Hello, my dearies! I hope the new year is treating you all okay, and that you’re staying healthy and safe. I know this winter’s been hard that way. Personally it’s been extra hard having that horrible, existential dread come creeping in with the soaring Covid numbers. My household has been lucky so far, and we’ve been doing all the needful stuff, and I’m hopeful it’ll be enough to keep us going. Meanwhile, I keep distracting myself with new little projects and larger commissions, and this spring I hope to try some new things too.
(Like a handful of tiny, tiny dragons…)
I still feel incredibly lucky that this is my life for a while, and I cherish every day that I get to spend time bringing some new thing to life. I’ll have long, convoluted dreams about my old workplace; dreams that are unsettling. And then I wake up, have coffee with my sweet fella and then get to work trying out some new bit of whimsy. I’m just really glad you’re all here to appreciate the whimsy with me, too.
Be good to yourselves; you’re totally worth the effort;
Hello, my dears! I know, it’s been a bit since I’ve posted on my blog here. My only excuse is that this season I’ve been absolutely slammed with projects of all kinds, and I’ve been gleefully stitching since the end of October. Now that the holidays are here, I can finally slow down enough to catch up on a few things. And breathe. And get in a big cup of cocoa…
And I have to say, I have you all to thank for my extra busy state. And I do mean, thank. It’s been so wonderful, stitching up every odd little thing I could think of to make, and have you all giving me a big thumb’s up. It makes me more courageous about experimenting, with trying new textures and techniques to bring out something new and amusing. You fine people are the best little enablers I could ever ask for. And with that enabling, it gives me some fun ideas for the new year.
Alas, all this busyness means I’m behind in offering the Mystery Boxes I wanted to do for the holidays. I was just so slammed with commissions, there was just no time to really finish the ones I was working on. I want them to be a little bit “extra” if that makes sense, and soon I’ll have a little time to give them the attention they deserve. But good new things are coming your way!
And also, happiest of holidays to you all, and please be careful and stay safe and healthy. I have a huge amount of affection for you all…
Hello, my lovelies! It’s been a busy time here at the House of Maus, and I’ve been stitching my little fingers off. But it’s been so rewarding! I’ve made large things, little things, itty bitty things, and loads and loads of Guardian Eyes. And this fancy, bold fellow…
These are his pretties and not yours,nope, nope…
I plan to be making more like him very soon, all a touch different, but all based on Canuck the Crow and his bold and sassy ways.
Also, I’m working on a couple of little Mystery boxes to offer soon for the holiday season. What’s in a Mystery box, I hear you ask? Well, sparkly things. A sculpture or two. Tiny paintings. Tiny embroideries. A knitted something or other. All in a handpainted box for you to treasure! I should have a couple out in the shop soon for you to salivate over, once I’m done making the happy innards…
And this week? I’ll be carving pumpkins and decorating the porch and getting ready for another Samhain. I’ve been waiting for Halloween so very, very long, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here! And while I’ll still be making things, I’ll also be taking it easy and enjoying the autumn before it disappears. I hope you all get to do the same!! And thank you, thank you so very much for all of your kindness and support…
This week has a lot of anniversaries. Heartbreaking ones, good ones, strange ones. We’ve got a candle burning at my house today for September 11. And it’s also the first anniversary of my leaving my job at the museum and expanding my humble little business. i have to say, it’s been astounding how kind and supportive people have been about my work. And I’m so happy to have gotten a chance to make a lot of it, as well as experimenting with lots of skills that were in deep storage all this time…things like beadwork, and sculpting, and combining it with embroidery and other fiber arts…
I have some really fun ideas for Halloween, because of course I do. I have been working on offering a couple of patterns in a pretty little kit for sale, in a fun little box. It’s humble, because it’s very much a new thing for me, and I’m excited to see how it all goes. And I have a few larger pieces I’m planning on making, and there’s yarn to spin, and things to knit up. How would I have gotten all this done if I still had my day job? The one thing I’ve learned in spades from this experience is that when I’ve time, I’m a complete menace to my stash of art supplies. I’m just glad you’ve all come with me for this increasingly fun and weird journey!!
