From a couple of weeks ago, fulfilling a request for a block w/background by (for reasons only known to my Inner Workings), turning it into a potholder.
Please note the Perfectly Mitered Corners. hee
Getting the Anansi Bug on this one was a pain because I couldn't stitch it in the way I normally do. Since a potholder is a practical item the Anansi Bug couldn't go in the lower corner in floss or thread because it wouldn't last long in daily use. So I came up with a different version using the B/L zig setting, one that would also serve to tack down the handle of the potholder. It was weird making an Anansi Bug that doesn't look like an Anasi Bug, but then I thought considering what Anansi is, that morphing is okay.
The what, you say?
The Anansi Bug! For as long as I've been making things, every single thing I make, somewhere on it I put an Anansi Bug. Of all the pantheons in all the world, Anansi, thought to be from the Ashanti, is my favorite. Here's an extreme close-up of the Anansi Bug on the black purse. (In stitching terms it's a riff on the algerian eyelet.)
Yeah, I know that spiders have more than five legs. Sometimes the Anansi Bug has eight legs, sometimes it doesn't. Strictly depends on mood at the time of stitching. I once made an AB with 13 legs. To this day I have no idea why.
Lettering in the handwriting of H.P. Lovecraft, brought to you by the fine folks at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. They also do really fantastic radio plays. Go check out their website.
Elsewhere, we are working on turning the HPLHS' font into a stencil because we ever so desperately need it in order to pull off a giant project for something else. That project should take one year, and it is the only thing we plan to sew in 2009. We have so far failed in our attempts to turn the Society's font into a stencil, but we're going to keep trying for a little bit longer before finally giving up and sending them an email asking Dudes! How much to make me a LovecraftBlock stencil? We are delaying making this request because the attempts to figure it out on our own are highly amusing so far.
I love his handwriting. His cursive is unreadable, though.
Speaking of Lovecraft, The Dread Cthulhu Pincushion:
