Vintage crafts, thrifts, and inspiration


Category: Projects

  • First Knit Sweater

    First Knit Sweater

    It only took over a year, with a ton of delays, but I have finally finished my first knit sweater. And it’s Cool Times Barbie! I am so completely stoked with how the duplicate stitching turned out. …Even though I only noticed after posting the video that, um… it’s not actually done. I missed some…

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  • Classic 80s kitsch

    Classic 80s kitsch

    Needlepoint magnets! On a thrift trip not too long ago, I came across the motherload – or actually grandmother load – of vintage kitschy magnets. (I know it was “grandmother” because one of the magnets said so. This was a store that tends to get donations from singular sources, so I knew they were all…

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  • Force Be With You

    Force Be With You

    I made this for someone named Maeve. For the sake of privacy, I won’t say too much about them here. But they love Star Wars, and one day this pun occurred to me and it had to be made. I drafted the pattern in Photoshop, using the font ‘Star Jedi.’ Then I imported to FlossCross…

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  • Retro Tunic, 1984

    Retro Tunic, 1984

    My First Crochet Sweater I started this sweater in June, 2022. I wasn’t using a pattern. I just wanted to try putting two rectangles together. And I wanted to use up my Lion Brand Homespun yarn, which had been sitting in my yarn basket since 2006. I had a TON of this stuff. I loved…

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  • Art Deco Vase #1

    Art Deco Vase #1

    I think my favorite 80s style – one I actually love, rather than just get ironically amused by – is the 80s art deco revival. It has clear art deco influences, yet remains distinctly 80s. Art deco lines, 80s colors, and a clear fascination with vases. There was a series of longstitch needlepoint kits from…

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  • Sunflower Stitch

    Sunflower Stitch

    Another of my longest WIPs completed I began this project way back, before the turn of the century, before I left my home state for the first time. It was intended as a gift for my stepmom, who at that time was still married to my dad and living in Kansas, next to a field…

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  • A fairy bad time

    A fairy bad time

    This project has so few stitches that the amount of time it spent in the naughty bin probably gives me a 2 stitch per year average. Purchased in the fairy-loving years of my late teens, I thought it would be so pretty in my apartment. And I thought it would be so fast and easy.…

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  • From doodle to stitch

    From doodle to stitch

    When I was a preschool art teacher, some of my favorite moments were the mornings during arrivals when I could just sit and draw with the kiddos. One day, several years ago, I drew a pink dolphin and added some 90s style decorations. When the mood struck me to pick up embroidery again, I decided…

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