Ah, summer, and the living is slightly spooky around the edges…Who else craves Halloween in the hottest part of summer? I suspect it’s a lot of you!
This last month I’ve been gratifyingly busy with all my happy stitchery! I went a little viral on a couple of Facebook groups, and requests have been flooding in for my Guardian Eyes, so I’ve been stabbing away, making as many as my little stabby hands can. Even with all that fun goings-on, I did manage to finish a few other pieces as well, and they’ve all found new homes…
(I will always, always love making Baba Yaga huts. )
Down the road, I’d like to release embroidery kits, so that people can have some fun with my designs. I’ve been drawing up patterns when I’m not stitching away on other things, and it’s great fun. I’d like to stuff a little box full of floss and a pattern, a hoop and some predrawn fabric, some directions and maybe a little surprise. I do love adding little surprises to things I send out. I’m also working on some Fall and Halloween stationary to put in the Redbubble shop, because Autumn is wonderful and so is sending out sweet cards to friends. This part of summer is the part where I’m really starting to crave October, so very much…
At any rate, fall is shaping up to be busy and interesting, with a few extra treats in the shop. And I’ve got some fun requests to play with. But in between all of this, I’m still trying out different kinds of Guardian Eyes, in different colors, shapes and mediums, as well as other embroideries that are demanding my attention. I have a boatload of Delicate Swears I want to stitch up, as well as offended mice, curious bunnies and sardonic ghosts. And if you’d like something special, leave me a note in the comments, or email me, or say hello on Facebook. (I’ve got kind of a longish list now, though, so commissions will definitely take some time.)
Stay well out there, be careful, and thank you all, so very much for your kind, kind love of my art. You all bring me a lot of happiness…
It all started years ago, at a local surplus store. They had a wide variety of things for sale, and it was always a mix of the practical, the interesting and the completely insane. I loved going in and seeing what I could stumble on for art projects, and you never really knew what would be available. And one day…they had eyes. Not just a few, but huge bins full of shiny glass taxidermy eyes of all colors, shapes and sizes! Some taxidermy business had decided to dump off it’s whole collection of them, and artists like me scooped them up by the handfuls and carted away as much as we could carry. I used them in polymer clay dolls, in pendants, in strange jars with eyes in the lids, on rocks that I mailed off to friends for no reason at all. I gave some to friends to play with. They were a bonanza, a complete wonderland of possibility…
it took years for me to whittle that pile of glass eyes down. But I finally did, And I was down to just a tiny handful, augmented by a few pretty glass and acrylic human-style eyes given to me by a friend, as a thank you for the handful of glass animal eyes I gave her. And as I was poking around in my embroidery stash, I found my small bag of leftover eyes, and thought to myself, “Hey, wouldnt’ this be really pretty surrounded by needlework? ” So I started to play around with the concept, with felt and leftover bits of old leather and beads and floss. And it turned out…pretty damn great!
