Michelle Alynn Clement - Scissor Quirk.

An Ode to Stitch + Goings on.

Okay, I've become obsessed as of late. Obsessed with embroidery. lol...

Maybe that's why I've been MIA on my week off. (Horrible!) I know, I know...I promised I'd be here.

First off, I have to say a biiiig thanks to MrXStitch and Feeling Stitchy for featuring my Anthropoid Elvis stitched piece right after I posted it up! :) Thanks guys! And I have to say after needlecraft-blog-surfing, there is some inspiring needlework out there, my friends. In my searches I found tons of stuff I want to collect for myself, here are a few little gems for inspo:

This rad brain & eyeball that I want (from what may now be my most favorite etsy shop) stitched by Mrs. Gibson:


This cute stitched love letter by the lovely Katie Cupcake. :) Love it!!

And these lovelies from Laura Hanley:

Yum, yum! Makes me wanna whip out my needle and thread. :) he he...Oh, man, that sounds so dorky. But it's true.

So what have I been doing in my first few days off (truly off...I have been purposefully un-busy), you ask? Welp - on the weekend we went to Bowen Island for a friends' Orchestra performance and had drinks + yummy food + music there for the day. Very relaxing and rad - the music rocks and there's nothing like ferrying over the ocean on a sunny day. :)

I then proceeded to sleep a lot (I was catching up from the sleepless last week, I think...I was randomnly falling asleep at really early times) and going for daily runs (which I've been dying to do for like, a year!). I made some cookies, made a few dinners, have been reading "My Sister's Keeper". Have been not feeling crafty at all, which is odd, but yesterday I think my brain finally felt rested enough to be creative, so I started work on my websites. We had a barbeque on the roof, too, and walked around the lake multiple times to see baby swans (there's a few, finally!) and various other critters. And, well - it's now Thursday!

So I'm almost 100% recooperated, I think. :) I have a week of work starting tomorrow/Monday coming up, lots of plans whirling and whirling in my brain for summer plans (camping trips, house-warming party, Tofino trip, a week of maybe Italy very soon...) lol. But It's felt good to not let it make me overwork myself and just hold it on the backburner. :) There's a Dozens' kit on my table to be scrapped, so I'll have some craftiness to share very soon!

Oh, and we have a mouse! Agh. I thought they only come in in the winter? In the past 4 days our new resident has bothered us in the middle of the night being loud, knocking things over, eating half a stick of butter on the counter....(sigh). We don't wanna kill him, but what a pain. And I'm not down with mouse germs. We need a harmless way to get rid of him, any ideas?

Happy day, guys!

Duuuude.

Well, hello. :) I just have to spill that I've had a super-lucky last few days, in the grand scheme of lucky-ness! We had the art show at work and I won a random raffle prize for making something and entering it - an 8 gig ipod! :) Dude! Yay!

And then (while some might not call this lucky...) I left work early that same day (after waking up at the crack of dawn, albeit, so that I could leave early), I walked all the way to my dentist appointment only to find that my appointment had been cancelled, and, since I have no cell phone, I had no idea whatsoever! lol...Oy. So I found myself at home at 5:30 pm, which was totally odd, but lucky. I'm kicking myself that I didn't buy a lotto ticket on the way home!

So then yesterday, I'm about to go lounge on the beach when I win a lil raffle prize from one of my all-time fave shops, Boygirlparty!! :) Eeeek!! (Thanks to Susie for having such a fab raffle/shop in the first place!!). I don't think I've randomly won anything ever - least as far back as that I can remember it - and not twice in one week - so I was psyched and I totally went out and bought some scratch tickets just in case the luck wasn't a fluke. lol...and then I only won 3 bucks. But 3 bucks is 3 bucks, right? lol...

Anyhoo - back to said Art Show project! I finally have some artsy to share! :) I embroidered one of my favorite Tzanko drawings (I've wanted to stitch it for a long while, and the art show at work was the perfect excuse to finally do it!!). I started off with some cotton and dyed it with walnut ink a few times - I used a brush to make the edges darker and splashed it a little to 'age' the fabric.

It took me a few days to stitch all of the crazy details, but I'm so excited that I could pull it off and that it looks exactly like the drawing!! Yay! Here it is:

 

I snapped a picture of my messy walnut-ink staining progress, but the juice seems to have taken center stage in the shot...lol. Ah, well...juice rocks.

 

 

And there it is! :) My lil stitched Anthropoid Elvis! I used the same pattern that I have for sale in the shop - the pattern is about 8 x 10 ish - I traced it onto the fabric using a disappearing ink pen, and then as I stitched I had the print-out right next to me so I could check the details as I went. :) It was totally fun to make something, I haven't had much time to create lately, so it rocked!!

