We’ve been working hard to get ready for the celebration in Downtown St. Paul. If you can’t make it there, or don’t want to wait to grab something unique, we’ve added quite a few Irish themed items to our ArtFire shop.

Here’s a brand new knit cap with a shamrock in the Ireland tricolor.

Or perhaps you’ve been coveting our appliqué shamrock hoodies, but we were sold out of your favorite size. We’ve restocked! The green come in Small to Extra Large. The black go from Small to 2XL.

We’re going to keep working on more items until we go to set up for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend at the Landmark Center. We’ll try to continue adding items. Don’t worry; these are not St. Patrick’s Day exclusive designs. They can be worn all year round, as long as you want to show off that fantastic Irish spirit!

Sláinte!

Historically Luckenbooths were silver brooches purchased from booths in Edinburgh going by the same name. These brooches were given as betrothal or wedding gifts or worn by pregnant women or babies to keep them from harm. From this it can be said that a Luckenbooth is a symbol of love and protection.

The origins of the symbol are unknown, but there are many stories contributing its popularity to Mary Queen of Scots. One states that the Luckenbooth was a symbol of love and devotion the Queen gave to Lord Darnley. Another is that it was a brooch given to the Queen as an engagement present by the Dauphin of France; whom she later married.

Like many traditional symbols, you can now find Luckenbooth symbols in many contemporary forms. From t-shirts to stationary, jewelry to tattoos, the Luckenbooth has endured as a beloved symbol of the Scots.

One thing that happens when you have a huge design library is that you see some designs that you haven’t stitched out before but look beautiful as a thumbnail or on your computer. Unfortunately when you stitch them out, they look nothing like what was on the screen. They are so bad that it’s easier to re-digitize them rather than try to fix them.

This is one such design:

In this picture the jump stitches are most noticeable. Those aren’t so bad when you have a few to clip, but this design has them all over.

Here’s a close-up of the same design:

Notice that there are extra stitches along the sides of some segments going toward others. That’s just poor digitizing and pathing. Good designs (the ones that we have for sale) tries to keep movements like that hidden or are nonexistent.

I still liked the concept of this design and really wanted to put it on some items, so I re-digitized it. I used the existing design as my template and worked my way around.

This is my first attempt:

It’s decent, but there are too many elements that I have to tweek to get it looking perfect.  With our shows looming, I didn’t quite have time to sit and fiddle with this one. So I started again.

Here’s what I got:

Beautiful and it covers well with even stitches. The best part of this one, there are no thread cuts or stops from start to finish. It’s vastly different from the first design.

You can find this one on t-shirts and possibly bags (if I get to them this week).

Oh, I also updated the site with some more new designs appearing at Irish Fair/Fest and subsequent events. You should check them out!

The premise is like so many movies about young women; Merida (the flamey haired protagonist) doesn’t like the hand she was dealt and wants things around her to change. Needless to say high-jinx ensue and everything works out in the end. I’m not going into more detail about the actual plot because I don’t want to spoil anything for those that are going to see the movie.

Is the movie good? Yes, but it’s not Pixar’s best.

Would I see the movie again? Yes, with the stipulation that it was NOT 3D. I say this because at times the 3D would make the movements of the characters jumpy (especially during fast moving scenes) and it also caused things in the background to go very fuzzy when there was something else on the screen that the film makers wanted you to focus on. I would have much preferred seeing the film in regular HD so I could look at the whole screen the way I view things and not have someone tell me to look at specific moments. This could also be my fascination with character costuming coming out in that I loved Tangled in HD and looking at the stitching and fabric types the animators picked for characters. This was completely blurred with the 3D glasses.

To be sure I’m not complaining that I got to see this movie early and I will most likely be going to see it in theaters again. I am just not a fan of 3D and probably never will be.

A few other fun things with the movie are that there is a scene with Highland Cows. They’re so fuzzy and cute, even on screen. There are bagpipes. Happily the movie did use Scottish bagpipes in the movie much more often than the Irish uilleann pipes, which is very common in movies with Scottish themes. There are also many Celtic knots in the background of the credits. My favorite of these were the snowflakes. If you watch closely you’ll see that not all of the snowflake knots are the same. You will also be rewarded for staying through all the credits.

That’s it for my first written movie review. 

In order to keep my sanity during this time period, I’m trying to stock up as much as I can. This includes embroidering bags, t-shirts, hats (boy do I feel like we’re low on hats) and any other miscellaneous items I feel we could use If you can’t wait or can’t make it to these events, I will also try to get more items up in our Artfire store.

I have this nice pile of boxes to keep me busy for a while:

We will also have some new designs for you to see. I’ve already posted some of them in the gallery. Here are just a few of my new favorites:

Time to head back to playing with the machines!

Oh well, on to new and exciting things.

