crafty mcgee

Year of the Golden Fire Pig!

Happy 4704! I knitted this guy based on a pattern in this book, out of some out of some yarn in a fiery colorway that just showed up in my stash. I added the wings because not only is this a Fire Pig year, it is also a Golden Year, a most auspicious event that turns up every 600 years or so (like, when pigs fly). I learned this from a commenter on Stephanie's pig post about a month ago. I did a little research on Golden years, and there seems to be a bit of controversy as to whether this is actually one or not. I guess it's easy to lose track after 4500+ years, but it still sounds dramatic! The Pig  force is strong in my family - I am an Earth Pig, my brother Craig is a Metal Pig, and our dad was a Wood Pig. In yet another series of cosmic coincidences, our mom, our brother, Craig's wife, and my son are all Tigers.  It's supposedly going to be a great year for them. Hope so, and hope you all have a great one, too!

Taking out the dog(s)

I've been thinking of a boy & his dog vignette for a while. I thought it would be appropriate to post it today for the last weekend of the Year of the Dog. The other dogs are from my grandma's collection of stuff that she passed on to me a few years ago. She had a dog, but I don't think she was ever particularly fond of them. She just had a bunch of small ones.

This is the first piece that I used Stitch Witchery reprodepot carries it) and it works great! Much better than glue, the edges don't fray anymore. I remember having this stuff around as a kid, but I thought they had stopped making it.

A Garden's Octopus

It's Stormar, Scourge of the Slugs! If this guy looks familiar, it's because his incredibleness is all due to futuregirl. In addition to the amazing Sigmund, there are also a bunch of happy Octophrost Christmas ornaments about in the world. She is going to be selling the pattern on her blog, and asked me to test out the pattern. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. Not only is it a great looking pattern, I guarantee you'll learn an extra trick or two to use in your own crafting. Thanks for the opportunity, Alice!

It's Saturday!

This picture has nothing to do with anything, it just seems like a Saturday type of scene. Saturday is usually my "no computer" day, but I had a couple of things to take care of and I did promise I would post every other day, so I'll just give a little internet update of the things I've found this week.

I live in the city of Seattle, and I've actually been to the store, but I consider it a blessing that I always completely forget about Velocity until other folks post about things like this.

It's not really my style but Forest Rogers' dolls are so pretty. Thanks for the link, Mimi.

I recently saw a really interesting animated movie called Blood Tea and Red String. I won't even try to describe the film, and it's not for everyone (there is NO dialog, and the story can be alternately too slow or too confusing), but the artist who made the film Christiane Cevaske, made all the dolls and set pieces herself, and that alone made it great for me.

I'm working on several projects right now, so I'm back to work. I'll leave you with this picture.  It just makes me smile.

Sprout

It's this week's Illustration Friday topic, but it is also the first piece I've made for an idea I have. I have some old embroidered hankies, some pieces of my grandmothers, some  things I've gotten in swaps, as well as some interesting old iron on patterns (which I'll show on a different day), all with a botanical theme. I would like to put them altogether in a hybrid crazy/pieced quilt. I've never seen anything quite like what I'm imagining, but that's never stopped me before. Right now it's just a sprout of a plan.

Hints of color

I heart my new camera! It picks up subtle colors so well, as you can see in the picture of our winter flower, hellebore. It was a rainy weekend, so I didn't keep my camera outside too long (a habit I'm sure will change with time), but I did find out that it can also take amazing macro shots

like this witch hazel. It's a tiny blossom. The garden catalogs are starting to trickle in. While I'm fairly happy with the "woodland" part of my garden, the flower bed was mostly a bust last year. I think that I plant things in lovely decorative clumps like you see in the photos, but it doesn't ever work out quite right. Maybe this year I'll do one of those maps. I'm also looking to plant another tree somewhere in my yard. A branch blew off a tree and dented my neighbors roof, so of course they had to cut down all of the trees in their yard for revenge. (Do you see me rolling my eyes?) There were probably four or five of them, all different sizes. So I'll do my bit to offset their foolishness. I also heart trees...a lot.

Valentine Preview

It's not one of my favorite holidays - and it's nearly two weeks away - but I stilled joined Amy's swap and have spent the last few days working on it. I decided to make ATC's that look like little envelopes. I wasn't sure if the horizontal format was OK, but went for it anyway. I embroidered some handkerchief fabric that I got from Reprodepot. It was a little pricey, but I had a gift certificate (thanks Dale!) so I didn't feel so guilty. I like the way they turned out. Check out the flickr set if you want to seem them all finished, as well as some other folks great submissions. We were also tasked with sending "treats" for this round, so I embroidered still more valentine fabric and made these button sets:

7/8"! I'm thinking I need to make something extra large soon, lest my work get so tiny that I have to ship out magnifying glasses to my readers.

How do you like my new bland blog look? I was getting real tired of the old banner, and couldn't think of a new one just now. The fancier one may come back....someday.

Full Moon on Groundhog Day

I could have sworn that's what the calendar said when I blearily flipped over the calendar to the new month this morning. What an evocative phrase! It conjured up visions of true groundhog romance, so I spent the day at work (multitasking while actually working, we're very busy) planning this little image. The guy with the flowers was from last year's post, but I stitched up his sleepy paramour this evening. Shadow or no, they will be sailing away together under the full moon.

Here's the part where I promise (again) to be a better blogger. I realize I'm part of a pretty big crowd caught in the post-holiday slog, but still... Ann Wood made a promise to post every day, and stuck to it! I know better than to set myself for that sure failure, but I hereby pledge that starting on Sunday, and for at least the rest of the month, I will post every other day. I got a new camera and have been itching to put it through its paces, so I can show some photos if nothing else.

One thing I've discovered while blog slacking is that it is impossible to do any kind of detailed work while catching up with Lost on DVD. The story is convoluted, but I can watch foreign films while stitching and keep up! The problem must be the other distractions.

It turns out the calendar only said "full moon" with a moon sign, and "groundhog day" underneath it, and my sleepy eyes added an "n", but it set off an inspiring day (lots of other ideas coming soon). Here's to occasional misreading!