Peace Crochet Wreath

I made this quick wreath from a wire coat hanger, floral wire and left over yarn.

I currently live in a home with huge front bay window. The door is on the side of the house so I wanted a re-useable wreath I could hang in the front window. This is what created. I think the peace part is a bit thin. I intend on adding another color of green, but this is all I got done to it for this holiday season.

Wrapping up All the Elf Duties

I made these hearts from a T-Shirt of my husband's grandfather. He passed over a year ago, and I felt like I could finally bring myself to cut it up and it would be appreciated.

Here are the super cute snowmen  I made. I love the faces, I am so glad I found the carrot noses.

Everyone on my gift list will be getting some form of these super cute fabric baskets. I am not entirely sure what folks will use them for, I guess I envision bread or crackers or wrapped candy.

Here are my awesome cards, I love how they turned out. I enjoy writing cards, especially to the family I don't talk to normally. I also take so much pride in the process of coming up with an idea and then the creativity that comes after that. In this case I was able to carve stamps and get my hands dirty mixing inks which is always a blast for me!

I also whipped up a few more of these super duper cute and re-usable gift bags. I know you can re-use the paper ones but, I intend on using these for many years!

So for this year my elf duties are all wrapped up. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Snow Days

Here in Oregon we had some amazingly cold days where it actually got to -4 degrees. 

It is not at all what Iam used to but, I secretly love it!

I love the pattern that ice crystals create on my windshield, even if it takes 30 minutes to defrost the car to go anywhere.

Kuma certainly loved the 6 inches of snow that came and was still around 5 days later.

I enjoyed the first two days when I wasn't working. The other days were just a pain! Eugene is not prepared for this weather and the roads were a nightmare. Coming home to my sewing machine and this sweet bear's face made it so much more enjoyable!

The shut down of town allowed me the time to feel like I could stay home and finish christmas gifts like the Love Love pillow.

I think I love loved the inside of the pillow more after all the embroidery I did.

My beautiful Bernina did a lovely job on all my gifts.

Including this scarf for my sister In-Law.

I also finished my snowmen in assembly line fashion. These guys just needed faces and buttons.

Blue Inspiration

Here is Oregon people talk a lot about it being so green. I on the other hand feel like Oregon is truly land of Blues. Especially, West of the Cascades. In the summer the sky is blue and vast. In the winter, it is the fog and rain that makes the mountains blue. I personally love blue and find myself wearing blue, or some shade of blue almost everyday.

I wear jeans everyday to work. I adore my chambray shirt with Navy Cords.  I recall always loving blue, even as a young girl, where the norm was pink and purple.

I participated in Small Business Saturday, by doing a bit of shopping in Portland after taking the In Laws to the airport. In a cute shop, this denim chair was in the fitting room.  I just about lost it, I would have stolen it if fit in my purse! 

This gorgeous hat was out of my price range, but was such a lovely shade of turquoise.  

This Elf is Tired

Hosting Thanksgiving for 6 seems like a cake walk when I think of the size of other families. My In Laws and Grandmother and sister In Law is coming.  All I want to do always sneaks up on me the weekend before. I think Iam prepared and then, it hits me. I painted the chairs, set a table, hauled out all the serving dishes. Of course having the In Laws for Thanksgiving makes me feel like I need to do deep cleaning.  

Then I wanted to get my Christmas cards done.  Christmas shopping needed to be done, which usually includes me making gifts.  

Then there is all the baking that must be done.  

Now I understand why my grandma was so grumpy during the holidays.  I hope Iam not grumpy, I sure do know that this elf is tired!

Love Love

I have been wanting to make a decorative pillow for my mom to go with the quilt I made for her Big Birthday. 

I knew I wanted it to be " LOVE LOVE"

This is what my Mama and Sister say to each other,  now my husband says it and I am pretty sure a few friends have picked up on it. Because in my family it's not just Love, it's Love Love.

I started by looking for a certain size for a pillow insert. I went for 14 x14. I cut out the muslin 15 x15 , so that I can quilt the piece.

I folded the piece of muslin in half so I knew how big one word needed to be. 

I used scrap pieces left over from her Kaffe fabric quilt. I started with the dark colors, by laying them out on the half of muslin.

I tried to keep my strips 2-3 inches wide considering 1/2 inch seam allowance.

Then I cut and filled in with the light colored fabric.

I am a very messy cutter. I also have lots of Kaffe fabric and intend to make quite a few more quilts from the scraps. I try to keep the lights and darks sorted nicely, or not so nicely.

Here are some border pieces. I found that taking a few were not only helpful for my blog but, also to get it back together after sewing and pressing.

I ended up cutting my "E" strips too thin and it came out rather tiny. I actually had to remake the "E".

