Fucking Magic!! pillow

a few weeks ago i came across this blog post by genderbitch posted on questioning transphobia, "Intent! It's Fucking Magic!".

omg, LOVE. for every annoying thing there is about the world of facebook, there are opportunities to be sent links like this one!

first off, i'm pretty political, especially in crafting land, but even more than i come across here. i believe whole heartedly in fighting oppression of all kinds, and i'm always trying to learn and to do more. i invariably end up in conversations about racism or sexism or cissexism or classism or transphobia or ableism or biphobia or any other ism or phobia where people who don't want to learn/accept/admit their privilege try to derail the conversation with whines about "intent".

ohh, but i didn't mean it that way!

tough cookies darlin.
a) half the time you DID mean it that way, you just don't want to admit it (and you may not even be aware that deep down that's how you meant it, but you still meant it).
and b) it doesn't matter how you meant it, it was still an offensive/oppressive thing to say.


so i adored the post because it was brilliantly true.



and second, you may have noticed, but i tend to get a little snarky at times. opening your mouth is considered to be bitchy if you're read as female, especially if you spent your formative years hanging out with queens and certain types of gay boys and inherited a propensity for sass along with your love of menthol cigarettes and false eyelashes.

hence, i love sarcasm. especially good, oh so deserved sarcasm. and oooh, is derailment ever an action deserving of good sarcasm.

pretty much immediately after reading it, i knew the title was a phrase i'd have to stitch. i hauled out my graph paper and charted out the letters, and then paged through a book on blackwork until i found a border i liked.


it's stitched out on green aida cloth that i thrifted a while ago, with dmc 973 for the yellow.


i found this awesome fortrel in my stash that matched both the green and the yellow, and i knew it was fate. it had to be a pillow! (plus, any excuse to use fortrel makes me happy!)

i didn't want just boring straight plaid on the front, so i cut up pieces and crazy quilted them together around the cross stitch.

i backed the aida with green felt, to ensure that no pillow stuffing showed through


i used plain plaid for the back, stitched them up together, stuffed it, and ta da!


i have a pillow to sit on top of my sofa, one pillow closer to my quest to cover the top of my sofa with pillows all great grandma style. (but with more interesting pillows!)




(genderbitch posted this originally on her own blog, and there are more responses to it there, if you're interested. for that matter, her blog in general is worth checking out. she's on a bit of a hiatus, but there are still tons of things to read!)

my dream lover(s) list....

first off, happy belated valentine's day y'all! i meant to post this on valentines day, but that weekend was pretty frazzled for me (see my winter olympics post) i actually have valentines to post as well, but they're not quite done yet.... i know, i'm late! i changed directions part way through them, and the end result is much more time intensive. i hope they'll be worth the wait for the folks who'll receive them!

but anyway, back to my dream lover(s) list! i've actually been planning this piece for quite a while, but it wasn't until the submission deadline for an art show loomed close that i actually got my butt in gear.

this is my "artist's statement" for the piece -

Dream Lover(s) Body Pillow
materials: synthetic fabric, rayon thread, invisible zipper, polyfil
40” tall x 15” wide x 9” deep
technique: machine embroidery digitized based on the artist’s own handwriting

aside from physical characteristics, we all have ideas of what our ideal lover(s) is like. we carry a list in our heads, adding entries based on relationships that ended badly (never dating anyone who votes for THAT party again!), editing or removing entries that are no longer necessary, adding entries that reflect how our lives change as time goes by (must have good dis/ability politics now that i’m chronically ill), adding entries as we see patterns in past relationships (no more “putting up with” my gender, i want someone who appreciates it!).

as in the rest of life, rules are made to be broken, but our internal lists serve as a guide, a reminder of great possibilities. they also serve as reminder of negative possibilities, when we’re distracted by a particularly dapper boy and might be tempted to ignore past lessons learned!





i don't know about you, but i've had my list in my head for years now. one day i randomly decided to write it down, and started thinking about how different lines have changed over the years. i had this body pillow that needed a pillow case, and i started thinking how perfect it would be to make the body pillow actually relate to what i'd like in a partner/lover/sweetie/whatever. (does anyone else remember those boyfriend pillows that came out a few years ago?) i contemplated just embroidering the updated list, but i thought that the changes and edits were just as important as the list entries themselves, so i included all of the original list. there are actually a few newer entries that i ran out of room for, like must be poly or open, and crafty (and confident about it).


the base fabric is black ultrasuede, so it's soft but sturdy, and it'll be easy to remove cat hair from (important in my house!). i boxed the corners of the pillow case, and i'm really happy with how that gave the pillow a more distinct shape. i used a black invisible zipper along the bottom seam so that it's removable for cleaning, but doesn't have any sharp or hard pieces like a regular zipper.

so! the list itself!


