You can almost smell the beer

My husband Jim and I have very different tastes when it comes to music. Jim loves Gackt, Muse, X-Japan and Malice Mizer. I love Richard Cheese, They Might Be Giants, Ben Folds and the Violent Femmes. One thing we agree on is Pat McCurdy, a local guy who sings at bars and festivals in Illinois and Wisconsin. He's playing somewhere almost every night.

I did a couple of stitches recently inspired by two of our favorite songs. The first one, I Like You Best, starts off sweet and then changes midstream. It goes from "Let's sit beneath a shady tree and read romantic poetry" to "I promise not to break your heart, I'll wheel you home in a shopping cart." I kind of made this one to even out a really mushy stitch I made for Jim recently. Depending on his mood he can decide which one to display on his desk. :)

The second one has been on my mind for awhile. I always thought it would make a great subversive stitch, but I wasn't sure how I wanted it to look. It's based on my absolute favorite song by Pat, I Like Everything. I really wanted to try doing some more blackwork, so I thought this would be a good chance to do it.

I'm happy with how it turned out, but my Catholic schoolgirl childhood has made this stitch the most embarrassing of all my creations. Well, next to this one.

Selfish Stitching - I thought

I had two gigantic weeks off over Christmas and New Years, and it was awesome. I got my Omaha fix the week of Christmas, thank goodness, and then the next week there was absolutely NOTHING on our schedule. I've been working incredibly hard this year, and when the time came to relax...

I decided I wanted to stitch my ass off.

I would stitch whatever came into my head first without any concern about whether or not anyone else would find it amusing. I was thinking of it as Selfish Stitching - stuff only I would get a kick out of.

I started with a quote from You Look Nice Today - not a surprise, it's my favorite podcast and obsession of the moment. Hubby Jim and I listened to several episodes while driving through Iowa, including the episodes guest starring Jonathan Coulton and John Hodgman.

*nerdgasm*

Ahem.

Anyway, the quote comes from the end of each episode when Scott Simpson read a plug for Hodgman's new book, More Information Than You Require:

"Go buy a copy. Ostentatiously read it in front of your friends and co-workers. "What's that?" they'll ask. "Nothing. Nothing _you'd_ be interested in," you'll say. Then show them the dog poop you have in your other hand. "This is probably something _you'd_ be interested in. You look more like a dog poop person to me."



Then, I did a REALLY selfish stitch, this one from my own podcast - Emergency Pants. My co-host Shane asked this question:



There was a funny story after that, but this question is what I remember the most.

Last but not least is a quote from the Stars and Tartan podcast. I only recently started listening to it, but I LOVE IT. It's no wonder, considering that in episode 4 Derek called a mean neighbor this name:



It was a fun week. And when it was all said and done, the stitching wasn't selfish after all - lots of people seemed to find some amusement in them. Maybe I should just stitch whatever comes into my head more often.