My "Bucket List"

Last year I marked another item off of my "bucket list." Ever since I was a little girl attending the local county fairs in California I have wanted to enter one of my craft items but the timing was never right. My favorite part of attending the fair was walking through the arts & crafts building and seeing all the creative and amazing crafts, quilts and table settings. Due to a lot of unusual circumstances it all came together for me last year and I entered my yo-yo flowerpot pincushion into the State Fair of Virginia's Adult Art's and Craft competition. What a thrill it was to win the first place ribbon!

Remember the Apple Salad Hot Pad?

With the pieces left over from making the Apple Salad hot pad I finished the satin stitch edging and attached it to card stock to make the October card-a-month for Mom.  Apples and fall just seem to go together.


Apple Salad Card

Fine Feathered Friends

The summer is always a busy time for me as there are so many birthdays to make cards and gifts for that sometimes it is difficult to keep up with them all.  I have to admit that once in a while I am forced to buy a store-bought card or gift just to keep my sanity. Usually I manage to balance it all out the next year by alternating who gets the homemade card or gift versus the store-bought card and gift. 

Ready for flight

With all this going on I did manage to finish Spreckles friend.  Spreckles is on the right in the photo above and his friend is on the left. Each time I sew one of the birds I find it gets easier and the legs get stronger and I am able to make them hold up the bird better.  With Puff (see him under For the Birds) and Spreckles they tend to keep their balance on the bend or elbow of the leg but with the new friend his legs better support him and in the one photo he looks like he is getting ready to take off in flight!  The friend hasn't been named yet as he is being shipped to my mom who will get the chance to name him. Other gifts have been in the works and I am waiting to show them to you at a later date as I don't want to give away the surprise.   So stay tuned.

A Special Gift

When a friend at work showed me some felt fortune cookies she was making for her daughter to take to school for Valentines Day I asked her how she made them.  So with her directions in hand I set out to make some fortune cookies too. It was so much fun to see these flat 4" circles turn into a wonderful felt cookie that would hold a special birthday message. I could just imagine the recipient being excited to read each little fortune so I tucked a small gift into the container as a surprise for when the cookies were removed. This personalized tin made a wonderful container to hold the cookies and the red chopsticks just added to the whole gift with no need for any additional gift wrap.

YoYo's, Flowers, Fabric, Felt and More

Birthday Card for Linda

Like a lot of you I have multiple projects going on all the time. Recently, I was able to complete one of my cards that I have had in various stages of readiness waiting for the right combination of paper and embellishments.  Sometimes it takes some mixing up of things that are not working to get to that  "ah ha - that's it" moment. As you know I have been experimenting with different fabrics for the Oval yo-yo maker and the vase on this card is from a sheer gold polyester fabric. The top of the yo-yo was folded under about 1/4 inch to create the lip of the vase. Originally I was going to add ribbon flowers but the combination wasn't working for me.

Clover Kanzashi Flowers

It so happened that I had been experimenting with different fabrics with the Clover Kanzashi Flower Maker and I had made a flower using wide wedding ribbon that worked perfectly with the oval yo-yo vase. For the stem and leaf I used green silk ribbon and added a button for the center of the flower and "voila" it all came together!

In process still is another fabric bird using the bubbled fabric technique. I'm hoping that this bird will turn out as well as Puff did.  Then I am working on a couple of gift ideas using these felt fortune cookies.  They are a little monotonous to sew but very fun when they are finished. 

Bubbled Fabric for new bird

Felt Fortune Cookies

Of course no matter what I'm doing my shadow Boots is generally around making sure I'm doing everything properly and taking appropriate breaks to give her chin scratches and rubs.

Overseer Boots

There are times when I don't get to work on my crafts at all as things around the house need attention.  Two weeks ago the weather was perfect (low 80's and no rain) for getting our deck stained and sealed.  We' were very pleased with our results as this is the first time we tried using a spray painter on any of our home projects.