- black eyeliner (& body mods) while this might seem like a physical characteristic, i kinda see it as an expression of attitude, self expression, etc, and that's why it's on the list
- not in high school (not applicable!) this one is obviously no longer important, cause i'm not into people that young, but when i was 17, it was definitely relevant!
- has a car/takes transit (independent) basically, they need to be independent, hence the added note. this was on the list after dating too many people who didn't drive OR take transit, and i was really freaking tired of always being the one to travel!


- gives great massages (maybe not. kinda creepy?) this has actually been on the list for soooo long, and i always thought it would be so awesome to date someone who gave good massages, but now that i actually go to massage therapy once or twice every week as a form of medical treatment, i think it might be kinda creepy to also get massages from someone who i'm involved with. i don't know, it's just a thought. remember that friends episode where phoebe can't massage monica anymore because mon won't stop making sex noises? yeah.
- not vanilla. i'll leave this one alone, cause my mom reads my blog.... ;) but basically, i'm pretty flexible as long as someone isn't TOTALLY vanilla...
- gives backwards hugs (without prompting) because if you have to ask, it doesn't mean as much (see prev entry too!) i'm a huge sucker for backwards hugs. even some of my favourite pictures of me and friends are ones where they're giving me a backwards hug
- likes cats (!!!) always important, but even more so after i dated a dog lover and decided that the dog/cat distinction was a pretty good gauge of character! i just get along with cat people better ;)
- good dis/ability politics pretty self explanatory, i think. if you use ableist language, i'm sure as hell not gonna sleep with you! and yes, "lame" is totally abelist, whether you wanna admit it or not.


- id's as queer (if they're queer) the note on this one kinda felt like a no brainer, obv someone who id's as straight wouldn't id as queer! but the entry itself is super important to me. i consider queer to be a political identity as well as a sexual identity and a possible gender identity, and it's really important to me that someone who i'm with has at least similar politics. because frankly, i have very little respect for people who don't care about the world around them, and i wouldn't want to be with them.
- appreciates (and understands) femme other queer femmes will totally back me on this, it sucks to be with someone who tolerates your gender. and sadly, it happens way too fucking often
- good gender politics this one kinda relates to the list entry above, but it also relates to the person themselves, that they have good personal gender politics, in that they've consciously thought about their own gender, and it relates to the people around them, in that transphobia and genderqueerphobia are total turn offs!
- no kids (OR good parent/person separation) um, i spelt separation wrong, didn't i? shit! oops. back to the point itself, it's pretty self explanatory. i don't think it's healthy for you or for your child if your entire life revolves around them.


i think this piece took almost as long to digitize as it did to stitch, or at least it felt like it! i wrote out the list on paper with a sharpie, then scanned it, then separated out each line, edited the letters to sharpen edges so that they'd digitize well, created pdfs for some reason, turned them back into jpegs, separated them into even smaller files, because they had to be less than 4"x4", blah, blah, blah, then used PE Design Lite to digitize them.

i lost track of how many times it had to be rehooped, but it was A LOT. i used a larger hoop and for a few places just had to slide it along. but every line had a minimum of 3 files to embroider in red, some had 4. and then there were the second layer of white lines, the "notes" on the list. and then i did all of the dashes and arrows individually after the fact, because i decided they needed to be there!

