ThanksgivingThat's Finishes

I'm a day late thanks to traveling for the holiday, but it was lovely.

These are the gifts I made for my SIL's birthday and first wedding anniversary. She'll be hosting Christmas at her house this year and I wanted her to have something elegant to enjoy.

I finally finished hand sewing the binding on my little runner. I'm not overly happy with this one, but it's finished.

That's all I've gotten done this past week. I'm hoping to finish up a few more things so I can start cleaning up all my sewing and decorate for the winter holidays.

Getting There, Almost and Finished

As the title alludes, I've worked on three projects this week. First up is the Mystery Quilt's top, now with borders and waiting for me to have help sandwiching the layers. FH is holding it up for the picture since it's too heavy for me at the moment.

 I did get the binding on my little runner too. Just need to sew it to the back by hand.

 Here's a close up of the quilting so you can see the variegated thread colors.

 And finally a set of eight placemats for a Christmas gift.

Next project goals are a baby quilt that is already cut and waiting to be pieced, finishing the binding on the little runner, and I'm doing another Mystery project. This time it's a table runner. We've already been given cutting instructions for our fabrics and get the next clue tomorrow. I haven't cut my pieces yet as my fabric is still in the wash, otherwise I'd be showing them off too.

Until next week!

Stitching and Minis

I'm still recovering from our trip south last weekend, but I've been busy with projects.  Here's a look at the American Goldfinch.

 All that's left is the background.  I've got less than three skeins of the background color left to work with.  It shouldn't be long now.

While we were on the road last weekend, I wanted a stitching project that was small and easy to work on in the car or while seated with others.  I dug out six small kits for ornaments and got started on one.  This snowlady is baking gingerbread cookies here.

The same snowlady is/will be caroling in this ornament.

Whilst not stitching, I had to start making some minis for my sick friend.  The same friend who is loosing her battle with cancer.  She's been working on a holiday store... not just Christmas, but all the holidays, and hasn't felt up to finish stocking the shelves.  So I decided to give her a hand.

There are lots of teddy bears, six wall hangings, two Halloween pull toys, and two Easter baskets.

I've got some other little things for her holiday shop in mind.  Once I get them figured out I'll be sharing them here.

That's it for this week.  See everyone next time!

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.

A Smile for a Friend

Some people might be wondering why I've started making quilting themed miniatures all of a sudden, with no project idea mentioned.  I couldn't say before, in case a friend stumbled onto this blog, but they were gifts for a dear friend who is slowly loosing her battle with cancer.

She's both a miniaturist and a fine needlewoman, and she belongs to the same stitching guild that I'm a member of.  When I saw her in May, she told me she was thinking about making a quilt shop.  That's when I decided to create a tutorial on mini fabric bolts to share with other members of our guild so they could have some fun making bolts for her.  The plan was to also create a few other tutorials like: bags of batting, rolled fat quarters, quilt rulers, and maybe even a few tiny quilt blocks.  We'd spend all summer making her little things and then give everything to her in September.

However we were all given the bad news... the chemo isn't working.  So I sped things up by quite a bit and focused on the basics: fabric bolts and fat quarters.  The first group of ladies went to work two weeks ago on bolts.  That's when a friend came up with the adorable fat quarter bundles.

I spent the next several days basically kitting up the supplies for more people to make bolts and glued/folded close to one thousand (or more) mini fat quarters to be made into bundles.  FH helped lots with the fat quarters.  He even made two bolts of fabric.

Here is the result of this labor of love:  221 bolts of fabric (many are signed by the ladies who rolled them), 107 fat quarter bundles, a basket of fat quarters and scrap basket (made by me), and a "store sample" quilt and mini hanks of fibers for embroidery (made by the friend who created the first bundle).  The collective work of 21 people is in these pictures.

Another mutual friend who is both a stitcher and miniaturist made some lovely minis on her own, but I didn't manage to get pictures.  She did 12 fabric bolts, 12 rolls fat quarters, some adorable storage boxes, several quilting magazines, and three "store sample" quilts.

Most of the fabrics we used came out of my stash... or I went and bought some, but seven other ladies raided their stashes or went and purchased fabrics after seeing examples of what would work.  Two more offered to scour their stashes as well, but the quilt shop will already be overflowing.

Everyone had a wonderful time making the minis, and our friend was so happy and surprised that we thought of her.  I will admit she got a bigger smile on her face when I told her that two of our stitching friends now want to make their own miniature quilt shops.  So I'll be coming up with more tutorials after all.

I'm hoping to get them started on their shops soon, so our friend can watch their progress.  She's having a hard time seeing fine details now and can't use anything sharp (x-actos and saws), so I'll be helping her build her newest dollhouse kit on the days she feels well enough to order me around.  I'll also be working on my own quilt shop.  Something will need to be done with the results from creating the tutorials.

I also need to buckle down and finish the Panda Nursery, even though it's future is unknown.  I stopped working on it when my dad fell and broke his hip... followed by my mother needing emergency surgery... resulting in many trips down south to help them take care of things.  Then Tempie passed away and I started falling into a deep depression.

To make things worse, Shirley informed me that her daughter-in-law, the baby's mother, was divorcing her son and was preventing her from seeing the baby.  I honestly didn't know how to proceed after that point, in fact I was unsure of even asking Shirley about the project for fear of upsetting her.  Enough time has passed now that her hurt is less raw and I'm in a better mental and emotional state to handle finishing everything up.  It bothers me seeing the unfinished room and the boxes filled with the wonderful minis from people all over the world just sitting there.

I'm not sure what Shirley will want to do with the nursery when it's done.  But I'm going to finish it anyway.

So the projects on the horizon will be:
- creating tutorials for more quilting miniatures
- the Panda Nursery
- my own quilt shop
- helping three ladies with their quilt shops
- gifts for my StL mini group folks' birthdays and Christmas
- the Black Bear cross stitch
- the Aragon Blackwork
and
- whatever else strikes my fancy

Booties and Blackwork

Hello everyone!  I hope lots of fun and crafting has happened for everyone in the past week.  I've managed to have some fun in between housework and cleaning up the yard.

I finished two more pairs of booties this week.  The first is lacking the coordinating ribbon to really be "finished," but the crocheting is done.  No rush though, because this pair is more my stash o' baby gifts.  I'm not entirely pleased with the crooked placement of the hearts on the instep.  I'll have to figure out if that was my goof or a misprint in the instructions.

The second is already on its way to the recipient on the east coast, via the baby's grandma.  I hadn't worked this pattern up before, but I believe I'll make more.  They were lots of fun!

Then I got more work done on the Aragon Blackwork piece.  I still haven't gotten to the actual blackwork portion of the chart, but I'm happy with my progress.  Last time I posted about it, it looked like this.

That's all for this week.  I'm beat after a full day of yard work followed by a day of crocheting.  I'll hopefully have the fourth motif of the blackwork piece done by next weekend and at least one pair of booties.  I may be late in posting next weekend... later than today.  FH, Gus, and I are headed south for Father's Day.  Artie and Pixel will be guarding the house, with a little help from our neighbors.

See you next time!

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.

Musical Roses Progress

We left off here New Year's Day:

Before I went to bed on Monday, Jan. 2nd, I had only managed to fill in a few places. 

At this point I can fill in with the yellow all the way to the tip of the rightmost rose before I need to worry about the neck of the bass and the lower music note that isn't finished yet.  I can also start the second to last rose any time.

I will probably switch between the yellow wall and the piano for a day or so, jumping to the rose for a change of scenery.  I doubt I will start the bass until I get to the part where it rests against the wall.