Hand Embroidered Art Cards now available in the shop! {The Homespun Life Embroidery}

The hubby and I are moving from South Bend, IN to Houston, TX in just over three weeks. I have yet to pack a single box. Instead, I spend my time making these lovely hand-embroidered art cards while watching Glee on Netflix. It’s a problem.

University of Notre Dame: A Springtime Photo Shoot: {The Homespun Life Fine Art Photography}

As many of you know, the hubby and I will be saying farewell to South Bend in just a few short weeks. There isn’t much about the town that we’re going to miss (besides good friends and the wonderful Red Purl!), but we are going to be sad to leave the beautiful campus at Notre Dame. We took advantage of gorgeous sunny weather today to wander about and enjoy the lovely spring blooms starting to appear, and I snapped a few shots. Boy, did it feel good to take the camera out again!

WIPs and a Fun Announcement

Well, I’ve certainly been MIA for a while, and I apologize! Lest you think I’ve been neglecting my various projects as well as my blog, let me show you a few of the things I’ve been working on:

Embroidery: A pincushion only a mother could love, and boy do I love it!

As part of my recent forays into the art of embroidery (posted here and here), I decided to stitch myself a pincushion. After all, I needed one! And really, it was the plethora of adorable hand-stitched pincushions to be found in some of my favorite Etsy shops (From My Atelier, for one example) that motivated me to start down this path of addiction in the first place. So it was only natural that making one of my own would be one of my first projects.

It turned out to be a bit of a mess.

Knitting: Entrelac Pillow Class

I’m teaching a class tonight over at the Red Purl on the Entrelac technique. The project is really just a square swatch, but I always get discouraged knitting something that has no obvious purpose, so I turned it into a pillow to make myself feel better. It’s a quick and easy project, a good introduction to the technique, and I figured I’d post the photos and handout info up here in case those of you who are more adventurous with new things wanted to give it a try.

Embroidery: Stitch Samplers Don’t Have to be Boring!

As regular readers will know, I’ve recently been playing around with embroidery and I’m absolutely loving it. My first project was a series of birds, which I chose to stitch onto the corners of a bread cloth. Nothing fancy, but I had a lot of fun with it!

However, once I’d established that this new hobby was here to stay, I figured the next step was to throw together a few stitch samplers. A sampler is basically a collection of stitches, often done in rows, intended to serve as practice for learning new techniques.

Samplers are by nature fun to do, since you’re learning a wide variety of new things as you go, and the tradition of creating a sampler is an extremely old and time-honored one. That said, though, it can get a little boring just stitching row after straight row. It’s a lot more fun to also create something fun and decorative while you’re at it.

Embroidery: It’s Official – I’m addicted to yet another crafty activity.

You may recall my post from a few weeks ago mentioning that I may or may not have picked up a new hobby. Since then, I’ve stitched a fun little sampler, made my first embroidered linen pincushion, and finished off that bread cloth from the first post. I’ve got plans for a matching set of place mats and napkins next, and a fun little gift for my cousin’s kid’s first birthday. And after that, who knows? I’ve got piles of buttons and loads of designs floating around in my head.

The point is, it’s official. I’m addicted. I even gave it it’s own category in the Craft section.

Embroidery: I can neither confirm nor deny the rumor that I’ve picked up a new hobby. Or: Hey, look, I made a birdie!

I’ve had my eye on embroidery for several years now. I love the idea of sketching out a design and being able to make it happen on the fabric. So when, in a bout of depression and self-loathing brought on by Twitter (more on that later), I decided to go wander the aisles at JoAnns, it was no real surprise that I found myself loitering near the wall of embroidery thread.

Colors. Gorgeous, gorgeous colors. Delicious enough to eat.

Baking: A quick and easy frosting that tastes great on everything! (Well, maybe not on mashed potatoes, though I’m willing to try it.)

As I mentioned earlier, this past weekend’s baby shower involved a marathon of baking. But, while I may be just crazy enough to decide that making 4 different kinds of cupcakes in one evening is a good idea, I’m certainly not stupid enough to think that making 4 different kinds of frosting for them was also advisable.

This put me in a bit of a tough spot, though – I needed an icing that would taste just as good on a tangy Key Lime as it would on a rich and complex Red Velvet, without overpowering the delicate flavor of the Snickerdoodle or being too sweet for the Peppermint.

Yikes.

Baking: An exceedingly dangerous recipe for Snickerdoodle Cupcakes that will likely cause you to lose some sleep, so be careful.

Last weekend Jon and I threw a baby shower for some good friends of ours, and for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make four different kinds of cupcakes. One malfunctioning oven, one giant snow storm, two burnt batches, one emergency grocery store run and several beers later,

I actually pulled it off!

Anywho, the tasty treats were a big hit and I had several requests for the recipes, which of course means I have an excuse to post about them here, and I’m starting with my favorite of the four. I swear, I think I ate a good 12 of these things all by myself over the past few days. I couldn’t rest as long as there was a single one left in the house.