Invest in Your Hobbies, Even if You Don’t Take Them Too Seriously

Erica, Free

I never thought of myself as the kind of person who would enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. I joined my friends’ group about two years ago, afraid that they would be more committed to the intricacies of gameplay than I had the attention span for. Even after discovering that they mostly used the rules as guidelines for elaborate goofiness, much more my style, I was still hesitant to commit. I borrowed dice from my friends until the pandemic forced us all to play over zoom. I finally shelled out a few dollars for a set of dice (actually two), and decided that a dice bag would be a good embroidery and beginner sewing* project.

Since D&D is an adventure game wanted the embroidery design to be related to navigation. I had an old pair of dark blue jeans with white polka dots that I wanted to use for some kind of project. These would be the perfect background for a star map. I cut out two circles of the denim, one large for the outside and one small for the inside pockets, and two corresponding circles of some old bedsheets as lining.

I found a website that generates a star map for any date, time, and location that you can think of. I chose my birthday. The printed star map was about 7” in diameter and the circle for my pattern was 8”. I did not want the pattern to be too small, so I drew a 7/8” grid over my print out and made a 1 inch grid on tracing paper. I did my best to translate the stars and constellation lines from the print-out to my tracing paper. I left a 2” diameter circle in the middle blank because I did not want my embroidery to be damaged when I set the bag down.

*Full star map embroidery (in progress).*

Once I had my star map translated to tracing paper, I pinned it to the fabric in my embroidery hoop. Transferring designs onto dark fabric can be hard and I have found the way that works best for me is to baste my designs onto the fabric with white thread and take the threads out as I go along. I’ve tried using the white embroidery pencils but since it takes me so long to embroider, they often fade before I get a chance to embroider that part of the design. I marked each star with a little X, embroidering the fabric through the tracing paper. Once that was done I ripped the tracing paper off.

I embroidered the stars in DMC B5200, making tiny satin stitch circles as neatly as I could. I didn’t use French knots because I didn’t want them to snag. Embroidering through denim turned out to be difficult, especially for small designs, since the weave is not the same as the quilting quarters I normally use. It’s nice that the weave gives a little bit of a stretch when you wear jeans, but not necessarily when you are trying to embroider. I reluctantly had to use stabbing method instead of sewing method. I also embroidered over my tiny X’s rather than take them out because I realized I did not pay attention to the order in which I made the X’s and did not want to accidentally pull a thread and lose a star.

For the constellation lines, I used DMC 3865, slightly off-white. I realized that I should have basted in the constellation lines as well. Just like it is difficult to connect the dots when stargazing, it is hard when embroidering on a slightly inaccurate star-scape. Luckily it gets easier the more and more consolation I embroider. I am using a tiny split back stitch for these delicate lines.

Detail of the moon — *Detail of the Moon. Sorry the photo quality isn’t great. It’s been cloudy here.*

The other details of this project include the Moon at 91% waxing, done in multiple shades of white and gray to the best detail level I could approximate. I will be using a chain stitch in the DMC 3078 for the ecliptic, which shows the sun’s path across the sky. For the stars whose colors I could find, I’ll be using the lightest shades of yellow, blue, and red that I could find, DMC 3078, 775, and 948 respectively.

If I somehow went back in time and proposed this project to my past self who had just started playing D&D, she would have said I was crazy to think she would invest that much time in something that she didn’t even take that seriously. But now I know that you don’t necessarily have to take something seriously to enjoy it or invest in it. And it is always worth investing in good times with good friends

-Erica

*There will be another post later on the actual assembly and sewing of the dice bag.

You Mean Other People Live Here Too?

Harry and Dash, Patreon

Ode to My Cheap, Old Apartment

Erica, Patreon

Decorating Tips and Tricks for Sentimental People

Carolyn, Free

I have seen many of Erica’s decluttering and re-decorating attempts foiled by her emotional attachment to objects. Only recently has she begun to incorporate the most meaningful of these objects into her actual decorating. Erica was very inspired during her initial and enthusiastic employment of the Marie Kondo method. After the initial purge, she continued to employ the method with varying degrees of success. The little displays in her terrarium and on her dresser being the most consistent.

Erica's Terrarium — *Erica’s terrarium. The grow light is on so you can’t see the reflection of the messy living room*.

