Wowzers! I Won an Award!

Thanks to Flossy, of the wonderful Flossy Bobbin, I have been given a blog award!

I've seen these around, but honestly never thought I'd receive one! I'm immensely flattered that Flossy considers me one of her favourite "crazy creative people" ;)

Flossy also deserves a lot of thanks for being incredibly patient with me, since I was awarded this ages ago, and have been meaning to pass it on ever since! If you visit the post where she gave out the award, you'll see a pic of her yin-and-yang doggies, Minnie (the white one) and Montie (the black one), but be sure to visit this post to see the super-cute Minnie get her model on with Flossy's adorable crocheted flower collar :) Flossy also has an Etsy store, which sells her adorkable geek-chic blackwork robot pattern among other neat things!

There are three requirements to fufill to accept the award:

1. Thank the Person Who Awarded You

Thanks very much Flossy! I love reading your blog and seeing what neat creative thing you're doing, stitching and other-craft wise :)

2. List Seven Things About Yourself

Since the focus of ES is stitching, I thought I would share some stitchy things:

1. I have never worked with linen and am trying not to do so...
Because I'm honestly afraid that I'll become a 'linen snob', and I have too many kits and designs using Aida that I want to stitch! Plus, linen is not widely available here :)

2. I had never photographed the back of my work until Floral Teacup...

As I was afraid that the backs of my works were too messy! This used to bother me a lot when I was younger, not because of any criticism, but because I thought I could do better. I've learned that 'better', for me, means leaving longer tails, and darning in more securely, as I want the works to last and not unravel. Even though it means more 'mess'. And I'm going to take pictures from now on!

3. I haven't shown any of my jewellery yet because...

I really need to learn to take better photos, a la Dancing in the Rain! For all the years that I've been making beaded jewellery, I have seldom ever bothered to photograph my work, and I'm going to try to remedy that sometime in the near future!

4. I have never worked with silks...

But am intrigued by watching other stitchers use it, and would like to try it sometime.

5. I greatly admire the works of video-game stitchers...
Like Flossy (@ Flossy Bobbin), Karyn (@ A Riot Patch of Pixels), Cibo (@ CiboStitch) and Evening Emma (@ EveningEmma), even though I am regrettably not hip to most modern video games. I had a deep and abiding love for the Super Mario Bros. when I was younger that I never grew out of (especially SMB3!), and I love the look of any retro pixellated game. But I have no experience with what's hot now, and cannot play first-person shooters at all. Not even when the targets are really bad guys. So, in short, I love video games, but can't kill anything beyond the occassional goomba (i.e. frowny mushroom from SMB). 

 6. I greatly admire stitchers who work historical stitcheries...
But I will never be one of them. While I believe the attention to tradition that is involved in working accurate reproductions of antique samplers and stitching in the 'primitive' style is commendable, I love working with new materials and bright colours far too much to adopt that manner of work with any consistency.

7. I have always wanted a pair of fancy needlework scissors...

But stork scissors freak me out! It's the whole beak-as-blades thing I think. Plus, I had a nightmare once where I had a real stork with a scissors-blade beak chasing me(!). I'm not so bad with the peacock scissors, since there's only a suggestion of feathers on the handles and no beak in sight, but I'm holding out for a pretty filigree floral pattern, without any sign of birds at all!

3. Pass the Award to 15 Other Stylish Bloggers

Wow! There's so many stitchy blogs that I get inspired by reading. Flossy's already given the award to Jeanne at Byrd's Nest, Karyn at A Riot Patch of Pixels, and Ziggyeor of Ziggyeor's Loopyness so they are not on list due to that :)

Also, Ági's wonderful blog, The World According to Ági, is not on the list, as she is one of the people who gave Flossy the award. 

And since I don't think I can give the award back to the person who awarded it, Flossy is not on this list, although she certainly deserves it ;)

I'll be sending out e-mails/leaving comments to let you know. If, for some reason, you haven't gotten a message in your e-mail or a comment on your most recent post (for those who do not have their e-mail address available), please e-mail me (address in sidebar, under "About") to let me know.

I've ordered the list alphabetically for ease of reading! Although it was hard to limit the list to just 15, these are some of my very favourite stitchy bloggers. I am a follower of all of these blogs, and they are all listed in my sidebar :)

1.   A Bit of This and That (Shannon)
2.   Cibo Stitch (Cibo)
3.   Crazy Cross-Stitcher (CrazyStitcher)
4.   Dancing in the Rain (Rainy Day Stitcher)
5.   Epic Stitching (Mel)
Although Mel has recently taken a blog sabbatical for medical reasons, there is still plenty of interesting posts to read in her archives, and I'm hoping that she will accept the award when she is able to return to her stitching.
6.    Erica's Stitches (Erica)
7.    Evening Emma (Evening Emma)
8.    Karen's Colourful Creations (Karen)
9.    Meari's Musings (Meari)
10.  Moonsilk Stitches (Moonsilk Stitches) 
11.  Mtrl Girl's Material World (Christine)
12.  Stitch Days (Rita)
13.  StitchinKat's Pawprints Blog (StitchinKat)
14.  Stitching Stuff (Amanda aka Z)
15.  Therapy By Thread (Blu)

Best wishes for Happy Stitching to you all!