Here is one finished " LOVE".

The final Block, LOVE, LOVE.

I cut the batting 14 1/2 and sandwiched it with the muslin and sewed all sides down with 1/4 seam allowance.
I am planning on doing some simple quilting to get the letters to pop a bit more.
I hope my Mama will LOVE, LOVE it.

Prep Work Makes All the Difference

These are the two chairs we picked up on our recycling adventure at bring the other day. I chose the red color because it was what was in the garage from when the house and deck (pictured) we painted back in September. The rusty red is a super thick tough paint that will work well in my living room. I already have some rusty red upholstered club chairs, I think these will coordinate well once finished. I chose this color over the two carolina blue's and I am very pleased with my choice.

I started prepping these chairs yesterday with a really good sanding. I used three grades of grit. I highly recommend this especially if you are painting over old paint or stain. I have no idea what lied beneath the poorly painted tan. I quickly discovered it was only one layer of paint on top of bare wood. The tan paint came off really well in some areas and in others it was more stubborn. I wasn't really trying to strip or totally remove the paint but, I wanted to start with at smooth surface. One coat of red paint clearly wasn't going to cut it. I was hoping to get away with two coats.

I am not terribly satisfied with the coverage of two coats. I have decided to do a third coat tomorrow baring any crazy weather. It is very nice to have a covered deck area to paint on. Even though it gets wet when it rains. I do feel they are protected from the elements in order to dry. 

I have thought of adding some gold embellishments like gold stripes or gold tipped legs.

Today, I also finished up this little guy. I started them awhile back and debated over the type of nose and hat to use to make the snowman look finished. I determined buttons down the body as well for eyes would be lovely. I couldn't see a embroidered nose or mouth on these guys. I flipped out in the button isle in Jo-Ann's when I found the carrot buttons, clearly these are made for projects just like these. I have decided to make four of these guys and give them to my family for gifts.  I adore these cuties.

Recycling Awesomeness

Part of my job at the bakery is donating bread to those in need on a regular basis. One of our recipients is this awesome recycling center called Bring. They employ very few and use volunteers and court appointed work release to get it all done.  A few weeks ago they sent a stack of coupons to our staff, which is was a great reason to come out and check see what they offer.

I was so in awe of how it is all set up, and very well organized. There are a few very large metal roofed areas to protect items from the rain, but majority of the space is open to the elements. They used some great times to keep it all sorted, like this train car. The majority of what they offer is home building materials, tools, large cabinets, metal, tiles.  The fans along the roof line collect rain water.

This is a fabulous place for artist too. There are so many materials I can see to use when creating an artful garden, unique home spaces, a lot of decorative items as well. I really appreciate the creative  use of recycled materials in the yards I see in Eugene and around Cascadia.   You will see metal pipes for planting. Many raised gardens are made from scrap wood and mini greenhouses are made from used windows. Often you will find metal piping rain collection and irrigation. Yard art is abound here, most are created using recycled materials. These yards are so different from what I saw in the manicured lawns of the Raleigh and around the South.

Along the garden side there was this awesome structure that was created by an Architecture class from U of O using only materials from Bring. The back wall was a beautiful welded fence and masonry. I love the lines in the concrete pad. They were giving a tour when I was there, and it seems that in the summer months they host a few events in this space.

Part of this chain link fence was filled in with PVC plumbing and bike spokes. They also carry new rain barrels, natural paints, and some plants in the summer. We bought some awesome oak chairs that had been poorly painted.
Most of the items for sale were donated. I wish I had discovered this spot sooner. I will be back. Trash is beautiful to me!

Bernina Accessories

My striped green place mat was just not working with my new cover so I whipped up this awesome mini-quilt mat for my Bernina machine.

I as I dreamed up this mat I determined I wanted to make it small and just fit the foot print of the machine base. I don't need extra fabric in my way when I sew. I also decided that I need to make it slip proof. After spending a few minutes seeking the best option from the fabric closet. I noticed a bag of moving packaging junk. This drawer liner stuff in the top of the bag was perfect. Disclaimer: This is not the prettiest thing I have ever made. The bottom wont hardly ever be seen and I need this machine to budge. I have to push hard to get fabric to move through a machine sometimes, and no one wants a Bernina to hit the floor. 

I used a Quilt-as-You-Go method. The Missouri Quilt Company has a nice youtube tutorial. I have no experience with this simple quilting technique and wanted to start small. I cut the backing attached the non-slip drawer liner and batting the same size as backing then sewed strips on. The first strip is tacked to the left edge face up. Then the next is face down lining up the edges. I smoothed the backing and hand pressed the previous strip over. I also varied the sizes of the strips. I do recommend pinning and ironing if you are making anything larger.  This method would make great table runners or placemats.

