TARDIS is complete!

The TARDIS is finished! & I have located some backing fabric in mom's stash. Thinking of putting all the Doctors together in a bed runner for the daughter of a friend. We shall see.

TARDIS embroidered by Tisha Dolton, designed by Angelica Rodriguez

For more info on the Doctor Who Stitch-A-long, & to download the patterns, go to Fandom In Stitches.

Happy National Embroidery Month! (Only 6 days left...)

February is National Embroidery Month!

The last time I set a goal for National Embroidery Month, I fell very short.

"Since February is National Embroidery Month, I have decided that I must embroider every day for the next 28 days... Well, 27 since today is the 2nd. This is a sacrifice I will have to make for the sake of my craft! LOL"

Ha! Very short indeed. That was 2 years ago. I don't think I even did anything specific in 2014. Therefore, this year, 2015, I will celebrate this wonderful crafting month! But what to do? Just "embroider every day" seems very vague & not very goal oriented. I need to think of a specific goal that is achievable with my crazy 3-jobs-&-a-teenager schedule.

Getting back into #embroidery mode on this joyous #snowday! Watching Xmas specials with my bae. #MovieToStitchTo The Real Story of #Christmas. Fi totally digs #Krampus. #dragons

A photo posted by Tisha (@aprilsongstress) on Dec 10, 2014 at 8:26am PST

One thing I could do is work on finishing the dragon embroidery for the quilt I promised to my bestie on the birth of her baby girl Katie Beth! To do this, I need to pop over to the store & get a few more skeins of this particular green embroidery floss.

I also have to finish the TARDIS for the Doctor Who Stitch-A-Long from Fandom In Stitches. I have been planning to give the finished product to a friend's daughter, as she is a huge Doctor Who fan & her 15th birthday is in March.

TARDIS design by Angelica Rodriguez from hewtab.com

Well, it looks like I have 2 works in progress (WIPs) I want to complete by the end of February. Whether I wind up binge embroidering on my 4 days off, or pacing out over the 28 days, or a combination of both, we'll see if I can get both of these finished! I will post here, but you can also catch me on Twitter & Instagram- @aprilsongstress, & on Facebook.

Happy Stitching,

Featured on another blog: Jane's Folly

My friend, & fellow blogger, Jane Weston recently asked me some questions about my embroidery & process. Here's a taste...

What was your favorite piece you’ve made?

“My favorite pieces are the embroidered portraits I do of my daughter. She takes great selfies. She’s so funny, sarcastic, smart, creative & beautiful. She inspires me every day.”

 

An embroidered portrait of my daughter, Fiona

 

Check out the whole piece on Jane's Folly.


Happy Stitching,

Procrastination Station: Doctor Who, Part Trois

For previous posts about my version of this project see: Part One & Part Deux

The Doctor Who Stitch along was a collaborative project between Jennifer Ofenstein, Aalia Zaman, Kim K, Kristel Carnahan, Jordan F, Angelica Rodriquez, Soma Acharya May 15 - July 31, 2013. For more information & to view the original patterns, click HERE.

  
I have completed the final Doctor Who block! Now to put them all together in a bed runner!

The 11th Doctor as played by Matt Smith is represented here in a design by Soma Acharya. I think she did a great job with his hair, bow tie, & pant cuffs.

 

11th Doctor embroidered by aprilsongstress

 When I first started the stitch along the 12th Doctor had not debuted so I searched around online & found this image by onegemini on deviantART. I flipped it so it is a mirror image of Peter Capaldi.
 

onegemini's 12th Doctor turned to an embroidery pattern

The completed embroidery of the 12th Doctor

War Doctor (John Hurt) was created by Kerry Dustin for Fandom in Stitches after the initial stitch along was over.

War Doctor finished embroidery

13 Doctors ready to be made into a bed runner

I'll post the finished product when complete. Who knows? Maybe this will be my first completed quilt!

Procrastination Station: Doctor Who, Part Deux

I can't really say I have a favorite Doctor. I watched Doctor Who sporadically when I was about 6 or 8 at my grandmother's house. We couldn't get cable (living outside of a village), so Doctor Who was probably on WMHT, channel 17, our local PBS station. For some reason PBS & WXXA, channel 23 (now the local Fox station) didn't come in well at our house, so my little sistar & I would walk the 100 yards or so to Nanny's & watch the original Star Trek, the Twilight Zone, Doctor Who, or any old movies Nanny was watching. (I particularly love musicals, especially Astaire & Rogers.) Usually we would get some Jell-O cake, Nanny's amazing oatmeal cake (YUM), or some of the almond windmill cookies Gramp got in his metal lunchbox everyday.

The First Doctor designed by Aalia Zaman

The Second Doctor designed by Jennifer Ofenstein

The Third Doctor designed by Aalia Zaman

This is a very long-winded way of saying that Tom Baker, the Fourth Doctor, is really the only Doctor I have really known. (Feel free to groan...) Tom Baker is who came to mind when my intelligent & somewhat geeky friends started going on-and-on about the show around the time of the Ninth Doctor. Then David Tennant appeared as the Tenth Doctor & I was still thinking of the guy with the scarf & the fuzzy afro...

The Fourth Doctor designed by Kim Kuehn

I still have not watched any of the new episodes. My daughter does not seem interested. But... embroidering these Doctor Who designs has been a ton of fun. I'm sure one of my fan-girl (or fan-boy) friends will enjoy whatever kind of gift comes out of this stitch-a-long.

I haven't started the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith). & they just announced the Twelfth Doctor, but we will have to wait for Christmas for that...

Thank you Fandom In Stitches for the DWSAL. I will be back!

Procrastination Station: Doctor Who

While I sat contemplating tracing out my next large project (tracing is the most tedious part of the whole embroidery project), I came across another project. So, because I am a master procrastinator, I decided to work on that project instead. Cue tedious tracing of 11 patterns...

Why 11, you may ask. Sounds like an odd number of patterns for a project. (Pun intended BTW.) I will tell you. They are Doctor Who patterns. All 11 Doctors as drawn by a few awesome embroiderers. The link to my flickr set is here.

So far I completed 6 of 11. Not bad since the Doctor Who Stitch-a-long started more than 2 months ago. & I just heard about it.

10th Doctor as played by David Tenant

Doctors 10 & 6 were designed by Jennifer Ofenstein.

9th Doctor

The 9th Doctor was designed by Aalia Zaman.

8th Doctor

The 8th Doctor was designed by Jordan Frederick.

7th Doctor

Doctors 5 & 7 were designed by Kristel Carnahan.

6th Doctor

Now, I am not a huge Doctor Who fan, but I have many friends who are, so I thought this would be a fun way to show off my embroidery to them & procrastinate at the same time. Ha!  For more information on this & to get the patterns... check out Fandom In Stitches!

5th Doctor

 More to come as I finish this up. Then I will have to commit myself fully to what I am avoiding.