Beth Ditto porn TOTALLY NOT SAFE FOR WORK embroidery!!

i'm warning ya, okay?
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alrighty then! if there's a way to do an lj-cut type thing on blogger, i don't know how to do it, so excessive periods will have to suffice.

i'm still planning on posting an xmas tutorial and the handmade gifts i made (since i finally finished posting the decor!), but i'm way way too impatient to wait, i want to post these embroidery pieces NOW!


i started thinking about embroidering these specific images back in september or october, when i was brainstorming for the NSFW swap on Phat Quarter. i decided the needlework vulva fit my partner better, but i was still determined to do this set at some point.

but really, i started thinking about embroidering them about a year ago, when i started seeing some NSFW porn embroideries that while well done, weren't exactly all that realistic. in particular, ruby42's embroidery "Lick Me" was so awesome (especially considering she'd just started embroidery within the past WEEK! impressive!), but it was more "what straight men imagine lesbian sex to be" than actually being queer sex, ya know? i admired the stitching, then cringed slightly at the fingernail length.... ;) so i started thinking about hauling out my old stash on On Our Backs and searching for some imagery that was a tad more realistic.

these images are from a photo shoot with Beth Ditto, before everybody figured out who she was and the celebrity/fashion blogs started obsessing over her and her friendship with kate moss, back when the only communities that really knew much about the gossip were the queers and the ex riot grrls. she was a bit smaller then, but even so, she was definitely fatter than mainstream straight porn will show. (and way fucking hotter than mainstrean porn stars too) It was the June/July 2003 issue of On Our Backs, and the photography was done by Rebecca McBride.

i sized them down a bit from the actual photo spread, so that they'd fit into my vintage frames.

together


bj

the cock, tattoo, and her bra are all satin stitch, but i went back to this one and filled in her hair with backstitch. whew!

straps

i love her shoes, and her painted toe nails, but most of all, i love how the straps look framing her partner's but in tighty whiteies.


i'm so glad they're finished! i love them. they're going right up on my bedroom wall.

christmas part 3 - the little trees!

i actually intended on 3 extra trees, two in the living room/studio, and one in the kitchen. i ran out of time for the kitchen one, but i loved the two i did manage to put up!

the first one is actually a vintage tinsel tree, the came in the coolest box, and the base almost looks handmade.



this tree sits above my sewing machine table, right on top of the drawers that hold all of my embroidery threads.


it had all my favourite smaller ornaments on it, including a set of 12, and several acorn shaped ones.


the ornament at the very top is one of my favourites - it has a stylized poppy painted on it.


so pretty!


the second little tree that i put up was a white tree, again from daiso, though it was $8 because it's bigger than the pink tree in the bathroom.


i used all of my bright pink vintage ornaments on it, and they looked fabulous. i hung crocheted pink snowflakes on the lamp shade,


and strung beaded garland around my pictures.

i also dyed some bottle brush trees with dylon hot pink, and they turned out FABULOUS! the colour is super rich and vibrant.


i was really tempted to leave the pink display up for longer, but decided that they should all come down at the same time so that everything could be stored together. i'm at least 2/3s of the way done undoing everything. i know it's the 22nd of january! i'm trying to organize it all, okay?!

anyway, that's the last of the christmas decorating. i didn't do handmade cards this year, which was so sad, but i did do some handmade gifts, so i'll be posting those soon.

and then we can move onto another holiday that i love - valentine's day!

christmas part 2 - the big tree!

i've been collecting vintage glass ornaments for years and years now. even the years that i didn't put my tree up, i still collected the ornaments. i went through them about 5 years ago, weeding out the generic plain ones, because i was approaching multiple rubbermaid bins full of them!

this year was the first year that i've been able to do a tree with JUST the vintage ornaments, and i love how it worked out! (the garland wasn't vintage, but it WAS thrifted - the boxes it came in shows that it was from costco. i paid $1.50 each for two boxes)



this is actually a new tree, because mine was somehow lost after i moved back in with my parents. dad borrowed it for work, and nobody knows where it went after that!

i decided to get one with the lights on it, just cause it would be less work, but i didn't realize that they weren't LED until later. i should've known, it was too cheap for LED, but it was still very pretty all lit up.






i have that tree one in multiple colours. they must have been really common, because i didn't buy them all together.


i love the blue star one, i have 4 of those.


the one on the bottom left is definitely the biggest on the tree!


i love the pear shaped one on the top left.




this tree topper is actually plastic. i was so sure that i used to have several glass toppers, but maybe i gave them away when i pared down the collection.


the long blue one was a splurge at a vintage store in november. i had a crappy day, and saw it in the window. i have plenty of long ones, but this is the first i've seen shaped like this, with ridges.


the pear shaped one again, though slightly washed out.

i managed to score a white tree on boxing day this year, so i'm thinking that next year the vintage ornaments will all go on a white tree with white led lights. won't they pop wonderfully?

christmas, part 1 - the bathroom!

i loooove christmas. i hate the crowds, the shopping malls, the stress, the rampant christianity, etc, but i love the glitter and glam, the memories and traditions, and spending time with loved ones. and turkey and stuffing, of course!

