My Creative Space: August 25

My goodness, where did the week go? In between a full and busy weekend and a few days having my nearly grown-up niece to stay, I managed to craft a little.

First up, today is my husband's birthday. After the boys were so successful in creating their own superhero shirts, I suggested we make a shirt for their dad's surprise gift. They know his favorite superhero is Wolverine, so despite the fact that Wolverine doesn't really have a symbol like some other superheroes, they were adamant(ium) (ha! you'd have to know superheroes, I guess, to get that). We ended up with a three-color deal, lots of arguing spirited debate about design and placement, and the banishment of one child altogether when it became clear that he was arguing because he likes to argue. The shirt, shown here before I ironed it, was largely the work of my nine-year-old (although I cut and ironed the stencils).

That X in the circle is the X-men logo, but you can tell the shirt represents Wolverine because of the claws coming in from the side. (I know more about superheroes than I ever wanted to, and most of it has seeped in without my conscious knowledge.)

Next up... I'm almost done with my Feeling Stitchy August Stitch-a-long piece--and in case you missed it, John had such kind words to say about my progress as of last week; he totally made my Saturday morning--so I put it in the hoop to see what I want to do next. Up until that point I'd been embroidering at whim, but I figured I should make sure what I have goes into the hoop in which I want to frame it in a logical way. I don't want to cut off any of the embroidered bits. So I took this photo to help me remember which part I'd decided to "frame."

It's a poor, flash-lit photo, but really, I took it so I wouldn't forget. Then I roughly sketched it out so I wouldn't forget. I'll probably forget anyway. But I'm almost done, at any rate, and just in time, Wendi posted a video on how to neatly frame embroidery in a hoop; I was kind of fuzzy on how to do that.

The final picture: a heap of stuff on my ironing board, which represents projects to come.

The caterpillar is on one side of a folded panel; on the other is the butterfly, of course! I bought this when we visited the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art about a week and a half ago, because my daughter would like a caterpillar pillow. I haven't decided if I'll make a throw pillow out of it and put it over a pillow form, or if I'll get some coordinating fabric so it's large enough for a pillow case. I wanted to wash it first and then measure it again. So now it's been washed, and it needs an iron. (You can see the full panel on this page; it's the first item.)

The pile of white cloth to the left is four flour sack dishtowels from Target. Nothing fancy, but I wanted some plain dishtowels for embroidery. I've been working on more tide pool drawings and I'm just about ready to stitch, once I finish my stitch-a-long piece.

Phew! And along with all that, there was an earthquake (I didn't feel it, but I was on the edge of an island in the Bay, and I wonder if the crazy waves right about that time were related) and now we're bracing for a hurricane. The forecast keeps changing, so we'll get ready while we wait to see what the ultimate danger is. This weekend is my kids' last before school starts on Tuesday. I'd planned to fit in one last beach visit on their last day of summer vacation, but either way, somehow I don't think that's going to happen!

What's been keeping you busy? And you can see lots more creative spaces here.