a needlework vulva! no, really!

ohmygoodness, it's been over a month.

time is going by so fast! i never seem to have enough time (or more accurately, energy) for all the things i want to make, and all the posts i want to write. and now xmas is coming!

so what have i been up to?

i mentioned a while ago that i was moving. that took FOREVER, i was in the process of moving for most of september and october. i can't carry heavy stuff, or much of anything, really, so i was totally dependent on others to help. that meant i moved on their schedule, not mine. and because i didn't have to be out of my old place (at my parent's) by a set date, no one wanted to move in the rain. perfectly understandable, except that it's fall in the lower mainland - it never freaking stops raining!

and of course, i've been immersed in house stuff whenever i had the energy, finding furniture, thrift store shopping, finding the perfect fabric for curtains, etc. i'm excited to put it all together, but that too is going slower than i'd like.

and i agreed to make a dress for a friend, which started out as an "easy" pattern and turned into the dress from hell, taking up all my energy for over a week. it turned out beautiful though, i'll post pics as soon as i get them.



and one thing i've discovered in my new place is that unless i get a laptop, i'm never going to get anything done! i find myself curled up on my new (to me) couch, wrapped in my leopard print fleece blanket (grey and purple spots), stitching away in front of my fireplace. i think about getting up and going to the computer in the other room, but i never seem to get there!

i've been working on lots of little cross stitch projects, and a hand embroidery piece that i was honestly starting to think was never going to end - now that i've finished the back stitch and moved onto satin stitch, it's moving much faster.

i'll post pics of the cross stitch pieces soon, but first i want to post about my project for the Phat Quarter NSFW swap i did back in october. i had a lot of ideas for this swap, and a really hard time narrowing it down (there are several i still want to do for myself). once i latched onto this idea, i knew it was perfect.



this isn't a new idea, i actually made a few vulva pillows years ago, and posted them on my very old livejournal. and i made another for a swap on craftster 3 or 4 years ago, which probably didn't get posted anywhere.

for this one, rather than a pillow, i made a wall hanging. i asked my partner what colours she liked best, how her house was decorated, etc, and she said she loved the colour green. i went to my favourite independent fabric store and searched for green fabrics. this one is a upholstery fabric, and it worked really well. i've used knits for this before, which gives them a more cartoony look, but for this one, i didn't want that. this material was sturdy and tightly woven, and has a napped texture for extra interest.


it's biologically accurate, though obviously the scale's a little off!


i actually really love how it reminds me of gardens. you know, those fancy gardens where everything is sculpted?


the clitoris is a bead, and i have once again forgotten the name of it! i went back to the Upstart Crow and we figured it out, because i forgot it once, and now i've forgotten it again. regardless, it's a very pretty bead, and the mossy green tones in it match perfectly.

the basic technique used on these is a form of trapunto quilting, though stuffed much more than trapunto is traditionally stuffed. i machine stitch a backing fabric onto the face fabric, along set lines that form the various pieces.


after the stitching is done, i cut small holes in the backing fabric, and carefully stuff each section and hand stitch it shut. this is the smallest version i've ever done, and it was definitely more of a challenge to get the thin lines stuffed! (i shouldn't have taken the picture like this - i don't use a frame for the stuffing, etc)


after it's all stuffed, i put it into the frame, and baste around the outside. i trim the excess fabric, and gather the edges to the back.


and then i hand stitched a piece of felt that i'd previously embroidered, to make the back neat and tidy. (the felt isn't really wonky, my photoshop skills are! i edited out my name, and i'm better at needlework than at photoshop!)


i was really happy with how it turned out. and i really love the frame i used, it's basically a piece of rubber that fits over a hard plastic oval. you used to see them, but i don't think they're being produced anymore. i've found a few in thrift stores (one's woodgrain! so awesome!), and recently discovered that a local store is selling old stock of them (huraay for dressew!), but i'd really like more of the larger ones. i have a project planned out, and i need more size variety. so if you see any of the 8x10ish ones in thrift stores, pick it up for me! i'll trade you smaller ones (or cash, whatever ;))

sticks and stones can break my bones

this is my second piece for the craftster.org needlework "good cause" challenge. it's actually my back up piece, in case i didn't finish the never ending needlepoint piece. it's good, because i totally didn't!


i embroidered this first because it's something that i want to hang in my house. i want to remind myself, and to remind others in my life, that words can be as incredibly hurtful as other kinds of abuse, and to take care.