The Terrarium: The terrarium was first purchased for practical reasons: to keep one curious kitten out of Erica’s plans. At first, it only contained three rather boring pothos plants in three extremely boring black flower pots. Since those original plants outgrew their home, the terrarium has become a whimsical display replete with family heirlooms. (A terrarium is also a great place to protect delicate knickknacks from cats.)

The bird shaped candle holder was a gift from a family friend who has since passed away. Since candles and cats are also a bad combination, it now holds a small succulent propagation.

A small cat figurine it’s a gift from her mother. Before that it was a gift to her from Erica’s great-great-grandmother. It was given to Erica when she followed in the long-held family tradition of being a cat person.

The pottery mug is also a gift from her mother, as is the plant inside it. The mug, thrown by her mother at some childhood summer camp and at some point boxed up in the attic for many, many years is now looked upon every single day.

The tea cup is inherited from her grandmother. She was a prim and quiet woman who shared Erica’s love of tea and floral prints. The plants inside it also comes from her mother’s house. You can see where Erica gets her hesitancy to purchase house plants.

A Picture of Erica's Dresser — *There’s also a family photo on her dresser, but that has been removed for privacy reasons.*

The Dresser: Erica has managed to pare down the objects on her dresser to just a few with great significance to her. The plant is one of the first she brought from her childhood home, wrapped in a wet paper towels and successfully ushered through airport security. The dachshund jewelry and wallet holder was also a gift from that since past family friend, who used to take Erica antique shopping. The plaque was a gift from an aunt Erica does not see very often but thinks of fondly.

The small quilted potholder, from what I gather, has the most interesting story. Erica went on a few youth service trips in high school, one of which involved repainting and repairing the roof have an elderly woman’s house in the mountains of West Virginia. One afternoon Erica and her sister spent hours listening to the woman tell them her life story and in the end she gave them each a handmade potholder. Making quilted potholders was how she occupied her time in her old age. As with many youth service trips, Erica I never had any contact with this woman again, but enjoys the daily reminder of that pleasant afternoon in West Virginia.

I know Erica often sees only the spaces in her apartment that are heavily cluttered or those sentimental items that she has not yet figured out how to properly display. She will get there, and I hope that she spends a little more time seeing these two little displays and taking pride in what she has constructed.

-Carolyn

The First Curse: Jealousy is a Powerful Motivator

Erica, Patreon

Patience, Planning, and Mise en Place: a Macaron Adventure

Ella, Patreon

Personalize Your Embroidery Designs

Erica, Free

Embroidery is wonderful in that a simple repertoire of stitches can produce endless designs but they can also make it make selecting a new design overwhelming. With an infinite number of wonderful beautiful patterns available at your fingertips, how are you supposed to choose just one for your next project? Some of you may be organized enough to have a queue of artists whose patterns you want to produce for yourself. I am not that disciplined. With every new project comes the terrible task of winnowing down the possibilities until I select my new design. I have learned to make this process easier on myself by looking for ways to make each new embroidery project very personal to me. Here are three embroidery motifs that are extremely easy to personalize:

My current embroidery of constellations. This will eventually be a dice bag.

Stars: This is first because it is the subject of my current project. Also space and stars are just awesome and great for embroidering on dark fabric. For this particular project I wanted a star map, but not just any star map. I found a website that shows the night sky at any time and place you enter. I input a significant date time and place in my life, printed it out and transferred it onto my fabric. You also search for a favorite constellation or astrological arrangement of planets.
Flowers: Flowers are great on their own, or with the myriad symbolic meanings attached to them. You can do some research into Victorian flower language to send secret messages with your designs. You can use flowers associated with your birth month or the place where you are from or currently living. Or, you can simply choose flowers that are special to you. Choose your flowers that grow at your favorite time of year or flowers that grow in your favorite place. One other benefit of choosing flowers is that it is easy to find patterns of nearly every type of flower in nearly every style from highly stylized to extremely realistic.
Quotations: Embroidering quotations is a way of keeping those words that speak to you so deeply, but that you still do not want tattooed on your body, close by. There is still a lot of poking involved, but when you decide that maybe that the words that spoke to you so deeply five or 10 years ago do not really hold any bearing on who you are now, you can simply take them off the wall. No need to explain how much they meant to you at the time for the rest of your life. Embroidering text is also a great way to experiment with new stitches and fonts. For those looking to create and sell patterns, the public domain is full of wonderful quotations to use.

-Erica