'pretty offensive'



You guys ask, I make.
There's more of these little sweary embroideries available here.
What other words/quotes/poems/sayings would you like to see in thread?

Stitchin'

A quick lil' video of me in the middle of a pet portrait.
And oh look, I'm on tumblr too.

http://intwosandthrees.tumblr.com/post/116562508594/stitchin

I've got new brush pens



and I'm pretty bloody excited about it.

As I'm often stitching for hours at a time, taking breaks are pretty important - it means I can see the piece I'm working on with fresh eyes (and find all the mistakes I've made) and rest my hands (I get sore wrists and fingers, more on that another day though). However, instead of reaching for the cake, I'll spend half an hour drawing (especially if I haven't found time on a day off to draw. And if there's no cake involved). I found some bloody good brush pens in the children's section of Waitrose (I know right, lucky, huh?) and now every possible break I'm drawing. I'm not drawing very well, and it's usually faces, plants or something, and I've no idea if I'll do anything with the drawings afterwards, but I'm having a lovely little time.

{EDIT: perhaps, after my recent embroidery interpretations of other artists illustrations, I should re-work my own drawings with some stitching? Maybe}

noun; a peculiarity of action, behavior, or personality; mannerism

 
Hey girl! Do you wear men's jackets from the 80's? Do you really love architecture and take hazy photos of shapes? Maybe you collect vintage cigarette tins and have an unconventional laugh? Are you really passionate about vegan food and wont go changing for no one? If you dress like Phoebee from Friends or make odd noises like Zooey Deschanel then congratulations, you're probably quirky!  
Sometimes I just really hate this word and often find it's often used in a falsely endearing way.
This hand embroidered piece, on printed vintage fabric, set in a lovely vintage frame and so ironically quirky, is available online now.

Lucky Dip Club giveaway!


Well this is pretty exciting! If you're following @intwosandthrees over on instagram, then you might have discovered that I've teamed up with the super amazing Lucky Dip Club to offer someone the chance to win a custom embroidered pet portrait! Simply follow @luckydipclub on instagram, like and comment on the original post with details of your pet and/or any funny facts/stories too! The winner will be picked at random and announced on May 1st, so there's still plenty of time!

Lucky Dip Club, found here, are personalised boxes, posted t you with love and filled with themed surprizes each month. You can subscribe or buy a one off box at the beginning of the month (but be quick, they sell out really fast!). Now, you can even buy a selection of some of the goodies you might have seen in previous boxes. Past themes have included unicorns, birds of paradise and 'festival of fun' with previous collaborators including I Love Crafty, Hello Harriet and for this month, Gemma Correll for the 'raining cats & dogs' April box.

Recently, over on instagram, Lucky Dip Club has a Fri - YAY giveaway from some amazing artists, makers and creators. I'm honoured to be able to offer a pet portrait to Lucky Dip Club's followers and am in awe at the amazing feedback I've had from all my new followers following the giveaway announcement.
There's so many exciting things happening this year, hooray!

typical

 
 
Jess had these super cool, really old alphabet flash cards. There were a few letters missing, but obviously, a certain favourite word could still be made.


and of all the things we dream of

 
 

I love the colours in this customers photo. Do you own an intwosandthrees item? You can tag me in your photos on instagram, I bloody love a little tag @intwosandthrees #intwosandthrees and I bloody love seeing your photos and how you display a little bit of intwosandthrees.

so far

 



April has been busy, but a very good busy. There's some exciting new work being planned, a couple of collaborations in the pipeline, some interesting commissions I've been working on - and I've even had time for some fun filled days off and eating out in the sunshine.


crying Kim

 
 
A customer photo of one of my framed embroideries, sitting in good company to a print from Oh Gosh Cindy. Crying Kim Kardashian is my favourite and Oh Gosh Cindy has captured that ugly cry perfectly (everyone needs an ugly cry every now and then though, right?) and totally contradicts that embroidery.
I love seeing photos of intwosandthrees in-situ, keep them coming guys! 

"pretty offensive"



Strange phrase, "pretty offensive", isn't it? A nice oxymoron though that aptly describes these little swear word embroideries.

www.intwosandthrees.etsy.com

How to beat the art - block blues : part 7

girls & plants
 
 
 

 
 
 
Caitlin Shearer, Karolin Schnoor, withapencilinhand, Rachel Levit and Jen Collins

not at all

 
 
I tend to draw when I take a break from embroidery, whether that's for an afternoon or for an hour. It's great to go back to the embroidery with fresh eyes and squeezing in a few moments to draw makes me feel like I'm not missing out. Drawing faces, mainly girls recently, seems to be the topic of the moment as I've nearly filled a sketchbook with colourful studies and layered line work. The term 'babeface' keeps coming to mind when I look back on these drawings, so perhaps a zine should be the next step, so as not to let the drawings go to waste.
We'll see, anyway.

