By Upcycling

I have a fairly exacting day job, where if something is off by more than 1/16 of inch, there is going to be trouble. No one dies (I’m not a heart surgeon), but there is wasted material, work to be redone and general unhappiness.

This shows up in my crafting in a reversal of priorities – I prefer to work on projects that, to paraphrase Bob Ross contain “no mistakes, just happy accidents.”

So no surprise the visible mending trend makes my heart happy.  Some of it is quite formal, such as the Sashiko and Boro techniques. But some of it is more of an ordered chaos, and that’s what I really enjoy.

Conveniently, I have a need for this style of repair.  And as usual, it isn’t what you’d normally think of.

Oh, sure, I’ve dabbled with decorative stitches and iron on patches and combinations of both to repair clothes, especially Mr. SuzerSpace’s jeans. He seems to get a hole in the same spot of the upper thigh of every pair he owns (I think it’s from his laptop) and since he works from home, he at least pretends to enjoy the monsters, space aliens and “whoops it was supposed to be a robot but it looks more like the StayPuff Marshmallow Man, sorry” creations I’ve made.

But my new hobby appears to be patching the couch cushions.

I’m a sucker for a good Venn Diagram, especially when they are humorous or snarky. And sometimes they occur in my craft world, as in this project, where my love for lettering, felt and easy embroidery completely and totally overlap to create a personalized mug cozy.

I’ve seen lots of versions of these mug cozies in varying degrees of complicated – some were crocheted/knitted, some were sewn and embroidered. While my mind was wandering last week (I think of some of my best work and craft ideas while either unloading the dishwasher or riding the stationary bike) it occurred to me that I could make a personalized mug cozy by back stitching my lettering.