It is Tuesday, which means that today is How-To Tuesday! Today I’ll show you how to store your embroidery floss so it doesn’t get all tangled and looks like a piece of modern art in your home. How to Store Embroidery Floss Materials Disorganized Embroidery Floss Clothespins Small Number Stamps and Inkpad OR Fine-tip Sharpie Patience Step One Remove the labels of the embroidery floss. Then, you will want to find the middle of the skein and separate it out. When you do it will look like this! Step Two Place your hand through the middle of the loop of embroidery floss. I like your floss bracelet. Step Three Find the end of the floss. Grab a clothespin. Hold the end of the floss to the middle of the clothespin and begin wrapping it around itself. Step Four Wind it! Wind it good! Step Five Keep winding! Step Six Leave a lil’ tail at the end and place it in the pinchers of the clothespin. Step Seven If you only embroider and you don’t care what number DMC assigned to a color, congratulations you can stop there! If you want to always remember what number a color is or if you are an avid cross stitcher where numbers matter, pay attention. Using small number stamps, stamp the number on the handle. You could also use a fine-tip sharpie marker to write this on the clothespin. Step Eight Ta-da! You are done…with this skein! I use a big glass bowl that I picked up at Target for three dollars to store my floss. When put out for all the world to admire it looks really cool. Is it art or is it embroidery floss or [...]
-
Super Share Sunday : Nathan Vincent
Super Share Sunday : Nathan Vincent
Welcome to Super Share Sunday. The other day I posted about the manly art of knitting, but what about the manly art of crochet? I recently found an amazing male crochet artist. Nathan Vincent crochets wonderful work that questions stereotypes and expectations of masculinity and femininity. The exhibit is an entirely crocheted male’s locker room. He meticulously (with very specific detail, like woodgrains) crocheted lockers, benches, urinals, and showers. I admire this particular exhibit’s meshing of the masculine and feminine. Locker rooms express a very hard, testosterone-driven atmosphere—at least all the ones I’ve ever been in and the people I talk to have been in. Vincent’s art, on the other hand, draws on the traditionally feminine position of fiberarts—in this case crochet—to craft a locker room that becomes, literally, softened. Yet, I don’t think he feminizes the locker room in traditional ways. We tend to get caught up in binaries—especially masculine and feminine. This exhibit’s brilliance comes in deconstructing these binaries. Crochet is not feminine and a male’s locker room is not masculine because of the way that Vincent engages both discourses of gender that subvert this dichotomy. Yet, this project is not the only one of Vincent’s I loved. I found myself spending hours looking and relooking at the work he has posted on his website. Most of my dear readers know my impulse to embroider beefcakes, this guy crochets them… ON LACE! And he is a bad-ass beefcake crocheter! Again, the juxtaposition of the masculine and feminine (whatever that means) really inspires me and creates a very specific critique of the methods of representation. The “hard” you-can-only-get-these-muscles-through-testosterone physique that traditionally epitomizes the male body gets undermined when crocheted on the delicate lace. I’m really excited to see what this artist [...]
-
Knitting Soap on a Rope
Knitting Soap on a Rope
Hey, there! Remember when I told you I went to the Midwest Men’s Knitting Retreat? Well, one of the great things about this retreat was all of the wonderful knitting goodies everyone got in their bag. From my local yarn shop, I got a kit for a knitted soap bag. I wanted to knit it up to see if it would be practical for a small Christmas gift. I think it is. I realize in saying this some people will miss the “surprise” of it, but I don’t think many people actually read this blog—so it is a risk. Anyway, I knitted what I consider to be the best gift one could ever give a prisoner. It is even better than soap on a rope! It is soap, in a knitted bag, closed with a crocheted rope, made to be held ever so tightly to keep you from dropping your soap. Some people may want to drop their soap. I say go for it. One can still “drop” one’s soap if that’s what one desires. So, check out today’s knitted domestigay project! OH! Did you know that MOvember is over tomorrow? You can still donate by going to http://mobro.co/jvanfosson! To help get you in the MO-spirit, enjoy this video about public prostate exams. Related articles The Midwest Men’s Knitting Retreat, Or My Big Gay Summer Camp (domestigay.net)
-
Cock-Tail Napkin #5
Cock-Tail Napkin #5
This cocktail series is getting annoying, huh? There is only one napkin left after this one. Did I mention that I actually had a dream last night that I found more cocktail napkins ready to be stitched? That is how I know my domestigay cock-tail napkins are getting out of hand! So without further ado… The Big Gay Umbrella Drink! The pattern for this napkin comes from Sublime Stitching’s Embroidered Effects. Don’t forget to submit your domestigay projects to domestigay@gmail.com, on facebook, on twitter, by owl, by post, by pony express!