When you look at my art, sometimes it looks back at you…
So I needed to make more! And that meant I had to dig around online, since those magical bins at the surplus store were long gone, now filled with wooden beads or auto parts or Baby Yoda heads. So I dug. And like most things on Teh Interwebs, the quality and pricing were all over the map. I learned I could get handfuls of cheap eyes, or a pair of antique German porcelain eyes for eyewatering amounts of cash. With some assiduous hunting, I found some lovely dolls eyes in various sizes, just right for my projects. I also had to refresh my memory on things like peyote beading, and assesed my embarrassingly large stash of beads. And I started to stitch…
I called them Guardian Eyes, since I felt like I wanted them to be (mostly) benevolent watchers over a space, with possibly a good side-eye to energies and presences that were unwanted. You know how a stern look from a parent or older loved one could make you stop in your tracks? That’s pretty much the idea…only magical, with an extra dose of love and sparkling thread and beautiful beadwork…
And it’s been such a gratifying thing, to see how much people seem to appreciate what I’m trying for and eagerly giving them homes, where they can look out over their new domains and keep a gentle watch. I plan to keep them coming, along with all the other interesting things I like making. And now that the Pandemic is starting to slow a little, maybe sometime soon I can go back to that surplus store and see what else those magical bins are holding, now that all those wonderful eyes have gone…
It’s funny, really. I taught myself some embroidery basics out of a library book when I was a tween, ages ago, and only really started up again a little over a year ago. I consider myself still to be a raw, rank amateur. But with lots of practice and a mindset that says, “Well, lets experiment with a thing and see if it actually works” it’s been a wonderful journey so far, And recently other people have been asking me for advice. Me?! I mean, I’m still new myself. I make mistakes all the time. And yet, those mistakes have been schooling me in The Art of Stubborn Problem Solving…
Okay, so maybe I’m not a rank amateur anymore…
So after all those mistakes, I have a handful of helpful embroidery tips I can share which are actually helpful to other people. How about that?
First off: Sourcing supplies. I started getting my supplies in thrift stores before the Pandemic, and they”re still not bad places to stumble on treasure troves of floss and sewing bits and bobs, or even fabric if you have a good eye and a little luck. One of my favorite finds was a scrap of eggplant-colored silk, which made an astoundingly good backing for various pieces. Of course you can hit online sources for a lot of your starting up supplies, and online marketplaces can be useful if you keep your wits about you, but it can be nice to save a few bucks and run across colors and tools you never would have bought otherwise. Estate sales can be goldmines for embroidery and beadwork as well, and a good haul can last you for years. Obviously if you’re going to thrift stores and estate sales be mindful, wash your hands, wear a mask. These days I do most of my shopping as online as possible due to the Pandemic.
What kind of supplies? I’m glad you asked…
Fabric: I’m a bit lucky here; since I don’t really crossstitch, I dont’ have to rely on Aida cloth for my stitching. I prefer tighter fabric as a background, and neutral or dark colors. Usually a good cotton will work just fine, and I really like linen–a little of it can go a long way for me, though it can be expensive. Fat quarters for quilting can be your best friend, but if someone you know has leftovers from making clothing or something it’s worth having a gawk at the scraps.
Floss: I’m mostly a DMC girl, though I’ve been learning over time that sewing threads of all kinds can be adapted to hand embroidery with a little patience and experimentation. I prefer the sewing metallics to the embroidery ones, since they’re smaller and a bit easier to use. Keep an eye out for spools of machine embroidery thread on sale; they can be used by hand if you double or triple them up, and they’re often durable and shiny. The cheaper flosses seem to work just fine too, but for darker colors like reds and blues and purples you want to wash a quick sample on a swatch of fabric to see if they bleed, and how much. The nice thing about DMC is I’ve had zero problems with bleeds, and they also ship extra needles when you order floss packets from their company, which is always a delight. There’s silk floss out in the market of various qualities, and again, watch carefully for bleeds when your fabric is washed. Also? Floss conditioner can be super useful, especially if, like me, you often run into snags and knots from your floss while you’re working.
Hoops: I like looking everywhere for hoops to work with. Wooden ones are my favorite for framing, since I can paint them or wrap them with ribbon. Plastic hoops are everywhere, and they’re cheap, but they’re ugly and I find them a little frustrating. Often you’ll see “wooden” hoops that are actually rubber that squeeze into a frame, and they’re surprisingly good for projects, so snap them up when you see them. Be careful online; while there’s a huge upswing in what’s available since embroidery has become more popular, sometimes the quality can be disappointing. Often a good hoop can be a little spendier, but here quality can make or break your mounted piece. You can see I’ve got a weakness for the small frames, and they’re all over the map for quality, but if you keep an eye out for the things you like soon you’ll have a feel for the hoops that work best for you.