Our Deck Project

Crazy Quilt Book Cover

Crazy Quilted Book Cover

In the Embellishment Study Group class I'm taking with my friend our last assignment was to make a traditional crazy quilt block and to work with fiber etch. I decided not to try the fiber etch as it has chemicals in it that deteriorate the fabric and since I use my room to iron my work clothes I could just see me getting the tinest of drops on one of my favorite outfits so I thought it wiser not to work in that particular medium. 

Crazy Quilt Blocks

The crazy quilt block I really enjoyed making.  Whether it was choosing the fabric combination or deciding on the width of each piece or just piecing it - the entire process was really fun! From the start I knew I wanted to make a book cover with my block so I ended up making two coordinating blocks then sewing them together before I cut out the book cover. 

Crazy quilt bookcover opened to outside

For the handles I made sure I saved enough of one of the fabrics I was using so everything would coordinate. The book marker is made from gros grain ribbon and then embellished with a large button, an extra small yo-yo then topped with a smaller button. I like to put the large button behind the ribbon and then the yo-yo and smaller button on top of the ribbon, it just seems to balance things out.

Crazy quilt book cover opened and ready to read

Book covers make great gifts and I think I will make a couple more book covers to have on hand as I have a family who loves to read! Oh, I know I have at least one friend who would love to receive this as a gift too!!

Fabric Bird Named Spreckles

My Bird Spreckles

For me as I work with each project it seems to take on its own personality - that's how it was with Spreckles.  From the get- go Spreckles was just harder to work with than Puff. His legs gave me the most trouble and then what should have been easy (sewing on his eyes) became a major undertaking as they just didn't want to go on straight. Through each trial and error of getting Spreckles put together, we bonded. Although not quite as glamorous as Puff, he is still quite handsome.  Working with the bird pattern designed by Terry Grant I'm finding the hardest and most challenging part for me is bending the wire for the legs and inserting them into the bird properly.  In Terry's interview with Pokey from Quilting Arts magazine, Terry said the most important part for her was getting the beak to stay stuffed and firm.  I know I have lots more to learn when making birds so don't be surprised to see a whole flock show up one day!  After all that is part of this year's Challenge with my friend Connie.

"Puff" the Bubbled Fabric Breasted Bird

"Puff"

I'm so excited that my experiment worked! It wasn't as hard as I thought it might be in fact it was pretty easy to work with the bubbled fabric.  First, I drew the pattern piece onto the back of the bubbled fabric. Next I straight stitched around the drawn line with my sewing machine and then I cut the piece out.  The bubbles on the outside of the stitched line went flat once I cut them which was great for sewing and the inside bubbles retained their shape.  It was a little tricky turning and stuffing the beak but with the help of a stuffing tool and a bamboo chopstick I was able to get the shape of the beak the way I wanted.  The pattern was very easy to follow.  I can't wait to make another bird but next time I want to use a heavier gauge of wire.  I wasn't able to locate the 19 gauge wire the pattern called for at any of the craft stores in my area so I used a 22 gauge which is just a little too thin to completely hold the birds weight without resting on the elbows of the legs. I found a size 12 gauge copper wire yesterday at a local craft store and I am going to experiment with it and then the next time I go to the hardware store I'll be checking their aisles for wire.

Bubbles and Birds

Bubbling Fabric for the Birds

What do bubbles, birds and a dishwasher silverware sorter have in common?  They are all a part of a design I hope will come together.

Last night I played with the bubbling fabric technique in the book Fabric Embellishing the basics and beyond by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heahter Thomas and Lauren Vlcek (I'm still waiting for my book to arrive but Connie graciously loaned me hers so I could play). I didn't have a metal grid anywhere in the house so while searching through my cabinets I found an extra dishwasher silverware sorter that had the right size grid I was looking for. My one concern was while ironing the fusible interfacing to the fabric there was a small chance I could melt the plastic but all turned out well and I was able to remove my bubbled fabric with no damage to the fabric or the plastic dishwasher tray.