-
Cocktail Napkin #3: The Margarita
Cocktail Napkin #3: The Margarita
Hola! It’s time for another cocktail napkin to show up! This time it’s got a Mexican flavor. I sure do love going to Mexican restaurants for their delicious margaritas. Some like them frozen. Some like them on the rocks. I like margaritas cold and moving from the glass to my mouth. For this I focused on greens and decided to use a split-stitch for the glass to mix it up. Now, the picture does not nearly capture the awesomeness of the metallic thread. What?! You don’t see any metallic thread? That’s cause my lil camera phone instagram camera-phone couldn’t capture the brilliant white metallic thread I used at the top to “salt” the glass. Margarita’s are great, but I sure do love the salt at the top. The pattern for this comes from Sublime Stitching. There’s a link to the post where I first discuss that book below. It is officially the weekend! Now go get yourself a margarita! Related articles Cocktail Napkin #2: Martini! (domestigay.net) I Need a Drink (domestigay.net) Best Margarita Recipe (mademan.com) The delicious, humble Margarita (sqwinkly.com) Taste Test: Low-Cal Skinnygirl Margarita (fitsugar.com)
-
I Need a Drink
I Need a Drink
Is this week almost over? This week has certainly been one of the most difficult, trying, stressful, and questionable weeks since the great migration to the Midwest. It’s time for a drink! So what does a good domestigay do when he has a stressful week? Embroider, of course! I am currently embroidering six cocktail napkins. Each cocktail napkin features a different drink. So, without further ado, I present the first of this series. This is my vodka-on-the-rocks glass. I call it this as opposed to an old-fashioned glass because the colors really remind me of the Absolut vodka bottle—silver, grey, blue. I hope you like it—the vodka, not the embroidery. The first picture in this post shows the napkin itself. I got the napkins, of course, from Sublime Stitching. You cannot get these napkins anymore. BUT, there are a whole set of new cocktail napkins at Sublime Stitching you can get. I want to get them in blue and black. If you want to embroider your own cocktail napkins, you can order them here and get a free pattern for them from here. Did I mention how much I love Jenny Hart? I think she saved my life. The pattern that I used for this comes from Jenny Hart’s first book, Sublime Stitching. I like the simple patterns in it, but I prefer her second book (to come in a later cocktail post) for directives and projects. On another note, I’m really excited about the coming week for domestigay! Domestigay will be getting a great face-lift and I can’t wait to revamp the website. That means that if you are reading this in a RSS feeder or in your e-mail, you MUST come visit when [...]
-
Pin-Up Grrls
Pin-Up Grrls
My best friend had a birthday. It was in March. Whenever my friends have birthdays I wish them a happy birthday. I give them a card. I give them presents, three months later. I give them more presents three months after that. I finally finished these pin-up grrl tea towels. Take a look. I think Bettie Page would be proud, don’t you? The patterns for these are from Sublime Stitching. These specific ones are based off of the pin-ups originally designed by Gil Elvgren. I think all pin-up grrls are already domestigators. They subvert what is domestic through their sexuality. This is something that I think gay people inherently do because they reject the heteronormative model of sexuality. Drag queens are very much like pin-up girls because the perform a sexuality that is used to subvert the erotic male gaze. I am going to start doing my knitting, stitching, ironing, cleaning, quilting, crocheting, and all other domestigay activities while wearing very sexy and revealing clothes—or just nude. No, not nude. But maybe shirtless. We have a lot to learn from our good friend Betty.
-
Oh, Snap! It’s okay to be square
Oh, Snap! It’s okay to be square
I found a new tool. It’s a bit square, but it is okay to be square. Sometimes thinking inside the box is okay. Last week I received a 6×6 Q-Snap frame. I ordered it from the wonderful Sublime Stitching. Prior to this I used a circular hoop for all my needlepoint needs. After an afternoon with the Q-Snap frame, I will never go back. So what’s it all about? Initially I thought it would be bulky and heavy, but it is not. It is a simple pipe (pvc pipe to be exact) that you put your fabric on and then use included, grooved, half-pipes to “snap” your fabric into place. The Q-Snap is lightweight. The Q-Snap does not crease your fabric. The Q-Snap does allow you to EASILY retighten your fabric if it feels loose. All you have to do is turn the half pipe outwards and your fabric tightens. I love it so much that I ordered a bigger size which I hope will be here this week. Q-Snap was originally created for quilters (and those ones are much bigger). These smaller sizes, though, are perfect for embroidery and cross stitch. Unlike a hoop, too, the Q-Snap holds your fabric evenly, something very important in embroidery. I also noticed in the projects that I used with them that my stitches were much more even and defined. In fact I could never get the stem stitch to look like anything other than a series of knots but it actually turned out quite well with the Q-Snap. So if you embroider (or want to learn because it is SO simple!), give the Q-Snap a chance. You can get the Q-Snap from Sublime Stitching here. (NOTE: This [...]
Recent Comments