Patterns: My best recommendation is to start hunting down Facebook groups and Instagram creators that you like that offer patterns. it’s way more fun to have a pattern from somebody whose work you already really like, and to give your money to small creators that work hard to give you something special.
But what if you don’t like patterns? What if you want to make up something cool of your own? Well then, you will need some of my very bestest friends when it comes to designing an embroidery pattern: A small light box, copy paper, the humble graphite pencil, and a handful of water-soluble pens, which will often come free with a wide assortment of online embroidery supplies. Copy paper is useful because it’s so thin; and you can work out your proportions and design without worrying too much about the paper. once you have something you like, you can trace it onto your fabric with the light box and the pens, and if you don’t have a light box you can easily use a window and a bit of tape instead.
So, now that you have your happy compilation of stuff, a design you want to stitch and some free time, what other things are good to keep in mind? Some of the things I’ve found useful for my projects are short floss lengths so they don’t tangle as much, sharp needles, a pincushion you really enjoy, and some catnip to distract any overly-helpful cats you may happen to have around. A tasty beverage is always welcome, and maybe a podcast or two to keep you company. (I really like “On a cold Dark Night” for a lot of my stitching time…)
Once you’re finished, there’s the fun of washing and mounting your new lovely thing. Washing veeeeeeerry gently in cool water and a touch of gentle soap will extend the life of your piece, so it’s a good habit to get into. Ironing it afterward can be helpful for creases, but watch the heat. When it goes back into your hoop, tighten it up as much as you can to take out any wobbles. I like to do a running stitch around the backside of my pieces, tighten it up, adjust it until I like the way it looks, then stitch a felt backing to the back to keep things neat. (It’s also a nice place to put a signature for your piece.) A ribbon for the top, and voila! Ready for hanging…
I know this list is hopelessly plain, and there’s loads of things I haven’t covered, but I think this a decent overview for someone starting out. I hope it’s helpful, and feel free to ask questions in the comment section. Happy stabbing, my dears!!
The Pandemic has been teaching us a lot of hard lessons, every single one of us. I’m no exception. This last year I’ve been doing things I don’t normally do, things I’m not always comfortable with. Driving, for one. For years I didn’t drive, though I kept my license up, mostly because when I was single it was the choice between owning a cheap vehicle that I’d have to keep paying to fix and park and gas up, or rent for a decent apartment and having some savings. I chose the neighborhoods I did partly out of love or civic virtue, but also for decent mass transit or walkability to stores, work, friends. That instinct paid off in the beginning of the Pandemic, since mass transit became less safe , and happily I could walk to my job for a while. But once my sweetheart had his stroke, I was the only one that could drive, which scared me since I was so out of practice. It also scared me because when I was young I lost a family member to a bad car accident, and it imprinted on my young brain early on that Driving Was Serious Scary Stuff. So every time I got into the car, my first feeling is always a deep sinking in my stomach and a quiet voice going, “Ohhhh shit oh shit oh shit…”
I’ve gotten better, with some practice. But I’m still really nervous, even with small victories like Parking Garages and Driving In Uptown and A Decent Parallel Parking Job. I keenly feel my imperfections. I had a minor meltdown when I got done with a driving run to Matt’s doctor’s appointment because I ran an unexpected stop sign because a streetlight was out. Lucky me, nothing bad happened, but I felt so disappointed in myself. It took me a while to realize that today was the anniversary of that family member’s death, so naturally driving was going to freak me out a little more than usual. It helps a bit knowing that. And that imperfection doesn’t have to be tied to things like mortality…
This fear of imperfection happens in other things I do. Paintings, embroideries, yarns, knitting. Sometimes projects just go wrong. Sometimes it’s an easy fix, sometimes it’s just time to throw in the towel for a while, stuff it in a bag and forget about it until you’ve got the strength to look at it again. But it used to be so much worse. Oddly enough, I have the Pandemic to thank for that switch in how I approach all of that now. When it really kicked in how much trouble we all were in and how long we would be locked down, I looked at a lot of my art supplies, stuff I was “saving for something good” and said to myself, “Well? You have to start using it up now, because there’s a good chance you may not get the opportunity to later if things go badly.” And it didn’t matter as much if I messed something up. If I didn’t do something with what I had, it wouldn’t get done at all. When Matt got sick, I had a similar thought that kept coming back.”So what if you made a crappy dinner, or didn’t park perfectly at the doctor, or any of that? It’s better than nobody doing it at all, isn’t it?”
