a hoop & a la & another kind of craft (I'm celebrating my love for you with a craftzine & a new tattoo)

Today is not just the first day of my summer vacation (yay!) but also apparently a little bit of Christmas in the middle of June! I woke up to find that not just my order from Sublime Stitching had arrived (yes, I too finally succumbed to the greatness that is Jenny Hart), but I also got the latest issue of Hoopla in the mail! It's even bigger & better than #1, so I'm very happy & not just because some of my work is featured in it (Rayna, I promise - for next issue I'll write something proper & exclusive).

I especially appreciated the piece by Betsy Greer about stiching/crafting as a form of dealing with emotions & it's sort of therapeutic effect. I can really understand where she's coming from there, since I often use cross stitching as a way to focus my thoughts on something that doesn't hurt or as something that just blocks out stuff I don't want to dwell on anymore. But it also works the other way, when I feel happy & content with life & know that I'm making something that someone will appreciate 'cause it's made with a lot of love & attention. So it's really like the emotions go into the stitching & it can force you to think about stuff that you really don't want to think about, or sometimes not think at all... So go ahead & order you're own copy of Hoopla & if you have a distro or some other way to spread the word, why not order a whole bunch of them?

Last but not least, some of you wondered about the "handicraft for handicraft" swap from the latest post... So here's the result.



It does look a bit weird right now 'cause of the bruises & the fact that it's not really finished. It will probably take at least one more session to do the colour of the butterflies and the shading of the fairy. But I'll have to wait a while & see that it heals okay 'cause I have this palet disorder called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura, which makes my blood all wonky... It's basically "hemophilia light" & is an autoimmune disease that makes my immune system target & eliminate the thrombocytes that makes the blood coagulate. So I have a tendency to bleed very easily & get a lot of bruises. But I'm really happy with the tattoo & think it's gonna be the prettiest one ever when it's completed.