hello pineapples

Ring ring ring ring, bananaphone

Something I've been working on recently:



Bananaphone! It's how sock monkeys make phone calls.



(It's crappy photo quality because I used my camera phone)

That's the first one. There are some things I plan on changing to the design, but I'm happy with it. The yellow part is from a sheet of cheap craft felt. The buttons were needle felted on. Then I did some embroidery as I am not skilled enough with the felting to put the numbers on that way. The speaker bit at the bottom started out as felting, but that didn't work so I switched to french knots.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Monday, September 21, 2009 1 comments  

filed under: embroidery, felt, plush

Jenny Hart is Awesome

Free Pattern - Fireworks, originally uploaded by Sublime Stitching.

Canada Day and the Fourth of July are both around the corner, so hooray for Jenny of Sublime Stitching for sharing this free pattern. You should follow Sublime Stitching on Twitter and/or Facebook so you're in the know when Jenny has something new to share.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some stitchin' to do.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Friday, June 26, 2009 1 comments  

filed under: awesome crafters, embroidery, free pattern friday

Happy Pancake Day! Celebrate with a free pattern!

free pattern! sweet!

It's Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), which is all about the Pancakes for me. My friend J.Lau and I whipped up a batch for dinner and they were awesome. We made regular pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and raspberry/chocolate chip pancakes. We then smothered them in butter and real maple syrup. The raspberry/chocolate chip were the favourite.

A few hours later, I'm still feeling stuffed on pancakes. But I don't want the day to pass by without sharing Urban Threads' awesome one day only free Mardi Gras design. You have until midnight Minnesota time to download the image or an embroidery pattern (for machine or hand). Or download them all. It is Fat Tuesday after all, which is a day that is about excess (or cooking up fat and eggs before lent. or flashing strangers for plastic beads. whatever).

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Tuesday, February 24, 2009 0 comments  

filed under: embroidery, free pattern friday

The flu: a work in progress

As I mentioned before, I'm a huge hankie fan. So when I was trying to think of things to embroider on them, I thought that I'd look for images of a flu and cold viruses. My thinking was that a hankie comes in handy when you're sick. I had trouble finding an image of the common cold that I liked. The images of rhinovirus that I found looked a lot like a ball with stars on it. But the flu looked embroiderable:


Apparently those are false colours, but I liked them and decided that they'd look cool.





Since hankies are often pretty thin, I often just lay them over whatever image I'm using as a template and then trace the image with a washable fabric marker. For this one, I drew freehand, making it look as much like the flu virus as possible. For parts that are supposed to be darker, I coloured them in dark.

This was meant to be a test run for a possible series of hankies to sell, but right now it's taking far too long to complete. The french knots are taking the longest. I might try a smaller or less complicated version at some point. But for now, this one is all mine.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Saturday, January 24, 2009 0 comments  

filed under: embroidery, work in progress

Blog of the Hour: Embloggery

Happy New Year! The holidays are winding down, my New Year's day hangover is subsiding, and I'm about ready to face 2009. Things will be busy Chez Pineapples: I've got a lot of work to do, I'm hoping to blog more consistently, and we're moving to a new apartment. And that's just January.

But let's start the new year off with a new post about a recent blog discovery: Embloggery.


December 9-10, 2008, originally uploaded by thirdpersonpossessive.

It's absolutely fantastic. Not only does Nicole Wolfersberger free-hand embroider the posts (no tracing, no writing it out in fabric pens), she does this almost daily (puts my lax blogging habits to shame!) and the posts are so much more than the embroidery pictured. You can click on links in the images to get a fuller meaning of the the blog post. For example, each letter in this post has a link to a different article or blog on Google and libraries.

The genius of this post is that it says so much without ever "writing" a word on the subject. It's actually kind of refreshing. Blogs that write a treatise on the subject du jour are a dime a dozen. This one is visual and lovely, but is so much more than just the visual. And depending on the entry, you have to work at the meaning. This one is a little easier to follow than other entries.

