a kitty clutch

Our daughter works on a farm with 5 horses & a zillion cats.  The owner loves her kitties like nobody's business.

So when one of those kitties dies, it is truly devastating to her.

And that is exactly what happened.  Tinker died and our daughter wanted to give her employer something to help alleviate the pain.

(this is our cat, Daffy approving the choice of fabric)

So of course, my mind is scrambling ... "what can I make her??!..."

Something from yarn?  Fabric?

Knowing that I needed it yesterday & the for the simple fact that I can sew way faster than I can knit or crochet ~ sewing it is!

A little wallet clutch with applique kitty.

Completely made up from my head ----> read: no pattern.

I love cats & I love how cute this turned out.  And so quickly.

Seriously.  I need to sew more.

butterfly in knots

Seeing a wonderful project involving french knots, I asked myself just how hard can it be to embroider a 'few' french knots!? Keep in mind that I had to get this done in about a week.
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Ha.



And after about the billionth french knot -- and yes, I saw them in my sleep -- I swore I would never make another french knot. Ever. Who knew making these things could take soooooooo long! Phew.

~

Anyway. I do love french knots and got the delightful pattern from this book:

I used a little bit of a different color scheme -- love the periwinkles! Then raided my stash for some sort of complimentary fabric for the border. And finished it with machine quilting in a pearly meandering.

I purchased a ornate candle holder from the Dollar Store and had my husband clip off the candle
part of it and was left with this whimsical hangar. Because the candle holder was a dark burnished color, I aged it all vintage-y looking with white paint dabbed on with a sponge.

Whimsical and blissful. Even if the french knots were almost the death of me.....

birdhouse

The busy-ness of school winding down in our house has left all of us scurrying here and scurrying there trying to get. everything. done.
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But I can find time to sew. And even tho I seem to have this love-hate relationship with fabric lately -- ugh -- I love the picking out of fabrics. The putting together of complimentary colors, but oh, the absolute physical reluctance to sew it into anything -- it has become such a love/hate relationship for me.

So, I will stick to smaller projects. Projects that make me smile with ease and not cringe with overwhelmingness -- is that a word?

Choosing pastel prints and trying to think of something pretty to applique, I decided on a birdhouse. I merely drew this from my head onto fusible web and ironed it to muslin.

And what's a birdhouse without wild roses winding their way around the post?

A gift for my sister-in-law. Her entry way is decorated with so many birdhouses. You just can't have too many birdhouses welcoming your guests when they enter your house. Right? Well, I hope she agrees!

A bit of simpleness with a vintage, white button.

A birthday birdhouse for not only for someone who is my sister-in-law, but for someone who has become a dear, dear friend.

crocheted peony brooch

As a teacher and now as a parent, I always love(d) when Teacher Appreciation Day rolled around (May 5) because I loved receiving tiny trinkets from such dear, dear students. But now as a parent, I love making these tiny trinkets of appreciation for our children's teachers.

For our son's teacher, I crocheted a fuchsia peony and added a vintage earring to the middle. And then my -aha!- moment -- I sewed fabric leaves that are actually these petals from this flower tutorial I did. Versatile. I like that!

So, Mrs. Friday -- this is in appreciation for all that you do!

finally joining

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I am seeing white. Lots & lots (...........did I say 'lots'?) of white. . All of these white hexies are being hand sewn....
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...and finally being joined to the colorful grandmother's flower garden blocks.
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I loooooooooove the way these blocks come to life. Half of the fun of this quilt is matching the fabrics. The other half is the quietness of piecing these hexies together.
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Now. Let's see. How many more to go before this is a queen-sized quilt?

calico eggs & bunny

When your threadwork becomes unraveled, you simply re-sew, re-thread or re-crochet any stitches that have come undone. However -- when life seems to unravel at an amazing speed, you sometimes simply stand there.
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I've been standing. And leaning. And trying to restitch.
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Thank goodness for a husband with huge shoulders.
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And yes, we are now seeing brighter days -- hey! No one told me raising a teen-age daughter involved so many heart-wrenching decisions.....

Now--there is stitching to be done!......

Ahhhh. Yes. I can not forget to thank you lovely blogirl-friends who expressed concern about my absence! A virtual hug to you. xxoo



The pattern for these calico eggs & bunny is from a book that my great-aunt was throwing away. And I don't even have the book, just these few pattern pages from the book. Ugh, I know!

