Epic Embroidery of Evil

Here's a crazy quilt-style embroidery hoop I made for a friend who's really into black metal. It's hard to tell in the photo, but most of the embroidery and trim is silver metallic. Incorporates some old fashioned ribbon embroidery flowers, and  fabric with black metal musicians on it. (Spoonflower is a hell of a place.) My friend was suitably impressed. \m/  >__<  \m/

It's the INSANITY QUILT!!

What do you get when you make a Black Metal "crazy quilt"? A 3rd place ribbon at the AAQG quilt show, apparently :)

This is a 12" square block that combines traditional crazy quilting techniques with metal imagery and a limited black, white and silver palette. I used hand embroidery, embellishment, photo printing, and ribbon embroidery over a foundation-pieced background of black silk, satin and velvet fabrics. Most of the beads and decorations were found on Etsy. The photo is of the Norwegian black metal band Immortal, on printable fabric. I sewed this mostly on my breaks at work, over a few months. I'm really happy with the result, and I guess the judges were too! I don't think I would ever make a full sized one though....that would be INSANITY!

EMBROIDERMETALMATION is sweeping the nation!

Sometimes, the universe just randomly combines a few of your favorite things. Case in point: this EMBROIDERED video by British heavy metal band Throne. Over 3000 drawings were first animated in Flash, then converted to digital (machine) embroidery. That's 12 frames/embroideries per second!

THRONE - 'THARSIS SLEEPS' (OFFICIAL VIDEO) from Nicos Livesey on Vimeo.

And as an added bonus, they are selling the individual frames here!

what's the password?

I always like to keep a hand embroidery project around, for when I fly somewhere or have a bit of time in the waiting room (don't ask how many times I've been there in the last couple of years).
This is a piece I finished over the holidays; it's a tea towel embroidered with a drawing I did based on "the narwhal bacons at midnight", an internet meme made popular on reddit.

Hand embroidery is very relaxing to me; despite (or maybe because) it takes so long.
As for machine embroidery, I am on the fence between thinking it looks good, and thinking it looks TOO good and may even be "cheating". I would like to see some of my own designs done by machine before I sign off on it one way or the other. If you have an embroidery machine, what are your thoughts about it?

Japanese Oni pillow

I have always liked the look of redwork embroidery, but I would never spend time doing a traditional Sunbonnet Sue or any other overdone country kitsch design. 

I am also a fan of Japanese artwork and mythology, and figured this Oni (demon) mask from Kabuki theater would look good in red! 

When it was done, I added red borders and finished it into a square pillow. The back side is Japanese tattoo print fabric I found on equilter a while ago. Super fun!