StitchPunk's Dark Fairytales

Remember my recent post about the use of red against a single color to illustrate and bring out the symbolism in a fairy tale? These beautiful embroidered designs from StitchPunk - Urban Threads, released in August 2011, do the same and with quite a few fairy tales.

I'm not really a crafty and needlework person, though I have been known to work on a tapestry or two, but beautiful and graphic art in any medium is fascinating to me. Embroidery, needlework and stitching of every kind is making a contemporary comeback with some creative and very non-traditional uses of the craft (like embroidery on metal HERE and stitched portraits HERE. You can see a whole lot more unusual stitching via these artist links at Mr. X Stitch HERE.)

Rapunzel

Jack & the Beanstalk

 So much you could infer from the blood red beans Jack threw away!

Snow White

Red Riding Hood

 I find it interesting to see where the red appears. Some, like the two above, are obvious while others, such as the Jack & the Beanstalk one, less so.

Sleeping Beauty

When I see red roses surrounding Sleeping Beauty in this context of a series of fairy tales, it makes me think of roses blooming out of the blood from her pricked finger. Vampire roses... hm. Yet another version of Sleeping Beauty.

Hansel & Gretel

 The red in the candy for Hansel and Gretel is a nice touch. Candy, in this case (as well as others) equals danger!

Cinderella

I like that they used the Aschenputtel version of Cinderella for the text, though they substituted rose blooms for bleeding. (Gives a whole new meaning to the pharse "love lies bleeding..". Even more if you change the punctuation: "Love. Lies. Bleeding.")

The Little Mermaid 

I'm not sure it was intentional, but the shape of the hair looks a lot like a ragged tongue here.

The Ugly Duckling

These designs are available for machine embroidery or as designs for hand embroidery and can be purchased HERE.

They have a few other designs such as a fairy tale castle (see below for design and an example of use), a book of fairy tales and a mushroom house in the same series and style.

I always wanted to do a contemporary Jack and the Beanstalk quilt & stitching wall hanging for my son (his name is Jack) but I quickly realized it would be an expensive and long term trial and error project. Projects like the ones shown here (and the non-traditional embroidery works I've linked to) make me want to dust off that project again.

Fairy Tale News New Year's Bumper Edition: Fun fairy tale finds

• Crankbunny's Paper Puppets, Pop Up Cards and Other Paper Novelties (Etsy find: Including flying Monkey Lady, A very weird Humpty Dumpty, Key To One's Heart, Girl Pops Out of a Fish, Lady Fish Paper Puppet [mermaid] and much more)

• ADOPTABOT - The World's first robot orphanage! (Very cute characters created from found objects and looking for new homes... Just like a modern fairy tale, complete with Gepetto-type character, a,k,a, Brian Marshall, who makes unique creations, each with their own distinct personality. Also see more characters at Mr. Marshall's Flickr account HERE.)

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Snow White Told In Dominoes

Snow White by ManelleOliphant
(You can see more of her work by clicking on the image above.
Her illustration for Once Upon A Mattress was featured in this post HERE)

Since we're on a Snow White kick today I thought I'd drag this little gem out of my archives to show you: the story of Snow White (a la Disney) told in dominoes.

This must have taken hours to plan and do. There's a little intro you have to sit through before the dominoes start falling but it's completely worth the wait.


I must admit, I was waiting for a piece of apple to pop out at the end there, or for an ill-timed sneeze! Amazing stuff.