Some ATCs

These top ATCs was made for the QTC: Number series. These are four swaps #3 and #4. We had to make a card that depicts three or four of something. I actually made the #4 one first. I made mini four patches. and with the left over scraps from the four patches, I cut them into Triangles for my three card- "Triangles have Three sides."

This card on the right was made for the Fabricards QTC: Patchwork swap. I used some leftover pinwheels I had sitting in my scrap bin. and the Candy ATC was made for the Art 4 Mail Red and White swap.

Showcasing Stitches

Some of these new sewing machines have some really fancy stitches, so I created a swap in Fabricards just for that. I also opened it up for some hand work too if some were interested in that, but I chose to do machine stitching for mine.

My pink center fabric has free motion quilting all over it and the green edges showcase three of the fancy stitches that come on my machine. I really like the way this one turned out. The colored thread I used for the machine stitches show up nice on the on the green background.

January Flower Mingle

In Fabricards we are doing a monthly Mingle swap that showcases the Birth flowers of the year. This is the card I made for the January flower, Carnation. I choose to print out this lovely yellow one on white muslin, then added some fancy stitches from my machine around it and some free motion quilting on the edges. I also made a couple more of these to mail out to my current Art2Mail group.

Hearts, Hearts, and more Hearts

These are a couple of cards I made for valentines day. The first one was for two swaps one just called Hearts an the other Patchwork Heart. I like to combine ideas when I can, since that is the hardest part for me, coming up with the idea. Most of my time spent making these cards is spent trying to come up with the ideas for them. Once the idea comes though the cards get made very quickly.

This next Heart I made for a swap with the theme of Weaving. The only thing that kept coming to mind for this swap was those woven heart baskets that are around during valentines day, so I made a flat one to mail out to my partners.


This last card is an ATC. I printed this image on some white muslin, I figured it was perfect for this swap. There are all types of hearts hiding in this image. I counted at least seven.

Log Cabin Postcard

This is the postcard I made for the Art4Mail Block of the Month postcard swap.

The block for January was Log Cabin.

I decided to do paper piecing for this one. I have only paper pieced about 4 times before. I wasn't too impressed with the process the first few times I did it, but this time around I really enjoyed it. I guess i just had to do it enough times to enjoy it.

Cross Stitch Snowman

This card is for Angela. We signed up for the Cross Stitch swap together and since it was only the two of us I was able to pick a larger design to cross stitch.

I haven't cross stitched in such a loooong time. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I will have to pull out some of my old projects and finish them up. I know I have at least two big ones that I was working on. I do believe they are in my nightstand by my bed. I shall have to go hunt them down. :)

Snowflakes

This snowflake postcard was made for two different postcard groups. I found some fancy snowflake sequence at Hancock Fabrics and hand sewed them down with a white bead center. To me, the white squares in the center needed a little something extra so I did some hand stitching with dark blue thread. I did the edges the same way. I took a strip of white muslin, trimmed the edges with Pinking sheers, and ironed them on the sides with wonder under. Currently, this type of edging is my favorite way of finishing off the cards. It makes the card look really neat without any frayed edges and is slightly quicker than a .02 zig zag stitch.
I saved one of these cards for myself as always. It will be the closest thing I have to snow this year, or any year for that matter. Lately most our weather has been in the high 60's. I can go outside without and jacket on and be just fine. Which is a good thing, because my heater broke! We have had the repair man out three times to fix it, and he said it was fixed each time, but it still isn't working right. It only works when it wants to, then shuts off. Hopefully the rest of the winter will stay this warm. One can hope....

New Year's Resolutions???

Well here it is, the 12th of January and I haven't started my New Year's Resolutions. I did make them. I even put them in a spreadsheet and listed ways to accomplish them, but for some reason I have just been sitting on my butt for the first 12 days of the year. I can still start now though right?? One of my friends made a comment that he didn't like New Year's Resolutions because they only last for a couple months and then people give up on them. But I say, why not become a better person for two or three months? Who knows, if you keep at it every year one resolution might actually stick. I myself made 8 Resolutions for this year - Hopefully one of them will actually last more than two months, but if not, then I will have had two to three months of progress which is better than nothing. :)

One of my resolutions this year is to finish the UFOs on my UFO Tracking list. Right now I only have 10 on the list and they are all quilt related items. I know I have other UFOs that are not quilt related but I'm not sure how many. I won't know that till I clean out my closet. That's a different New Year's Resolution - Become More Organized. But for this resolution, I am only going to concentrate on the 10 quilts on the list that need finishing. The first one I am going to finish is this pinwheel quilt. This is what it looks like now, a partial top and some blocks. I started it in 2006 so it isn't that old. But it is bright and pretty and I want it to be done.