So even though I struggle with the concept of imperfection, that’s my mantra now. Even if it’s a hot mess, it’s way better than nothing at all. Things will improve. You will improve. I will improve. And if we don’t, that’s going to have to be okay, because there’s not a lot of choices sometimes. Perfection can be the enemy of the good. Don’t let it be your enemy too…
(Edit: In this post, I’m using the phrase, “Perfection is the enemy of the good” outside of it’s original context. While I appreciate it’s original message, personally it’s a message that isn’t doing me any favors lately, so I chose to flip it on it’s head. It seemed to confuse a few of my readers, so I figured I’d address it with an explanation. And also…imperfection. That’s me, all right…)
When I was young, I was often scolded by adults for my scattershot approach to things I wanted or needed to do, (Mostly for things like drawing during my math classes, which is probably why I’m still math-weak to this very day.) I would explain that I was indeed paying attention, (and I was) but that I was also doing this other thing, which needed doing, thank you. It never really went over, but as I got older I found that my strange puttering had a name. Multitasking! And it was not only a useful skill, but sometimes the only way I could get done all the things that sat there, demanding attention. For example, while I’m writing this post, I’m also making tea and lunch, working on an embroidery, waiting for some photos to finish loading, checking on a cat or two, and listening for a delivery. Obviously I’m not the only one doing this sort of thing, not on Planet Pandemic. Everybody is still cobbling their lives together any way they can make it all work, and our concentration is still not great, and we all still have a big raft of worries we’re all floating on, trying to make it to friendly shores. It honestly makes me wonder how many people actually tackle things that need doing in a linear fashion. I mean, who has that luxury? Almost nobody I know, really.
For years and years, I’ve done what every other artistic person I know does–they hang on to a day job to pay the bills and keep a roof over their head while scrabbling together projects in between everything else. Which often meant I had a few projects going at a time. It was handy, especially if I was tired or low energy, because there was always at least one easy project within reach I could make a little progress with at least.
Jellyfish heaven is a lot like L.A…
It’s been a useful habit, especially when I had a few projects that were almost done at the same time. There is such a rush when I can present a handful of pretty things that actually took a lot of time, thought and energy to get together. It makes me feel like I’m so much more productive than I actually am. People don’t know that the pretty yarn I just finished making had singles stored on bobbins for a week while I was busy knocking out something else. Or that the painting I just finished sat for a month on a table, while I figured out what it needed to be.
This yarn had to sit a while before I realized what it needed to be complete was delicious jade colored beads…
You would think, now that I’m home all the time and trying to make a go of this Arting From Home Business that these habits would change. And they have, a little. My concentration has improved tremendously, but I do have other things to distract me now, like the unmistakable sounds of a cat barfing somewhere, or a delivery, or a needful errand. I still find myself with a handful of little, half finished embroideries and a bobbin of yarn that still needs a friend, or a painting that needs its first washes put down. And I’ve’ come to accept that this seems to be my process, and this process isn’t actually a bad thing that needs to change drastically.