i remember as a kid, the phrase "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me". i sincerely hope kids aren't still learning that, but when i was a kid, we didn't talk about bullying and the cruelty of children. when i started school, my dad told me that if a boy bothered me "punch him in the nose" (i don't think i ever did, though as i grew older, i realized a groin shot would be more effective anyway! ;)) but we never learned how to deal with the emotional cruelty, you know?

i was a super sensitive kid, i cried at EVERYTHING, and got teased all the time, and even more so when i started to cry! it got to the point that by my early teens, i'd trained myself to never cry in front of anyone else - even if it was totally acceptable (like a sad movie). i don't really know how things would have been any different if we'd talked more about it in the 80s, but i wonder.

i really wanted to embroider this piece for the domestic violence theme because i think emotional abuse can sometimes be overlooked. i think survivors of emotional abuse are often the first ones to do that. i was in a common law relationship for several years that was really messed up, when i look back on it now. it took me over a year to stop hearing my ex's voice in my head putting me down, even though i realized soon after we split that it wasn't really ME thinking those things. friends have come out and called the relationship abusive, but i still shy from that. i don't think he was intentionally trying to hurt me or to control my actions, i think he had a lot of his own emotional problems, and we were really unsuited. is it still abuse if it isn't intentional? i'm also uncomfortable calling it abuse because it doesn't seem "as bad" as other people's stories of physical or sexual abuse, which i know is totally contradictory to what i'm saying here. but that's how it goes, you know? rationally, i know that emotional abuse can leave long reaching scars, and for some people, may be more damaging than other kinds of abuse. but emotionally it's a different story.

coming out of the relationship i realized that both my physical and mental had been affected by the relationship, and even now, years later, i still struggle with things that go back to that period in my life.

so this is what i embroidered


the words are a simple font, i wanted them to look almost childlike. (i'll edit this with the actual name later, i have to look it up!) they're simple backstitch, and the heart is satin stitch with two different shades of pink.





once again, comments and criticism are totally welcome, and the pics are on flickr, so if you'd like to see them bigger, just click on them.

the deceptive beauty of breast cancer

it's been pretty quiet lately, huh? that's cause everything i've been working on has been secret!

over on craftster, kittykill announced the october needlework challenge, the Good Cause Challenge. i immediately decided to make a piece or two, and this is the first one. i've been waiting not so patiently for the 18th, thinking that entries could be posted then, only to realize today that i COULD have posted this back on the 12th! thank goodness i checked tonight, because today was the last day to enter!


my original plan for this piece was an anatomical image of a breast with a lump, much like the pregnancy anatomical image i embroidered a few months ago. breasts are incredibly complex, and i love all the lines that make up the images.

i started googling for images, and ran across an entirely different anatomical image - the breast cancer cells themselves. though i continued searching for the breast images, i kept coming back to the cells. they were so BEAUTIFUL, and i was really challenged by the idea of a more 3-D needlework piece, since i usually work on flat surfaces of fabric.

i started thinking about how as a society we idealize beautiful breasts, regardless of what may be hidden inside them. a pair of slightly droopy mom of 3 breasts are seen as less beautiful and less valued than a pair of young perky 20 year old breasts, regardless of actual health. you usually can't tell from the surface if someone has breast cancer, which is why self exams are so important.

and this is what i came up with.



this ended up being smaller than i'd originally planned, because gathering up the bobbles took WAY more fabric than i'd anticipated! i bought half a metre of fabric, about 19", and the piece ended up being 5.5" tall and 10" or 11" wide. i used a stretch velvet because i wanted that slight sheen, the variance in tone dependent on light, that velvet has. i used sewing thread to hand stitch circles on the fabric, then pulled them up tight and stuffed them with fiberfill. i didn't have any fiberfill, but i did have a pillow form - this piece took almost all of a 12"x12" pillowform's stuffing! it took a really really long time, so much longer than i'd anticipated!

after i had all the cells complete, i hand basted the velvet onto a piece of cotton, basting between the cells to keep the surface consistent (the cells had a tendency to pop out everywhere!).

i used dmc tapestry wool, colour 7896, for the french knots. i printed out the image and took it with me when i went shopping, and this was the closest i could get between dmc and anchor. i looked at embroidery floss, and at the possibility of using beads instead of the french knots. the embroidery floss was too shiny, and would have made knots that were smaller in proportion to the cells than i wanted, and the same thing went for the beads.