This blog is the kind of awesome that makes me wish I could think of something as brilliant. At the same time, I'm quite happy that someone else has thought of it: despite the fact that I embroider, I can't even begin to wrap my head around the amount of time and energy that goes into each post. Better for me that I get to admire her work.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Friday, January 02, 2009 2 comments  

filed under: blogs, embroidery, good ideas

Scissor Shopping

Back in April, Security at Toronto's Pearson Airport confiscated my embroidery scissors. They were a cheap little pair that could fold up. I was told I could go back and check my bag, but I had just flown overnight from LA and I wasn't going to leave the security area. I was a little surprised that they had taken them. I really would have thought that LA would have tighter security than Toronto, seeing as on the list of possible targets, I imagine that LA is higher up on the list than the T-Dot Oh-Dot. Even if Toronto is a "World Class City".

Regardless, I gave up the scissors to Security and have been without since April. I get by most of the time, but I really do need a pair. I haven't really been able to find any in town that look worthy. Either they're really cheap looking, too expensive, or they're stork scissors. And quite frankly, stork scissors creep me out.



I just don't get the stork thing.

The Loop has some that come in a seriously pretty handcrafted wood holder (scroll down their page to see the wood stuff), but those are out of my price range right now (sadly, my eternal studenthood means they have to be under $20).

I've found a site called Silent Stitches that has a huge selection of scissors. I had no idea just how expensive scissors could get or how many varieties are available. So now I'm stumped as to which to buy. I had hoped there might be some scissor info on Feeling Stitchy or Pimp Stitch, but neither has covered the topic of scissors (yet...you should check both out if you are wanting info on other tools and tricks).

I'll probably just go for whatever looks prettiest and fits in my price range. But if anyone has a suggestion, I'm all ears.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Sunday, September 14, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: embroidery, shopping, tools

A work in progress: half way there!

I had posted before about a quilt I was working on for a friend's baby. The quilt is made up of squares that were signed by friends and family who were at the baby shower. The baby in question is now three months old and no longer lives in my building, but from what I've seen in photos, she's damn cute. Anyway, a very exciting thing happened tonight:



I finished embroidering the squares! Now the back needs to go on and there is quilting to be done, but I'm very pleased with how it's turning out. I will post better pictures once I have better light to take photos, but I was too excited to just fold it up and wait to take the picture.

Even one of the cats was psyched about it and checked out my handiwork:



Although, it could be that she just likes to climb under things, especially blankets.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Friday, July 25, 2008 1 comments  

filed under: embroidery, quilt, show and tell, wip

Free Pattern search: Hooray for Canada Day!

Actually, as much as I dig my country, I'm not a huge fan of Canada Day. That sounds worse than it should. As Sloan sings in Coax Me, "it's not the band I hate, it's their fans" (a quote that the mister and I often apply to just about every imaginable situation). Canada Day would be much better if it involved less face painting, bad t-shirts, and novelty hats. Out for ice cream with J.Lau and Mr. Pineapples today, we saw an entire family dressed in red and white, complete with face paint; a couple wearing matching Canada t-shirts: hers in white, his in red; a mom and her son in Canada day t-shirts that were recently sold at the grocery store. I'm all for loving one's country, but I wish it was possible to do it with a wee bit more style.

Having said this, I thought I would attempt to celebrate the day with a free pattern (seeing as I missed the most recent Free Pattern Friday due to a new job, sale at Mexx, a board meeting, and playing Wii with J.Lau). The plan was to offer up a pattern that was something Canadian. This vague plan was easier said than done. A google search for "Canada Day crafts" or "Canada crafts" led me to crafts for children that involved items such as poster paint, streamers, and paper plates. Not that there isn't a place for such a craft, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for.



Truth be told, I really didn't know what I was looking for. So I tried looking for patterns/crafts by Canadian crafty types. This led me to crafts for kids by Arounna of Bookhou. I liked these because while they really are meant to be kid friendly, they're things I want to try doing and they are way more interesting than painting a paper plate. It also led me to the website of one of Canada's favourite knitters, the Yarn Harlot, which does have some free knitting patterns. But still...not quite what I wanted.