i haven't been able to decorate much the last few years because i didn't have the space, so i decorated A LOT this year.

since i went just a teensy bit overboard with xmas decorating, i'm going to split the pics up into a few posts.

the first place i decorated was my bedroom, and i posted pics of that tree back in december.

next up was my bathroom, all in shades of purple

i found some ribbon at the $ store and used it as garlands over my jewelery storage.


i used tinsel garland on the mirror, the only place where it wouldn't touch the painted walls - i learned the hard way years ago that garlands sometimes bleed when exposed to the steamy heat of a bathroom!


i used the same ribbon again over the toilet, with a glittery lavender bow in the centre.


the frame is a vintage one that i painted with krylon (the purple frames were what inspired the bathroom colour scheme in the first place), and the mirrored purple candleholders are from the $store.


across from the toilet wall, i hung a lavender glittered snowflake, and a small lavender crocheted snowflake, on the medicine cabinet. i dyed bottlebrush trees to sit beside a small purple chest that holds q-tips.


close up of the trees


and below the medicine cabinet, there was the tree


the pink tree came from daiso, it was $5.50 (i <3 daiso!) i searched for a purple tree for a while before finding this pink one. i did find a purple tinsel tree later for $15.00, but it was too bright anyway....



i used some of the same ribbon as garland again, and added a few glittery purple balls that my ex left behind, a few regular sized purple glass balls, and then a package of matte and shiny little lavender balls that i bought at zellers (kinda like a cross between target and kmart). they're "alfred sung", ohh la la!


and of course, a tree topper. a fabulous glittery be-feathered bird clip.


i added a bit of glittery goodness to the closet as well -


the glittery picks came from micheals, and matched perfectly!

and the finishing touch was the doily wreath i made. i dyed the doilies using the same dye as the bottle brush trees, and then molded them into a wreath shape.


i took pictures as i went along, so i'll post them soon!


and that was the bathroom!

halloween, homos and authority. and a red hat.

i was going to post a bunch of xmas pictures, even a few tutorials, when it occurred to me that i still have halloween stuff that hasn't been posted!

obviously, i should catch up on them first. hence, some of the stitching i was doing in october and november. (i posted the needlework vulva a while ago)

these two halloween pieces were just for fun, and were done right after a bunch of pieces that were my own designs. sometimes it's just nice to chill out and follow instructions, you know?

plus, i LOVE the patterns! they're designed by Prairie Schooler (book no 156) and have a vintage halloween vibe going on. i'd love to stitch up the moon and the cat too.

the skeleton


and the owl


they were both stitched with glow in the dark thread, which is annoying to work with, but oh so fun anyways. the skeleton bones are all glowing, and the owl's eyes.


once i'd stitched them up, i moved on to this for a friend's housewarming.


in typical craftydame fashion, i didn't count out from the centre (i hate doing that!) and my piece ended up being an odd shape that wasn't very frame-able.

to solve that, i sewed a piece of kona cotton onto both sides of the aida cloth. then i slipped it into an ikea frame that i'd painted previously, and ta-da!


the homo sweet homo idea has been around for ages, and i don't think it's possible to say who really started it. i'm not as fond of the more traditional sampler style cross stitch (with flowers and borders and bunnies, etc), so i chose to do a more graphic design. i used the same lettering as i did for the queer piece, ages ago now.

after i did the purple one for tara, i played with it a bit more, trying varying aidas. see how tiny the bottom one is? i didn't actually cross most of the stitches!



and somewhere in between all these pieces, i stitched up a radical cross stitch design to hang in my kitchen. (cause the colours match) their patterns are fabulous, and are available from their etsy store (along with issues of hoopla, which i also recommend highly!)


after saying that i'm not into the traditional cross stitch style (even with ironic words in it!), this may seem like a bit of a contradiction - however, there are NO bunnies. ;)


if you looked at the listing for the pattern on etsy, you might have noticed that the colours are a bit different. that's for two reasons. one, because i have six million skeins of thread, but never the right ones. i'm trying to use what i have instead of buying more, cause every time i walk into the stitching store to buy one skein, i walk out at least $20 poorer! and two, because i wanted the colours to be a bit brighter, to match the blue and the green towels i have in my kitchen.


i've worked on a few more needlework pieces since the xmas hoopla settled down, but one is a set of two, so i'll wait until they're both done, another needs to have the edges finished, and yet another is soooo sooo close to being done that it's ridiculous, but since it's my "PG" project that i work on in dr's offices and such, it probably won't get the finishing touches for a while yet.


however, one thing i did do, that i haven't done over a year, was pick up my crochet hook again! several friends were talking about crocheting, and i'd bought bulky yarn in a lovely shade of red at micheals on boxing day, so i got inspired.

i actually started out with a pattern, but quickly changed it drastically. i think i frogged and re-crocheted the majority of the hat about 4 times. it was getting ridiculous, truthfully.





i'm still not entirely in love with it. i kinda feel like it makes my head look like a mushroom, but no one else seems to agree. but i do love the colour!