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I thought I'd share some photos of the process I used to create the Shiner billboard (see previous post). It's always tricky to take a Photoshopped comp of artwork created by a non-stitcher graphic artist and find a way to explain what it would take to turn their comp into cross stitch, a medium that is limited by little squares. I actually enjoy this part of the process since I've had so much practice. This project was a very quick turnaround and, while I'm always up for a challenge, I LITERALLY stitched this in NINE straight days, working 8-10 hours...

(click image to enlarge) I did it! I stitched my first billboard! It was REALLY HARD, too. People kept honking at me, the needle was 4 feet long (and of course I dropped it), then it started raining...Okay, not really, but the canvas area for this was 24" long and much more intense work than I'd imagined. Still, such a thrill to stitch a billboard and especially for a brand I love that's from Texas. Also, this is Shiner's first IPA. There are 11 of these billboards in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and more in Houston, Austin and San Antonio....

Guess what season it is—fucking fall. There’s a nip in the air and my house is full of mutant fucking squash. I read this article by Colin Nissan on McSweeney's every year and it always makes me LOL. If you've never read it, please do. GOURD is available as a kit and a PDF!

I've been dying to tell you about this! The You Are Beautiful project is something I've been a fan of for a very long time. From their website: You Are Beautiful is more than a little sticker, it’s an idea. It’s a way to brighten someone’s day, a way to pat a stranger on the back, a way to remind ourselves that even when things aren’t going great, it’s ok. It began simply with 100 stickers in 2002 in Chicago, and has since evolved into block-long murals, public installations, and exhibitions at cultural institutions involving thousands of artists. When they...

Another great example of the healing, therapeutic power of stitching. "I couldn't find an appropriate place to review the Subversive Cross Stitch book, so I'd like you to know how I feel about it. A little background- I am, to my core, an angry, vulgar punk rock feminist. I was raised by bikers and my mother's favorite story to retell about my childhood is when I got my first piece of mail and said 'Are you fucking with me?!' at about 2 years old. Over the past few years I have been living with an auto-immune disease that causes constant,...