I then tried looking for something that involved one thing that embodies Canada for me: the CBC. Despite some of it's flaws (usually on the TV side or involving Jian Ghomeshi), I adore the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Every radio in my apartment is tuned to the CBC. Since there is a Ravelry group for CBC fans, I figured I might find some CBC themed patterns. Alas! This too proves to be easier said than done (If you can prove me wrong and are aware of CBC craft patterns, please let me know). So I'm going to improvise:

From those dark days of the CBC lockout comes a pattern that was knit into headbands:




I think that could easily altered in order to have a CBC logo embroidered/knitted into your project: just take off the part that makes it look like a lock and you're good to go.

Or, you could get really fancy and check out knitPro from microRevolt. All you need to do is upload a picture like this awesome retro CBC logo:



and knitPro will spit out a PDF pattern for your embroidery or knitting. Très awesome, non?

And finally, I'll finish this post off by sharing a link to the CBC's web archive on "Handmade in Canada: the Art of Craft," which features 13 television pieces on craft in Canada. I link to this because it is how I found a radio interview by Peter Gzowski from 1983, where he learns to knit over the radio (he's in Toronto, she's in Halifax!). While he doesn't actually learn to knit, it's well worth the listen.

Well, now it's July 2 and no longer Canada Day, but I do hope you were able to enjoy the holiday (if you're Canadian, otherwise I guess it was just another Tuesday for you). I know I did - it was sunny and hot and we spent the afternoon with ice cream on the waterfront, sangria and wine on a patio on Argyle Street and fireworks on Citadel Hill (sort of. there were buildings between us and the fireworks) - and that's why I'm posting now rather than yesterday.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Wednesday, July 02, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: arts and crafts, embroidery, free pattern friday, knit, patterns

Embroidered Graffiti

Here's an odd thing to admit: I have a soft spot for graffiti.



Don't get me wrong, I know why graffiti can be awful, particularly if it's your building that has the graffiti on it. And lately, I've seen some rather tasteless graffiti on a nearby church (I have no time for that sort of vandalism). But there is an art to graffiti and I can appreciate that. So when I found a challenge on Feeling Stitchy to make embroidery out of graffiti, I was pretty excited. The challenge also suggests turning embroidery into graffiti, but I haven't yet thought of how/if I'll do that. I really don't see me stitching onto a bus seat. But am totally up for turning some graffiti into embroidery. I'll have to go through my photos I've taken of interesting graffiti or take a walk around town in search of something I like. I think this will be a fun challenge.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Tuesday, June 24, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: arts and crafts, embroidery

Free Pattern Friday: Pimp Stitchin' and some crochet hookin'

I know I mentioned Pimp Stitch last week, but it gets a headlining mention this week because I tried out one of their patterns today:





It's a shrunken down version of their first free pattern, "Let's get this party started". I made it as a card for a friend, so I resized it in photoshop. It was my first time doing embroidery on paper and it was not without its challenges. Not helping the matter was my crappy transfer pencil that didn't seem to want to transfer anything. (although, it could be me. I've never used a transfer pencil before).

It's week two of a four week pattern giveaway over at Pimp Stitch, so you should keep an eye out for more adorable designs to come. I'm really enjoying the party theme they have going on right now and am looking forward to the next two weeks of patterns.

And if embroidery isn't your thing (which is too bad...I'm really hooked on it right now), I did find a great resource for free crochet patterns, courtesy of Crafty Carolinagirl. She's put together an amazing list of free crochet toy patterns. Some are free with purchase, and some are direct links to a pdf download (which isn't necessarily bad, but there doesn't seem to be a warning that you're about to download something).

In non free pattern news, I'm super excited about tomorrow being WWKIP day! (WWKIP = world wide knit in public). According to the official site, there are 779 KIP days being held tomorrow! That's awesome. You should check to see if your hometown will be having a large gathering of folks knitting in a public place. Even more exciting that knitting downtown is the photo scavenger hunt. I started my photos on Wednesday, but I've fallen a bit behind since I forgot my camera when I headed to campus today (although I did remember the knitting).

