From Doodle to Viki

Okay, I really don't understand what the deal is here, but this was a really cute colored in picture that I saved...I tried to upload it twice here, but it's not working, and I can't seem to get rid of it, so I'll just let it stay at some sort of abstract thing. Anyway, what I was trying to show is the drawing I did for the embroidery below, modeled by our lovely Phyllis.

I gave it to Karen last night, and she was delighted, and even noticed all the tiny K's inside the big K!

As you can see, it's quite chilly in our basement, and Phyllis isn't wearing the appropriate undergarments for modelling clothing for the pre-teen girl, but we'll give her a break...it was late.
But I'm really pleased with how well the embroidery turned out. It took FOREVER to stitch, but it's so pretty and colorful! One thing that I learned was that you have to be careful with smaller shirt on that big hoop...the edges of the shirt kept flopping onto the embroidery and I had to snip away one tiny bit cause it got caught. Maybe I should devise some way to clip things to the edges to prevent that.
I've decided to name my Huskvarna Viking Designer SE Viki. Viki is alot easier to spell than HUSK....whatever. When I am mad at her, I'll refer to her at That Rotten Hussy, since that's in the name, too. Last night we got along fine and I am calling her Viki today.

I also took lots of pictures of the stuff I have accumulated in my box labeled "Finished Evidence of Creative Genius". I hope to start a site on ETSY to sell some of this stuff. I love it, I made it all, but I don't have that many babies in my life right now to give cute little hats to. I don't have enough stuff to do the craft show thing, and I don't have time to make more, so it seems like ETSY might be the best option for me. Hopefully I'll find some time to set all that up soon, stay tuned for a grand opening!

Recoverying from the WHITE DEATH

OMG...it snowed and iced and stuff and we got to take yesterday off as a snow day. Actually, I took it as a sick day because I've had a cold, but the kids were home because of the snow. It was nice to relax in my jammies all day in spite of my pathetic miserable sick self. Today I'm back to the sweatshop, doing science, science science!

I finished another quilt yesterday....this one just needed a binding, like the last one, and a label. I did the paper piecing a long long time ago from a pattern that I worked out on EQ4, and the border is something I kind of invented as I went along. I like it.

I guess I would call the quilting a kind of pebbles in the stream type of thing...big circles surrounded by swirlies.
And the label is a doodle that I digitized. I used orange thread for the underlayer of the embroidery and it shows through too much in places, but that just gives it character, right?

Viking Princess

I have a new Husqvarna Viking Desiner SE sitting in my basement; and I'm trying not to let it gather dust, but the fact is, I am terrified of it. I have managed to use it a couple of times; I've done some embroidery on some shirts for an actual paying client, and I've been using it to do some free-motion embroidery on a quilt I've been working on, but I haven't done much actual designing with it.

For the first couple of weeks I was completely baffled by the software for this puppy. There are so many things it can do and so few things I know how to do! But I went to a seminar last night, run by the shop where I bought the machine, and I feel a little better about things today. (Partially because several of the other women there that I chatted with are as clueless as I am!)

But I did pick up some clues about things, and today I sat down at work (because I have a very demanding and busy job right now) and figured out how to turn clip art into embroidery. My goal is to turn my own groovy little doodles into embroidery, and now I think that if I can remember how to work the scanner, I might be able to do it!

Who knows, by this time tomorrow, I might have pictures to show you! Of course, by this time tomorrow I might have gotten fired for playing on my computer instead of...oh, I know, chemical inventory, that's what I'm doing today!