New in the shop!

A couple months ago Amy of A is for Ampersand (who took this gorgeous photo) asked me to knit her two pair of fox mittens, and I jumped at the chance. Instead of adapting a plain mitten pattern like a sane person, I made the pattern from scratch and these are what I wound up with. And I’m so happy with the finished product that I’m now selling custom fox mittens in the shop!

These will be made to order in any size from 2T to adult large. They’re 100% wool, with a tight fit so you don’t completely lose use of your hands like you do with loose mittens.

Eventually, when I get the nerve to tidy up my pattern and send it to a test knitter, I’ll be selling the pattern in the shop, as well. And then maybe even adapting it to make other cute kitschy mittens like kittens, pencils, and whatever else I can think of.

So what do you think? For more details and pictures check out the listing here.

Roots

I love, love, love root systems. I think if I had to choose one specific thing to embroider for the rest of my life, it’d be roots. (Also, I could manipulate the roots to make pretty pictures (like of David Bowie’s face for example) therefore tricking the imaginary system.) Whenever I weed or thin plants, I try to bring up the entire root system so I can stare at it and play with it. Don’t know why, exactly, but I love ‘em.

These little roots are part of a sketch I’m working on for my first commissioned piece! It’s just one of the many sketches I’ll be showing the client, but if she doesn’t pick this one I’ll probably still make it for the shop. It’s the roots of purslane, that succulent weed I constantly complain about.

As promised

This morning I added another piece to my shop!

I really love this piece. It’s just calm, calm, calm. Here’s the description from the listing:

This intricate embroidery is of river chickweed; a common weed in North America and Eurasia that I find incredibly beautiful, despite (or because of) its pervasiveness. The embroidery of the weed is based on an old botanical sketch of it.
Atop the weed I embroidered and painted “no expectations” in blue. For me, this makes the piece incredibly calming and sweet.
The fabric is a vintage very-light blue chambray. It is stitched in 100% cotton embroidery floss and the text is filled in with acrylic paint. It is framed in a simple vintage oak frame, measuring 9×11 inches. The stitching itself measures about 6.25×7.25 inches.
The back of the frame is cardboard with spots to hang the piece from nails, but no prop to stand it up on a flat surface.
Please feel free to ask me if you have questions about this or any other piece! Thank you for looking.

 

It’s aliiiiiive!

As of just about two minutes ago, The Psychodelicate is a real live Etsy shop! Here are some of my favorite pictures of new items. Click the pictures to find the listing!

Right now there are eleven gorgeous items in the shop – it’s fewer than I’d like, but such is life. There are several new items (mostly embroidery) that will be ready for posting in the next couple weeks, but didn’t quite make my August 1 deadline. As Seth Godin would say, I needed to ship it.

I love love love these garlands!

So! What’s next? A whole lot more embroidery. Inspired by words, nature, and vintage needlework. I can’t wait to share it with you! I’ll try to have two new pieces framed, photographed and listed by tomorrow morning.

Chug-chug-chugging.

It’s the last day before The Psychodelicate opens, and I’m busily finishing the final touches; perfecting listings, re-photographing a few items (thanks to a genius tip from Olivia), and then on to finish/frame/block the things that likely won’t be ready by tomorrow.

My camera strap looks really horribly photoshopped in this image. Like it’s been painted on. Phone photography is difficult.

Living-room photo-studio! It’s been working pretty well, if I do say so myself. I’ve been trying to photograph every piece outside as well as inside (using outdoor lighting), which is a pretty big time-suck but I think it’s worth it.

Anyway, I’m off to the living room to work more! Yikes! Tomorrow!

Millions of stitches

I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like, because we’re now in the home stretch of the shop opening so I’ve been busy tangling threads at every spare moment. Also my desk is currently set up to be a stitching/watching netflix area, so typing is just physically uncomfortable. #whitepeopleproblems

Anyway, here’s a sneak peek at something I’m working on for the shop. It should be finished by now, but I’m trying a new framing technique that is frankly quite horrifying, so I’m postponing it as long as possible. Framing in general really stresses me out. I’ve learned a lot of new useful techniques, but it remains that framing fabric is just difficult. In the future I’m going to try to make as many of my pieces as possible fit in an embroidery hoop, because using one of those as a frame is easy as pie.

Anyway, I must get back to stitching! After all, the shop opens in two days!

(Yikes. Two days. Feeling a little bit nauseous about it, actually. But it will be great! I promise!)

We set a date!

Alright lovelies. I have finally decided* on an opening date for the shop, and I’m ready to reveal the name I picked:

That’s right! We open in a mere three weeks on August 1! Needless to say, I’m over-the-moon excited about this. I’ve been spending hours and hours every day for months on building up an inventory, and I just can’t wait to show it all to you next month.

Here are a few of the awesome things I’ll be selling:

• Crocheted garlands: There have been quite a few sneak peeks of these, and in turn a good amount of interest. I have seven of them finished and waiting to go to their new homes.
• Phrase-based embroideries: These are pieces that I design around beloved words, and so far I am in looooove with them.
• Freeform embroideries: These will be relatively cheap, because I use them to explore new techniques and relax the creative muscle. But I also think they look pretty damn awesome.
• The rest of the collections I’m planning on will be released after the shop opens. I’m supremely excited about these; there will be kits, wreaths, custom work, portraiture, patterns, hats … I seriously can’t wait. I know it’s wise to stick to one craft/type of item/niche per store, but I’m just too excited about all the things I can do to only offer one kind of item.

One thing that has been making me postpone the opening is design/marketing work. It makes my eyes bleed. I have finally found a lovely designer willing to work with me on some buttons and banners, but I still need to determine what sizes to ask for. And what aesthetic to go after. Truth is, I’m having a horribly difficult time branding; just narrowing down the name was insanely difficult. Here are a few (awful, I know) banners I’ve made while trying to narrow down a preferred color scheme/font/aesthetic/tagline.

I promise, my embroidery/crochet/knitting design is much better than my graphic design.

Anyway, now that all the information is out there, you’ll be getting more frequent updates on how the work is going. I’m so excited for August 1!

*I actually decided a long time ago, but haven’t had any logo design to speak of until just a few nights ago. So the announcement comes now.

 

Coming up soon

• Some outrageously delicious food.
• Fair isle in Noro! It’s also delicious, but in a less literal sense.
• How to make the PERFECT roasted marshmallow.
• The atheist visits a religious landmark on a windy day in a skirt and nearly flashes the missionaries.

This is how you embroider like a lady

Because it’s too damn hot to sit any other way. Also: Sneak preview of something I’m working on for the shop! While I was trying to get a bird’s eye camera shot of myself (no easy task, I tell you), somebody snuck up between my legs for a surprise hug.

What a sweetheart.

The sneakiest of peeks.

I’ve been embroidering away in preparation for the etsy shop’s grand opening (which will be in mid-July, with any luck), and I’m just too excited about what I’m doing to keep it to myself.

You can’t tell from this intentionally over-edited shot, but these poppies have some pretty magnificent detail. If I do say so myself. This is just one-half of the finished piece – the other half modernizes this old-school design (which I made myself, based on a Dover botanical sketch) and gives it some context. I seriously can’t wait to show it to you.