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This week I was stitching IamSusie's towel. It is coming up on her 40th birthday so I added this little guy holding a present and dreaming of a party! I hope she likes it!
Here he is next to the duck Susie stitched. Now they can have a party!
And this rant is about swaps. :)
OK, so as you may or may not know, I've had some bad past swap luck. This bad luck has been pretty much continuing recently. I don't think that the particular folks I am implicating are going to read my blog, so I'm going to go ahead and rant. First of all, you remember the Fosters swap Coco I made? And the pin cushion and dog coat... Well, my partner sent without a DCN# and now the package has mysteriously vanished in transit. Yup - that's my luck! I spent hours and hours on that swap. But what can you do - art is about the process, right? Not the result.
Next was the feminist swap. This was really a challenge. I didn't have a whole lot of info on my partner. She didn't have a blog, her answers to the swap questionaire were very concise, and she wasn't very communicative. So I did the best I could to try and make things I thought she might, personally, enjoy. The requirement was pretty big - 1 large item, 1 medium sized item, and 2 small items. Here is what I made her:
For a small item I made her a two disc mix of female musicians. I also put it in this swanky, quilted CD case. She loves Leonard Cohen, Ani Difranco and the Indigo Girls so I made a nice chunky granola, hairy legged woman mix with plenty of Cohen covers. Vienna Teng, Brandi Carlisle, Tori and more!
The second small item was a set of note cards, monogrammed and fitted with feminist quotes:
For a medium item I made her this "stone cold fox". She has a little Venus symbol on her scarf and since my partner was into organic gardening, I glitzed the piece up with some vintage floral jewelry.
I was really stuck for the large item. I ended up using a piece of embroidery that I had made some time ago. I added a feminist quote, cut it out, made a handbag, and appliqued it to the bag. 
This arrived on Thursday. It is a small wooden box, painted gold. There are sticky rhinestones on the top. (half of which fell off on the way here since they aren't even glued down)
The inside has fuzzy leopard foam placed inside it as a lining (I say "placed" because this is not attached either) It was filled with tampons and a bar of lush soap.
I'm thinking that this might constitute a flake - don't you think? We were supposed to make four crafted items, not one. And to boot, she had my stuff for over a week without ever saying a word. I finally emailed her to ask her if everything had arrived. Then she said yes and thanked me, but still never posted on the boards or ever took a picture! WTF?
ANYWAY, I was beginning to think that my swapping days were over. Obviously I am swap cursed and should just get over that fact and stop doing these stupid things. I was almost at that point when I saw Mary Frances's package in my mailbox. During this swap I asked specifically to be set up with another adult. I felt kind of like a jerk doing that, but I figured it might up my chances of not getting swap-screwed. No offense to 16-year-old America intended, but I REMEMBER being 16 and let me tell ya, I was not reliable. I was also not the crafter I was at 16. My skills are much improved. I know there must be legions of 16 year old craft prodigies out there - I don't mean you guys! But the rest of your age group don't make great swap partners, sorry.
But back to the point! My swap partner for the pin cushion swap has totally redeemed swapping for me by sending me this AMAZING pin cushion. Mary (her name is Mary too) actually went to my blog, learned about me, wrote to me, and thought about me when she made this project!! AND the project she made is so skillfully crafted and so creative that I am just totally and completely blown away. I was kissing it in the car on the way to the Scissor Squad's annual yarn swap. I showed every girl there my lovey little octi. They all agreed he was the bee's knees!
And check out the suction cups!
Thank you SO much Mary!! You made my day and made up for lots of bad swaps all at once! This little guy is so thoughtful and well made, I love love love him!!
The Tea Towel Swap continues and I again, found myself stitching one of my pin ups! I think that this one translated a little better than Suzy Submarine did. What do you think? Am I getting any better? The eyes are still a bit out of control. Third times a charm, right?
Here she is in her original picture form:
Here she is in stitches:
My first item for the Tea Towel swap is done! Paige asked for retro, pinups, and food themes for her apron. I immediately thought of my own dear, Suzy Submarine. :) So here she is in stitch form. I couldn't wrap my head around how to transfer the image and thought I was going to have to freehand the whole thing! Lucky for me, Michelle is a crafty genius. She showed me how to make a transfer using pencil. You color in pencil like crazy on the reverse side of the paper your image is on. (Hope that made sense!) Then, you put the image right-side up on your fabric. You trace all the lines on the paper and the pressure rubs the pencil on the BACK of the page onto your fabric! Easy peasy and great in a pinch! So, without further rambling, here is my project compared to the original Suzy picture:
As most of you know, I have been going a little swap crazy lately. One of the first I joined was a craft swap with the theme: Foster's Imaginary Friends. I loved making stuff for this swap. In fact, it inspired me to make what is probably the BEST stuffed animal creation I've ever made. My swap partner has gotten swamped with schoolwork, so I haven't received my end yet. But since she has already received this stuff and there is no chance of spoiling the surprise (and I can't contain my want to share any longer) I'm going to post what I made her.
Firstly, she has a little tiny dog, so I made her this doggy coat to disguise him as Bloo. She said she's going to try to get a pic of the dog wearing it. I hope she can because that would crack me up.
Next, I made her a pin cushion that looks like Cheese.
And I saved the best for last. She's also a big fan of Coco, the bird/airplane/palm tree. :) The stuffy I made was over two feet tall. She took about 5 hours of sewing - straight! I don't know what came over me. But when it was all finished - Coco looked fab! I was really proud of this thing. In fact, I kept it buckled in my passenger seat for a week before finally mailing it out. LOL.
Look! She's hatching from the photo cube!!
Phew! S. Bobleo caught her before she could escape.
I almost kept it and made something smaller for the swap. But then I thought... "What the HELL am I going to do with a giant Coco bird?". LOL. So I sent it out.
