Spock

Here's the next in my series of "Coworkers' Dogs" needle felting: Spock the corgi. This Spock was actually a gift for a friend of mine who does not own him, but has a dog-crush on him and has him on her Facebook profile picture and iPhone wallpaper... Such things happen when people bring their dogs to work every day.






Me, I want to steal one of the other work corgis, but she never comes to the office anymore. :(

Infestation

So a few months ago, there were these tiny black bugs in my house. I'd find them in the morning near the cat food and cat litter, but I couldn't find a source. I keep my house clean, darnit, and I vacuum at least weekly.

One day my friend was over and I started ranting about the bugs. I found one to show her and she identified it as a grain weevil. After checking my pantry items for bugs and not finding anything, I remembered that my cat litter is made of corn... and there was a litter box upstairs that the cats hadn't been using, so I hadn't touched it for a while (just glances to confirm the continuing absence of poop).

Well, let's just say I found where the weevils were coming from.

I made this for the friend!

Loretta

Loretta is another work doggie. She is obsessed with food and getting her belly scratched. I tried to make a little felt Loretta. Her back markings aren't accurate but her dad seems pleased with the results :)

As for me I think it took me way too long for a somewhat amateurish end product. I think I made it a bit too small. I also used a rough core wool with roving laid over top for the first time and found it a bit harder to sculpt. (I was running out of brown roving...) I also didn't have a big enough fabric scrap for her little bandanna so the ends are a bit frayed as I couldn't hem them. It'll be fine as long as it isn't manhandled too much!

Chula

Lots of people bring their dogs to work. The bestest dog is my friend's puppy Chula. She's a boxer/American Bulldog mix and she's a sweetheart. Her only flaw is that she loves dogs way more than people so she pays no attention to me if other dogs are around. Anyway I thought I would make her owner a little felt Chula.

Chula is not allowed to play with her mini-me because she would just eat it.

Still Alive (I'm doing SCIENCE and I'm)

I've been having a busy time and haven't felt relaxed enough to create anything. I added a few stitches to my sampler and that's about it. It would help if there were TV shows on that I wanted to watch... but lately TV is just boring me, so I've been playing video games.

Fable III: unfortunately disappointing even though I avoided having any expectations other than "I liked Fable II, so this should be fun too!"

Community differences

A lesson relearned this weekend is that the crafting community is sorta nicer than the video game community. Crafters will generally be positive and offer constructive criticism, while video game fans are likely to tell you that your video game is the worst game ever and also, you are ugly.

One guy thought I was hot though, so it's all good ;)

Embroidery attempts

So, embroidery is another thing I am trying. I have long intended to teach myself... it... oh god my grammar... anyway, so of course I already have a big stash of embroidery thread and have had it for years. In my defense, I acquired most of it probably almost 20 years ago, so I could make friendship bracelets and cross-stitch at Girl Guide camp, and I used some of it when I did hair-wrapping back when I was 19... oh god, I'm a hoarder. I swear it's restricted to craft supplies, and they are all in tidy boxes or, uh, bags. I think. Um, where was I? (The embroidery floss still looks great after 15-20 years in a plastic bag! it's in a nice kit box now though)

So, I figured I should make some sort of sampler. Here are some stitch practice things.



Satin stitch is always what I sort of wanted to do, like painting with thread, but I never bothered trying to do it properly. This time I did and it's coming out a bit better.



I thought that for subject matter, I could try to embroider my own doodles. They're kind of patterny and I thought they'd be cool done in just black on white. I thought it would be original. I have this perfectionism-related problem doing anything I think has been "done before". I feel like it's some kind of art failure on my part and that someone would also accuse me of theft and unoriginality.



I started embroidering this:


A little while later I was browsing around some embroidery blogs and found this post on Mary Corbet's Needle and Thread (which is a cool site, lots of tutorial videos): Blackwork Fish

She doodled a patterny fish and embroidered it in blackwork... It's stunningly intricate and beautiful.
I now feel guilty of psychic unoriginality :(
maybe I should embroider it in just BLUE on white... that's totally different, right? And it keeps the feel of the pen doodle :)