David Bowie Craft Swap

I was pretty sad when David Bowie died and I'm not really one to get upset about famous people passing away, but David Bowie was one of my favourites. I grew up on David Bowie's music, one of my all time favourite movies as a child (and an adult) is Labyrinth and when I see cats with two different coloured eyes I always refer to them as David Bowie cats.

So when there when I saw that there was a David Bowie Tribute Swap happening on Craftster I decided to sign up.

I decided to make a couple of things for my partner, the biggest item was this bag. I  used the same pattern that I did for my Make a Purse and Fill It Swap, but this time I added some embroidery.

Here's a close up of the embroidery, I'm not completely happy with it but it is the first embroidery I've done in about seven years so I can live with it. 

I wish I could credit the designer of the pattern, but its a freebie and I cannot find the original design again! Anyway it came out a little bit wonky, but I'm happy with it overall.

I lined the bag with this fabric I bought a heap of at fabric-a-brac a couple of years ago as it seemed to work pretty well with the colour and the lyrics on the front of the bag.

I also made a cross stitch (obviously) there are a few David Bowie themed cross stitches on Esty if you're thinking of making one, this was my favourite. The pattern is by Jenny Savage Studio, the original design had the text in red, but for some reason I decided purple was better. Also the fabric is sparkly because sparkly is always better.

I was very lucky and received a pretty amazing package in return which included this button mosaic David Bowie, which I have to share as it is incredible and more art than craft!

I hope everyone's week is going great! I have finally sorted the photos from my trip and hopefully I will be able to do a post about that soon.

Fox and Owl

I've been feeling a little bit down and pretty exhausted this week - nothing in particular really - just a bit "over it". I suspect that winter is playing a fairly significant role in this - I'm over grey days and rain and wearing jackets and scarves and hats.

I just want to have a day where I can hang out in the sunshine with my friends - unfortunately everyone seems to be sick due to winter bugs and the sun only seems to come out for a few hours on work days.

Oh well - at least my crafting skill are totally bad-ass - I just thought I'd share a couple embroidery hoops I did a while ago for an "Owl & Fox" swap on Craftster - I thought they turned out pretty well.

I have also been reading about comic con quite a lot this week - mostly because I like to look at all the cosplay outfits. It's further ignited my desire to make another costume, but I have no reason to make another costume. Perhaps I need to host a wee soiree as a reason to dress up?

Well, I best be going - I hope you've all had a rad week and I am SO happy its FRIDAY tomorrow!

Beefcake Stitching

I just wanted to share a couple of recent embroidery patterns with you all - embroidery is one of those crafts that I get a little bit obsessed with for a couple of months, then I don't do any for about six months and then I pick it up again and think "why did I stop doing this?" - its awesome.

Here's a couple of embroidery hoops I made for our friends Nankz and Paul for their birthdays which are only a few weekend apart.

Recently, Nankz and I went to watch a film about the life of Rock Hudson and the Outtakes Film Festival these embroidery hoops hoops were inspired by Rock and those cheesy "beefcake" photos of the 1950's.

I used a pattern called "Beefcake Beach" which I picked up at Madam Fancy Pants on Cuba Street, they used to sell Sublime Stitching Patterns at Iko Iko too, but I haven't seen any there for a long time and Madam Fancy Pants only sells a limited number I think I the future I'll end up buying the patterns online.

I'm currently working on a third beefcake babe - he's done in blue thread and is also on the same fabric as the surfer dude (the fabric is actually an old sheet I picked up at the op shop).

I'm off to look at more sublime stitching patterns - there are so many more designs I want to make - the totally metal designs are pretty awesome.