 guys. It's Sunday May 17th. It's what time is it? 2.48pm. Don't get excited. I know the date because tomorrow's my wedding anniversary. How long have we been married? A long time. A few decades. A long time. Yeah. Anyway, we are out driving around. I was able to finally go into our local craft shop. I think there's only like four locations. It's just an Oregon thing, Oregon Washington thing, I think, a craft warehouse. They're open for service. They're limiting how many people can come in the store and you have to have protection on and all of that jazz, but I'm happy that they're doing that and I'm happy that they're able to open and I'm happy to support them. Anyway, I probably spent too much money there, but I got some things I've wanted and or needed that I'm completely out of and I'm getting tired of ordering things online. They also had hand sanitizer and while we didn't get a whole bunch of it, we got one. You had a limit of six, but we got one and now we're just going to go drive around and get out of the house. I don't know exactly where we're going to go. We don't know where we're going to go, but that's all right. That's all right. So I was very pleased to see that craft warehouse was indeed open. They were limiting how many customers could go in. You needed to have a mask on and the staff was taking all precautions, following social distancing practices, and you know what? I made a point to thank them on my way in for doing all of that and trying to keep us all safe. I know our retail and other essential workers are not hearing that often enough. I would prefer to give my business two businesses that are doing what they can and then two businesses that aren't and to make sure to thank them at some point while I'm there. So anyway, that's just me, but maybe you all should do the same thing. I decided to get some coffee on the way home at Gold Rush Coffee in McMinnville. McMinnville, right? McMinnville, yep. Yeah, anyway, white chocolate, lavender, mocha, ice. It's delicious. Lavender. It's a lavender too. Lamb belly. It's very good. I like it. I'll be back. Hey guys, so we are out for our evening stroll. We got almost halfway on our nightly walk before we ran into really a living soul, but we finally started running into people so the mask went on. Anyway, I did some work on this new slow stitch and I got all the yoyos on. I got some embroidery on. Not as much embroidery. I don't feel like as I've been doing, but I don't think it needs it. I'm going to wait to do anything else until I get the beadwork on and some edging and some words. We'll see where it takes us, but I'll put a picture here. You all tell me what you think. Anyway, we're going to go do finish our walk and husband doesn't want to make cookies. He's too full, so I might have to have ice cream. You know, I just, you know, I might have to. All right, I'll be back. Good very early Monday morning people. It is a rainy Monday morning in Portland. Hello land of much water. I've said that before. There's a reason I call it that. It's like 7 30 in the morning. Something like that. I'm already showered and dressed obviously. I am headed out to take some things to the post office. I've got to turn my keys in at the old PO box, but I'm also, I don't have to do that this early in the morning, none of that. But what I do need to do is try to find some more yeast and some lice all spring. So not that I'm going to be successful this morning, but since I have to go out today anyway, I figured I'd go out early, try to hit safeway shortly after they open, which is where we're headed first. Got my mask, of course I found my mask. And try to see if they have lice all our yeast. I mean, I don't know, they might not, but I may decide to hit like target or something too. If they don't, I don't, I don't know. I'm kind of hoping they at least have lice all I could do without yeast for a little while longer. Alrighty, so I might not have found any yeast. So however, I found two cans of lice all types types spray disinfectant, which we are using on our shoes and things that come in the front door mail and things. And another thing of hand sanitizer. So yay me! I feel accomplished this morning. So now I don't know what time McCann's opens or the post office part of it. We're going to go see if we can take care of that this morning. Hey guys, it is Tuesday morning, May 19th. I think it's still morning. I don't think it's quite noon yet, but or it's around lunchtime. It's somewhere around lunchtime. Anyway, I have been editing video this morning. The vlog is saving right now and then I'm going to edit. I have two more little videos to edit and there is some excess clips I might put together something for Patreon. I was also helping a neighbor who I don't know via next door with some video issues that they had. So we got that taken care of. And what else? I'm going to go get the mail. I ate some lunch. I've done no art yet because I was editing so you know that's a thing. But I do have an idea for another slow stitch and it's going to be a challenging stitch but it might be a fun stitch. So I'll let you know how that goes. I'll be back. I think I've vlogged today. I