Craft:

Last summer I fell in love with an embroidered portrait of Martha Stewart I spied around Flickr and on the Adorn magazine blog. It was created by one of my favorite crafters, Erika Kern of My Imaginary Boyfriend. I finally got a chance to see it in person at the November 2007 edition of Felt Club, where Erika was a vendor. She told me she displayed it at shows as an example of her custom portrait work, so it would be traveling to all the holiday shows with her. We talked and talked and much to my delight, she agreed to sell it to after she was done with the craft fair circuit. She hand-delivered Martha to me last week and I'm more in love than ever with this incredible portrait, which will always have a special place in my craft room!

Here's Erika's description of the piece, cribbed from her blog:

Here is the Martha of my mind, birds fly above her, spelling out her favorite line "It's a good thing" below her, flowers and spools of thread in her signature green. To finish the piece I framed her in "faux bois" (French for fake wood, Martha loves faux bois!) hand painted felt. The whole piece measures 16" by 18" and is cotton floss embroidery and wool felt appliqé on wool felt. Stitches used: Chain stitch, satin stitch, stem stitch, split stitch, and French knots.

Visit the My Imaginary Boyfriend site for info on Erika's work and to contact her for commissioned portraiture. For more detail shots of this piece, visit my Flickr stream. Link.