It's become my yearly tradition to post these project mosaics (see 2008 and 2007). So here is my 2009 project mosaic:
You'll notice that I ramped up the knitting projects considerably this
year...all I can say is that knitting has been a great stress reliever
(ahem!).
I'm looking forward to turning 2010 into a "use my stash" year and I've got plenty of projects to keep me busy. I'll be staying away from retail stores in 2010 and unsubscribing myself from email sales blasts to keep the temptation at bay. Wish me luck!
I've been eyeing this Elf Stitchette pattern from wee wonderfuls ever since it was published a few years ago and finally had an excuse to stitch it up and turn it into a stocking.
I based the pattern for the stocking on these stockings that I made a few years ago. The stocking is lined with a green polka dot fabric and a layer of thin cotton batting. I had fun in the trim aisle and used an iron on rick rack and a pom pom trim that I secured with a zig zag stitch. For the foot and toe, I used fusible webbing to adhere it to the stocking base and then used a zig zag stitch to applique it to the fabric.
My embroidery has fallen to the wayside as I've gotten into knitting more. I've got lots of patterns from sublime stitching waiting to be stitched up and I recently found this fun embroidery site, Badbird (via QuiltDad). I heart the buffalo pattern and would love to stitch that up someday.
I have a hard time doing embroidery because I'm just not sure what to do with the finished piece. Do you have any suggestions for me for cute, finished embroidery projects? So far, I've incorporated them into a quilt, made a pillow and made some fabric backed tea towels.
Day of the Dead is almost here and I've been seeing lots of fun DOTD embroidery popping up on blogs. Here's a collection of some of my favorite pieces:
1. Memento Mori necklace, 2. Marigold Sugar Skull, 3. Front - Day of the Dead mirror case, 4. details, 5. Day of the Dead Portrait, 6. Sugar Skull Brooch, 7. Day of the Dead Magnets, 8. Sugar Skull Softie Stack, 9. WIP
And here is my favorite Day of the Dead themed embroidery project of all time:
Carissa's package arrive last week and now that I've made a trip to IKEA to pick up some frames, I can share what she sent.
Our swap was set up to by my knitting for her needlepoint. I requested a pear needlepoint project and she came through in flying colors!
When I first opened the package, I was looking at the back of her needlepoint. I was really impressed with all of the texture she added to the project. I held up the pear to show Jon and that's when I noticed that I had been looking at the wrong side. The front is even prettier than the back!
Her package contained lots of fun goodies! A beautifully printed tea towel (available in her etsy store, Pidoodle Designs), a cute sticker sheet and a thoughtful card.
Thanks, Carissa!
Here's the framed artwork hanging in our kitchen (complete with the reflection of our pan rack). It's so nice to be able to spice things up in here.
Jon's quip of the day: "It's ap"pear"ant that this will be perfect for our kitchen." *har har har*
In keeping with last year's tradition, here's a mosaic of the projects that I completed in 2008. Although I was busy with school for half of the year, I still managed to complete a lot of projects.
And, what's on tap for this year? I've been stocking up on some yarn for knitting projects, so I hope to finish a few sweaters and my zig zag afghan, and learn how to do stranded/fair isle color work. I've found that knitting and embroidery are the two most compatible projects with my school and work schedule, so look for lots more of those projects in 2009.
Happy New Year!
We celebrated Jon's birthday on Friday night with dinner out at our favorite sushi place, a cupcake cake (thanks to my Grandma for giving me this cute pan for my birthday) and present opening. Now, Jon and I are both the same age again and officially in our late 20's.
I tried making this cake from scratch, without cake flour, which was a big mistake. After I had put the cake in the oven, I went back to read the recipe reviews and it only got 1 out of 5 stars. I need to make sure to check little details like that before starting a recipe. And, after attempting to frost this, I realized that I need some lessons from my mom! She puts me to shame.
I've been on a reading rampage over here, both for school and because of the Twilight saga, so not much crafting is going on. I did finish Betty's block, just in time, for the Common Thread's Quilt Bee, though. This was my first attempt at applique with fusible web, and I'll definitely be using it again for some other projects.
I had a relaxing weekend up north with my friend, Catherine, and her mom at her mom's lovely home in the woods. There was lots of napping, Olympic watching, reading and sewing going on.
We had lots of fun watching their 3 (or 4) hummingbirds fighting for the feeder.
And I finished this sublime stitching embroidery pattern (from the Craft Pad) while I was there and turned it into a tea towel this afternoon. I was a little burnt out on embroidery after my stitchette mania last winter, but it's so much fun to break out the bright thread and play around with color combos.
Jon and I went to the Shadow Art Fair in Ypsilanti last weekend and came home with these two darling treasures:
Gladys, the Chimean from the morninglorivine
and this adorable mole print from Tugboat Printshop (so ugly it's cute). Jon picked this one out and now we have to find a floating frame for it so that we can hang it up.
And, it was my birthday on Friday. Jon's mom is so great about sending cards for every holiday imaginable...and she always manages to find a card to "son and daughter-in-law." Before seeing all of her cards, I had no idea there were so many cards like this available! It's fun to get happy cards like this every once in a while.
