End of the year Wrap Up

Wow, a whole month has gone by with no blog posts.  The month of December had very little time at the computer, which is a rare thing for me.  I did get a little sewing done but not as much as I would have liked. I haven't even completed any goals on my Fourth Quarter Finish-A-Long list.  I was so busy with work and vacation and holiday stuff that I didn't even get a chance to blog or have time to to take fancy photos.  Instead I have some late night cell phone pics, not the best, but still better than no photos at all.

So this post will be a December Recap and a 2014 recap. 

Before we left on vacation, I finished up a few sewing projects.  

First up is the first of two T-shirt quilts for a client.   (I'm finishing up the second one this week)

This is a small quilt using only four shirts. The backs of the t-shirts had some words printed on the back as well so I added them in the quilt.

Next up are the items I made for the "Twas the Night" blog hop:
a foldable needle holder, some small snap bags, crochet dish scrubbers, and a cute little Christmas bag to put wrap them all. These all went to Jane for the blog hop. She posted them on her blog during the hop, but I wanted to post them here as well.

  

I also made a few more snap bags as Christmas presents for some special friends of mine. 

Then it was time to hit the high seas.  We took another cruise this year for our family Christmas present and had a wonderful time.  We went to Jamaica, Grand Turk, and Nassau.  

We got back in time to spend the holidays with extended family and before I knew it December was coming to a close.

Even though the last quarter of the year was slower behind the machine than usual, I was very productive for the rest of the year.  Here is my collage of Finished Quilts for 2014.

Next up is my collage of the Smaller Projects I completed in 2014.

I'd say the year as a whole was a pretty good one at the machine.

=^..^=

Halloween Costumes

Wow! What a busy month I have had.  I didn't realize I hadn't sat down at my sewing machine since my last post on October 5th.  I have been busy getting the house ready for guests, doing my schoolwork (I started back to college), playing at the State Fair, and trying to come up with ideas for Halloween costumes. I ended up making two out of the four this year, but very little was done with the sewing machine.

First I made this viking costume for my youngest.  It was made mostly with my crochet hook.  Something I haven't picked up in quite a long time.  I made the beard first - It is a free download from Ravelry. Then I made the hat to go with it.

My son specifically requested I helmet with a broken horn. Luckily I found a perfect one on Ravelry as well.
The pattern had a few errors in it, but if you are good at deciphering those out it is a nice helmet to make.
Finally I draped him in fake fur and he was ready to go.

Every Halloween my husband's work puts on a Halloween party for the kids. It is usually a week before Halloween. This year they did it a little early and I had to have all the costumes done by the 19th.  My second youngest was still undecided as to what he wanted to be the Monday before the event.  Finally I convinced him to be something that I could make really quick:  A Catcus

I found him some green sweat pants and shirt. I really wanted a hoodie, but wasn't able to find one, so I bought an extra shirt, cut it up, and made him a hat to match

Then I sewed on over 200 white pipe cleaners.
I folded them in half and zig zagged them onto the sweat shirt.
Then I added two yellow cactus flowers to finish it up.

I bought my daughter her flapper outfit, and her friend came over to join us for the party.

We always have the kids pose in front of the door before we head into the party.

It was a great night. The kids had a good time playing games and eating party food.

And to top the night off, the viking was one of the costume contest winners!

He got himself a $10 giftcard to Wal-Mart.

Yee Haw!!

=^..^=

Cotton Dishcloths

On my travels this summer I took my yarn with me.  Lots of driving time and relaxing at relatives gave me plenty of time to finish up this set of dishcloths and hot pad.
These are all free patterns I found on the internet.  

Janelle's Star Dishcloth

Double Bump Dishcloth

Starburst Hot Pad

Ball Band Dishcloth

Crochet Flower Dishcloth

Gift for a Friend

I made these dishcloths for one of my friends for Christmas. Two are knitted and the other two are crocheted. I made them earlier in the year but didn't want to post about them until now because I know she checks my blog from time to time.  I didn't want to spoil any surprises.  

It was a good thing I made them earlier this year, because the 4 quilt project I took on in December took up most of my craft time for the month.  It left me with hardly any time to make anything else.  I am still working on one last Christmas project.  I suppose it will have to be a New Year's Gift instead.

~~New Year's Resolution  -  Schedule my time more wisely in the coming year.~~

Playing with Yarn

Over the Holidays, I did a little traveling. Since I couldn't pack up my sewing machine and fabric stash, I decided to bring a small bag of yarn and some knitting needles and a crochet hook.
The first thing I made were these flower hot pads.  They were super quick to make in the car and I ended up giving them all away before I made it back home.  I made a total of 4, but only managed to get a snap shot of 3.  I have to say, I really love the internet and all the quilt blogs I read every morning.  If it wasn't for them I never would have found this pattern.  I started out by clicking on Mary's blog, which is in my blog roll on the right. In one of her posts she had a link to Gari's Blog, which I clicked on and started browsing.





As I scrolled down that page I saw a picture of some items Gari won in a give away and one of those items was a crocheted hot pad.  I immediately fell in love with the design and was even ready to dish out money for the pattern.  Her blog said she got the items from Terri at Purple and Paisley, but there wasn't a link.  So I copied and pasted "Terri at Purple and Paisley" in my Google browser and sure enough Terri's Blog popped up at the top of the list.  I browsed her blog, which is wonderful and full of exciting photos, and after reading many of her older posts,  I finally found the the post where she had made the hot pads, and I must say the photos of her hot pads are most delicious.  But there was no pattern name or link, so I decided to email her, and she most graciously sent me the link to the pattern. The best part is that the pattern is a free pattern on the net.  You can get to it here.

After I made those, I decided I needed to use up the rest of my cotton yarn.  I had already made 4 dishcloths for a friend for Christmas, three knitted ones from a pattern book I own and one crocheted one from this Basket Weave pattern I found on the net.  These four put me in the mood to finish up using some of the cotton yarn I had in one of my bins.  I recalled making a round dishcloth years ago and wanted to make another one, so I googled round knitted dishcloth patterns hoping to find the same pattern I used years ago.







I didn't find the exact pattern I was I was looking for, but I did find lots of new ones.  I even found a basket weave pattern for knitting that I couldn't pass up. I started with that one first and came up with this dishcloth.  After I finished that one, I worked on the round ones.
 














The pattern I decided on for the round ones was the Crazy Daisy. I love this pattern and I love making round dishcloths.  I have one more already started on my needles, I will have to finish that one later though, since I have some quilty projects that have deadlines coming up soon than need attention first.

Orange Spider Web

I have had a change of pace from quilting and have picked up my crochet hook.  What started me in this direction was the other night when I was looking for a small quick spider web crochet pattern to put on my web postcards for Fabricards.  Instead, I came across this pattern.  Years ago I had printed out this same pattern with all the intention of creating this spider web. But for some reason I never made it.  So that very night I went to my closet and grabbed my orange cotton thread and my size 7 hook and got to work.  Three days later I finished it.  It spent another couple days on my blocking board trying to get it to stay in web shape.  Today I gave it one last spritz with the iron and took the pins out and everything stayed right where it was suppose to stay.  YAHOO!!  I now have myself an orange festive spiderweb doily to decorate my house this fall season.  Right now it is all by itself on the lazy susan on my kitchen table.  But next week I will get out the rest of my fall decorations and it will be lonely no longer.