u/ThePawfectPatch

My friend got this table at a department store closing and gave it to me. I, of course, decided it needed paint and sparkles. The 10 y.o. Windys are my second pair of muay thai gloves and are ROCK hard. My 8 y.o. Yokkaos were probably still usable, but the velcro was shot and they were annoying to deal with in training.

I poured DecoArt metallic pouring paint on both the table and the set of gloves. I added gold glitter on the gold while it was drying and it made a nice glittery crust. If you're thinking what I'm thinking about the pearl placement on the rose gold-- yes. I saw it and couldn't resist grabbing some pearls and placing them as the glue was drying.

I also painted the underside of the original glass top with glitter and mod podge-- it looks best in the sunlight and I would bring it as a display for my craft fairs. Unfortunately the glue and the gloves bonded and started peeling. Luckily the big top was absorbed into my mom's garden ✨️ but I might have to take it back 💃

The exposed gloves make lovely arm rests while I'm crafting and I can hang my purse or bag off the arms. 15/10 always looking for more stuff to drip shiny paint on ✨️

Bought a cheap heavy bag and have been too sick the past month to use it. I've been thinking far too much lately and dripping paint on my stuff is always a great way to create art without worrying about doing it "perfect".

Now I have a shimmery sparkly heavy bag to punch joyfully 💃✨️

Freestanding Lace (FSL) is a Hella tedious process and I can't help but obsess with the challenge of it! There are so many steps and issues that can pop up in the process-- I want my designs to sew out regardless of factors like extra pull from additional designs on the hoop, wrinkles in stabilizer, or stitch density.

When I do my own FSL designs for making earrings, I will CRAM as many of my designs onto the frame as possible--ya know to do as few bobbin and thread changes as possible. Adding so many stiches will buckle a normal fabric, and water soluble stabilizer is, frankly, a weak backing. Misalignment is exacerbated once the stabilizer is dissolved and it can be tricky to save a project as it's unraveling.

I've been editing this monarch butterfly earring design to make them smaller (I personally love my big earrings), and for each edit I throw in as many new variations that can fit. The smallest ones are Hella dense and won't be as flexible as the larger designs--but I had the space and was curious how they'd sew out.

I'll hold them up to the light and see where the stitches have pulled too much and created gaps. The trick (along with programming in pull compensation) almost seems to be making the first parts of the design oversized by a few mm, then the latter layers normal... or ya know I could make simpler designs 🙃

Another reason, I haven't dissolved them yet because I can see all the gaps and misalignments that will cause the design to fall apart. I'll use my sewing machine to manually add stitches to the designs before I dissolve the stabilizer. They'll be extra handmade 💅

It also shows where I have too many jump stitches and can go back to program start/end points more efficiently. My machines now cuts jump thread, but my first embroidery machine did not. Trimming jump threads is part of the tedium of FSL, but a good design can really limit them!

This design has one more (hopefully!) Fix to complete before I have full confidence in releasing it for other people to sew out.

Happy to answer any questions about my FSL process in Embrilliance--and I've been considering holding office hours via twitch for my FSL or pet embroidery (most recent patch last photo!)

Happy Embroidering, y'all ✨️