Funktastic!

I may have already mentioned, but my new keeping-my-hands-busy hobby is teaching myself to embroider. I haven't done much yet; in my sparse free time I'm always pulled between errands/chores, keeping up on my reading (that whole "librarian" thing, ha), and doing the embroidery, and embroidery doesn't usually win, sadly. But I still love it, and I love seeing what other people have done and thinking, "I could do that, and maybe someday I will!" I pore over blogs and Flickr groups featuring embroidery, both patterns and completed projects, adding things to my inspiration folders and just exclaiming over the colors and the details!

So imagine my delight when I saw this post on the Sublime Stitching blog today, about two vintage embroidery books featuring insanely detailed and extensive folk-art/ethnic/hippy embroidery on denim and other clothing. I mean, just LOOK at this shirt:

From American Denim: A New Folk Art
(image from Knitsquirrel's blog)

Amazing. It makes me want to run right out to a thrift shop and find a beat-up chambray denim shirt and embroider the heck out of it!! I'm a real sucker for that kind of all-American, Southwestern, cowboy kind of style, ha! Can't you just see pairing this shirt with big silver bangle bracelets, black skinnies, and a pair of cowboy boots? I SURE CAN.

And luckily for me...the library where I work owns American Denim: A New Folk Art! You'd better believe I've already checked it out!

Sadly, the second book mentioned in the blog post, "Native Funk and Flash" is not in our holdings. Maybe I'll ILL it at some point, but in the meantime, I'm sure I'll be adding any number of images from American Denim to my inspiration folders!