Haunted House Flyer - TTT5 Update

I embroidered this Haunted House Flyer for the 5th round of the Craftster Tea Towel Tour. It's on ThirdMargaret's towel. Here's the picture I used for inspiration (from bluebison.net). I used mostly back stitch with some chain stitch, stem stitch, seed stitch, and french knots thrown in. It's almost all done with 2 strands, except for the moon and red lettering which are 4 strands, and then the seeding and small details are done in 1.

Here's a picture of the full towel. Zombie_Queen did the Bride of Frankenstein bat at the top.

Baby Sampler Featured on Craftster Blog

About 3 months ago my embroidered baby sampler was featured on the Craftster blog. It kicked off a new feature called Manic Monday where they feature crafts that took a lot of work to produce. I thought it was pretty awesome and can't believe I've waited so long to post this here. So here's a link, check it out, and enjoy!

Tea Towel Tour 5 Time!

The fifth round of the Craftster Tea Towel Tour is going strong and this time around I'm a group leader! Lilyvanilli's Lounge Lizards is quite the group and I'm really excited to be swapping with them. Now that I'm back from vacation in Alaska I've started stitching and have some pics to share with you. Here's my first piece which is on Zombie_Queen's towel:

It's a calavera, which you can read about if you click on that link. Zombie_Queen decided to go for no theme and I saw that we had both wisted this piece by AlwaysInspired (who's also in the Lounge Lizards!), so I decided to go for a Dia de los Muertos theme. Luckily when I went to wiki to check out calaveras I found this image and was set. It's all pretty much back stitch with a few french knots, lazy daisies, and some seeding. It was pretty detailed and small and I tend to favor back stitch in those situations. Here's a closer shot of the head:

Here's a link to the gallery for this swap if you'd like to check out everyone else's work, too. It's a long one, but if you click the "Show Images Only" tab at the top it cleans it up for you. I have 5 more towels, including my own, to stitch, so more pics to come!

OctoIsland Do-Over

We had a flaker in our Flickr swap so I had to re-do my piece for Rita. You can see the original piece here. It's pretty much the same, I just changed a few colors slightly and did a little bit more filling. I love this cute little octopus that only has 6 tentacles.

The Cove

Any synopsis I come up with can not do this film justice, so here's the synopsis from the film's website, which you can click here (or that previous link) to visit:

The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the 5 dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.”

But his close relationship with those dolphins – the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with trained sea mammals that continues to this day -- led O’Barry to a radical change of heart. One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realize that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again. This mission has brought him to Taiji, a town that appears to be devoted to the wonders and mysteries of the sleek, playful dolphins and whales that swim off their coast.

But in a remote, glistening cove, surrounded by barbed wire and “Keep Out” signs, lies a dark reality. It is here, under cover of night, that the fishermen of Taiji, driven by a multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry and an underhanded market for mercury-tainted dolphin meat, engage in an unseen hunt. The nature of what they do is so chilling -- and the consequences are so dangerous to human health -- they will go to great lengths to halt anyone from seeing it.

Undeterred, O’Barry joins forces with filmmaker Louis Psihoyos and the Oceanic Preservation Society to get to the truth of what’s really going on in the cove and why it matters to everyone in the world. With the local Chief of Police hot on their trail and strong-arm fishermen keeping tabs on them, they will recruit an “Ocean's Eleven”-style team of underwater sound and camera experts, special effects artists, marine explorers, adrenaline junkies and world-class free divers who will carry out an undercover operation to photograph the off-limits cove, while playing a cloak-and-dagger game with those who would have them jailed. The result is a provocative mix of investigative journalism, eco-adventure and arresting imagery that adds up to an urgent plea for hope.

This movie was so sad, but I'm really glad I watched it. I had no idea that over 20,000 dolphins are slaughtered every year from September to March. And that's only in this one cove in this one town in Japan. The film shows these fishermen putting metal poles under the water then banging on them to create a wall of sound that forces the dolphins into the cove. Then people from entertainment sites like SeaWorld come and pick out the ones they want to ship back to their parks. After that the rest of the dolphins are herded into a smaller, secluded cove and slaughtered with harpoons. They actually show some of the slaughter and it's just horrific. The water is thick and bright red from all the blood.

Even though it's pretty much a 2 hour cryfest, this is definitely a must-see movie. I'm guessing the vast majority doesn't know this is happening, which is probably one of the reasons the IWC (International Whaling Commission) does not protect dolphins. Please, go see this movie if it's playing near you.

I'm giving this the full 5 babies. Here are some links to petitions you can sign and other information:

Petition to Help Save Japan's Dolphins

Petition to Stop the Dolphin Slaughter in Taiji, Japan

SaveJapanDolphins.org

Learn what you can do to help

Moon

Sam Rockwell plays Sam Bell, an astronaut who's been living on the Moon for the past 3 years. It's the near future and humans have discovered a new energy source called Helium-3, which Sam is mining on the moon. His only companion on the space station he's working at is a robot named Gerty, and the satellite that provides a live communication feed is broken so Sam can only send and receive taped messages. In 3 weeks Sam's contract is up so he gets to go home and finally be reunited with his wife and 3 year old daughter. He starts having headaches and hallucinations which lead to him almost dying in an accident. While he's recuperating he meets another version of himself. The two Sams start working together to find out what's going on while they wait for a support crew to show up and help them fix things.

I fucking LOVED this movie!! It's exactly what I want out of a sci-fi movie: creepy, a little slow, not a lot of crazy effects, makes you feel a little claustrophobic/confined like the characters must. Sam Rockwell was absolutely perfect (as usual) and his performance totally made the movie. There's a lot left unexplained and I think that helped make it even better. Josh and I saw it a couple days ago and we're still talking about what we think was going on.

Go see this movie, it was fabulous! I'm giving it the full 5 babies. Loved it!

Dead Like Me - Life After Death

Dead Like Me - Life After Death picks up 4 years after the show left off. It's the same old story as the show, but this time around Rube's gone and Henry Ian Cusick (otherwise known as Desmond on Lost) has taken his place as the boss. Gone are the post-its, now they have cell phones. Also gone is Laura Harris, who played Daisy Adair. Apparently she was not available at the last minute so they got a new actress (who sucks) to play the part. Der Waffle House has burned down, George's dad has moved far away and started a new family, Reggie's 16 and in high school, and George's mom has written a book on dealing with grief. The new boss kinda sucks, and soon all the reapers are doing whatever they want and not worrying about the consequences.

My main problem with this movie is that the entire plot was covered in one of the very first episodes of Season 1. In the show, George is reluctant to take people's souls so she just doesn't. She soon realizes that even worse things will happen, and more people will die if she doesn't reap the soul, so from then on she follows the rules and doesn't try to take matters into her own hands. That is exactly what happens in the movie, except this time it's all the other reapers not doing their job. It was fucking retarded, like the people who wrote the script had never even watched the show.

The whole thing kind of felt like the Sex and the City movie to me - meaning just not as good as the show. I liked getting to see Reggie grown up a bit (her and the mom were always 2 of my favorite characters) and getting to revisit Happy Time, but honestly, that's about it. I wish I would have just not watched the movie. The show was way too good to be cheapened by this turd.

I'll have 1.5 little reaper babies.