This last week I felt like I was less productive than the usual. I had other things that needed taking care of, and this last Friday I got my second Covid shot. I was and am beyond grateful for it, but it did knock me down for a little longer than I thought it would. But even then, I still did some spinning. It helped with my poor sore body and it distracted me from some of the symptoms. So I was a bit surprised when I actually had a few things to list in the shop, a painting to put into Redbubble, some really nice Icelandic wool that was clean and de-burred and ready to spin up and a fun jellyfish for a friend. Where did all this stuff come from while I was on the couch, binging Youtube videos and drinking gallons of herbal tea? Oh yeah. My weird multitasking ADHD self, doing a little bit here, a little bit there…
So don’t be hard on yourself if your way of doing things isn’t the way people told you it should be. Especially now, when all bets are still off and we’ve got a long way to go before Normal is a thing. It all adds up in the end. And sometimes it’s such a good, good feeling when it does…
It’s March. Again. Just like last year, except as different as it’s possible for anything to be…
Last March was a completely different world from the one I live in now. It was when all those whispered concerns about a new virus flowing through our communities became a fact; a fact you couldn’t ignore or get away from, no matter how hard some people tried. We were all sizing up how disruptive this new situation was going to be, how dangerous Covid would be for us, and what we could do to protect ourselves. How bad could it be? It’ll just be a couple of weeks of weirdness, and then everything will be okay again, right? *Insert horrified laughter from the future right here.*
There were a lot of things I thought were possible, and I tried to plan for whatever came our way here at home. I stocked up on food, learned to stitch masks, washed everything I could think of washing. I stayed away from people as best I could. I figured if I was careful, I could keep plugging away at my job and stay as safe as I could until everything blew over and some kind of normality could come back. But there were a few things that happened that weren’t on my 2020 Bingo card. Civil unrest and a bad family emergency changed my strategy drastically, and for about 6 months so far I’m…here, at home. It was just the safest thing I could do to help my small family unit get to better days. I’m grateful I get the opportunity to do this, to be home and make whatever art I can and to help my husband regain his health. He’s recovering well, which makes me happy beyond belief, but there’s still a bit of a road to walk through still. As things get safer, then I can think about what comes next for us. It was and remains a strange feeling, not to haul myself up out of bed and hustle off to work, full of people and tasks and noise.
If it weren’t for the still-terrifying crisis we’re still in…this life is wonderful. I wake up early, have breakfast with Matt and start setting up in the corner of the dining room I’ve occupied most of the winter. It’s sunny there, with lots of plants, and it’s a soothing place to be when it’s cold and blustery outside. There’s embroideries to work on; commissions or just odd things out of my head, strange little cloth and thread experiments. There’s painting up in my “office”, and up in the guest room/studio I keep my acrylic painting projects. I take breaks when I need to, I make tea, I eat lunch, I go back to stabbing for spinning or knitting or saying, “Hey, those beads would look really cool if I added them to the mushroom embroidery!” People have been so great about their love for the embroideries, and for yarns, paintings, and and for whatever my strange little head comes up with. I want to keep doing this for a while more. I want to keep giving people something to make them smile. I want to keep imagining things and stitching them down on cloth so they can’t get away. I want to keep doing that strange alchemy from fluffy fleece to warm, knitted object. I want to hold up a watercolor and yell, “Ya wanna stick this on your fridge, don’tcha?” And I plan to keep exploring new ways to keep the goodness coming. I’ve always produced artwork and projects while I was working full time, but I am just honestly astounded at the difference being at home makes for my output. Not just having more time to work on things, but because I’m not as physically and mentally tired, my brain can tackle things that before would have made me groan and go, “Nope, not doing that, at all,” It’s more of a surprise than it should be, I think.
There’s an old saying, “Even the worst storm washes up some wood on the beach.” Before the Pandemic started, there were so many things I hadn’t tried artistically, or had neglected for years. Now I feel like I have so much more to share with you all, weird and funny visions and stories and how-to’s. I’ll tackle as many of them as I can this year, as we inch closer to a safer life for everybody. I don’t know what the future will look like, but for now it’ll be nice to keep making interesting things until then…
And thank you, kind friends, for being such supportive people. You’ve made a strange, lonely time much more bearable, and I hope I’ve done that for you too…