because i was using wool, but working with a fabric that i would need to pierce, i used chenille needles that were thick enough to thread the wool onto, but sharp enough to pierce the fabric (unlike typical needlepoint needles).

i find french knots easy (don't throw stuff at me! i'm sorry!! ;D), so that part of it was fine, but getting the wool through the "cells" was a whole different story! after an evening that left me with severely bruised and callused fingers, i dug out my locking pliers and used them to get the needle through. in some areas it was going through countless layers of fabric and fiberfill, the gathering of the bubbles/cells created a lot of excess fabric around the bases of them!



with the flash, the colour is a little less accurate. it looks more blue here than green.






and the back, with the title stem stitched across.

i had bought all the skiens of tapestry wool that my local needlework shop had, and used the majority of them for the front. i decided to use a lighter shade for the words, so that i could do as many french knots on the front as possible!


i also did a little flower design, to tie the two purple shades together and to add detail to the upper and lower portions. i used french knots there as well, and back stitch for the curlicues.

i'd like to do more french knots on the sides, the areas that aren't visible from the front, once my local needlework shop gets in more wool of this colour.

after both sides were done, i machine stitched the two long sides of the pillow. i had to use my sister's industrial machine, mine refused to stitch it! i stuffed the pillow, and ended up hand stitching the short ends because it was impossible to get the sewing machine foot close enough to the bubbles/cells.


and this is the image that inspired it all -

Credit: Annie Cavanagh. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
images.wellcome.ac.uk
A cluster of breast cancer cells showing visual evidence of programmed cell death (apoptosis).
Scanning electron micrograph


definitely go check out the other entries in the challenge too! i haven't had a chance to comment on them yet, but they're all wonderful! voting starts tomorrow, and goes until october 25th.

saying pimp doesn't make you sound cool.....

though this piece is the one that started my recent spate of political pieces, and is one that i've been planning since at least january, and am very proud of, it's also the hardest one to blog about.

i love the craft and DIY movement/community. i really do. but that doesn't mean that i don't see problems in it, that i approve of everything that people do and say and make. people who prefer not to think about problems and unfairness and mistreatment and oppression accuse those of us who do, lefties, socialists, etc, of always picking things apart and complaining about minor issues. it's easier to label things minor than it is to admit how they relate to the bigger picture. and i think we DO pick things apart, and complain about smaller parts of the whole, but honestly, we do it out of love. we do it BECAUSE we care, because we can see how things can be improved, how the world that we love can be even better, how those small things are indicative of larger problems.

i have always believed that crafting is inherently political. that's the whole point of the DIY movement, isn't it? (at least, the original DIY movement, maybe not so much the new commercialized version!) crafting is about not being like everyone else, by creating one of a kind items, about creating with your own two hands, about opting out of the capitalist shopping malls, about valuing work that has traditionally been done by those whose labour hasn't been valued, about celebrating your vision, about getting your message out in a creative way.

as the crafting movement becomes bigger and more mainstream, we start to lose the politics of it, and that's disturbing. but what i find even more disturbing, when you take away the craft aspect of it, is the number of people who care so little about the world around them. even if you don't see crafting as political, what about your responsibility as a human being, a global citizen, whatever? what about being a decent person?

i really worried that people would feel that this piece was targeting them. while i can see how some people may feel that, it's really in response to a growing trend. i see the word pimp used entirely too often in our community. craftster.org members organize "pimp your ________" swaps all the time, etsy users "pimp" their shops, there's a craft business and blog with the word pimp in their name, major craft blogs use the term pimp, and when readers comment that it's not an appropriate word to use, they respond with the definition has changed, such a 'pimp my ride'. frankly, i'm not sure when we started looking to MTV as an ethical guide in our lives!

so as much as i was concerned about hurt feelings by posting this publicly, at the same time, i think the old slogan is pretty damn accurate -

if you feel attacked by feminism (or this embroidery piece), it's probably a counter attack!



now you're saying, but amy, what about reclaiming words? aren't you all about that? and I AM! i've posted about that before, with my queer cross stitch piece, and the fabulous fat bag.

while i'm all for reclaiming words that have historically been used in a negative way against you, the word pimp is NOT a word that has historically been used against an oppressed group.

