Texas Quilt

My hubby's parents live in Texas and are very proud of this. I can relate to this emotional attachment to my home state. I have put a bit of thought recently into making them a Texas quilt. I have looked for Texas/Cowboy/Boots theme fabric. Mind you I live in N. Carolina. I have not found anything that would pass. I talked to my hubby about ideas for the quilt. I originally thought I would do a crazy quilt with Texas fabric. This is not looking like the easiest plan. I went on a search and found these beauties! I really love the first one, but I think the second one will be more similar to the finished creation. I have some time, but I like to think ahead on my projects!

More Art Nouveau

So, I mentioned the other day that I love Art Nouveau. Well, here is more. These two images are from my favorites. 

I particularly love the ones by Mucha in peach, gold and green tones. I love patterns like the ones he creates in the halos. I have a handful of prints that I have found at the thrift market. I want more to create a nice collection. I think that when it gets warmer outside I will dye a bunch of yellow and peach and orange and green cotton. I want to make a quilt out of these tones from the images

Check this out

I really like Art Nouveau, so I was looking at a stream on flickr. I just found this, I think I am in love! I also convinced my hubby to build the same for me! I can dream right!  I even love the color of the wood. Look close for the stain glass! Check out the stairs coming through! WOW! It was on Stevecadman stream. It had a title of rue 6 in Barcelona. Amazing!!!!!!!!!

Old Christmas Tree Skirt

I made this old Tree skirt about 2 years ago. It was super simple and easy to do. I simply cut six triangle shapes out of cheap batting. Then I stitched the sides together added velcro to the back and sewed on the three coordinating recycled ribbons around the edges. I don't think that it took me too long. I am now wanting to make myself one similar to Mom's see older post. It was a nice first though. 

Christmas gifts!

I made about 10 sets of these as Christmas gifts this year. I really hope to make a tutorial soon on how to make pot holders. I just looked at some that I had. I made a few prototypes that I kept for us. Wanted to use the Christmas fabric that I got for such a good deal last January. I used old blue jeans for the tough part. I also bought fire resistant batting. I was expensive but worth it. Suprisingly, the metallic thread that was used to make the snowflake was heat resistant. After making a few adjustments to the prototype, I made an assembly line and made all 20 in one day! I like them because they are small and not bulky. I also think they are good for laying out flat on the table under hot dishes. Well, all the family liked them. Would be easy to change up the fabric and make them for all the holidays. I used recycled fabric and it was a great cheap gift to accompany a cookbook for charity. 

A little late

Here is the awesome tree skirt that I made my Mom for Christmas! I cant believe that I am just now getting around to sharing this with everyone. When I first got interested in sewing, my Mom bought me a kit with fabric to make her a tree skirt. She must have given it to me almost 10 years ago. I was still in middle school. It was a giant UFO looming over my head every time Christmas rolled around and she pulled out the same piece of red fabric. I had use some the fabric in prior projects so I pretty much came up with the idea on my own.  It is not quilted, I hand tied it with yarn and bells. I really liked the Christmas fabric with the snowmen, but it was very bold and loud. 

I used Christmas ribbon to just tie up the back. I used some sentimental fabric for parts of the hearts and stars.

 I enjoyed looking through Christmas theme flickr for inspiration. I really love blogging for fiber arts. I cant imagine what I would do with out this outlet and inspiration. I learned a lot of skills and a tried some new things. I did my first heart and star patches. I appliqued my first complicated design on the snowmen with metallic thread(first usage). So she flipped out and cried when she realized what it was. I like it a lot too and really want one for my self. This is a very memorable project and gift to give. Love you Mama!

Christmas Quilt for Dad

Here is one proud Dad on Christmas Day with his new handmade quilt. I worked very long and hard a getting this one all together for the unvaling. Dad's shirts made most of the plaid pieces. I used part of my girl scout skirt, dress fabric and a few other sentimental scraps. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to machine stitch around the trees.

Crochet Bowl

Months ago, I had cut up the legs of the blue jeans in a continuous length about 1.5 inch wide. I had already used the pockets. Have I mentioned that I love recycling and using up the crap that I have! I finally felt like making something out of it. I started off making a bowl for myself. Ultimately, I feel that it is too big for its intended use. I have plenty of jeans to make more. When I made the bowl, the largest problem I had was that the denim that had stretch in it was difficult to control the tension on. I pulled a few times too hard and it pulled apart the factory seam. I had to go back and hand stitch these seams.  I hope it will stay together. I hope that the receiver enjoys it . I really like the texture that the factory seams created. I think it would look much cleaner if I had made strips in to thinner tubes. I don't have the patience to turn them all right side out. Maybe with regular cotton fabric it would be easier.  I am working on a super awesome easy tutorial for a pot holder that I made in masses to give as gifts this season.