That's it for me. I'm wiped out from an evening of Wii and BBQ and the cats are looking for food.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Saturday, June 14, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: crochet, embroidery, free pattern friday

Free Pattern Sunday: dust bunnies and party time embroidery

I hadn't forgotten about the free pattern on Friday, but I was out of the house most of the day. I brought my sea creatures to the Loop, did some work at Starbucks, retrieved my cellphone/visited with a friend, went to help out with the Canadian Cancer Society's Relay for Life and then drinks with friends. I also managed to sew with my sewing machine over the weekend! This is quite the feat. Still no camera cord, so pictures will have to wait, but I made a blanket/pillow for my cat to take to the vet. The poor little dude has to stay at the vet for the next week while he recovers from his radioactive iodine. The husband likes to make Hulk jokes; one friend has decided that kitty's radioactive blood will make him SpiderCat. I wonder if "superhero powers" are one of the side effects.

The free pattern is a bit of a "cheat" on my part, but since I was out of the house all Friday, I didn't have as much time to spend on looking for the right one. But there is a method to my madness. This week is Mochimochi's dust bunny, which is free with purchase (there's the cheat). But it is so darn cute that I had to share. I also had to share because my apartment has some dust bunnies that are threatening to take over.



Seriously. They are the cutest. I'm on a pretty tight budget, but I'm thinking I need to purchase something for that pattern.

Having said that, Mochimochi does have some of the cutest free knitting patterns online. And, Mochimochi is having a photo contest. You knit up one of the patterns (free or purchased), take a picture, submit it on Flickr and maybe you'll win cute stuff.

The other free pattern is from the new and fabulous Pimp Stitch:



If you read other crafty blogs, you have probably already caught on to Pimp Stitch, but if not, enjoy the free patterns they have planned. I know I will be. The site looks like it will be an awesome pattern/idea source for embroidery fans.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Monday, June 09, 2008 1 comments  

filed under: blogs, embroidery, free pattern friday, knit

Free Pattern Friday Sunday Night

Friday didn't happen as I was off bbq'ing with friends in the North End. Lots of red wine and cake and this hilarious game called What? (try googling that...almost impossible to find it that way. Far too vague a search). All in all, a really nice night out with some of my super friends. Saturday was no go on the free pattern as the Downstairses needed help cleaning up their apartment. We got them all cleaned up and out the door and off to the airport by late afternoon. Now I am downstairs-neighbour-less, which is really quite sad. They've been there for three years and the two years prior to that, it was home of the Gerkins. Now it is sad and empty.

So, what have I got for you today? Well, I've found a lovely blog birthday contest (found via Average Jane Crafter) that is not only offering up a fantastic prize, but everyone who posts gets a PDF copy of an applique and embroidery pattern.



Isn't it lovely? I'm looking forward to trying it out as embroidery. Ever since my visit to California, I've had pretty little birds on the brain. So many colourful little birds hang out around my parents' house. Like this little guy, who was one of the regulars at the feeder:



Of course, all embroidery must wait because....I'm still alive in Sock Wars III!! Seriously. WTF? My assassin must be as slow as me at this game. I've turned the heel and knit through the gusset, but then had to frog 'er back to the heel - I was a few stitches too many when I finished the gusset. I spent this evening trying to get stitches dropped in the frogging process back onto the needles. Unfortunately, the end of the TV season means the end of something to watch while I work on projects. I'm surprised I managed to keep focused on my knitting, I was rolling my eyes that much during The Forgotten that it was hard to know if I dropped a stitch or not.

I'm pretty sure I've screwed up the pattern. I'm one of the 8-stitch repeat people in the pattern and it appears that the 9-stitch repeat is the way to go. Oops. They still look pretty enough. And it seems that there is no official ruling from the Supreme Commander as to whether one is right and one is wrong. *la sigh*. I'm kind of hoping that tomorrow will bring me a pair of socks and my death in this game.

Now, off to bed with me! I meant to be in bed an hour ago!