forgot a mask. I need a mask. I think I've vlogged today but I don't know for sure. I can't even remember a mask right now. I don't know. One side of my house. Can you see that? Yeah, that color. The other side is bright and sunny. Holy crap, look at that gray. Yeah, so we're going walking but I have my raincoat and my sunglasses. And I have a cough drop and now I have a mask so that I not only am protected but I don't cough in public because right now I've gotten a couple looks from people that they're like tempted to beat me up or something thinking I have COVID rather than just asthma. Husband said if we go walking I might get cookies and we get back. Cookies and hot tea? Yeah, so I'm going to go walking and I'm going to do some stitching of course and drawing later. I'll be back. Good morning. It is 9 50 a.m. Wednesday morning, May 20th I think. Been busy since I got up this morning. I got a late night message from a friend in California, another friend in California who needs needed masks so I made sure to get those off to him and they're already in our little drop box here by the house. But then I a little while later sold at sizable Etsy order that I want to mail out for her today so I am going to run this over to our little post box annex place while it's still open because they closed September 1st but I've already changed my PO box stuff but anyway they're still open so I'm able to drop mail off there so I'm going to go do that really quick it'll take like 10 minutes. And then I'm going to come back and work on some more slow stitching and chat with some friends. It's cloudy and rainy again you know I live in the Portland area land of much water so I don't know what to tell you. Hey guys oh there we go um so I promised you the slow stitch thing I was working on so I found this painting in my stash of stuff when I was cleaning up not long ago I don't remember if I showed it on camera or not anyway I'm going to be making a digital of this it'll be available for as a digital download in my Etsy shop I painted it about I think 2018 after we moved while I was in South Carolina I believe is when I did that anyway it was in a journal and I pulled it out of the journal because I thought this and this is a photocopy of the original by the way I can show you the original it's over here waiting to be scanned because at the time of filming this I haven't made the digital copy of it for a digital print yet but there you go there's the original um hang on I don't mean to make y'all dizzy lighting's a little better over here let's see there we go so that's the original so first I made um color copy of it I made three color copies and then I took and I isolated and cut apart big sections of the painting that were mostly like one color blacks from the reds I I literally just took the color copy isolated sections and cut them apart and then started pulling fabrics I thought would layer on top of each other really well to give me the color base that I wanted knowing that's when I stitched all the fabrics on to give me my color base it was going to have a suggestion of a shape but look like a hot mess it's really not going to be pulled together till I do the black embroidery and this is what I came up with which isn't bad it is on a wool base so as I was stitching it it was getting all wavy and wrinkly but because it's on a wool base we're standing at the ironing board I was able to steam iron it a couple times and press it and it flattened it back out again so it's completely flat now and I think I'm all ready for the black embroidery and maybe some white um there's the let's see there we go there is the picture and the embroidery side by side you can see you can see the shapes it's there so I'm really excited about it no matter how it turns out it might turn out like poop but it's it's a lot of fun and it's an experiment to see if I can do it or not um so we'll see and I'll probably probably sell the finished piece in the Etsy shop I'm not sure yet it depends on how much I fall in love with it because that's always a problem um anyway so if you know hopefully it gives you some ideas of what you guys can do with digital downloads from the Etsy shop either my shop or someone else's why can't you use them for inspiration if you're a stitcher to create a slow stitch from the painting you know inspired by the painting as long as you're not going to sell it I'm okay with that it's a lot of fun and even to just do with your own artwork um it's challenging certainly and I don't know that I would next time pick one that has this many uh painting suggestive marks on it because that makes it more challenging um you maybe want one with more defined color shapes but it's a painting so a painting is always going to be a challenge to translate to a slow stitch so anyway that's what I'm working on today I'm going to chat with some friends and stitch away the rest of the day all right that's it I'm talking to the camera again and it's not on so it's Thursday morning it's a few minutes before 10 a.m. May 21st I think I'm headed out obviously I'm in the car to the post office the little annex place while it's still open to mail a