All of the Things!

I started out moving structures around the house in the attempt at making room for a new printer when we finally get one.  The building for the quilt shop was moved upstairs, which is nice since it's currently sitting where I want it to live.

  Artie "helped."

Then I finalized my sketches for the shelving I need to construct to hold the fabric bolts.  

 I also worked on bolts for my quilt shop and cut fat quarters... lots of fat quarters.  Here are the bolts: 

Then I started making birthday gifts for my mini friends in St. Louis:

- One friend has a HUGE dollhouse that has a wonderful sewing room.  I thought some mini fat quarter bundles would be a nice addition.

- Another friend has been painting miniature watercolor landscapes for a couple of years.  I thought she might like to start her own mini artist's studio.  The portfolio is made of card and covered with a piece of real-life wallpaper that had a neat texture.  The darker "leather" is a football texture scrapbook paper.  I modified the handle from the original by wrapping waxed linen with the scrap-booking paper.  The directions are in Dolls' House Details by Kath Dalmeny.  Same for the watercolor paper with proper deckle edges.

- A third friend had missed two years' worth of birthdays and Christmases, as she was on a mission trip.  She'd been working on a mini quilt shop, so I thought some more fabric and some fat quarter bundles would be a nice addition.  She got three bolts and three bundles, plus one each for each of her last three birthdays and two Christmases.

- I designed a special piece of stitching for Aunt Pat's birthday, but I'll talk more about it further down.  It didn't get finished until Saturday.

Tuesday I woke up late to the news that a friend of ours, Joe, had passed away suddenly on Saturday and his funeral was to be Wednesday night.  That sort of derailed my train of thought for a bit.  FH came home early Tuesday and we cried for a bit.  Joe was 31 years old and it's still unclear as to why he died.  The coroner hasn't released a final report.

After going out for comfort food Tuesday I wandered over to my favorite quilt shop and spied a brilliant blue fat eighth that reminded me of Joe.  he favorite color was blue and this fabric was in the specific shade of his favorite shirt.  It begged to become a bolt of fabric in my quilt shop, so I bought it... and 15 other fat eighths that were neat.  After we got home, I made these:

As I tried to sleep that night I decided we should wear some blue to the funeral, so on Wednesday I made these pins.  They are forget-me-not flower yo-yos, made from the same blue fabric as the miniature bolt.  FH  wore the singleton on his suit jacket and I wore the group of three as a brooch on my shrug.

Then I didn't do much for the rest of Wednesday into Thursday.  Friday we drove south to see friends and I slept for most of the day.

Saturday I finished the last of the stitching on this birthday gift for Aunt Pat.  Originally I was going to turn them into cushions (1.25" square), but there isn't much room in the scene for cushions.

However she needs wall art, so whilst she's in Tuscon, AZ for the N.A.M.E. convention, she's in the market for gilded frames of the correct size.  Aunt Pat gets to visit The Mini Time Machine Museum while she's there.  I'm jealous!  I told her to watch out for witches named Tessie whilst she was there.  I'm afraid if they met there would be more work for me to do for Pat and for Casey to do for Tessie!

Anyways, the design is modified from a piece of embroidery I found in 18th Century Embroidery Techniques by Gail Marsh.  During the 18th century it was popular to work designs completely in chain stitch, usually on muslin garments.  In 1759 (according to Ms. Marsh) the tambour method of embroidery was introduced in Europe.  The differences are mostly visible on the back of the work, but tambour allows for turning curves and corners better.

Aunt Pat's current roombox is set in 1755, so I used plain old chain stitch for the piece.  I chose the colors to coordinate with the doll, who is dressed in pale peach silk.  The foundation fabric is fine cotton lawn, basted onto muslin.  I will probably be the one to frame them once she gets her frames bought.  That will be on another trip south.

We got home late Sunday night.  Then I had to deal with all the unpacking, laundry sorting, oil changing, grocery buying, etc that gets done after a trip.  Happily our neighbor had invited us for dinner tonight, so there wasn't a need to do any cooking.

That's all for now.  I'm working on the quilt shop this week.  We'll see how far I get with any of that.

Three, One, and One

I mentioned last week that I was working on cross stitching while taking care of Pollux in his final days.  However I don't have any pictures of my progress and since I'm running late as it is, I think I'll just skip ahead to what I've been doing this week.

FH informed me twelve days ago that we were going to a baby shower for one of his gaming friend and his wife.  Of course that meant I wanted to make something handmade for the baby.  And another friend is due any day now as well, so more presents!

First, I crocheted three pairs of baby booties.  The first two were for the shower today, the third is for my friend who is pregnant.

I'm still working on things for my other friend, including a hat in the same colors as these booties.

Then I found some yarn I'd stashed two years ago and thought it would be fun to make hats from it.  I've only made this one so far, but more will come.

Lastly I was trying to fill up the large gift bag we bought, so I grabbed this pony toy I'd made a while back and embroidered a face on it.

The party was lots of fun and I'm tired.  Plus Gus believes he's starving to death, so I will see you all next week.

Going Once...

I finished a couple of related projects yesterday and today.  Everything in this post was donated to my Stitcher's Guild's annual Silent Auction.  The event is next Tuesday and I have my eye on a particular something.  If I get it I promise to post about it.
First up are some sewn pumpkins.  These will be divided up into three lots: the large one by itself and two lots of three little ones.

 

 

Poke the images for a better view of the embroidered leaves.  I had the most fun with the small pumpkin on the top left.  The fabric is green on green images of leaves and  such so I embroidered branches and berries onto it.

Next are two more crochet top towels, Halloween themed.  They're just like the ones I made before but I used different yard for the flowers.

I'm going to have my hands full tomorrow helping a friend do some more renovation work in her home.  Catch you all later!