 Now that I have overcome that hazzard the next part of my design idea is to see if I can cut and sew the breast pattern piece from the bubbled fabric. The bird pattern I am using is one created by Terry Grant for the 2009/2010  International Quilt Festival magazine. As I was mulling this over before falling to sleep last night I decided I would need to draw the breast pattern piece on the back of my fabric and then stitch around the drawn line before cutting out the piece. By sewing on the line I'm hoping to anchor down my bubbles so that when I cut it out the shape will remain.

As Mom's Easter card is waiting to be finished and a couple of birthday presents and cards need to be made, I'm not sure when I will get back to this part of my fabric bird so you'll just have to keep checking back! Oh, and don't forget to wish me luck on this process, I think I'm going to need it.

Apple Salad

Apple Salad Hot Pad

Saturday my friend Connie and I got together for a play date.  Our project was weaving fabric.  This technique is one Connie had done before for a class and is in the book Fabric Embellishing the basics and beyond by Ruth Chandler, Liz Kettle, Heahter Thomas and Lauren Vlcek.  I had so much fun with the fabric weaving technique and the book was full of other terrific techniques that this morning I went online and ordered it.  The hard part will be waiting for it to arrive!

Apple print fabric

We started out with our two pieces of fabric.  I chose this apple print I had and then a cream colored fabric.  These were backed with a double-sided fusible.  Next we cut wavy strips on one fabric going horizontal and on the other piece we cut our wavy stips going vertical.





Weaved fabric

 Carefully, we kept our pieces in order and started the strip weaving technique. When we had finished with the weaving we ironed (fused) the pieces together.  When my piece was finished we thought it looked a lot like an apple salad.  This morning I finished sewing a zigzag (mostly satin) stitch down each wavy strip first horizontally and then vertically and then trimmed my piece and finished the outside edges with the satin stitch.  I also had weaved a smaller piece (left side of photo) of this same fabric and I'm thinking of using it on one of my cards.  You'll have to come back at a later date to see the results of the apple salad card.

Back side of Apple Salad hot pad

Here is the back side of the hot pad.  My husband is thrilled that he now has a large enough hot pad to place under his french toast baking dish. Usually we need to place two pads under the dish.

Painted Faces Binder Cover Completion

Finished Painted Faces Binder Cover

This week as I was looking around my sewing room I saw the unfinished binder cover taunting me as it sat stashed away on the shelf (my version of "out of sight - out of mind") so I grabbed the pattern directions and read through them one more time to figure out how the cover was sewn together.  Although I would have liked it to turn out a little better I am happy overall, especially since this was my first time using this pattern and my first attempt at making a binder cover. The pattern said the inside lining wouldn't show much so it didn't matter what fabric you used so I chose something I really didn't care for.  Unfortunately, when you open the binder it shows just a little more than I would like. I think having a coordinating lining fabric would have given it a better overall appearance. The other thing I didn't take into account was the back of the binder cover. The directions were for quilting an entire piece of fabric for the cover but since I was using my painted face project thinking how good it would look on the front I coordinated a plain piece of green fabric to wrap around to the back and that's the look I got - a plain back cover piece. You notice I made sure that didn't show in the photo. If I were to do this again I would definitely make sure that I had something a little more exciting for the back piece too. Guess I'll just have to make another cover!

Painted Faces Binder Cover

Painted Faces Binder Cover in Progress



 As I mentioned in an early blog I am trying to finish some projects that are just sitting around taking up valuable crafting space. I can't believe it is going on 4-years since I took this Painted Faces for Beginners class taught by Bonnie McCaffery at Quilting Adventures. It was a great class and I had every intention of turning the face I painted into a portrait quilt. Then the dilemma came as to where will I put it, so it sat and sat and sat. Finally, I decided to make it into a binder cover.  I have lots of old binders with all my craft project directions stored in them and by turning my "not so perfect" painted face into a cover, I will get to enjoy it a lot more often than if it was hidden in a drawer.  The pictures today are of the raw edged cover, so far all I have done is cut the main binder cover piece. It still needs to have the pockets added and be trimmed to fit.  Now that I have gotten it this far I can't wait to finish it and have it grace my bookshelf of craft books and binders.