few things I don't have enough postage for everything so I'm going to go do that and I might I might pop into Safeway which is right across the street I'm not really a huge Safeway fan but every time I am out I like try to pop out to a local store and try to find a few things that weren't like maybe running low on something or um that I've been looking for I mean we're not doing big grocery shopping more than every about week and a half two weeks but we do run out of fresh stuff before well before then so anyway I got the slow stitch finished this is her I got some beadwork her she I love the way she turned out um I don't know if I'm going to put her up for sale or not I am um I don't mean to make y'all dizzy sorry I am sort of attached to some of the slow stitches so I have no idea why is the lighting so weird in here probably because I have that on um there we go I am sort of attached to some of the slow stitches so I don't know um I and I have the steam iron on in case you're wondering what that noise is um the other thing I've discovered is I had a couple of these left from the old embroidery days anybody remember these they are a piece of um like mat board but it's adhesive on one side and it's intended for mounting needlework too when you're finished with it you put attach it to this and then it's safe and stable and secure yeah and you can frame it or put it onto a larger piece of mat board with a frame um you know whatever you want to do with it so I had a smaller piece of stitchery that I was able to mount we'll go look at that in a minute and then I created a label I'll show you the one that's not signed created a label for myself that goes in the back so every piece of stitchery will have that label on it somewhere and if it's mounted to a board it'll be on the back of the board I do have one piece that's really big and the label is actually on the back of the piece because I don't have a board big enough so hang on just one second the art library and um this is the piece I put on a board and it's got the label on the back and uh yeah cute huh actually there we go cute huh flower inspired so anyway I love this one and um yeah I'm loving the stitching so anyway all right I also got um two sorry we're gonna walk back um besides this piece which is supposed to go that way the labels crooked on it or sideways anyway it's supposed to go that way um I got um this piece of artwork scanned that that other stitch pieces based on and I also got this piece of artwork scanned which was one of two and I um sold one of them with the junk journaling box it did sell that I was talking about last week this other one I'm keeping at least for now and I have turned turned it into a piece of digital art both of these are on the sd shop for sale the digital file and you can download it and reprint it um over and over I do think that the girl's face won't be the last time I take one of my pieces of artwork and turn it into a stitch there's a big hint for you I might do that cactus one next we'll see um or a cactus inspired by that one um um so yeah um it is a fun alternative to another way to use your digital files um turn them into a piece of needlework or use them on needlework print them on a piece of fabric and use it on um a fabric journal cover or a piece of stitchery or something like that I will be showing how to do some of that on the youtube channel going forward anyway that's it for the moment I think it's just about time to turn things off for the day and go downstairs and start thinking about maybe doing the dishes which because I think the sink is full yeah that's a thing all right I'll be back morning everybody it's Friday May 22nd um 10 36 a.m according to the car clock which isn't exactly accurate it's you know a few minutes off I think anyway yeah I am obviously headed out again I've been out more this week than I have since this whole apocalypse thing started but um you gotta do what you gotta do and I do have my mask hand sanitizer chlorx wipes all that jazz you kind of wonder if this is going to be a permanent thing or not when I have to figure out how to put a cooling pack inside of these if it is my face gets really hot all right I'll be back happy Saturday I don't think it's morning oh that's 12 50 11 59 it's technically morning still for one more minute uh guys all right we are obviously upstairs in the art room I have these two little fabric books these are needle keepers this one is the one that generally lives in um my sewing table dust drawer and it is full of a lot of different kinds of needles some of which I used for sewing and there's actually a little small needle keeper in here also full of needles that I was given I know for a fact there's some needles in here that are for when I am knitting there's some blunt blunt tipped um not darning needles but you know if you knit or crochet you know what I mean to hide the threads in your work uh corona brain I'm having issues um but there's also um different kinds of embroidery needles like hidden in amongst all of these other crazy amount of sewing needles and everything I have this little one which lives with my slow stitching stuff there are