Right now it is pretty small, but I don't have enough of the other blocks to go around the whole quilt as a border. And I can't just add them on and make another row because the center pinwheels are smaller than the others. I think this is the reason this project got put away in a bin to begin with and why it has been sitting for two years. I just didn't know how to make it work. I will have to play around and come up with a good idea to get the top part and the other blocks to play well together.

I've been TAGGED!!

I have been tagged by Jan!!! Seems like fun so I will play along. :)

Here are the rules to play the game:

1. When you are tagged you are asked to list eight random facts about yourself and post them on your blog for visitors to enjoy.

2. Tag eight of your blogging friends and leave them a comment that they have been tagged and to join in the fun if they have the opportunity. (If not, that's okay. They can still enjoy the random facts everyone shares:) Be sure to list a link to your eight friends in your posting.

ok here are 8 random things about me....

1. I am in the community play "The Music Man" with two of my kids. I don't really sing that well and I'm not much of a dancer but I tried out for the cast just so my son would. He on the other hand, is good at all those things. It was one of those, I'll sign up if you do kind of things. Well I lucked out and they took everyone who tried out.

2. I have never been in a play in my entire life. Not even in elementary school. Am I nuts for joining one now at my age? The show opens in March.

3. I spend more time at my computer than my sewing machine, tv, and cooking stove combined. What can I say, I'm an online addict.

4. My closet is full of RED shirts.

5. I have two cats, two bunnies, and one puppy who is sleeping on my lap right now as I type.

6. I have been asked to write the newsletter this year for my quilt guild.

7. I like to read fantasy books.

8. I'm a mom, so I know almost everything, Well, at least that is what I tell my kids. ;)

I'm going to tag 8 people and they can play along if they choose to. These are ladies whose blogs I follow and who I swap with. :)

Angela - http://angelcatuk.blogspot.com/
Sue - http://suewilduk.blogspot.com/
Barb - http://catsnquilts.blogspot.com/
Judy - http://grammasquiltingroom.blogspot.com/
Lisa - http://lisasfibercreations.blogspot.com/
Sharon - http://sharon-workingforfabric.blogspot.com/
Barbara - http://www.waymoorefunquilting.blogspot.com/
Lise - http://lise2007.blogspot.com/

Feel free to play along ladies if you are up to it. :)

Look at all those reindeer.

These have nothing to do with fabric, unless you count the ribbons on their necks, but I wanted to post what I had been working on the past week and a half.
My husband and I worked together to make 11 sets of Reindeer to hand out this year at Christmas. Each set has two reindeer, one small one and one larger one.

We both took turns cutting out the reindeer on the band saw and sanding them. Then I stained them all and added the eyes, nose, and the bows and bells on their necks. They were a lot of fun to make. We handed out 7 to my family members, gave one set to our neighbors, kept one set for us, and made two extra just in case any of their antlers broke before they reached their destination.
While we were making them we had a couple antler casualties and had to remake a few, so we wanted to make sure we had a spare set just in case any deer broke an antler during our travels. Luckily they all made it safely to their destinations, but now we have two extra sets. Not sure what to do with those. Guess we will save them for next Christmas. :)

Puppies can't sew...

...and neither can I with a little puppy around. :) Santa came early for me this year and brought me a mini dachshund for Christmas. I got him on Wednesday and he is the tiniest little thing. He makes my cats look like giants now. I didn't realize how big my kitties really were till I got this little fellow. We named him Dean. Dean, the doxie. :)

He is just like a little baby, waking up at all hours of the night, wanting to be snuggled. I think he is still missing his litter mates and hope that he soon will sleep throught he night. I thought for sure my sleepless nights were over now that my youngest child is 5 years old. But here they come again. Hopefully they won't last as long as they did with my children.

I haven't been able to do much sewing in the mornings with the puppy around, he is just too cute for me to sit at my sewing machine. Plus I worry about him getting into things, so I have been spending most of my time with the puppy.