words have power. words are SO freaking powerful. remember as kids "sticks and stones can break my bones, but names can never hurt me"? what about "sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart"? changing your language is an incredibly powerful political act. refusing to use or promote oppressive language, THINKING about what the words you say mean, those things lead to so much more. your language is something that YOU can control, regardless of what laws are passed, what funding is unavailable, what stupid thing a politician did, regardless of how much time or money you have available to volunteer and get involved. your language affects your thoughts, and those of the people around you. it's a small thing, but something that can have a huge impact throughout your life.

and that's why it disturbs me so much to see oppressive words celebrated in our community.


pimp is a word used to DESCRIBE the oppression and mistreatment of (mostly) female sex workers. it is a word that reeks of misogyny and hatred, that calls to mind physical, emotional and sexual abuse. it refers to a system of sex work in western culture that perpetrates abuse and murder of underprivileged people, that consistently devalues the labour of sex workers, that takes away the freedom and self worth of human beings, that traps people who are engaging in survival sex in endless loops, that encourages the control of "lower class" citizens.


and it has some seriously fucked up racial issues too. when you hear the word pimp, especially this time of year, what image comes to mind? if you google image search the word, what comes up? racialized stereotypical images of men of colour, dressed in fur coats with lots of "bling" and huge afros. or, white guys dressed up as black guys, with absolutely no thought to how gross it is to dress that way.


when people talk about advertising their etsy shops, about decorating their cubicles at work, about an embroidery pattern, about crafting in general, there's no place for the word pimp. really, there's not.



and i know there are going to be folks who say, oh, but the etymology! pimp is believed to have stemmed from the French infinitive pimper meaning to dress up elegantly and from the present participle pimpant meaning alluring in dress seductive.

so what!?

there are, unfortunately, words and images which take on negative connotations that cannot be removed. the swastika was once used as a christian cross, but now has the connotation of Nazism.

we CANNOT decide to remove the hateful connotations from words and images simply because we don't like them. that's not how the world works.


and thus, this piece.




completely off the political topic, and onto the embroidery itself....

this piece uses stem stitch, back stitch, french knots, and chain stitch.


as i was doing the french knots, i was asking myself whatever possessed me to chose them... and thanking myself for choosing to use them on the shortest word!


i wrote out the phrase in a word file, choosing different fonts for each part.


the orange stem stitched words are "tall paul", pimp is "curlz mt", cool is arnprior, and ignorant is "goudy stout".

now for some non-political needlework....

i still have one more political embroidery piece left to post, and truly, it's my masterpiece - the one that started them all, AND the one that took the longest to do.

however, lets have a break from the ranting for a day, shall we?

i did this piece while i was in manitoba, and i haven't quite decided what to do with it yet. i originally thought i'd frame it, but then i discovered that it didn't fit in the frames i painted, so now i'm contemplating a pillow instead. we'll see.

i stitched it on this fabulous white cotton moire that i found at a thrift store. you can't see it very well in the photo, but it is pretty awesome. the problem with it was that it's so thin, even with stabilizer, my stitches really pulled and now it's all wrinkly, unfortunately. i need to learn to relax my stitching a bit.

the design came from Urban Threads. i fell in love with the machine embroidery design right off the bat, but the file is too big to fit in my 4"x4" hoop. so sad! during their big sale a few months ago i decided to buy the hand embroidery version at least.


the banner and words are backstitch, as are the outlines of the birds. i used chain stitch for the detail of the birds, and french knots for their eyes. the spool of thread is chain stitch, the thread itself is stem stitch, and the needles are satin stitch.


the upper bird is dmc 825 and j&p coats 7162 and the needles are dmc 318.


the thread is dmc 600 and the spool is an unknown purple. the banner is another unknown colour, and the text is dmc 946.


the lower bird is dmc 995 and dmc 312.


(excuse the stain on the left side - my iron did that! i forgot that it has started staining whenever you use the steam. anyone know how to fix it?)

zinesters do it for love! - opinion based cross stitch/embroidery

more of my political/opinionated needlework pieces!




this piece was inspired by a few things.

the first, and the main, inspiration for this is something that i've been seeing for quite a while, and something that's been bugging me for quite a while. i've been in love with zines since i first discovered them in the early 90s, and the advent of internet shops seems to have changed what people think they're about.

ZINES ARE NOT A MONEY MAKING VENTURE.

i'm sorry, but no. that is not the freaking purpose of making a zine. zines are made for the love of it, to get your words out there, to create communities, to share experiences and knowledge.

it's generally agreed that zines originated in the 1930s, started by science fiction fans. (think depression era fanfic!) wikipedia explains current day zines nicely -
A zine (an abbreviation of the word fanzine, or magazine; pronounced /ˈziːn/ "zeen") is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier on a variety of colored paper stock.