Of course, that black and white safety pin fabric was too busy so it got chopped up and delegated to the binding.

It turned out lovely. I think I am getting a hang of this binding thing.

Oh and I whipped up a pin cushion that has steel wool inside and hair band and button closure. I might end up remaking it. For now I love the collection.

Crochet Christmas Gift Ideas

Can you guess?

I think they'll be super cute.  

Another hint, these scrappy strips will help them from melting.

Sewing Machine Cover

I made this awesome cover today for by beautiful new-to-me Bernina. She was missing her original case when I purchased her. I don't feel the need to have a hard case since I don't plan to be moving this door stop often.
Lucky I bought this perfect fabric a few years ago in North Carolina. "Sew Happy" Monaluna for Robert Kaufman was created for my Bernina! I had always wanted to make accessories for my sewing machine. It just took me the inspiration to create. So I set off to make a machine cover.

I wanted it to cover the attached table, since I always have it on the machine. So the cover need to be an odd shape. I measured the machine twice and wrote down my measurements on a small sketch of the cover. It ended up being three rectangles on the front top and back while the two ends are large trapezoids. 

I even put this awesome pocket on the end. I used a high-loft batting and quilted it to create stiffer plannels so it would stand up on its own.

I put a simple loop on the top along with a wide trim.  I simply wanted to get all the fabrics in there but found the black and white super distracting.  I need to cut it up smaller and decided to brake it up with a trim.  The stripe down the middle of the front and back plannels came about because the white fabric was not wide enough by only 2 inches.  Therefore I threw in the red button strip. I find that working with 3 complementary fabrics are easier to design with than 2 or 4. I am so happy with this awesome item. 

I liked making this cover because I created the pattern and I was able to use many different stitches on the machine and I practiced the free hand quilting. I quilted the black Saftey pin pocket with a simple straight stitch but for the other pannels I used the darning foot and did some tight curly cues around the buttons on the red fabric. For the white fabric with the sewing machines I whent a bit bigger with my loops and curves. I used and awesome zigzag for finishing off the bottom edge. 

The machine did great piecing together the pannels. My old machine would have binded up in the corners. The Bernina never faultered. I am in love. 

Stamp Layering

I was rather sick to my stomach this morn so I stayed home from work today and made soup. I got a bit bored of my cycle of pintrest, TV and books.   I recently admired Genine's stamps and had wanted to carve some up for my Christmas cards this year. Last year, I did the water colored scene. I loved those, but wanted to change it up a bit.

I started by sketching designs on to a larger index card since that would be the general size of the overall image. I ended up wanting to make a scene that only could be achieved by making multiple stamps to layer to create depth. I went for a mountain scene with moon and trees. I decided on simple designs that I can use at later times, other than for Christmas cards.

I made the simple triangles stamp first. I free handed the triangles onto the master carve based off the earlier sketches I did. I am not a skilled carver so I started with the basic exact-o knife to cut straight lines into the master carve, trying not to go too deep. I took thin layers of the background off in small sections. I tested it out many times. Cleaning it up as I went along. As seen above, on my test scrap I sketched in the mountains and moon onto the opposite side of the master block from the trees. This master carve block is so thick and expensive ($35 for a 8x11 thick sheet).  It helps me get more stamps and I know it will be the same size to match up the images.  

I used a rollerball carver on the mountain side, trying to do continuous cuts in order to keep the lines smooth. As you can see I don't always keep true to the ball point line. The extra bump in the middle mountain felt natural when I carved and looked great when I tested it. The fine tip helped make the fine valleys. I started clearing the sky with wide curve tip with the intention to take it all out. I kept with the line of the mountain I had cut first and created these great curves. I did a test and loved the effect it left in the sky. Cleaning out high spots until I liked it.

I started layering it up with the triangles. I love the placement. I will say that working with double sided stamp is messy and I now have ink all over. It would be best to have a similar size of cardboard to sandwich between your hand. The ball point ink will come off in the first few stamps but, will soon fade. Also, working with exact-o knives and rollerballs is tricky, always point away from yourself and go slow. The top middle one in the image above was the final stamp.

I am known to mix inks which eventually dirtys the lighter colors. I always lay the stamp face up on the table and apply the ink pad with my hand. I think most people do it the opposite way. This helps me mix colors on the triangles to look like trees in the above image. Also, I could make the moon or half the triangles a diffrent color or achieve shading in the right spots.

Here are some awesome triangles by themselves will make nice wrapping paper. I ended up switching colors and getting kind of purple trees. This can be avoided by stamping off all the ink on scraps. I like when there traces and it creates variation. It also allowed me to see that the triangles in a  non-Christmas color are an awesome pattern to have as a stamp.