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Monday, May 26, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: blogs, embroidery, free pattern friday, frogging, sock wars iii

Free Pattern Fridays: Get your stitch on

After weeks without free patterns, I'm offering up a few sites with some nifty embroidery transfers and tutorials:

The transfers

Floresita has a blog devoted to her vintage transfers. I'm of two minds when it comes to vintage transfers - some are the kind of kitsch I love, but many take that step beyond kitsch and into the land of hokey. But to each their own. What I do like about these transfers is that Floresita occasionally photoshops them up to make them awesome, like the Saucepan Sabotage transfer:



Awesome, non? (you can get the full size transfer here)

Some of the finer embroidery bloggers have pooled together their vintage transfers in the flickr pool, Hoop Love. With 645 pictures in the pool, I'm sure one of them will fit your embroidery needs.

Needlecrafter.com also has a great selection of transfers, many of them vintage and a lot of those seem to be from old Vogart collections. I haven't looked closely enough to know for sure, but you may find some overlap in Vogart transfers within the various vintage transfer sites. Needlecrafter also offers an insane glossary of stitches, as well as articles, links, and more. Even if the vintage stuff isn't your style, there is probably something useful at Needlecrafter.


the tutorials

Found this tutorial for Japanese Sashiko embroidery via a post on Feeling Stitchy. The Purl Bee claims that Sashiko only looks difficult. I'll have to wait and see about that - it does seem to require some special materials.

the not so free

These patterns by Peapies aren't free, but they're so darn cute that I have to share them:



There's a good chance I'll be purchasing at least one of those designs in the near future.

the inspiration

In need of some embroidered inspiration? Then check out Feeling Stitchy's flickr pool. There is some amazing work to behold in that pool.

and finally...
the just plain old awesome

Have I mentioned Feeling Stitchy before now? It's a recent find for me and I might be in blog love. They have a number of fantastic tutorials, including one on needles - something I could use since I (a) haven't a clue about which needle to use when; and (b) I broke a needle while working on my quilt the other evening (snapped in half!). And if that weren't awesome enough, they also have the Crafty Blog School tutorials. That's one I'm intrigued by since I'm still new to the world of blogging (unless you count my time on LiveJournal a few years ago...but that didn't have much of a focus).

Purl Bee, the blog of Purl Soho, is another great stitchy crafty resource. I was excited to see that the most recent post is on thimbles. It's a bit of serendipity for me, seeing as it was only yesterday that I was complaining to le husband about needing either a callous or a thimble for my thumb (a thimble would be preferable). That pain in the thumb is from holding onto the needle and trying to pull it through the fabric; I also need one for pushing the needle through or for general poke protection.

-----


So that's it for today. Happy Weekend and happy crafting! I picked up my tofutsies yarn from The Loop (one of my LYS) today. Why the tofutsies? For Sock Wars III! My dossier arrived via e-mail at noon and I've got to get my knit on tout de suite. The only trouble is: I detest working with eensy needles. Even 4mm needles are small by my standards and this stuff (like a lot of sock yarn) calls for 2.75mm needles. Teeny needles and dainty yarn will be my undoing in this war. Regardless, I will be giving it the old college try.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Saturday, May 10, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: embroidery, free pattern friday, patterns, sock wars iii, yarn

In Stitches...again...

My thesis has me a wee bit stressed this week, and by wee bit, I mean that I'm really freaking out totally stressed. Getting me through it has been embroidery and m&m's. Although, I think I need to add some kind of exercise to the mix - or else those m&m's are going to add up.

Anyway, my thought to write a post about embroidery was totally in sync with most of the blogs I was reading/stumbling across this week. So much fun embroidery stuff out there!!

First things first, my project:



each of the squares were signed by guests at a baby shower. Instead of a guest book, I'm embroidering the names onto the squares and it's being made into a quilt. It makes it a permanent, useable guestbook and a nice reminder of their friends and family here on the east coast, seeing as they are moving later this month. It was totally a Martha Stewart idea (I'm a Martha Stewart junkie) and it's starting to look awesome.