Jon gave me this adorable Miso Soup tote bag that I fell in love with at the japanese bookstore last weekend. It's now home to my embroidery works in progress.
Because it's my "birthday month," I took the liberty of stocking up on a few new treasures for my craft collection...
I'm on an embroidery kick again with these new patterns from Sublime Stitching:
Here's my bird embroidery in progress (everything around here these days is in progress, hence the lack of posting)
And, I bought this stack of Kona Cotton fabric from Pink Chalk Fabrics
and I've got the fabric cut and ready to go for my Plain Spoken Quilt. This is actually the quilt pattern that first inspired my desire to start quilting, so I'm excited to put this one together. It was so easy having all of the colors chosen for me with the fat quarter kit, so I'm all set to go.
I finished my first class for library school on Friday and now I have a month off before I start the fall semester. My crafting to do list is long and I'm hoping to fit everything in before I have to return to using my free time for paper writing!
Jon and I made this little tart yesterday morning. We were looking for different ways to cook asparagus and this came up on a google search.
Asparagus Tart (recipe from epicurious.com). We didn't have half and half, so we used skim milk. And we didn't have turmeric (or we couldn't find it in our jumbled mess of a spice cupboard...ugh!), so we skipped it.
The tart came out delicious and we would definitely make it again. Asparagus is so yummy!
I sent this little tea towel across the pond to my friend, Jodi, who's living and working in Brussels right now for six months. We were bummed that we couldn't make it over to visit Jodi, so I had to send the next best thing...a tea towel, of course! Jodi's a budding classical guitarist and she's got an awesome collection of unique tea towels and kitchen accessories, so I thought this would be the perfect, compact gift to send. The pattern is from the sublime stitching book.
I recently finished up these two projects and was able to give them to their recipients on Easter...
a pillow for my sister
My sister saw this pillow and requested that I make her one. I love having a functional way to display embroidery that doesn't show the messy back side. The pattern is the Kurt Halsey Artist series from Sublime Stitching. I finished the pillow off with a patterned fabric border and backing. This fabric is from a Kaffe Fasset line, but I'm not sure of the exact pattern name.
and a purse for my aunt
I don't think I'll ever tire of making these cable knit purses. They're such a classic pattern and I really love using the Lamb's Pride yarn. I have to hold myself back from buying more of this yarn in different colors whenever I'm at a yarn shop!
Pattern: Cable Knit purse pattern from a class I took at a local yarn store
Needles: 10.5
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky - Persian Peacock
I was quite fond of this Camp Out set ever since it debuted on Sublime Stitching last year. I finally caved and bought the pattern (and a few others) last week and here is the result. I used a tea towel from the Stitch It kit that I bought a while back and used some cotton fabric from my stash on the back of the towel so that the sloppy backside of my embroidery doesn't show (got the idea from Danielle). I'm definitely going to need to stock up on white cotton fabric so that we can fill our kitchen with more cute, embroidered tea towels!
My stitchette undertaking is finally complete! I'm a little bummed that there are no more stitchettes to sew up, but this has been a fun project and I'm glad that I finally one place to feature all the embroidery I've done.
I based the pattern for the quilt off of the cover of Kaffe Fassett book, Quilts in the Sun. Each of the squares has an 8" x 8" center featuring the stitchette. Then the squares are bordered with 4 inches of printed fabric. I used 8 different prints, twice each. For the quilting I sewed 1" parallel lines in the printed fabric portion of the quilt both vertically and horizontally. For the binding I used scrap strips of the patchwork fabric used in the quilt (a great way to use up the leftover fabric).
I saw this idea for a finished object mosaic on Oiyi's blog. It's a fun/scary way to look at how much time/money/work I spent on crafting this year...eeks!
I'm not sure I'll have as much crafting time next year as I did this year, but I'm hoping to do some more knitting (bigger projects like a sweater and a tote bag), finish up some older quilts that are still wips (this one and a college t-shirt quilt that I started back in 2002), and work on some more bags and purses. And I'm also looking forward to using up the various stashes I've accumulated during the year and I'm looking forward to using and making the craft books I've bought in the last year.
I love these stitchettes and I think they're so cute, but I am so glad that I've finished stitching all of them up! What a relief!
Here are the final four that I've finished over this holiday break week:
Georgia Grows
Oliver Observes
Miles' Mother's Day
Ruby Ricochets
And, the hero shot with all 16 stitchettes together:
Now, onto the quilt!
Here's another stitchette for my collection. I've got five more to go and then I can get started on the patchwork quilt. My mom and I have a date on Thursday to check out the quilt shop by her house, so hopefully I can get some new fabric to use on the quilt then!
Well, Jon and I had a wonderful weekend...the kind of weekend that makes us wish that we had more vacation days so that we could have more four day weekends to enjoy. We did lots of visiting with family and friends and we balanced it out by hanging out at home enjoying our newly decorated Christmas tree, working on little projects and watching movies.
I had lots of time to work on the granny square blanket and I'm really hoping that it will be finished by Saturday. I've got six out of the twelve rows assembled and now I just need to make up a few extra squares because the size I had originally planned for it was too small.
And...I'm still cranking out these little stitchettes. I've got 6 more to go before I can start on the quilt.
Sam Skates
Izzie on Ice
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