I hope you like him! :) I took some photos of the house today, some new products that will be posted very soon in the shop, and I still have some island photos to share - so there'll be much more soon! Z and I have been busy getting ready for camping, working, doing tons of laundry (ugh!), and and lounging at the beach this weekend...relaxing, but my brain just feels so busy, still. lol...possibly only 2 weeks of work left, so that's exciting!! But I have to sort-of take over for my supervisor this week, so it might get even busier! lol...

More soon, thanks for peeking, and happy day guys!! :)

Embroidery Rocks...

 Ahh...yes! I do take days off, believe it or not! :) lol...On anniversary Monday Z and I took a day and did hang-out-together stuff (well,  we always hang out together, anyway...lol...but you know)...we went and had a fab Italian lunch/dinner, complete with yummy dry red wine and tiramisu, and then we rolled on over to the art gallery..cept we only had 20 minutes there before it closed, but still..it rocked. Must go back very soon! :) And then we headed to the theatre and saw the new James Bond. Yay! Super fun!

Anyhoo, I'm working at the studio today...which is a little odd after a week off...lol...but its good! :) Quiet and lonely, but busy good! I only have a few hours left there between now and, well, January...gotta get working on my portfolio! Eeep!

Annnd....finally, some stuff from Bubbly Shnooks is ready to be shared! :) Here's the funnest thing I've ever embroidered! "Hearts Aflame For You":Oh, man - was that ever the best to embroider!! I love cool patterns, they're hard to come by aside from the ever-fab Sublime Stitching. Mucho kudos to Jess at Funky Finds, too, for suggesting that these prints would make fab embroidery patterns - as soon as I read her comment, I was like..."Dude! How did I not think of that??" and I got to stitching right away! Love em, love em.

Being a baby to embroidery, myself, I am constantly on the lookout for not-run-of-the-mill patterns, so to help contribute to the good of happy cool crafters everywhere, "Ol Shifty the Pirate", "Hearts Aflame for You", and "Anthropoid Elvis" are the prints that made it into embroidery patterns: And (yay!) they're on sale until November 26th for $5.25 each (printable .pdf versions and hard copies!) right here! Perfect for stocking stuffers, if I do say so myself, for the young grandma-hearted girl in your life. :) I'm currently stitching Mr. Cool Monkey, and he rocks, too.

Watch for more fun goodies debuting very soon (as soon as I have a day to catch-up at home!), as well as a rad sale for Black Friday and a 12 days of Christmas sale starting December first, too! :) Lots of yummy store stuff coming up - its just so fun! I'll also be looking for guest designers eventually and will be posting a call for those interested in a few weeks, too. Yay!

And if you're not signed up for the store e-newsletter yet and would like to be the first to hear about those upcoming sales/calls/new goodies, please sign up using the blog widget or e-mail me directly to be added to the mailing list (michelle.a.clement@gmail.com). There's one going out in a few days!  Okay, okay, enough blathering about my fave lovechild, Bubbly Shnooks. lol..All for now - happy day, folks!

Hello, new home...

A new home for my words and my thoughts and some photos. Yay! I've been dying to update my blog for ages and ages, and am building a website here on typepad - so now at least this part of the whole enchilada is done! Whee! Thanks for following me over here from blogger! :) I love blogger - it will be odd not using it. Most everything on this blog is done, but there will be a seperate page with all the lovely places and links I visit that will be done soon, too, and I can't for the life of me get the music player smaller...lol. But I *heart* "Downpour" so I just had to keep it on. Literally, been playing that song over and over and over all week. There's a link to the old blog/archives on the side, there, too! Anyhoo, what do you think of the new design?

As for me - work is now part-time, so I've had the last few days off and am trying madly to catch up and make Christmas shop goodies and organize oodles of everything that was put off all year (paperwork, computer files, etc....), as well as finally going out for runs on the daily. Yay! We watched Hellboy 2 the other day, and it rocks! For any film geeks out there, they did the majority of special effects and creatures the good ol fashioned way - all built, modelled, etc. by hand by amazing artists and most of the awesome creatures (love Guillermo's del Toro's art direction and design, always!!) are puppeteered over real guys similar to how Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal" and other amazing films were done...duuude. It was so refreshing to see a dude in a monster suit as opposed to some lamely computer-animated version. Love, love.

For today, a little peek of one of my current obsessions/projects:
 Dude....happy day, all! :) Thanks for stopping by my new home! I'm off to do a bunch of errands (ugh!) like laundry and a printer run and buy bread and all that jazz...oh! and please oh please let me know if anything's funny with the blog/view of the blog/commenting, too, if you notice anything silly... :)