Space + Craft (still) = Awesome.

All the photos in this post were taken by my good friend
and all-around awesome human being, Jote.

UPDATE!

Apparently there was a glitch in the way Etsy pulled tagged entries for the contest, and it turns out that now my embroidered Moon is up for voting! Go vote and tell your friends! Thank you so much!

This should have been a different post. I'd hoped I'd be posting a request for help to vote for the embroidery I created above for a chance to help it possibly fly in space. A few weeks ago, NASA and Etsy announced their Space Craft contest. My heart started beating out of my chest as I read the contest details, which include a possible opportunity to have your handmade item fly in space on board one of the final space shuttle flights. (heck - is wasn't just a high heart rate I experienced. When I read the part about flying the object in space, I got totally choked up!)

This is my high texture hand embroidery of the moon that I entered in the contest. I'll fill you in on the specifics of the project soon and will share some great space and embroidery resources as well. What I'd hoped I'd be doing this weekend was spreading the word far and wide that I'd made it to round 2 of the contest where folks would have the opportunity to vote for their favorite space-inspired hand-made item. I won't lie, while I wasn't arrogant enough to think I might win this whole thing, I did feel confident I would at least make it to the voting round, and I was prepared to work my backside off to spread the word for voting. My good friend, Becky, even helped me make a nice little video giving some insight into why I was so passionate about the contest. Maybe I jinxed myself, but hey - when you want something badly, you want to "bring it" and I was fully prepared to "bring it" in a big way.

Space + Craft (still) = Awesome (even if I didn't make the vote cut)
from Rachel Hobson on Vimeo.
(ignore the "vote for me" portion of the video ;) Thanks, Becky! )

I was not prepared to not have the chance to bring it. And when the voting opened last night, and I quickly realized I hadn't made the cut ... I was crushed. I commiserated with good friend and fellow Spacetweep, Jen, whose amazing needle felted Hubble Space Telescope also didn't make the cut in her category, and there were several very kind people on Twitter who shared some lovely words about my embroidery. That helped, but I have to admit I was very disappointed and deflated.


It wasn't just the opportunity to "win" a contest I was excited about. Absolutely, I was thrilled (to tears) about the idea of something I made flying in space, but more than that, I was excited for the opportunity to share my two biggest passions - space and craft - with a wider audience. I was excited to share resources with people, get folks who might not be fired up about space to get interested in it and to hopefully inspired people who would never consider picking up a needle and thread to do so. I was excited about the chance to connect and share with more people.

I decided I needed to lay off the social media early last night, and started to watch a great documentary on the Apollo program instead. As I watched, my heart filled with excitement once more and I was reminded why I spent so much time on this project; why I stitched craters until I had calluses on my fingertips, why I took the piece with me everywhere I went so I could stitch at any given opportunity, why I delighted in sharing the subject matter with anyone who was gracious enough to ask about it.


It wasn't because of the contest, it was because of the Moon. And space. And embroidery. And the pure joy that these things bring to me. And I can't let what a random handful of judges think of my work keep me from loving these things and sharing them with other people.

And so that's exactly what I'm going to do. Over the next few days, I'll be sharing more background information on this project. It was my most massive embroidery undertaking to date, and I fell madly in love with it. I'll share information about the class in which I started the project, some of the stitches I used, some of the threads I used and more information about the moon and why I love it so much. I've also set up a page of embroidery and space links in case I've inspired anyone to explore these two passions of mine. If you have any questions about either subject, just let me know and I'll do my best to answer them in the follow up posts.

• Follow up post - More on the Moon: Sharon B's Sumptuous Surfaces Embroidery Class (in which I started this project)
• Follow up post - Highlighting the various stitches I used in the project!