanks to my wonderful friend Juline and the The Record exhibition at the Nasher Museum at Duke University, Rico and I have been reconnected with those funky, almost magical disks and the textural reality of music being produced by a needle gliding along spinning grooves of plastic.  Listening to music on our record player just feels so different than plugging our iPod into the sound system, you know?  It makes me regret getting rid of all of our albums when we lived in Chicago back in the 90s.  But there you go.

Juline is a creative whirling dervish and is constantly introducing me to new projects, artists and crafts.  I'm so lucky to have her in my life!  I remember meeting Juline at her office at the Nasher, where I'd come to record the audio guide for The Record exhibition, and she was playing vintage big band albums on a record player.  Remember album cover art? I pawed through the stacks of mid century albums in her office, marveling at the variety of images -- singers in leopard leotards, paper cuts of trombones and martinis. So many little works of art on cardboard album sleeves!

Juline's felt record necklaces (modeled at the beginning of this post by yours truly) are exactly my kind of whimsical, playful jewlery!  Check out the embroidered centers of the necklaces.

Aren't they the coolest things?

I swear that I'm I'm not trying to hawk OJ Designs merchandise, but Juline's necklaces are available in our etsy shop, if you're interested! (In October, Juline and I started OJ Designs, a little craft company featuring our work.  In 2011, we hope to participate in more craft fairs and expand our etsy shop, which is very thin right now.)

A little more about Juline and her amazing creativity... this year she has brought so much into my life!  She inspired me start my hand sewn hexagon quilt project when she showed me her gorgeous quilt.  Juline is driven as well as crafty -- she finished her quilt with amazing speed, including the hand quilting.  My quilt top is ever so slowly coming together and she has already started on more hand sewn hexagon quilt designs.

She taught me how to make pzyanky eggs (a traditional Ukranian craft involving wax, dye and eggs) a few weeks after she learned how to made them herself, and then went on to make 40 of her beautiful eggs as a unique gift to commemorate the 40th wedding anniversary for her parents. This woman is a crafting goldmine and she is so generous with her friends, teaching us how to make new things and pushing and inspiring us to attempt what we never thought we could do! What a jewel she is.

Back to the vinyl... The Record exhibition is still at the Nasher until Feb. 6, 2011.  If you're in NC, I strongly encourage you to check it out.  Get out there and see this show!

My favorite pieces are by the artist Dario Robleto who used old Billie Holiday records to create buttons for vintage shirts.  You can read more about this alchemical and amazing project here on the Nasher web site.

"Turntable," by Fatimah Tuggar

And yes, that is my surprisingly sexy voice on the audio guide that you can download here.  (Scroll to the bottom of this page to click on the link.)  Once again, this is the work of the insanely talented Juline who edited the audio guide and managed to make me sound so hot!

Go vinyl!  Keep spinning us all around in 2011!

La Tour Eiffel pour maman

Resting up today after a wonderful Christmas celebration with our families.  It is a rare snowy day in Durham, NC.  I'm holed up inside, trying to stay warm and recover from excessive mimosa drinking.

I didn't make many handmade gifts this year. The one piece that I did make was an embroidered Eiffel Tower pillow for my mother.

Back in 2000, my mother and I took a magical trip to Paris and Barcelona.  We spent 10 days together, just the two of us.  I had so much fun spoiling her, handling every transaction, ordering for her in restaurants and cafes, negotiating our way around Paris with my hesitant French.

I remember waking up one afternoon from a nap and my mother was lying the in bed next to me, smiling, watching me sleep.  She said she was just enjoying watching her beautiful daughter sleep and that she was so proud of me.

My elegant mom in Paris

Another time, in Barcelona, I went back to the hotel to rest and my mother stayed out, visiting museums and shops.  When she came back to the hotel she told me that, on a whim, she stopped into a Giacometti exhibition, because she loves sculpture and because she wanted to be like me, open to art and experiences in unexpected ways.  She told me that, being with me in Europe, she understood how I saw the world and she appreciated and admired what she called my "free spirit" in a way that she never had back home.

I never felt as close to my mother as I did on that trip.  We laughed and confessed and roamed around the cities.  My mother's first language is Spanish, but somehow I wound up doing the talking in Spain.  It was such a treat to bring her into my world and her openness moved me immensely.

I made this embroidery from a pattern in A Rainbow of Stitches.  A flag waves from the Eiffel Tower - it reads, "I love Mom."  The sewing on the pillow is a little rudimentary.  I found a fleure-dis-lis fabric. I'm not a confident machine sewer, yet, despite having a beautiful machine.

Luna and me in my father's study

This was a lovely Christmas.  I think you can see how happy I am in this photo of me and my exhausted baby dog Luna.  Family is complicated.  Sometimes things just work out right.

Shazam!

My little plush babies Eva and Mika find themselves watching an amazing fireworks display created by the fabulous Mo Fine.

I love this photo because it represents a collaboration of three of the most important people in my life: Me, who made Eva and Mika (hey, being important to myself was hard earned), Rico, the love of my life and photographer extraordinaire who so lovingly photographs so much of my work, and Mo, little pixie genius of Seattle, who worked her Photoshop magic to put my babies in is sea of fireworks.

Eva is my first ever handmade plush creature.  When I look at her, my heart breaks. I remember how excited I was when I saw her coming together.  I couldn't believe I was making a creature with my own hands that so captured my love and sense of play. The possibilities seemed endless.

Here she is without her head.

You know that you love your creatures when, even without their heads, they are beautiful to you.

Beware: Pixie Messenger Bags found in the woods

Pixies have been leaving their little messenger bags in the woods behind my house!

This is the bag that every stylish Pixie grabs before she sets out on one of her troublemaking adventures!  Inside is an official Pixie Journal where the little trickster plots her fiendish schemes.

 

A little secret... I am totally obsessed with my own version of pixies, which I call O’Pixies.  I have an entire fictional world constructed (in my mind and in my notebooks) about the O’Pixies Universe, including details for each of the six tribes that I created.  The little people are complicated and at times dark…

The O’Pixies take up such a large place in my imagination that it is almost hard to sort out all of the projects, stories and items that I want to create for them. It is actually overwhelming!  I will write more about the O’Pixies as the project continues, but for now, here are some of their tiny bags.

The Pixie Messenger Bags are a version of the my Ornamental Joy - Tiny Handbags pattern, the same pattern that I've used to make Mrs. Claus' Date Night Handbag and many other types of little wool purses.  I knit them and then felt them in the washing machine. 

I’ve made dozens of Ornamental Joy bags in various versions over the years. I've sold most of them at Center Fest in Durham or at my OJ Designs partner Juline’s Arts Education conferences.  They are a quick, fun way to use of scraps of yarn and other embellishments like beads and buttons.  Some people use them as Christmas ornaments, but I keep them around all through the year.

For these Pixie Messenger Bags, I embroidered little wool/rayon felt cloud faces and used a pastel pencil to give them rosy cheeks.  I embroidered around the handles in silver DMC floss.

I especially like the little snouty nose on this cloud’s face.

A proper tutorial is in the works for my blog.  The pattern was originally published in String Thing Theory, which my fiber arts group String Thing published on lulu.com, but if anyone wants a copy of the pattern, please just let me know and I'm happy to send it. It is super simple.

But, be very careful with O’Pixies. They have a dangerous streak. Next to the little bags I found piles of tiny bones, some hair that looked suspiciously like Rico's and at least one tooth that was decidedly human. That is all I’m going to say.