some short tiny little embroidery needles in here that honestly I don't care for they're too small for me um and then I really just use these bigger ones in the back I think what I want to do is take these littler ones out and put them in the sewing book where I'm more likely to use them and take some of these larger ones out of here and put them over here I did order some more embroidery needles today because if you're a stitcher you never have enough needles and I do tend to be hard on my needles and on my beading needles especially which are thin as a hair I've shown this on camera before I'm not even sure you can see that how thin that is and yes it's bent and crooked I tend to bend the crap out of them and I don't have my reading glasses on at all so I can't really see it what am I doing sticking it back in the spool I tuck it under some of the threads so it doesn't kind of get lost so it's just like that I don't even know if you can see that because the needle is so small there we go right there um so anyway so I think I'm going to take some of these out of here and I take these little ones out of here because I'm not using them at all and we're going to switch them up and I'll be right back and forgot that there were some needle threaders in here and so I'm going to put them in my slow stitching box I do have other needle threaders in the sewing desk so I don't really need those two that were high holy cow that's my husband in the garage or opener okay anyway I don't really need the needle threaders that were in the needle book to be in here I could use them in the slow stitching box so I'm going to put them over there so that's it for the moment I think I'm going to start on my next slow stitching video and also catch up my positive affirmation doll so he's a couple days behind again but he's running out of space so you know all right that's it I'll be back so I almost forgot to close the vlog it's 10 o'clock 4 p.m. Saturday May 23rd oops yeah so we did a few errands that we could uh do and needed to do and then I spent the rest of the afternoon um if you see whoops that right there working on some cross stitch because when I was rearranging some things in the art room to make way for slow stitching I found a bunch of cross stitch kits I forgot I had I got two of them done I got a little see horse done and this funny little cat oops there we go maybe let's see wait the lighting is weird it's late at night these are by they're called tiddlers they're um little mini cross stitch kits and they're by yeah tiddlers it's a weird name they're by a company called mouse loft one word and um the labels look like this now these are old tiddlers I've had these I think I've had these since my daughter went to Lutheran school which was like third to second to third grade or first to third grade or yeah a long time ago she's 26 and getting married um but they still make them I actually looked the company up earlier and I will link it in the description below who knew anyway I'm making using up what I have um finishing up things that haven't been done yet and yeah but you know kind of lost track of time husband cooked dinner mostly I made meatballs made the meatballs but he did all the cooking he even brought me dessert wasn't that sweet I'm such a sweet guy you are a sweet guy yeah see Fred's a sweet guy anyway so it's been a relaxing Saturday we've had a good week we hope you have too that you're staying safe and you're staying healthy and stay creative that you're uh doing what you need to to keep the people around you and the community around you safe by following the guidelines for social distancing and wearing a mask and uh yeah all of that jazz right don't forget to like share and subscribe and if you have any questions comments or concerns do leave them down below I will be doing more with embroidery and stitching and slow stitching going forward it is where I started this whole mess with way back pre-fred uh and it looks like I'm revisiting it right now and I'm enjoying doing it so there'll be more of it coming up if there's something specific that you all would like to see do let me know um I'd appreciate you supporting the free content here on YouTube and over in the Facebook art groups as would your other favorite creatives we all have a way you can support the free content check out our video descriptions I have an Etsy store patreon a paypal tip jar amazon affiliate links I have so much stuff check out the description there's probably a link down there that says uh link tree you click on that you're going to find all my support sites all my social media stuff plus there's a few direct links down there just like check it out and go to your favorite creators and check out their video descriptions if you can't find a way to support them ask because I bet they have a way they might just not be talking about it all right I think that's it for right now I'm tired I need to post all my stuff for today on social media and if you think about getting some sleep how about you all right we'll see you next week don't forget to go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it and we'll see you later bye guys