Finished Just In Time for Christmas

YoYo Reindeer Card

I have had a busy week finishing up the wrapping, packing and mailing of boxes to send my Christmas gifts off to five different states (Arizona, California, Indiana, Nebraska and Ohio). Then I got to work on wrapping the gifts for my friends at work. Needless to say a couple of the packages I mailed required a homemade Christmas card and although it's hard to make everyone a card I do try to include a little something I have made like the cute little felt gift card holders that came in a kit. This was a wonderful project for me to work on as I watched TV with my husband. It was a little hard to work on when the cat decided to get into my lap but eventually the two of us came to an agreement that she could sit in my lap if she let me sew as she prefers me to sit still while she naps so we compromise - I sit still for a little while as she gets settled down to sleep and then I get to sew. It is actually safer that way for my project as the thread fascinates her and sometimes gets tangled up in her paws with the needle flying into the air!



Felt Gift Card Holders



My mom's December card is the cute reindeer card made with the large oval yoyo's. I love how they turned out and my Cricut Expression machine makes cutting out the letters for the "fa la la la la" a breeze.  The lace Christmas tree card started out with an idea of just sewing the lace back and forth in a very simple squiggly tree shape and then somehow it just evolved into a Victorian type Christmas tree. As the paper and lace sits on my desktop for days as I work with and around it - I have time to say "what if" and "ooh, I like that" and then I start pulling out papers and other embellishments that might give me the design I am looking for.

Lace Christmas Tree Card

Of course after all of my "what ifs" and pulling things out from every nook and cranny in  my craft room it is in shambles!  So today I plan on doing a lot of organizing, cleaning out and putting away so that I can start preparing for the New Year.

Sew many gifts . . . So little time

This & That Nifty Notes - Holiday Gifts

I don't know about you but I love to give handmade gifts for the holidays, birthdays and any special occassion. However, since I work full-time I don't always get to make as many handmade gifts as I would like.  Sometimes I think it's because I really don't enjoy making the same item over and over and making just one of a new pattern takes a lot of time so I end up having to purchase a gift or gift card.  Recently, I found a pattern that I do enjoy making a lot of, it is a This & That pattern called Little Notes by designer Sherri K. Falls, this can be made in so many different color choices and fabrics that it feels like I am creating a new one each time. On one of the blogs I was looking at I read that keeping your fabrics in the same color family helps save you save time as you don't need to keep changing the thread in your sewing machine.  For this batch of Nifty Note holders I tried that and found it really did save me time! Now the hard part will be deciding who to give one to so as not to hurt anyone's feelings-so if any of my family reads this and would like to have me make them one just send me an email with the colors you would like it to be made in and I will try my best to get you one made in the near future. These really do not take a whole lot of time once you decide on the fabrics and get them cut out - I had four ready to be assembled so that is what I spent last weekend doing which is why I didn't get anything posted.  I enjoy the blog but I'd really rather be crafting.

Inside the Nifty Notes note keeper

Here is a picture of the inside of the This & That Nifty Notes.  A very wise person I know suggested I take more photos to should show more of the details so they can really see what the whole item looks like.  I agree.

If this looks familiar to you, I did make one of these for my mom using fabric dyed with different teas.  The one I made for me I added a loop to hold one of the wood pens my husband turned for me.

Things Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Fabric Postcards

It always seems that no matter how much I try to be prepared for the holidays they always catch me unawares.  A couple of years ago I found this great fabric panel with these wonderful pictures and sayings for Thanksgiving.  I was so excited as I thought wow these will be so easy to embellishment with either hand or machine stitching and then send out to my family.  And here we are today (a couple of years later) and I have only managed to complete two of them. I was so tempted the other day to donate or toss out the others that still need to be embellished and put together but something inside me said "someday, someday you'll have time to finish these", so I put them back in my box for another some day.

