The Castle

I finally finished this cross stitch project last night.  It felt so good to have it finished.  I still like it just as much as when I bought the leaflet 16 or so years ago.   At first I thought it had only been 15 years, but I know I started this when I was in high school and graduation day for me was 16 years ago. Over the past 16 years I have started and completed many other cross stitch projects, as well as many afghans, quilts, and clothing projects, but they have mostly been for other people.  The projects I make just for me, like this dragon, usually get put aside or stored away.  I know I hadn't worked on this particular project in over 6 years, because I don't remember working on it in the house we live in now and we have lived here for 6 years.  But now this one is finnally finished.  YAHOO!!!

      What made me get it back out again was my daughter.  We were walking around the Hobby Hobby, and she wanted to buy some DMC floss to make a friendship bracelet.  Above the floss were little kits for begginner cross stitchers.  She asked me if I would buy her one because she wanted to learn how to do it.  I told her no, because I didn't think she would finish it, but she begged and pleaded and promised that she would.  So I decided to go ahead and get it, after all it was only $2.00, and who was I to critizise her about not finishing it when I myself had three at home not finished. 

    When we got home, she said I should get out something to cross stitch while I helped her, so we went looking through my nightstand where I keep my projects and saw The Castle.  I noticed it was almost finished. All it needed was outlining on the dragon's wings and lower body.  So I decided I would work on it till it was done.  It only took me a couple hours.  I don't know why I didn't finish it early.  But it is finished now and I am so thrilled.  I just need to get it framed so I can put it on display and enjoy it.  :)

Scarecrow Postcard

I love this postcard!  First of all I just love this scarecrow design.  he is on my Halloween hat as well as some other projects I have done. His hands, hair, and feet are all fringed.  The design comes from Embroidery Library.  I really enjoy their designs.

I didn't want this cutie of a scarecrow standing all alone on brown fabric, so I fussy cut some pumpkins to go underneath him.  But then the top looked too plain, so I added some wavy hand stitching to the top to represent the sky.  I love how it turned out.  Hopefully Lori will too.  She was my partner for this swap.

Mosaic Color Play

I have signed up for a fun swap at IFQ called Mosaic Color Play. For this swap, my Partner sends me a 4 1/2 inch square piece of fabric that I have to use as the center of the Mosaic block. I add my fabrics to her square and mail back the completed block. At the same time, my partner is adding her fabrics to the fabric square I sent her. It is a lot of fun waiting for the fabric square to arrive in the mail and then trying to find fabrics in my stash that compliment the square my partner has sent. So far I have made and mailed three blocks. I have received two and am waiting for the third to come in the mail. As soon as my partner receives her block I will be able to sign up again.

Autumn Postcards

I have been busy the past couple days working on some fall themed postcards for my swap groups. The two similar ones are for ladies in Stashbusters, and the Pumpkin Embroidered one flies out my partner in Fabricards.

Embroidered Daisies Postcard

I spent the afternoon working on this postcard.  At first I was in the process of cutting out purple fabric for a quilt I'm working on. But as I was cutting, out of the blue, I thought that four of these purple triangles would look great on a postcard.  So I fiddled with them on a blank 4x6 piece of peltex and started adding more fabrics.  Then I thought to myself, it would look great with some hand embroidery on it.  So I got out my DMC floss and fiddled around.  I am still a beginner hand embroiderer and this is the first time I have done straight stitching to make a design, but I think it turned out lovely.  Now I just need to decide who should receive this in the mail.  :)

Quilting Feathers.... Sort of

I have read online that one way to get better at doing freehand machine quilted feathers is to practice drawing them on paper. Well, I did just that, but I think I got a little carried away.  Can you still see the feathers I started out with in this doodle?

It started out as an all black and white image, but my son told me to add some red to it, so I did.  I don't usually doodle in color, but here is the results.

A place for my knitting needles

I spent most of this week working on a new knitting needle case. I have lots of needles but I don't really use them all.  I got a good deal on eBay a few years ago for a whole pile of knitting needles. For a couple of dollars I got the few sizes I wanted and a lot of sizes that I didn't need. But being the pack rat that I am, I decided to keep the ones I didn't need with the thought that I may need them for some future project.

As I was cleaning out my room the other day I decided it was time for them to have a good home.  For years they all have been sitting jumbled together in a drawer in my night stand, and I always end up looking through the whole pile just to find the size I need. So that very day, I went to the internet looking for a good pattern. I came across quite a few, but this one from Alexandra's blog was my favorite so I printed out her tutorial and got to work.  I could have made this case from a pile of fat quarters, but since I didn't have a pile of fat quarters, I had to cut the pieces from my yardage.  While I was cutting my large strips, I realized I only needed half the strip I cut, so instead of having lots of leftover strip peices in various sizes, I decided to make two cases at one time. 