We made it through Festival of Nations in one piece. We had a wonderful time and look forward to being there again next year. Highlights include listening to Rumgumption play on the Café stage, watching the Slovak dancers in the Atrium, having the Twin Cities Metro Pipe Band open and almost close our Saturday and the Festival of Nations Band for Saturday was AMAZING. And as always, the food was delicious.

Here are a couple of pictures of our booth there (we were ‘Scottish’):

Coming up this weekend is the Minnesota Scottish Fair and Highland Games. It’s held at the Dakota County Fair Grounds in Farmington, MN. This year we’re hoping for some non-wet weather, but so far the forecast isn’t looking so good. It’s still fun in the rain and this year I’ll have some rain boots with me just in case . No wet feet for me this year.

As a reminder, we’ll have our $15 Celtic embroidered T-shirts with us along with our normal stock of bags, Sweatshirts, Jean Jackets and more.

Also this year Pixar will be at the Games promoting their new movie Brave. I’m very excited both for the event and to see this movie!

Brave- Kilt Trailer

Until next time.

In that time we did the Scottish Ramble, a large order for a dance school, other special orders, online orders and participated in St. Paul’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. (For those living in Minnesota, can you believe how beautiful that weather was?!?!) Man, I’m tired just listing all of that.

During this time we’ve realized that we have changed up most of our stock except for one certain item; the t-shirt. Due to the extensive stock that we currently have, the rest of 2012 shall be known as the year of the $15 t-shirt. At most of the events we do for the rest of the year you will see that almost all the t-shirts we have with us will now be marked $15 instead of $24-36.

Why is that good news? Well there are two reasons. The first, you can get that t-shirt you’ve been coveting for a discounted price. Secondly, we’ll be rolling out a new line of t-shirts next year. It will have a more limited color palette which will allow us to keep our t-shirts well stocked and no more wondering if you see it in one size that we’ll have it in another.

If by chance we still have $15 t-shirts left after our show season we will try to get them up on our ArtFire store well before Christmas.

What do we have coming up? Well currently we’re getting ready for Festival of Nations. Then not too far behind is the Minnesota Scottish Fair and Highland Games.  Please click on the name of the event if you would like more information.

Talk to you soon. Promise.

Why does this bother me? There are lots of variables when it comes to machine embroidery. The main one is the machine.  There are many brands both of home and industrial machines and just like computers, they all seem to have their own personalities. They will read the same file slightly different. This automatically slightly alters the design. If the operator knows their machine well, this can be minimized.

Other very important variables are quality thread, proper stabilizer, and fabric choice. The stock design company uses a very specific fabric in their stitch outs that makes the design look its best; usually some form of felt. Many products that are sold to consumers are going to be t-shirts or other semi-stretch material if it’s going on the body or cotton broadcloth if it’s for things like quilt blocks (there are lots of those being sold online). If poor quality thread is used, the design will honestly look cheap. If the company uses the wrong stabilizer, the design can pucker, outlines can move, or the fabric can become distorted.

Lastly is the size/stitch count of the design. I have many beautiful large designs that people always ask if I can put on a t-shirt. Technically, it can be done, but it would be heavy, hang poorly, and compromise the longevity of the shirt. I can’t in good conscience take someone’s money if I know the product won’t look right or last long. Others apparently don’t have problems with this like I do.  One that I’ve seen has photoshopped the stock design company’s image of a very stitch heavy design onto a t-shirt and selling it to anyone who would like it.

With these things in mind, I worry for those who do purchase from these companies and they really have no idea of the quality of the item they will receive in the mail. Please, if you have any doubts about what you’re looking at, contact the seller. Ask them questions. Reputable business people should have no problems answering you or producing other pictures if you request them.

Here is an example of a picture from the stock design company, my stitch-out, and what it looks like on a garment:

Due to working diligently on items for the Ramble that I didn’t end up posting last week. Oops.  Here, look for yourself:

There’s also another smaller pile of t-shirts hiding behind those, and about a dozen jean jackets that are elsewhere.

We are going to have some very nice new items debuting at the Ramble. Some new sweatshirts (so pretty, I may have to have one!). I also worked on re-stocking our Scottish t-shirts. And, of course, more bags. Can we really every have too many bags? I don’t think so

While working on this stock for this event I also used some new designs. Some Scottish, Welsh and Celtic. You can see them in our gallery if you’d like. Here’s just a little taste:

Why is this number significant you may ask. It is said that once you reach 100 items that the Google gods look down from the heavens and smile upon you. They send praise in the form of visitors. This is a thank you in regards to your many offerings; such as the number of listings, the meaty content of your descriptions, and high quality pictures. Or so it is told.

In reality, I’m just happy that we’ve hit triple digits and now have a decent representation of our work out there for the viewing public.

As for what’s new, we have a whole new category of items; mainly sweatshirts. There’s also a new selection of patches. We created flag patches to represent the 7 Celtic Nations. (Click the links to view full selection)

Why are there 8 patches shown? Well, the first two (far left, both top and bottom) both belong to Scotland

That’s it for now. Have a great weekend everyone!