Beefranck’s Emporium – Introduction

Hi everybody! This is the first in a series of posts the gracious MrXStitch is allowing me to do here each Monday, barring some sort of catastrophe or other minor distraction. I’ll be posting about funny, vulgar, subversive and geeky cross stitches and embroideries that strike my fancy. I hope you’ll like them, too. Join me, won’t you? Thank you!

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and love is in the air! That probably explains the smell – don’t worry, it will be gone in a week or two. In the meantime, here’s some stitchy goodness for the holiday.

Julie Jackson is selling DIY Valentine Kits at the Subversive Cross Stitch website. It comes with doilies, floss, needles, a blank grid and patterns for a variety of words that allows you to create your own personalized Valentines – sweet or sour.

It might be cutting it a little bit close to get the kits and make them in time for Valentine’s Day, but I see these having all sorts of great applications at any time of year.

Sometimes you might find yourself the recipient of some unwanted attention at this time of year. If that happens, you can always use this piece I found at peppermintkite’s etsy shop as a gentle hint:

It’s a bit blunt, but sometimes that’s the only way to get your point across.

Finally, here’s a handmade Valentine that was stitched and posted in the Needlework section of Craftster by manbroiderer extraordinaire and hopeless romantic, WhateverJames.

You can see the original post here for more details – like the fact that he sold most of his action figure collection to buy his fiancee her engagement ring! What I really love about this (besides the fact that it’s incredibly sweet) is that it made me think. We all have SOMETHING that we’re a bit obsessive about. Wouldn’t it be cool if we all made a declaration like this to our partner this Valentine’s Day? I’d take that over chocolates any day.