The egg is so very easy and quick to sew.

And the bunny -- so, so cute!

Eggs-actly what I needed.

sewing & mending

These last few days before we gather together to give thanks -- I am spending in front of my sewing machine. Yay. I think I might just get this 'Pumpkin Crazy' wall-hanging completed before Thursday!

And yes, if you know me, the most troublesome part of completing something like this is -->the quilting. Between the thread breaking & a complete tangle of threads on the bottom.... I. don't. like. this. part. I know I must be doing something wrong. It is such a hair-pulling endeavor.........and I see all of your quilts and your beautiful quilted stitches -- oh, please, zap some of your gifted sewing talent my way!

~

Hmmm. Or I wonder. Can Santa fit a long-arm in his sleigh?

~~

As for the mending --

Jake is indeed mending after his hit-and-run accident. (Sheesh! Who hits a dog and just drives away?) He is slowly healing and gaining back his playfulness -- much to the delight of everyone in this household.

1980's facelift

I have a bare spot on the wall in our hall and it needs some sort of wall-hanging.

Here is the first block that I am working on for that wall-hanging. I want a somewhat folk-art feeling to the small quilt and just used iron-on fusible for each piece and button-hole stitched to finish off the edges.

The pattern came from a book I found from the thrift store---an applique album quilt with a 1980's copyright.

Obviously the 80's involved quilts being verrrrrrrry puffy and ruffly....and not exactly my kind of color scheme.

So I pulled colors from fabrics I like and put together this block called Tulip Time:

And this block which is called, Peaceful Dove (and yes, with the colors I chose, mine is more of a Chubby Robin....)

And this one, which I love, is called Tulip Ring:

A nice face-lift for a beautiful block. I even find myself back-tracking when I walk past this when it's just sitting there my table waiting to be finished----wow. A timeless pattern that is still so desirable.

little mice

I needed a small gift for 4 sisters who just got a brand new baby brother. Friends of ours welcomed their 5th child recently and they were thrilled that after 4 precious girls they were blessed a baby boy. Yay!

I remembered this adorable mouse pattern from Molly Chicken awhile back and thought--"wouldn't 4 little sisters love to get 4 little mice?" (And Mom welcomed the boy outfit we purchased----after all of those pink, girly outfits she is thrilled to be dressing one of her babies in blue and bold!)

Here are 2 of the mice. My, oh, my, they turned out adorable. And Molly Chicken also
includes the how-tos for making a sleeping bag to go along with the tiny mice.

They were so much fun to sew and so very easy and quick.

The girls loved getting them and I will definitely be marking this project as a favorite and filing it under "sew-cute-to-make & sew-cute-to-play-with"!

heart day

thanks to orange flower for this heart tutorial.

I found a place for those rick-rack flowers...............

Happy Valentine's Day.

rick-rack flowers

I found some old rick-rack that my mom was throwing away (what's that saying? ---

"Grandma had it; Mom threw it away; and now I'm buying it back."

Well in this case I didn't have to purchase it, but I did need to jump up and snatch it before she stuffed it into the waste-basket.)

So I started putting colors together. I have this Simplicity pattern from a loooooooooooong time ago and it shows how to make these funky rick-rack flowers.

So this is what I came up with. Not too funky, but actually quite, hmmmm...I don't know. Whimsy-like flowers.

Pretty nifty! I love the 3-dimensional quality of these and oh! the possibilities of where I can put them. Maybe a tote. Or a zippered pouch. Or a dish towel that is-not-to-be-used-it's-only-for-decoration. (Ha. My husband loves those kind of towels.)

Or maybe something added to a quilted wall-hanging. Who knows. I'm still scratching my head about what to do with them. But for now, they look pretty in the sunlight that was streaming through the window.

pincushion & pj's

Our teen daughter is taking a fashion design class at school and her first project was to sew a pin cushion...

A chicken pincushion!

I love the simplicity of the design and the chicken design gives it such a whimsical look. It's filled with sand and she's 'pleased as punch' about how well her first project turned out.

They also had to make some pajama bottoms. This was her first attempt at clothing, and man! oh, man! she did such a good job.

She has about 10 other pairs that we have either purchased or gotten as hand-me-downs, and she says these are the most comfortable pair she owns!

Yes, they do have that slept-in look don't they?