My mom and I sewed together the top while I was visiting (okay, my mom sewed it together - I'm still sewing machine challenged). A few squares had to be traced over - the names came a little close to the edge and would have been lost when sewing the squares together. I'm trying to keep things looking as close to the original signatures as possible.

Now, since my mind has been split between Veronica Mars' negotiation of identity and embroidery, I'm going to share with you some of the coolest embroidery stuff I've found online this week:

Average Jane Crafter points out an interview with Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching on Craft Sanity AND there is a free sublime stitching template available. Sweet! (the template isn't exactly my style and I already have the mod templates, but free is free).

Speaking of the awesome Jenny Hart, I came across her blog Embroidery as Art via Feeling Stitchy. Both blogs are worth reading and were both added to my Google Reader this week. Jenny Hart's blog led me to some of the most outstanding embroidery I've seen in ages by Takashi Iwasaki. Seriously, check it out:



I was completely blown away/inspired by his work.

I've got more, but I think I'll save those for later...I'm going to attempt a post dedicated to embroidery as art.

Totally off topic: Sock Wars III starts tomorrow!! I'm a bit nervous to tell the truth. I'll have to go pick up some yarn tomorrow morning, before I get my assignment.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Thursday, May 08, 2008 3 comments  

filed under: arts and crafts, embroidery, quilt

In Stitches (part the first)

I like to challenge myself with crafts. I have a mental list of crafts to learn and when I can afford the time and money, I teach myself how to do something. Aside from failed knitting and crochet lessons as a kid, most of my crafting has been a mix of guesswork, book learning and internet how-tos. The explosion of craft blogs has made learning a new craft so much easier (and cheaper! if you don't count my internet bill).

When I started to make sock monkeys, I decided to embroider a mouth and nose on them in a backstitch, as this was all I really knew. At my first craft fair, someone asked if I could embroider the eyes on, rather than have buttons, as it was for a baby that was in the "i put things in my mouth" phase of babydom. So I sort of did this embroidered eye that could technically be called a "satin stitch", but it was a fairly lame version of that stitch. This is because I didn't even know what the stitch was, I just did it. I was also trying to embroider monograms onto some of the monkeys, and while these looked okay, I wasn't really happy with my work. I could only live with the guesswork for so long (and I was annoyed that I still hadn't used the Sublime Stitching patterns I had bought). I was determined to learn to embroider.

My first instinct was to get a book, but didn't really use it. I had picked up Hip to Stitch and it seemed straightforward enough, but it was very project oriented and the projects were just a wee bit beyond my skill level. I wasn't quite ready to jump head first into the embroidery pool. I needed to ease in. And then,
way back in September, I came across some wonderful blog posts on how to embroider. I found Crafty Daisies via Craft magazine's blog (I think that's how I found it).


The embroider tutorials on Crafty Daisies were fantastic - easy to understand and I learned quite a bit from them. Check it out:


1.
2.

3.
4.

I didn't actually follow along with the lessons as they were posted, and I took a bit of a break between the third and fourth lessons. The fabric I used for lessons 1-3 was leftover bits from my bedroom curtains. They're Ikea and look lovely on the window, but if you try to use it for embroidery, you're left frustrated with how it splits everywhere. Despite my poor choice in fabric, I was happy to come across this online tutorial. She did a great job with explaining how the stitches worked and her photos were also great. If I had any complaint, is that the nature of a blog format: Since I wasn't following along as they were posted, I was having to go back and find the tutorials on the site (poor bookmarking on my part) and then scroll down through all the lessons to find the one that I was working on. I was also trying to avoid seeing what others were doing with the homework, so I wouldn't be influenced by what they were doing. Overall, a pretty minor complaint.

Since following the Crafty Daisy tutorial, I've been playing around with some different projects, filling in what I don't know with Primrose Design's Stitch School and the Hip to Stitch book. So far, I'm pretty happy with my progress (although, I've yet to break open the Sublime Stitching patterns). It's a little late, so I'll post tomorrow with how I've been using my newfound stitching skills.

Posted byHello Pineapples! on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 0 comments  

filed under: blogs, embroidery