A Smocking We Will Go

 

Tonight I finished the second ornament for the Handmade Ornament swap.  I got the pattern online from maggiebsmocks.  Her instructions were great and very easy to follow.  She had great pictures.  Unlike maggieb's photos, the photo above was taken with my phone and therefore is not very crisp.  I think I need to work a little more on the "poles".  They just will not lay flat.  Must be a learning curve there I haven't grasped.  But, in general, I like it.  Another thing the photos don't show very well is the colors, which are aqua and red.  The beads are random colors, just to give the impression of ornaments.  I was toying with the idea of a jingle bell, but haven't decided yet whether I like the idea or not.

Meanwhile, I need to get the photos off the camera (which is not cooperating) so I can finish my tutorial.  I have tried everything I can think of to retrieve the pictures, so tomorrow I will take it to work and see if our computer guru can get them for me.  If not, I guess I'll try the camera store.  Barring that, the only other thing I can think of to do is to re-create the item so I have the pics I need.  Very frustrating.  For the most part, they weren't bad pictures.  I bought a new memory card, which I hope will solve the problem.  I'd hate to think it was the camera itself.  That would make me cry.

Belated Birthday Pinwheels

Today, I am visiting Beautiful Daughter #1 and Dear Son-in-Law and their adorable Abby-girl.   Even though I have seen Beautiful Daughter #1 recently, I haven't been able to give her the last of her birthday gifts - not enough room in my luggage.  So this is her gift.  The fabric is 2 Summer Basket of Flowers Charm Packs by Moda, and the design is just a basic pinwheel.  It was more fun to make than I thought it would be.  I hope it will look nice in her guest room.

Today we were busy here.  We went to breakfast, then to several garage sales, and then to a fabric store (imagine that - the two of us in a fabric store!!)  We exercised a great deal of restraint, however, and bought only what we needed.  We came back and made some banana bread, cored and peeled a ton of apples (Beautiful Daughter has such a neat tool for this - it was fun to use and went so quickly!) and made applesauce and 2 apple pies.  I made some banana bread, but it was a little dry.  It might have been the altitude, but....

Then we started to organize Beautiful Daughter's sewing room.  Her sewing space is a corner of her laundry room, so space is at a premium.  We made good progress.  And in between, I got to play with Abby.  She is such a little character.  I had a blast.  All in all, a fun, productive day.

Elf Shoes

Tonight I finished my first ornament for the ornament swap Beautiful Daughter #1 and I are doing.  Lousy photos though.  I'll have figure out a way to take a picture without shadows or blurs or at an angle which doesn't catch the detail.

The Fabric is Amy Butler.  I used an elf shoe pattern from this link.  The "cuff" and the hanging loop are folded ribbon.  The shoe was sewn, stuffed, and hand beaded.  I tried a pompom at the point of the shoe, but Beautiful Daughter said it didn't work, so I tried the jingle bell.  Better?

And the other side of the elf shoe.  I purposely didn't match the patterns on the two sides, which in my OCD nature, I would have, but this way, whoever receives it can choose the side they like best.  Like 2 for 1.

So, that's it for tonight. 

Lanterns Bloom and Poppy Wall Art - Easy Peasy

A few weeks ago, I was surfing craft/quilt/fabric blogs and happened upon Anna Maria Horner's visit to Martha Stewart's show.  In it, she shows how to paint silhouettes on fabric.  Beautiful Daughter #2 and I had just been talking about how hard it was to find art for the walls of her apartment since she didn't want posters, and didn't want to spend a fortune.  When I saw the video of Martha Stewart's show, I knew I had found my answer.  (Just by happenstance, Michael's had 7-packs of stretched canvas on sale that week - sweet!)

It was really hard to get a good close-up picture of the beading.

Here's the back of the vase and flowers after it was quilted.  Someday, I'm going to do a quilt, and it's just going to be white, with quilting stitches to make up the design.  I think they call that embroidery, but...

I know it may sound irreverent, but I can't seem to watch General Conference without something to keep my hands busy or I tend to fall asleep.  This was the perfect project.  Three pieces of "art", quilted, beaded, stretched, and finished in just a few hours. 


Success!

Happy Fall!

Don't fall colors make you just want to sit down and CREATE something?

This morning I got up with a plan.  I really wanted to get a lot of things done.  I really needed to clean my house, but somehow the draw just wasn't there (the house will just have to wait until tomorrow ).  But I did have some goals, and I'm feeling pretty smug that I accomplished most of them. Of course, I'm totally exhausted...

I finished the "S" and "Z" blocks for the Avignon Picnic quilt from Moda Bake Shop.  The "S"'s were fine, but I had a terrible time with the "Z"'s.  I'm going to blame it on the fact that my sewing room was an oven and I really should have been taking a nap.  But I persevered, and I have my blocks done.   Tomorrow - to the floor for layout.

I plugged the holes in the former duvet cover so I can turn it into a quilt.  I meant to get it laid out and pinned except my backing isn't big enough.  I'll either have to piece it, do something creative with it, or go buy something.  I'm leaning toward one of the first two options.  Anyway, plugging the holes was an accomplishment all on it's own, so I'll have to be satisfied with that.  This one I had planned to embroider/quilt once I get the "sandwich" put together.  Might be a little ambitious.  Maybe I'll finish it in my lifetime.  You think?

