I finished my latest socially awkward dish towel. Doodle embroidery; still adoring it! You can read about the previous projects — May I Sniff You?, Oh Shit Oh Dear, and more — over here. For now, though, I need your help.
I just delivered The Naked Mermaid to my neighbor, Monica.
Monica, you see, is one of my heroes for several reasons.
- She hands me wine over the fence. Oh Dear Jesus, THANK YOU for neighbors who hand wine over the fence. Amen
- She never, ever, ever complains about our crappy yard. Not ever. For 13 years we’ve given her cause — you guys, the weeds have occasionally grown taller than the 6-foot fence… and stayed that way… for months — and still she’s never complained. It’s like she looks over here and knows we’re barely holding it together some days and decides loving her neighbors is more important than how crappy their yard looks.
- Monica had a mermaid tail made this year. A silicone and neoprene mermaid tail made for swimming. Which she takes to our local pool. For swimming laps. In public. Because it makes her happy. Which is RAD.
I love her, is what I’m saying.
To the MOON, I love Monica.
She is weird as heck. Weirder than.
And unapologetically herself.
And utterly fierce.
So I made her a dish towel because nothing says I Love You like a socially awkward dish towel.
It’s a mermaid.
A naked one.
With a fierce mermaid quote by C. Joybelle C.
“I am a siren, a mermaid;
I know I am beautiful on the ocean waves
and I know I can eat flesh and bones
at the bottom of the sea.”
All of which brings me to my cry for help.
I need a new doodle embroidery project, and I can’t imagine better people than you to give me ideas. Here are the parameters:
- Must be somehow socially awkward so I can giggle as I sew in church. (I’m secretly a 14-year-old boy. Except this is no longer a secret, right?) Here’s the previous doodle embroidery post for some other examples.
- If there are words, there can only be a few of them. The mermaid quote is about as long as my attention span can handle.
- It can’t be hard to draw. I mean, I can do line drawings, but that’s about as good as it gets.
I’ve thought about sewing more quotes from my grandfather who coined “Oh shit, oh dear” which I lovingly sewed onto a dish towel for my parents for Christmas last year. “GodDamnSonOfABitchNBastard” in a lovely, scripty font seems like a strong contender. My grandfather was eminently quotable, after all. I’ve also thought about duplicating line drawings from a human anatomy book. Say, a colon? Or an esophagus? But nothing has felt quite right yet.
So, I come to you.
What do you suggest?
What quotes do you like?
What’s just screaming to be made into a socially awkward dish towel?
59 responses to “Another Socially Awkward Dish Towel and a Story About My Neighbor the Mermaid”
I think Diana had something when she said “Kick some grass over that shit and move on.”
but “all fun and games til someone loses an eye” is always a winner. Specially if you stich a stick kid with only one eye… smiling.
I am coming late to this great party, but I’d like to offer this simple and elegant phrase: “Something smells bad.” You can leave it stark and mysterious or you can add to it, searching for cause, saying something like what my pre-schooler said to me recently: “Something smells bad. Maybe it’s just your pants.” She was trying to explain the moment and ease concerns. 🙂
I think the phrase “Something smells fishy…” Would be more appropriate here LOL.