Snowflakes

Check out this guy's insane images of snowflakes that he takes with his special camera! I found fwwidall on flicker. I was searching images of snowflakes that I can sew/quilt on some christmas gifts. I love this type of close up images of crystal structures. I look at one similar to this everyday, (hubby has water crystals tatted on his arm) It is amazing that he can capture the images. Nature is the most amazing artist ever!

Crochet Pumpkins

I worked on these pumpkins for awhile, but I think one could make them fairly quickly with no interruptions.  I found the instructions for creating the smallest pumpkin on twj1963's you tube page. She has amazing tutorials. I appreciate so much what she has done. I am an extreamly visual learner and cannot read the code books for crochet. I simply increased the stitch instructions she gave to create the larger pumpkins. I really wanted a set and one with a face. I have tons of old buttons that I wouldn't dare put on something like clothing or purses. This was a great usage for a few. Teresa's other tutorials show a pumpkin with crocheted eyes and mouth. I didn't have any black yarn, I didn't want to buy it just for the details. I actually like my choice of the buttons better. 

  I enjoyed the spider web in the window in the photo with the flowers hubby brought home Friday.

To make the pumpkin basically chain a multiple of 4, I wouldn't go smaller than 16 (smallest pumpkin). For example: chain 24 (middle sized pumpkin); single stitch 4 , double stitch 16, single stitch 4 repeat until you get image above (folded over). It depends on how fat you want your pumpkin to be depends on how long. The ends are sewn together with a running stitched and pulled tight and knotted every few stitches. The stems are simple single stitched and skip stitches as you go up. They are stuffed with poly-fill or strips of leftover batting. Thanks to Teresa for the idea. This project cost me nothing to make. It was from what I had at home! Yeah for crafting, I LOVE using up stuff that just lays around.

Crochet King Blanket

I finally finished this massive king-sized crocheted blanket. I took me 10 months to do but, I did it! Well, I did put it down in the 90-100 degree humid heat of the summer! Most of the yarn I had for years. I did end up buying a few skeins to get the color scheme that I was after. It is big and heavy and I worry about having to wash it. If you have any ideas please let me know. 

The corner and the binding worked out really well. I love all of the purply-blues that the color scheme that the stripes created. It reminds me of the mountains in the winter frost. I long to be in the mountains, I think that is why everything reminds me of it. I actually started with the darker center and worked my way out from both sides. I wanted it to have a very random color choice with thick and thin sections. Now looking at the picture, it looks like it was planned out. I get something that I want to do in my head I cant get it out until it is completed. I started the blanket with no real plan. I would not consider myself an accomplished crocheter, the whole entire blanket is single stitched. I became rather irritated with myself when I realized how much faster it could have gone. I also just simply knotted the yarn together and did not feed the tails through my stitches. I just cut them off! Very Bad! One edge is very lumpy and bumpy, hence the binding. Oh Well!

 I looooooovvvvvvvve it and finished it just in time for the cool weather.

Halloween Stitching

I love Halloween! Have I mentioned that? I am not into the spook and gore, just the funny, silly part. It also means that I am allowed to buy copious amounts of candy and eat it! I like the crafty part of Halloween too. I have made many a costume for myself and friends. Like a shark (friend was victim), deviled egg, spelling bee, flower....Oh! so much fun! This year I am too old to party and have to work late so, I am compensating. I have many crafty ideas including the embroidery that I did earlier this week. Hubby watches too much football, this is what I get accomplished. Both the hoops were very old and rusty so glad to find a use for them. Hope that it wont mess up the material later on.(Just thought of that!) I really enjoyed creating the "Happy Halloween" one. So, started off with wanting to put an owl in a tree. First I researched; owls, owls in trees, embroidered owls, owl cartoon, scary owls. I stitched the tree and put owl in hole. Then I wanted a spider web, so I researched; spider webs, webs in trees, spiders in webs, cartoons of spider webs, spiders..... Well this is pretty much how the whole scene went. I saw some really amazing pictures especially naturalist who put their images on flicker. Check out some bat images, really creepy, yet some how, still, really cute!