J'adore Embroidery

As I mentioned before it is National Embroidery Month, so I am taking the opportunity to shame some of the stitchy projects I have been working on lately. I also thought I’d show you some work in progress as I may be MIA for the next couple of weeks. We have cast change over on the ship so I am going to be super busy fitting costumes and running shows… so until I can get blogging again check out these beauties!

I was looking at Jenny Hart’s Flickr account the other day and found this great French knots sampler. I had never been able to do a French knot until I read Jenny’s instructions for one so thought this would be a great chance to show off my skills! You can see the results above…

I have also been working on my Rock Belt. My friend left me an old pair of jeans when he left the ship, which I decided to turn into a belt. I cut off the waist band and embroidered images on to it in bright colours. I frayed the edges and added some chains to give it a worn in edgy look. I need to get come better photos of it and maybe get a friend to model it for me. Let me know what you think!

Finally, my work in progress. I am embroidering a t-shirt with a peacock pattern that I was inspired to create by paintings on my ship. We have a peacock on the curtain in our theatre and there are a few dotted around the ship too. I haven’t got too far yet, I’ll show you more once I get some time to myself…

Leave a comment to let me know what you think!

More Stitchy Goodness

It's National Embroidery Month!!! So, in honour of all things stitchy, here is one of my projects.

For Christmas, along with my other crafts for family and friends, I made my best friend Scott this tie. I needed one to wear on the ship and hadn’t brought one with him. I decided to design him a little musical theatre logo as he is a singer and put it on a classy black tie that would go with many of his outfits.

He liked it so much he wore it in our Christmas show! I hope you guys like it too.

Head Bridesmaid

I met my friend Tessa while working on a ship in 2008. It was a pretty hard contract and we wouldn’t have got through it without each other… ships are like that, you make family members while you are there. Tessa is my family. We were lucky enough to work together again at the beginning of this contract for two months.

This month she is getting married to her fabulous fiancée in St. Thomas. I was supposed to be there as Head Bridesmaid, but I’m going to be working… which sucks. As a compromise I threw her a Bachelorette party on the ship before she left.

Along with the shell necklace that I made her I made tshirts for the party, covered everything in pink and made her a garter. Of course it’s blue and white and she has honoured me by saying she will wear it to the wedding! I’m glad I will be there in spirit if not physically, and I know she has a great life ahead of her!

To Ben & Tessa – may they have a beautiful wedding and a happy future.

SalvagedMutiny.com is Launched!!!

My website is finally finished, fully up and functional!!

It only took me two months, three different programs, two accounts and a lot of work to get there, but its finished and exactly what I wanted.

I ended up using Rapidweaver to create it, which meant I had to write the CSS code for it. Now, I’m no computer nerd. I know enough to get me through, and enough to get frustrated when it doesn’t do what I want it to. So I’m pretty proud of myself that I managed to design and execute CSS code with no real knowledge of it, I just picked it up as I went along. And so SalvagedMutiny.com was born! I have photos of my work there, so make sure you visit to see all my craft stuff and designs.

I have A Crafter At Sea there as well, but I think I’m going to keep it open on Blogger too, at least for now, so I don’t confuse people. So come check it out, drop me a line and tell me what you think of it. I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts!

www.salvagedmutiny.com

Now I just have to get my store up and running!!

Good Morrow to Ye!

This weekend my friends and I went to the Florida Renaissance Festival. I have never been to one before, but have always wanted to go. We don’t have Renaissance Fairs at home because we had the real Renaissance instead! It was everything I had always hoped it would be. I was very sad that I couldn’t get a costume together in time, but I did buy a flower garland for my hair and an eye patch with an actual eye in it, so I managed to pull it off in the end. I met some fantastic people there, including my new friends Prunella and Eglantine Tawdry, the colourful sisters of Mug Bottom Village who helped me realise my Ren Fest potential! They are from the Cobblestone Characters who kept us entertained all day long!

I ate a giant turkey leg, drank ale, watched jousts and plays and even got a henna tattoo all while listening to the delightful sounds of The Lost Boys, who might be my new favourite band!

All in all, one of the best days of 2010 so far! Huzzah!!

Showing My Creative Potential...

I just found the CoolMomPicks Valentine Colouring Card Competition. They needed colouring sheets that could be used by kids for Valentines cards, the 9 best would be made into PDFs that could be bought on Etsy.com. The proceeds would go to the American Heart Association – what a great cause! I only had 24 hours to come up with my idea, but I created a card that I think is simple but affective and could be customized multiple times. I’m quite proud of it, and I might not win, but I had fun making it and putting my creativity out there. Hope you enjoy it too ;-)

So Long, Farewell...

The drawback to working on a ship is that you meet so many great people, but they don’t stay. I just went through cast change over in my show company, which means I had half of my cast (and good friends) leave and a new set come in. The new guys are great… but I miss my guys from before! As a parting gift I made a necklace for one of my girls and earrings for another.

The necklace is made from a shell from Samana, a shell from St. Kitts and a piece of coral from Aruba – our favourite place we have been to on the ship. It was my first time trying out wire wrapping and I think it turned out quite well. The earrings I made after seeing a necklace in my friend’s room and having beads that matched. I think this is the start of a great creative adventure! Now I just need to make stuff to sell ;-)