Whitniffic Whatnots

Ok, so I haven't really cross-stitched since I was a kid, but I had picked up a kit to work on during a Ragnar relay a while back and finally got around to starting it recently. Then a fellow granny-craft enthusiast got really excited when she saw me stitching and added me to a Facebook group that was just gearing up to kick off a stitch-along... Has not progressed since Steotchalong started. Allow me to introduce the 6th Annual Mystery Steotchalong, featuring a pattern by Matt and Em Fitzpatrick of Steotch.com . I have to admit... I wasn't sure what to expect. Taking a peek at both the Steotch Facebook page and their Etsy store, I gathered that whatever this "Mystery Steotchalong" was, it was going to be nerdy, dirty, or both. Can I get a Locutus of Borg pattern, please? I was not wrong! The first pattern drop had us stitching up some scrolly motifs and a big old 69. Hmm... nope. No guesses here! And the final message hasn't really...

I had a really great time making the Hipster Hound's Travel Kit last year for Habitat for Humanity's Repurpose for a Reason auction, so when the opportunity came up to shop the ReStore for a flipping project again in August, I jumped right on it. I'm thinking that a lot of people had the same idea... the store was pretty picked over of anything really exciting or unusual. I was hoping to create something useful and beautiful, and everything I was finding spoke more decoratively to my creative brain. I ended up grabbing three bundled up billboard canvases; flat-woven plastic tarp thingies that are digitally printed in huge scale for outdoor advertisements. I figured I could make a quilted art piece out of them. I had no clue what I was grabbing because they were wrapped up inside out, but I saw some peeks of teal, purple and lime green (my favorites!), so I took those two plus one that seemed to be mostly white. These "tarps" are valued at $2 in the store, ...