Apparently I had a thing for unicorns.

My sweet daughter is all the sudden into My Little Ponies. You know the little plastic ponies with rainbow hair. She got one as a gift from a friend recently and I remembered that I have a whole box of ponies somewhere. I found them in a box labeled High School junk. Ok random but....I set them out for M to find when she came home the other day and she LOVED them. There we 6 ponies total, 4 unicorns and 2 not unicorns. My favorite one is a purple unicorn with white hair and a bright pink streak. Apparently I had a thing for unicorns.

In the same mysterious box I found this lovely little piece of work. Why yes that is a hand stitch yarn unicorn circa um... well I am guessing 1983? Which would have made me 6 when I did this.

When ever anyone asks me I usually say, I have always sew off and on. Well her is an actual early example at my attempts at the stitching arts. Pretty fantastic if you ask me!

I do not do a whole lot of hand work these days. But is is still on my radar.

I have tried working from embroidery patterns. There are some great ones out there. Jenny Hart is super cool and I use a lot of the techniques she talks about in her books. 

And Urban Threads just has some fun and fabulous patterns. Check out the tree-hugger section, right up my alley.

But I have a hard time following an embroidery pattern. It makes me feel like I am trying to write in someone else's hand writing. Particularly when there are words involved.

Lately I have been just hand sketching out my designs directly onto the fabric I want to embroider. And then I just sort of wing it and make it look like he picture I have in my head. Most of the time it works out pretty well. And when it doesn't, I scrap it and start on something else.

Sewing and art are really just one big experiment. Honestly lately I have been trying to see life in general this way. Things have just not been working out as I planned and I have got to figure out how to roll with it.  And that I am just a person who makes lots of changes and I often re-invent myself. But am I getting too old for this? Madonna is still doing it, and she is way older than me. 

Sometimes when I am doing hand work I think about the finished product. This is a dress that I wanted to look like a giant tattoo on my back.

Since I am too big of a wimp to get a real tattoo I often make things that are tattoo - like.

Self Stitched September day 20.

Another ode to the tattooed ladies.

I totally enjoyed my anti-computer hiatus, but I am glad to be back. I missed writing about my crazy little life and all the odd little things that come up with about sewing.


Peace Out - C