Bullion knots

Yesterday I finally learned how to do a bullion knot. I watched the video at Needlenthread.com about 50 times before I felt brave enough. I tore it out at least five times before I was satisfied, and this is what I ended up with. I'm a little unhappy that the seeds in the apple are so uneven, but overall, I am proud of the way they turned out. I definitely will need to work harder at them before I will ever be able to list anything with them in it. I love the look though.

Today my goal is to clean my house. My hours got cut at work, so here I am sitting on my butt 2-3 days a week. I definitely need to be more productive, so my goal is to pick up and vacuum. I also need to do some laundry and finish some embroidery. I'm working on a trio of ties with a different pattern on each one.

Tea towels

I want to branch out! I really want to embroider on tea towels. The issue here being is that no one has ever posted pictures of the backs of their tea towels. I'm not sure how to go about finishing my embroidery so it'll stand up to the use that tea towels get. I'm a little afraid to spend the money to buy tea towels, then embroider on them, then have them fall apart when I try to wash them.

Advice, anyone? I will probably end up just forging ahead if I can find a good enough price online, to be honest. Hobby Lobby has them 2 for $5 and surely there's a cheaper way online.

My husband likes to tease me

He says my latest piece looks like the twitter bird. Mostly I think he is just being bitter because he hates twitter and I have one. I can't help it if I need desperately to update people on every aspect of my life! I don't think it looks like the twitter bird! I think it's beautiful. Definitely one of my favorite things that I've made.

We are a very lucky couple lately. My etsy shop seems to be taking off with a few sales this week. I managed to keep my job when half of the staff was laid off. Yesterday my husband's company laid off a handful of people, but my husband hung on. I am so grateful for everything that we have. We are really very blessed.

I'm excited!

Today at work, I kept getting a lot of e-mails informing me more people had added me on twitter. I couldn't figure out why, because I didn't remember pimping out my twitter link anytime recently. I got home from work to find out that this flower piece I made was featured on Feeling Stitchy! I am so psyched. I have been stalking that blog since before I started doing embroidery. They always feature the most gorgeous work. I'm absolutely flattered.

Tossing it out

Sometimes I just don't like what I've made. This, for example. I loved the picture I based it off of, but when it came to filling in the tree bits, I couldn't find a way to make it nice. I tried a couple of different stitches before I settled on the satin stitch. I don't like how jagged it looks on the edges. I'm putting this piece down for a bit. I need a break from it, because it's ticking me off. I might try adding a border later, if I can get around to picking it up again.

In the mean time, my dog, Olive, is driving me insane. She has this pink ball that she absolutely loves. We love it too, because she can't manage to destroy it. She usually chews everything to pieces. Olive loves this too TOO much though. She keeps bringing it to us. I swear, the other day I threw it for a solid two hours. I didn't even realize I'd thrown it at long until I noticed that the movie I was watching was over. She brings this ball to us 24/7 and I swear, one of these days, I'm throwing it away!

Out of white

Isn't it the absolute worst when you are so close to finishing, but you don't have the color you need? All I need is white to finish up this dandelion.

Forgive my terrible picture. I just needed to complain so I took one very quickly.

First attempt at applique

Now that I'm off teaching for the summer, I have a lot more time to get embroidering and try new things. This is my first attempt using fabric with my stitching and I think I love it!

I'm so bad at updating

I'm nonstop talking about myself in LJ, you'd think I'd be a master here.

Anyway, this is an item I made for a friend's birthday. She loves this book and talks about it nonstop, so I figured it was perfect for her. I need to find the perfect frame for it.