When the kids get home from school, they take him from me which gives me a couple hours to do some things, I would rather sew, but kids say they want clean clothes, so I suppose I should do that instead of play on the machine. It is a good thing I have finished my Christmas sewing, because I am having a good time playing with Dean. I do have a few Christmas projects I am still working on, but they are for me, so there is no rush or stress to get them done before christmas. Instead I will sit back and enjoy playing with Dean, my new puppy.

IFQ ATC Round 11

I signed up for 4 sets of ATCs for round 11 of the IFQ Alphabet ATC swap. I was assigned the letters "Y", "F" and the numbers Zero, and One. For "Y" I did an all Yellow card







For the number 1 I did "One lone snowflake". I picked up these fancy snowflake brads on sale and knew they would go perfect with some of the projects I am working on.








Zero was the hardest to come up with. I didn't want to send out a blank ATC with Zero stuff on it. I was stumped on this one for a while. I finally settled on a pure white card. It has ZERO color on it. I did some feather and meandering quilting with some white thread on some white muslin. Then I added some white ribbon and added a white satin stitch on the edge. It is hard to see the stitching in this photo, but it is there. :)





For "F" I did F is for Frog. I had lots of frog fabric scraps that were just the right size for these little ATCs. I added some iron on Gems and googley eyes to bring some personality to the frongs.

Again, I am dissatisfied with my scanner, it just won't scan objects well unless they are flat. The stuff up front is clear, but then the stuff in the back is blurry. I wish I could get it all of it to come in clear like I could with my old scanner. Bah, why do things have to break and the new things you get to replace them never work as well as the old ones. Ah well...

The picture posting deadline for this swap was yesterday, so I should find out soon who I will send my ATCs to. Can't wait to see what I get in return. That is the fun of the Alphabet ATC swap. :)

Candy Canes

For me, Candy Canes are one of the major symbols of Christmas. So I decided to put some in postcard and ATC form. This postcard was made for my Fabricards group. I punched out some candy canes with my Sizzix then used the leftover waste fabric for the border. I hate to throw stuff away even if it is a small bit and I can usually find a use for even the smallest scrap of fabric. :)


This little bitty ATC was made for ART4Mail's Christmas ATC swap. It has red and green holly and Candy Canes. Just a little sampling of some of the things that get me in the Christmas Spirit.

Christmas Trees

I made a couple different Christmas tree postcards this week for some different swaps I am in. One I did on my embroidery machine. I like this design because it has fringe incorporated on the edges of the tree rows. After I finished embroidering the design, I added some sparkly gem ornaments and did some freehand quilting around the tree and finished it off with a green zig Zag border.

On the other card I did an applique version of a Christmas tree, added some beaded garland and silver ornaments. I thought a nice shiny gold border would go well with this one to pick up the gold accents in the background fabric. It was fun picking out little ornaments for this small trees.

My kids did most of the decorating of our real tree, so these little ones were all mine to play with.

For some reason though, when I go in the living room I keep finding my cat, Sheen, in the Christmas tree. I'm not sure what the attraction is for him. My other cat could care less about the tree, but Sheen seems to think it is his personal climbing toy...

Crazy for Christmas

These Crazy Quilt Christmas cards were made for a Fabricards swap. I made one for each swap partner and one for me. I always have to make an extra for me. ;) These cards look much brighter and the beads are much sparklier in person. I really like the look and feel of them.

I am not sure I am liking my new scanner. I can't get it to scan the images like I want. Parts of them keep coming out blurry, and not as bright as I am use to. My old one was a scanner/printer in one and the scanner was working fine. But then one day the printer part, which has been acting up for over a year, finally decided to go crazy, it kept asking me to take out the cartridge and put it back in. But no matter how many times I did that, and no matter what cartridge I put in there, It kept asking me to remove the cartridge and put it back in. Well I would have been fine just keeping it as a scanner, but as long as I kept getting that cartridge error, I couldn't do anything else with it, I couldn't even use the scanner. So I broke down and got a new scanner/printer. But this new one doesn't scan three dimensional items well. For instance, when I scan these postcards in, the beads come out clear, but other parts are blurry. I think the scanner is focusing on the items in the front and not caring about the stuff in the back. Also, I can't use that nifty trick Janet taught me to get a black background. When I leave the lid up to scan, I just get a fuzzy gray background with a greyed edge image, instead of a nice crisp background. Most frustrating.

Ah well, Maybe I will go back to using my camera. On a happier note though, I am really liking this crazy quilting stuff. I think I am now ready to try it on a bigger project, I just have to decide which project to choose...