I did, however, get the log cabin half of the duvet cover laid out and pinned.  Not quite sure what to do with it now.  I'm leaning toward machine quilting it.  It's actually quite a stunning quilt, if I do say so myself.  Even Wonderful Husband commented on it when it was all laid out on the floor, and he almost never comments on such things.  He said it reminds him of Arizona in the fall.  Hmmm...  I was thinking more "woodland by the lake", but whatever floats his boat.  Anyway, I really like this one.

I even got to the store and bought some perle cotton (way more fun than buying groceries!)  I checked both Michael's and JoAnn's and the color selection was very limited.  Couldn't find the color I really wanted, so I will have to make do with what was there. 

What I did not get done today was a project I wanted to do to go with Beautiful Daughter #2's tree quilt (which, incidentally, matches the leftover quilt I made from the - uh - leftovers).

I was inspired for this project by something I saw on Anna Maria Horner's website, although this project will be quite different, if it turns out.  I'll be sure to let you know.

Last of all, I received my 3 partners for my handmade ornament swap group.  Fun!!  What should I do?  I thought about smocked ornaments but there are others that look fun as well.  In searching, I discovered Fern's crafty blog that has some pics of some really cute Christmas ornaments that look like tons of fun to make.  So many choices!  And the contemplation of it all is so much fun too!  Ah, sweet!

In the meantime, I just found out that this is National Card-Making Day (it's true, I promise!) so I think I'll go make a card in honor of the occasion.

Or maybe I'll just go to bed.

Cotton Harvest

I went out of town on business yesterday.  I drove about 200 miles for a meeting.  Along the way, I noticed the cotton farmers beginning to harvest this year's cotton crop.  The farmers have placed huge semi-trailers in their fields to collect the harvested cotton and haul it to the mills or storage or wherever. (Hey - Maybe THAT's what I need for my fabric stash??!!)

It was interesting to drive along and see such industry.  I was glad for a couple of days of much cooler weather, so I can only imagine how these folks who work outside all day felt about it.  Anyway, I am thankful for the farmers who grow and harvest the cotton.  Otherwise, how would we get all these beautiful fabrics.

Before I left work yesterday, everyone was telling me the good places to stop along the route.  They clued me in to all the good stops for food and which exits to take.  I had another idea however.  Thank goodness for the internet.  I googled fabric shops in Montgomery Alabama, and I came up with one that looked interesting -Kudzu Blossom Quilts.  Funny name, huh?  (Does anybody like kudzu?  Does it bloom?)  But the ladies there were so nice, and it was such fun to look at all the pretty fabric, and peruse the book rack.  I spent about an hour roaming around in this cute little shop.

I was invited to dinner by my good friends the McCoys, and when I told Jenifer about my fabric store adventure, she told me about another shop in Columbus, not far from where my meeting was held.  Naturally, I just had to stop here before I left town.  Sew Much Fun!  Very cute.  Cute name too.  And sew much fun to peruse a different selection of beautiful fabrics that we don't have in our stores at home.

Since I had to drive back the way I had come, I stopped at Kudzu Blossom again on the way back.  This time, I paid particular attention to the quilts on the walls.  There were bunches.  Here were some of the ones I liked - a shame they were hidden way in the back of the store.  I saw the patterns for these on fabric.com today.  I may have to make them.

I found something new that I thought was cool on the internet this week when I was looking for quilt stores in Montgomery - a fabric shop hop.  It is fun to go from store to store and see what all these different quilt shops have to sell.  Some of them have such cute ideas.  I was inspired.  Unfortunately, with 100 stores, you really can't visit them all.  And nothing really takes the place of that sensory thrill you get from being surrounded by all the beautiful fabric and being able to touch it.  Still the fabric shop hop is fun.  Here is the link:  Fabric Shop Hop Fun

So, thank you farmers, for your hard work.  And thank you designers and textile industry workers and other quilters for all you do to make it possible to put all these beautiful fabrics together in such an endless variety of ways.  I appreciate you.

And now to go use all those beautiful fabrics I brought home!

Home Again, Home Again, Fiddle-de-dee

Well, it only took 18 hours, but I made it home.  What a wonderful vacation.  Thank you Dear Sister and family for a wonderful time, and for the patience of Job with all our comings and goings and babies and trips to the airport and cooking  meals for a whole tribe....  Oh, the heavenly meals.  Dear Sister is a wonderful cook.  I felt positively pampered.  The stuffed chicken and the lasagne were awesome, and the salmon was to die for!

The trip home was not so much fun.  Dear Sister dropped Beautiful Daughter and I off at the airport at 7:30.  Once we got through security we had about an hour until Beautiful Daughter's flight boarded.  Luckily, our gates were right next to each other, so we could sit and chat.  Afrter that, there there were a couple of hours to wait in the airport for my flight.  Sea-Tac has always had great shopping and great food, so the wait wasn't too bad at all.

My flight was to leave at noon, but it went out full, and I wasn't on it.  Luckily, there was another flight at 1:15 or so, and there were seats, but unfortunately it didn't connect with a flight home.  Wonderful Husband drove to Gulfport to pick me up.  By the time we drove in the driveway, it was after midnight.  A very long day, but worth it for a wonderful vacation.