I did alter that pattern a bit by sewing more lines on the first pocket row.  I did this so I could add my crochet hooks to the roll.  The pattern said these wider pockets were good for holding circular needles, but I don't have any of those and didn't want to make another smaller roll just for my crochet hooks.  So for the one I am going to keep, I have one inch pockets on the bottom right instead of two four inch pickets.  I also altered the pattern by adding some decor bond behind each of the pockets and a layer of fusible fleece to the outside fabric.  The main reason I did this was because I didn't want the case to be flimsy and feel individual needles while I carried the roll around in my hands.  I was worried at first that all that extra layers might make it too stiff to roll, but it turned out great.  I love it!!

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. 

Indian Summer Mini Quilt

Here is my version of the "Indian Summer"  mini quilt swap for my Fabricards group.

 When I think of "Indian Summer"  I always think of changing leaves near a nice lake.  So I paper pieced some log cabins using fall colors and surrounded them by some blue fabric.  I had some left over fusible fleece just the right size for this quilt so I used it as the batting.  It sure gives it a different feel from the cotton batting I regularly use.  This quilt will head on it's way to Deborah in Florida tomorrow.  Hope she likes my interpretation of this theme.  :)

Tam's Pumpkin Patch Lap Quilt

This is my newest finish.  The block I used came from The Quilter's Cache.  It is called Tam's Patch.  This quilt has been sitting for awhile just waiting for me to finish the binding.  I didn't want another Halloween to pass without it being ready to use so I sat down last night and sewed down the three remaining edges.



















For the quilting, I put the feed dogs down on my machine and just went to town.  I did some fancy swirls in the light colored blocks and did some close stippling in the black fabric.  The border also has some loopy swirls going up and down.











My Jack-O-Lantern fabric wasn't quite wide enough to fit the whole backing, so I added some black starry strips on each side to make the backing big enough.












I really love this quilt, but have decided to post it in my Etsy Shop in hopes that it can raise some money to help fund my quilting and fabric postcard addiction.  ;)   Fall is coming and those are my favorite types of postcards to make and recieve.   So you will most likely be seeing lots of fall postcards popping up on the blog soon.

Another Girly Rag Quilt

Another finished quilt.  I finished clipping all the seams last night but I didn't get it washed and frayed till this morning and since this is a rag quilt you can't really declare it finished until it has the ragged look.  This one is for another little baby that is due in the next couple weeks.  These quilts sure are soft and snugly. It makes me want to have a big one for myself.  :)

Crazy Cat

Have you ever known a cat to pass up a pile of quilts to sleep on? I thought for sure as soon as I placed this pile of unfinished quilts on my bookcase it would become the new cat bed. But I guess they weren't quite soft enough for my cat, Jasper. Here he is sleeping on top of a row of hard books instead. Crazy Cat.

Sweet Slice

This is my version of the Sweet Slice pincushion pattern. My son said he wasn't tempted to eat it, since it is a chocolate cake. So I suppose that leaves more for me right? :)

The pattern called for crushed walnut shells for the stuffing, but I don't have any stores near me that carry that, so I had to stuff it with polyfil. I really would like to try that crushed walnut. I think it might sit better on the table and not be so wobbly. I will have to wait for my next trip to the "big city" and hopefully I can find it there. For now, polyfil will have to do.

Design Wall Monday

Quite a few blogs I read post what is on their design wall on Monday's. So I thought I would jump on the bandwagon and show what is on mine. This quilt is what I made out of the 388 half-square triangles I squared up in July. I still have quite a few of the blue and yellow ones, but I plan to use those as part of the back of this quilt.

My design wall in this photo is really just a big flannel board. But it works for this small quilt. It currently measures 18x22 inches. I am debating what kind of border or borders to add to it. Should I add small ones and keep it a doll sized quilt? Or make them a bit bigger to make it a quilt big enough for a new baby? Decisions, Decisions... But first I need to make some cake, some fabric cake that is. I'll keep you posted.

Another Bow Tucks - But Smaller

My daughter was invited to another Birthday party. This one is an overnight party down at the beach. She is very excited to go. But we didn't have a present, and when I kept asking her what she wanted to get her friend she said she didn't know. I suggested last night that she make her friend a necklace with her beading materials. She didn't seem excited about that. She did like my Bow Tucks bag though and kept telling me she wanted one like it but smaller, so this morning when we still didn't have a present, I asked her if she wanted me to make her friend one. She smiled and said yes but wanted to know if I could put her friend's initial on it. I told her that would be easy and I got to work. I also told her to start making her friend a necklace in case I didn't get the bag done in time.


I started at 9am this morning and spent the first 30 minutes trying to figure out how to make my regular pattern into a smaller size version. There is a mini bow tucks pattern, but I didn't have time to order that and wait a week for it to arrive, so I had to come up with the dimensions on my own.




By 1:20pm I had the bag finished, photographed, and wrapped. Her friend came to pick her up at 2pm so I had finished just in time to relax a bit before they got here.

For this version, I tried a contrasting pocket for the front. I'm not sure I like it. It is the same color as the center of the flowers on the top fabric, but it just seems to stick out way more than I wanted it to. I am also not liking the green. It is the same color as the tiny leaves, but it seems too bright now that it is all together.

My daughter says it is great though and she loves it. I sure hope her friend likes it too. I had my daughter model the bag for my camera. Her and her friend both have the same first name. So this bag could actually be for her too. :)