Happy Louis Riel Day!

well, at least if you're in Manitoba. it's not Louis Riel day in any other province, and apparently it's President's Day or something in the US.

remember how i mentioned my never ending "work safe" project? the one i've been hauling to every single medical appointment for months, because it was the only piece i was working on that wouldn't offend someone who saw it?





this is it. it's a portrait of Louis Riel, who is alternately considered to be a folk hero, a criminal, the founding father of manitoba, a murderer, and what we would now in a post 911 world call a terrorist. he was a metis leader in what would later become manitoba, and he was instrumental in creating a provisional government in the area, one that was alternately ignored and recognized by the canadian government as it suited them, but did eventually lead to the formation of the province of manitoba. it was through this provisional government that a man named thomas scott was executed for insubordination. this is the incident that many refer to when calling louis riel a murderer, while others maintain that it was perfectly within the rights of the provisional government to conduct the execution, given the law of the day.

louis believed that the metis should receive rights and goods the same way that the natives in the area had (and ya know, years later we recognize that it was all fucked and not the best deal anyway, but at the time....) and was considered to be a leader of the metis. he was from a french canadian metis family which was very religious, and originally it was thought that he may be a priest. he was sent to montreal as a young teen to study with priests there, but lost interest after his father's death and eventually returned home. as a result of his time in montreal, he had a lot more education than the majority of the people around him back home, and this combined with his ability to inspire a group through public speaking was a large part of why he became a leader of metis people.

he was also elected as a member of parliament multiple times, but due to the faction that considered him a murderer (including the cdn gvnt), it was never safe for him to attend the house of commons. he went once, and signed in, and it created a massive uproar. he spent a lot of time in exhile in the US, and then later returned to what would later become saskatchewan to again lead the metis people (at their request). the battle of batoche/the north west rebellion occurred at this point, and while he was eventually hung for treason due to his part in the battle, it was widely believed that he was truly executed in response to the death of thomas scott some years earlier. the canadian government's treatment of riel greatly indicated their respect for french canadians. john a macdonald, canada's first prime minister after confederation, was famously quoted as saying "he shall hang though every dog in quebec bark in his favour."

in addition to the political aspects of louis riel's history, he was also a very fascinating man from a religious standpoint. raised roman catholic, to the point of the expectation of entering priesthood, he had a strong and complicated relationship with the religion. in the later years of his life, he denounced the catholic church, claiming that the pope was an imposter, was not who god truly wanted to be leading the the church, and that riel himself needed to bring the church back to truthfulness. (part of this was encouraged by priests which sided with the english cdn govnt, louis saw this as a huge betrayal of their metis church members) louis professed beliefs which branded him as mentally insane by many, and in fact did spend time in a quebec mental hospital under an assumed name.

i think the red river rebellion and the battle of batoche/north west rebellion are kinda like the prairie's version of the civil war/the war between the states/the war of northern aggression, etc. this piece wouldn't have been as "work safe" if i'd been in manitoba working on it, because back there people have VERY definite opinions about Louis Riel! a vancouver friend of mine was visiting winnipeg last summer and she seemed so surprised that people still cared so much, over a hundred years later. but we do. and i assume people in saskatchewan probably do as well, at least to some degree.





i really really love how it turned out, though tat times i thought i'd never finish it! the basic outline is backstitch, very very tiny stitches which took forever, and then parts are filled in using satin stitch and a kind of adapted long and short stitch. the frame itself is about 8x10".


(if you're interested in the life of louis riel, and it really is super interesting, there are a lot of books on the subject, focusing on various aspects. Chester Brown wrote Louis Riel: A Comic Strip Biography, which is an excellent book to start with. i originally contemplated using an image from the comic book, but decided that this image, based on old photos, and which is most commonly associated with him, was most appropriate.

Winter Olympics 2010! x-stitch and protest signs!!

i know that i already posted this, a long long time ago, but given that the olympics have now officially started, i thought i'd post it again.






The Opening Ceremonies were last night, and yesterday afternoon/evening there was a huge march from the Vancouver Art Gallery to BC Place, where the opening ceremonies were. i was so amazed and inspired by how many people were there, and despite what mainstream media is reporting, the vast vast majority of the people marching were united in their reasons.