A popular definition includes that circulation must be 5,000 or less, although in practice the significant majority are produced in editions of less than 100, and profit is not the primary intent of publication.

Zines are written in a variety of formats, from computer-printed text to comics to handwritten text (an example being Cometbus). Print remains the most popular zine format, usually photo-copied with a small circulation. Topics covered are broad, including fanfiction, politics, art and design, ephemera, personal journals, social theory, single topic obsession, or sexual content far enough outside of the mainstream to be prohibitive of inclusion in more traditional media. The time and materials necessary to create a zine are seldom matched by revenue from sale of zines. Small circulation zines are often not explicitly copyrighted and there is a strong belief among many zine creators that the material within should be freely distributed.

this one is even better, borrowed from the microcosm website, who borrowed it from Chris Landry - "Zines are the best expression of the d.i.y. ethics of the punk rock subculture. While bands can be co-opted into the mainstream and the music scene continues to be male-dominated and increasingly a-political, zines have been keeping it true. Zines take the profit and fame motive out of artistic expression and focus on communication, expression and community for their own sake. Zines are the one truly democratic art form. Zine writers are the most important writers in the world."

(emphasis mine in both quotes)

and now you're wondering, but amy, i thought you were the one who was all gung ho about valuing the work of crafters and artisans and writers and stuff by paying living wages for the goods they produce? i totally am! BUT NOT with zines. if folks want to put out a self published book of some sort with a profit-based price tag, that is AWESOME, good for them. just don't call it a freaking zine! in addition to not devaluing the work of people, we ALSO need to be careful not to devalue important and neccessary opportunities for people's voices to be heard and the cultural significance of zine making and true DIY culture.

this is partly due to people not doing their research, and making themselves a chapbook and then saying "hey, i think i've heard the word zine before, i'll call it that!" without having any clue about the history of zines. and it's partly due to things like the super annoying fact that etsy uses the term incorrectly all the freaking time (i have a pet peeve about etsy's search engine, can you tell?). there ARE some amazing zinesters selling on etsy, but it's bloody hard to find them mixed in with all the not-real-zines!

so yeah. zines are made for the love of it, NOT for profit. (i do believe that art zines can be a little bit more expensive, cause hey, they're way pricier to print with colour, etc. but still, NOT FOR PROFIT folks!)


(and on the same kinda note - overcharging on shipping zines totally sucks too. when mailing internationally, you DO NOT need to take the damn thing to the post office, it's PAPER. stick a stamp on it and drop it into the mail box. if you're worried, write "pamphlet" on the envelope, like people have been doing for 20 years. it's not hard.)


and the second inspiration, which is much more mellow, was those awesome 70s ringer tees with the glittery slick iron ons with phrases like "teachers do it with class", "football players do it in the end zone", "seniors do it better", etc. i found one for a friends years ago that said "musicians do it with rhythm", and i've loved them ever since. (there seem to be a lot of remakes of these, judging by google image search, but unless they're glittery, they don't count!)



i tried something a little different for this - i wanted to cross stitch the words, but i didn't have waste canvas small enough. i also wanted it to be a little less perfect than cross stitch usually is. so i used a cross stitch font! the font is called Home Sweet Home, and it's from 1001fonts.com. i typed it out in a word document, 42 point size, and then trimmed a piece of tear away stabilizer to 8.5"x11" and printed it right onto the stabilizer.

it was so freaking easy, i don't know why this never occurred to me before! i use tear away stabilizer for a lot of my stitching, because my stitches are so freaking tight that they tend to pull on the fabric if i'm not careful. the stabilizer helps with that,plus, it's way easier to transfer patterns onto than dark fabrics!

after i'd printed the words out, i used a pencil and traced an image of a typewriter on the stabilizer.






that's actually one of my typewriters, i blogged about it when i first got it, ages ago, and i had fooled around with the photo in photoshop awhile ago, making it outlines only, so it was easy to trace. it's mostly all backstitch with 2 strands, except for the keys, which are single strand, and the typebars, which are chain stitch with 2 strands.



i'm pretty happy with it! i LOVE how the purple frame looks with the piece in it!

Mr X Stitch Cross Stitch!

i know, i promised more embroidery posts, didn't i?

i've had a bit of a rough time lately, starting back at work, even for such short days as the ones i'm doing, has completely exhausted me. my fatigue and pain levels have been very high, and by the time i start to write up a blog post (or reply to messages, etc), i'm feeling fairly incoherent.

