This is the little wall hanging (21″ x 34″) that I stitched up for a friend. I don’t do the quilting, as she is a long-arm machine quilter. She is also a vendor at quilting shows in Northern Indiana – Country Quilting is the name of her booth. So if you are ever shopping at shows in NI you can look for her booth. She deals mostly in books, patterns, and kits.
These lovely ladies and coordinating prints are about to become a wall-hanging for a friend. I’ll show the resulting quilt in a few days!
… so I’m just a little late with this announcement, BUT, my son’s widget, Padlock, for Mac OS X was the staff’s Number ONE widget pick just a few days ago!
He creates widgets for Dashboard OS X and also he writes applications for the iPhone. His latest iPhone game, Haunted Mirror Maze, is currently on sale for just $1.00 as a Halloween special!
Way to go Luke! Love ya! Mom
Terri Stegmiller of Stegart blog and Sue Bleiwess at Two Creative Studios are hosting a block of the month (BOM) over on their website. On their Two Creative Studios website you can find a TCS ning group to join if you want to play along. (Click on Free Projects and then Block of the Month) I’m playing and here is my first block. Oh! And Terri and Sue are offering prizes too!
I used Sweethearts fabrics by Benartex. The fabrics are leftover from a quilt I made this Spring for my friend Ria, who lives in South Africa. You can see a picture of Ria’s quilt top here.
Crafting has been slow in my life lately. Seems most of my time is taken up in the life of my teens – new school year and all. Volleyball games and such, all fun! I did work on this canvas bag with the theme of Raggedy Ann and Andy. (Sorry the picture is not very good – it is a scan not a photo.) I added the yo-yo hearts, wool yarn vine, couched over stamping and fabric painting. I’m new to yo-yo hearts and I found them easy and fun to make using Clover’s heart shaped quick yo-yo maker! I tacked them down with red embroidery floss. (Have you seen Calamity Kim’s amazing yo-yos?) I stamped the background with Fabrico craft ink in Cerulean Blue using side B of Stampendous! Texture Cube. Once dry, I color washed over the stamping with Lumiere Pearl Blue. Next I couched the yarn in place using the zig zag stitch on my sewing machine and then added the yo-yos.
I’m also working on the binding for the quilts for my parents (two twin size his and her quilts.) And having been inspired by Kim, I’m going to do more work on the yo-yos I’m sewing on to my mother’s quilt. I’m just stitching them in place now along with leaves around an appliqued vine. But I plan on going back and stitching them around the edges with floss. Don’t think I’ll add beads as it is a bed quilt intended for daily use. Thanks Kim for the inspiration!
The theme for this bag is ‘travel.’ Mary included photos and tickets printed on fabric of trips she has taken since childhood. I picked the photo of the cruise ship and had fun layering it with fabrics and ribbon. I used fusible web and did some free motion stitching to hold the piece together. I outlined the ship with a Pigma pen and also did some stitching in a dark grey thread to add detail. This is what the piece looks like before adding it to the canvas bag. I have a tag that says ‘enjoy the journey’ that I hope to fit into the piece. It might have to be sewn on to another place on the bag as it is getting crowded!
Since my last Altered Bag post I have received 2 bags to work on! The theme of this bag is “herbs.” I had purchased fabric with floral prints of sage, basil, thyme, etc. But the gal who worked on the bag before me used a companion print to it! So I dreamed up something else to add to the bag. While digging for fusible web, I found several pieces of flower pounding I made three or four years ago. Light bulb moment! I searched the web for herb quotes and found this one:
“What is Paradise? But a Garden, an Orchard of Trees and Herbs, full of pleasures, and nothing there but delights.” Wm. Lawson, 1618
I wrote the quote on the flower pounding fabric, added a frog in the corner with a yoyo and leaves. I think this fits the ticket! (The buttons were added by another participant.)
Two Creative Studios are offering a summer giveaway over at their website. Go check them out and sign up for their newsletter! They have a list of great class offerings that one sweet day I hope to sign up for! But alas, money will not allow such a thing right now. But I enjoy their blogs and newsletter and the inspiration I glean. Sue has a photo up on her blog of what they are giving away and also two journal covers she is making out of foil and ink. Here is a link to Terri’s blog. She has been doing some amazing fabric dying lately.
Another giveaway happening is over at Leah’s Art Girl blog. She hosts a Scrap Saturday Giveaway and has a huge one running this month with a link to Art Now for Autism. Check out Leah’s post and see if perhaps you would like to donate to this worthy cause. The Art Now for Autism is a reverse auction with proceeds going toward autism awareness and research. Go check it out! If not creating art to donate, you could buy an item to help support autism research.
PS I wanted to add that there is a great company here in my hometown that runs an online store and store front creating items to help those with Autism. Go check out Sensory Critters!
This little quiltie will be added to a butterfly theme canvas bag as a pocket. I used Lumiere paint by Jacquard in turquoise and plum. This is for a friend who loves purples and all things glitter. So I decided to try the Lumiere paint as a base, then stenciled the butterfly and leaves, coloring them in with fabric markers. I added a turquoise selvage edge, several ribbons and a button. In the upper left corner, can you read the word ‘charmed’ on the selvage? That word suits my friend!
This Altered Canvas bag swap should be winding down about now – bags are due back to their owners in September. But I have not seen the 11 bags I’m to work on! Looking over my past posts, I think I have only received and worked on 8 bags! Yikes! I wonder who is holding them up? I have three more bags to work on….
As it turned out, I did not work much at all on the journal this final week. Flipping through it the only new page I find is the doodle on the envelope page. So maybe that is kind of a closure – sealing up the envelope with all its pretty and strange contents and setting it aside for another time. I had a silly little project in mind, but the week was taken up in other activities. So here is the doodling …
Thanks for the awesome journey fellow wreckers! Thanks Jamie for hosting the Next Chapter. I have so enjoyed visiting all the blogs and getting to know each of you! Blessings to each precious one in what your future holds!