a lot of the time we get ourselves into a position (we being the left) of being really divided, because we all focus on different things. but yesterday was definitely about the games, about the games taking place on unceded native land, about the need for low income housing, about broken promises of using athletes housing for low income housing, about the environmental impact of the games, about the massive government cuts to social services and the arts, just in time to show off the sanitized and stolen "arts and culture" of this area, about the refusal to provide additional funding for social programs that will experience a huge increase in use during the olympics (such as battered women's support) due to the influx of tourists, about the "cleaning up" of the downtown eastside (poorest postal code in canada, for those that don't know) by physically moving homeless people to other areas, into shelters against their will, or arresting them for things like jaywalking just to get them off the streets so that the tourists don't have to see them, about the massive overspending and the debt we will be left with, and finally, the compromises to our civil rights and the huge amount of military and security personnel in vancouver waiting to enforce them. and that's just the short version of it, really! if you're interested in learning more, the vancouver media co-op has lots of pretty current updates on their site, as well as some explanatory videos.

i tried to take some pictures, but frankly, i'm freaking short! i ended up getting a lot more pictures of people's heads than i'd have liked. but i did get pictures of some of the signs, there were so many more! there were a lot more about native land, but most of them were banners, and banners were the hardest to get clear photos of.


the vancouver art gallery. this barely barely shows the people there. there were so many more behind us and on the other side of the lawn.


blurry, i know, but it was one of the more creative signs. plus, we talk a lot about the child poverty rate, which is atrocious, but we don't talk nearly enough about our seniors and our elders and their inability to access resources. i am so thankful that my relatives don't live in this province.










awesome.








(you might think it looks like a joint that they've drawn here. no, that's the olympic torch. it just happens to look like a joint, that's all!)


this is what greeted us at the end of the march. rows and rows of cops in riot gear.

for a peaceful protest. see above re: civil rights.

machine embroidered xmas decorations and a yarny wreath

first, free standing lace icicles.

i made about six million of these, it felt like! there was another design that i was doing as well, so 4 in total, but after the first few batches, i stuck with the two on the left because they were my favourite. i put one in each of the xmas cards i sent.


all of the icicles i stitched were white, but i decided to toss these ones into the dyepot while i was dying bottle brush trees, and they turned out great! i wanted to make pink icicles for a friend, but i didn't really want to have to switch out threads and wind a pink bobbin and all.

for the same friend, i wanted to make a cupcake ornament. emblibrary.com had a set of xmas themed cupcakes, and i knew one of them would be perfect. i switched out the colours a bit, and stitched it onto bright pink felt.


i also made a few baby's first christmas ornaments for friends that had babies in 2009, though i totally didn't have the energy for the ridiculous sets i made last year!


if you're looking closely, you'll see that i removed the word "baby" from this year's set. i stitched out a few test ones, and really disliked how the words looked, the font was too small, and the letters weren't very clear. i decided to use a larger font, which meant that i didn't have as much space. as a bonus though, that means the ornaments can be used for things like a first christmas together, or first christmas in a new house, all depending on what picture you put in them!


i also changed the stitch density a bit, especially for the satin stitched ornament "hanger", and i think it looks a lot better. and i slipped the ends of the ribbon hanger in when i sewed the back on, so i didn't have to worry about the grommet and ribbon like on last years,

stitching them out, i started thinking about in the hoop projects, and i think i'm going to try redesigning them again next year.


and then more freestanding lace!
i made this set of snowflakes for someone who's helped me out a lot in the past few years. we have totally different styles, but i knew she'd like these.




while my machine was stitching away independently, i made this wreath for the awesome batgirl (aka lori).

i knew she really liked wreaths with yarn, because i've seen her admire them in the past!

i wanted to make a wreath that was less "christmas" and more just "winter". i had a bunch of yarn scraps in shades of blue, so i pulled out all of the ones that were kind of icy in tone. i started wrapping yarn around styrofoam balls, so that they'd look like yarn balls but use less yarn to make (and be lighter), and then wrapped some natural coloured white/cream wool around a styrofoam wreath.

it needed some flash, so i found a silver pear pick at micheals that was kind of a pewter tone, less cheap silver. i wanted to pull that into the wreath itself a bit more, so i added some silver thread that has sequins wound into it every foot or so, and then i spraypainted the entire thing with a "metallic finish" spray, just adding a bit of a glint from certain angles.

this is it with a flash, still in my spraypainting box.


and the more accurate colours, hanging on my door.



i like it. i wound a bunch of styrofoam balls, and bought a pick, all in shades of blue and teal for a wreath for myself, but unsurprisingly, i didn't get it finished. maybe next year, now that it's half done!