HOWEVER! i wanted to get this posted as soon as i could!

those of you who follow the Mr X Stitch blog (and if you don't, why aren't you? the eye candy and inspiration is incredible!) will know that it recently celebrated an anniversary. for an entire week they had daily giveaways, and though i managed to miss commenting on about half the posts (which killed me when i realized it, oh i would have loved the emily peacock pattern, i adore her designs!), i DID comment on a few!

and I WON!!! how freaking exciting is that?

the Mr X Stitch team recently announced the release of Mr X Stitch patterns, available at their etsy shop (some are still on their way, i believe).

they have 4 different series available, the Beefranck series, cross stitch full of saucy commentary and blackwork, Kittyzilla’s Internet Meme Series, line embroidery patterns to display your internet coolness, Krupp's robot series, cross stitched robots in fanciful situations, and of course, the original cross stitch graffiti series that drew everyone's attention to Mr X Stitch himself in the first place!

i won my choice of 5 patterns, and let me tell you, it was damn hard to decide!

i wanted a variety, and i wanted patterns that i was likely to actually stitch, so i picked two from Krupp's robot series, the domo-kun/kitten from Kittyzilla’s internet meme series, and two from the original graffiti series, which i can't wait to stitch - i might actually spring for proper framing if i ever managed to complete one of them!

i started stitching the robots immediately, so that i'd be able to show them off (if i'd waited to show one of the graffiti pieces, i'd probably be writing this in 2011, i have such a short attention span!).


i stitched up the Pet Robot pattern first, cause it's so cute. isn't it? aw!



i changed the colours in this one a bit. first off i chose a different red, because as much as i wish i like dmc 666, for the number alone, i really don't! it's such a tomatoey red to me, blegh! so i changed the red to dmc 321, which is probably my favourite true red shade. i stitched the swing and robot first, and once i started on the cage itself, the required thread, dmc 3072, seemed way too light, it didn't show against the white aida cloth very well. (i think it would look FABULOUS on a coloured aida cloth though!) so i switched over to dmc 318, and i liked it much better.



now that it's complete, i'm contemplating ripping out and redoing the swing itself, because it seems like such a GRAY colour rather than the GREY of the cage. (yes, i totally think grey and gray are different colours!) it seems to have more of a brown base, but i might just be being too picky! what do you think?




for my second pieces, i decided to do the robot photobooth pattern. i had to run to the needlework store for it - i thought i had lots of grays, but i didn't have any of the shades required. if you're stitching it, you should note that it used both ddmc AND anchor threads, which i didn't realize until i was at the store looking for dmc 400!

this piece definitely took longer than the pet robot piece, but i love how it turned out. the robots are so cute!



this one was a bit easier to keep track of, because the stitches are all filled in, but at the same time, it was easy to miss a stitch too! it didn't help that i was feeling so crummy while i was stitching it, the math side of cross stitch confuses me at the best of times. (i admittedly screwed up the basting i use to mark the edges TWICE before i even started on the cross stitch itself!)

but it turned out wonderfully.





so, the Mr X Stitch patterns. overall, FABULOUS! they're wonderful. interesting, quirky designs, a fabulous price, fun to stitch.

a few things to be aware of
a) they're in PDF format, and i'm too much of a klutz when it comes to computers to be able to figure out how to resize the embroidery patterns (is there a way? i want to make a smaller domo-kun!)
b) if you're a dmc snob like i am, you might need to buy a few colours in another brand (i don't know if any of the other patterns have multiple brands, or if it's just the one)
c) reading the patterns can take getting used to. i'm accustomed to patterns that are like graphs, with each square drawn in, and these ones aren't like that. and i think if i was doing a larger project, like one of the graffiti pieces, i'd go through the pattern with some markers and colour in the stitches, it's easy to mix up the letters of each colour. i might go through with a ruler and a pencil to lightly draw in lines as well. the patterns DO show the lines for every 10 stitches though.
d) the embroidery patterns don't have recommended floss colours. totally fine if you'd like to pick the colours yourself, but if you're a "completely like the pattern says" kinda folk, you might be frustrated.

but don't let the points get you down! the patterns are AWESOME, and a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Mr X Stitch and the crew for releasing them, and for their 1st birthday!


and of course, THANK YOU! God damn Mr X Stitch, you're a miracle!