flickr favorites

I've been so inspired by all of the embroidery and patchwork projects I've been seeing on flickr lately. I love seeing all the bright and cheerful colors and projects. A welcome sight in winter for sure! Plus, I didn't want to leave my depressing winter post at the top of this blog any longer.

1. no cash, no problem, 2. felted, plant-dyed artsy, 3. Easy Lap Quilt, 4. Trio of smocks, 5. Mixy Matchy Placemats, 6. Button backs, 7. bend the rules blanket II, 8. Turtles, 9. Stripes clutch, 10. Button Flowers Pouch, 11. Clever Coasters, 12. Pleated Beauty Bag and zippy pouch, 13. Mom's lap quilt, 14. Pleated Beauty Bag with Nigella Fabric, 15. leafy tote, 16. poor guy, 17. Christmas Tree Crazy Quilt close up, 18. Closeup, 19. Gift for a friend, 20. Russian doll close-up, 21. custom order for M, 22. garden, 23. Three buddies, 24. Little hedgehog with pink berries, 25. Bluebird Spring with pins, 26. Berries close - up, 27. trees, 28. Collecting Mushrooms, 29. nestingdolls2, 30. Twinset wrapped :), 31. Patchwork Pillows 2, 32. Ondori Embroidery #3, 33. Ondori Embroidery #3, 34. metal chest, 35. oven mitts, 36. Hot water bottle back

I've been recovering from a bit of the stomach flu this weekend and I hope to have a finished object to show tomorrow. First I need to learn how to psso and ssk. Wish me luck!

winter:1, me: 0

I am seriously over this whole winter thing. It is bringing me to a slow death! I'm sick of the cold, the ice, the snow, the wind, the salt on my car, and did I mention the cold? I was having such a great attitude about winter all month long and then yesterday it finally got the best of me. My only saving grace is that in a little over one week Jon and I will be heading south to Nicaragua to visit Kate! Her post yesterday was killing me...91 degrees!

This vacation could not have come at a better time.

camper tea towel

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!

baby gifts

Catherine and I were busy last week making some cute little baby things for our friend, Linda's shower on Saturday.

Catherine made these little bibs with a pattern from Chickpea Sewing Studio:

She also made these burp rags with cotton fabric and chenille (11" x 17")

And I made this chenille blanket that was an enlarged version of the pot holders that I posted last week (36" x 24")

It was so exciting to see Linda open up all of her gifts! She is always such a gracious gift receiver. The look on her face when she opened up the bibs was so adorable. I can't wait to see how much joy her little bun brings her when he or she arrives in a few months!

chenille hot pads

Catherine and I made a few of these chenille hot pads last week. They're based on a similar (yet better constructed) hot pad that her mom received for Christmas from a sewing friend.

To make similar hot pads you'll need 5 - 1/4 yard pieces of flannel and one 1/4 yard piece of Insulbrite or a Teflon batting, plus one additional 1/4 yard piece of fabric for the binding. You'll be able to make four hot pads with this material (starting with 7" x 7" cut squares). To layer your fabric before sewing you'll need to place one square face down, one square of Insulbrite on top and then 4 layers of flannel face up. Quilt the fabric diagonally at 1/2" intervals. Then cut the top three layers between the sewn lines. Attach the binding and then wash the hot pad so that the unfinished edges fray. Here's a great site that shows directions for making a chenille blanket that are much more clear than these instructions.

These were not as easy to make as we first thought. I though we could whip these out in an hour, but after 3-4+ hours of agony they are finished (note that I'm not showing the back as the binding definitely did not turn out pretty)

Now that I'm crafting for the kitchen I want to try making some of the mitten hot pad patterns from Denyse Schmidt Quilts and Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter.

cheery tote bag

Here's a little tote bag that I made last weekend while my sister was over having a girls only craft night with me (we banished Jon to the basement for the evening). In some ways I still think of my little sister as being 10 years old and frozen in time at the age when I moved away for college. Even though the number of years that separate us have stayed the same, it's fun seeing how we have become closer as we get older and more mature (ha!) : )

Anyways...I scoured my fabric stash and used these fabrics that have been some of my favorites and too special to use (the turquoise is one of my all time favorite fabrics). It's lined with the green Denyse Schmidt fabric, with a pocket inside made out of the pink fabric (Anna Maria Horner's Bohemian line). Currently this bag is holding my new sweater project and following me around everywhere (this first sweater project is kind of intimidating me so I like to just look at it rather than actually knit it)...more about that later this week.

overheard on g-chat today

Jonathan: I'm checking the live macworld keynote updates really thin notebook just announced

me: cool

I would like that for my birthday and I don't mind if that's all I get :P

Jonathan: funny funny