2006 Turkey Fruit Carving

As you may be aware I like to be organized with my pictures, crafts, cabinets, etc but I find that sometimes my organization will just "explode" in all directions - probably a result of over thinking it.  Anyways, this happened recently to my digital photos as I got a new computer this year and transferred them over from my old computer into new file folders labeled by year and then activity. What I didn't take into account, but remembered later, was Don had some pictures on his computer too and when I went to check to see what I was missing I came across the Turkey Fruit Carving he had made in 2006.  I was so excited to find it as I wanted to put the picture in the same file folder as his sailboat fruit carving. I still have photos I am looking for and I also would like to scan my hard copy photos to my computer plus save them to a disk or USB drive but that will have to wait for a while.  For now I am still trying to finish up my UFO's.

The Belated Birthday Present

Georgia's birthday present "Then and Now"

Last year while visiting my sister, Georgia, she asked if I could make her a new cover up (she had nearly worn out the one I had purchased and given her years ago). I figured if I could have the old one to use as a pattern it should be fairly simple.  Of course she agreed I could take her old cover up but then she added "oh, but don't cut it up because I still want to wear it". So, now I was challenged.  Thank goodness my sister is patient as it took me a little over a year to purchase the material and make it for her. It was difficult to find the right color but then I found this really nice creamy yellow fabric. When I started to sew the pockets I realized I needed something decorative for the pocket so I decided to add a YoYo flower with the extra wide rick rack for the stem and then I found these wonderful flower buttons that pulled the whole piece together.  I put it in the mail for her on Monday and I received this wonderful email from her on Friday saying "I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!"

Just for Fun

Stenciled Red T-shirt

A couple of years ago I purchased a men's red t-shirt because I liked the quality of the material and the little looser fit. Of course I altered it by hemming it and I also sewed a decorative machine stitch around the sleeves.  This little red shirt is my comfy working around the house shirt. But somehow it got a couple of white or faded spots near the hemline, I've stopped using bleach so I'm not sure what caused it.  The shirt was still wearable especially since it is for hanging around the house but I wanted to do something to fix it.  I still had some fabric paint and stencils from a project I did quite a while back so last Saturday I pulled them out and did a quick fix on my shirt. I love it and it was so easy to do.  One of my biggest fears is that I will mess it up worse or not like it when I'm finished.  Needless to say, I may have to try this quick fix on other wearable items. Of course while I was trying to photograph it I received a little help from my furry friend.

Mother's Day Gift: Tea Dyed Note Keeper

Back in March, my friend Connie and I got together to dye some white fabric in 12 different types of tea to see what kind of results we would get. We used Bentley Tea and the flavors were Oriental Treasure green Tea, Raspberry Green Tea, Blueberry Green Tea, Pomegranate Green Tea, Misty Mint Green Tea, Earl Grey Green Tea, English Breakfast Tea, Lemon Honey Chamomile Tea, Gingerbread Spice Tea, Holiday Spice Tea and French Vanilla Tea.

I used my tea-dyed fabric to make the This and That note keeper from the Nifty Notes  pattern by Sherri K. Falls for my mom. As you can see with this fabric there is not a lot of color variation.  One of the reasons could be because we used the same brand for all 12 teas flavors. I also noticed that with the green teas there was not a lot of color differences either. The top section is dyed in the Oriental Treasure Green Tea, English Breakfast Tea was used for the middle section, the botton section was dyed in Gingerbread Spice Tea and the tab was dyed in Blueberry Green Tea.  At least all the fabrics have fun sounding names even if there is not a lot of color difference.

Of course I had to make a note keeper for myself. The fabrics I used to make it you can see some shade variations.  All in all our tea dying party was a lot of fun and I would definitely like to do it again but using more of the black teas. The This and That note keeper pattern is perfect for using small scraps of fabric and on the inside is an extra pocket perfect for adding a book of stamps or even a gift card!