Zippy & George



Details from a double kitty portrait recently.
I love when I can make portraits using a scale of tones, especially when they're caramel and browns. It's always a little bit stressful finding the right colour threads, I try hard to make sure they match the pet in question. I'm finding recently, however, that if I work in a few layers of colours in a similar tone, with lots of stitches, I can create a fairly close match.
I think I'd like to make a portrait of something using bright colours - like shades of pink or blues or something totally different. Just to see if I can...

work more, do more

 
 
I took this photo a few weeks back, during a miserable artists block. While trawling through Pinterest and perving on artists on Instagram can be successful, sometimes a good old fashioned book is exactly what I need to feel inspired again. They're not necessarily books on art that I'm about to make - Ed Templeton takes incredible can-did photos of skaters and teenagers, Jenny Saville, Egon Schiele and Lucian Freud are painters I absolutely love, but could never replicate, and Cindy Sherman dresses up as other characters and creates stories within photos and documentation - I haven't attempted art along any of those lines since uni, but going back to their books and admiring their imagination and skills really gets me pumped up to pull my finger out and work a little harder. 

because, I can

 
 
Even if you just purchase a little hand stamped card, I'll still wrap it all fancy for you, because who doesn't like happy post?

www.intwosandthrees.etsy.com

Travis, Milly and Niesha


 
 
 
I always find that making something for someone you're close to, friends or family, is about a million times harder than making something for a customer I've never met. Travis, Milly and Niesha belong to Cathy, Jess and Boo, friends I've met through the pop-up shop. I've also met Milly and Niesha in the flesh, so stitching a likeness to cats I've already met results in more pressure. Cats always turn out looking pissed off and dogs always end up looking sad, so I always panic about the likeness between the embroidery and the photos I'm given to work from. Everyone seems happy with their little embroideries though, and despite the pressure (that I probably put on myself), I really enjoyed making these. Pissed off or sad, they're pretty cute really.

this little house, on top of the hill


I don't know why I didn't make this sooner. I'd embroidered a little cottage, complete with thatched roof and picket fence to play with scale and fine thread. Turning the trial into an actual 'fuckers' embroidery should have been the obvious next step, instead this little embroidery was just hanging around on my pile of half complete stitchings.
I'll make more of these soon, they're a little better than the tray cloth edition and make a bit more sense, right?
I'm still a little fed up with making the 'home is where..' embroideries, so these aren't exactly top of my list at the minute. I'll aim to make more in June time, that gives me a couple of months to get over it haha.

3 little cunts & a twat



You ask, I make! More little swear filled embroideries have just been added to the etsy shop.
www.intwosandthrees.etsy.com

inside / outside



I loved stitching this vintage tattoo flash style hand and flowers image. I'd started a series of these simple black work embroideries, but only got around to framing and listing one of them - sometimes, I get kind of swamped with custom orders, and forget to make something new/different/for myself/for etsy/for fun etc. So, with this in mind, I've started to schedule in days off or days for doing / making something different, as well as the scheduled custom orders. Scheduling just means that customers contact me first regarding a personalised embroidery, we then, together, discuss dates when they would like the embroidery by, and a date when I can dedicate my time to their embroidery. Pet portraits take 2 days for a small piece, and 4 days for a double portrait. I like to make sure customers can have their embroidery in advance of their desired date (usually if they're gifts etc). I then make sure there is at least one day after and one day before each custom embroidery, to be a day off or day for something different. It all sounds super organised, but I learnt the hard way over Christmas with a crazy amount of embroideries and not enough hours in the day causing me to totally burn out. So, this now means that I'll have more time to make new work, take on exciting custom orders and play with drawing and illustration more too. Hooray!

keep your head on,

 
 

Feeling rather agitated by that annoying fly bumping around your room? Super annoyed that you can't find your lucky pants? Over excited about Game of Thrones coming back on the T.V?
Calm your tits love, it will be ok.
 
{yeah, those are little crochet nipples - I'll be making boob bunting with them soon} 

Baloo

 
 
I try not to be biased when I'm making custom pet portraits, I always enjoy all of them and always love oohing and ahhing over the photos I'm sent. But come on, Baloo the puppy though!
Such a cute lil' pup.

asap

 
 
Who wouldn't team a little cunt embroidery with a vintage drawing of some cute kitties? More of these embroideries will be available soon, I promise, things have just been super hectic recently. Watch this space for exciting new work!

super

 
 
When I'm swamped with embroidery commissions, I think about how much I want to be drawing and painting. Then when I'm drawing I think about how I've got loads of embroidery to do. The good thing about this unnecessary worry, is that I quickly draw things and move on to something else. This often results in new drawing styles that I don't mind playing around with.
This is an example of a 10 minute break. Just felt tip pens and moody girls.