Archive Page 2

Hexagon Quilt

I’ve been seeing some hexagon quilts around lately and falling in love with them, I quickly forgot the difficulty of my last hexagon project.  This baby quilt is for a little guy named Dash born on Christmas eve.

hexagon quilt-Lo-Fi

I went through my stash and pulled out everything that was bluish or greenish without flowers.  Then I threw in a dash of orange (pun intended).  Funny, ‘cuz looking at it here it doesn’t look particularly boyish.  I built the quilt mainly around Sarah Jane’s Children at Play.

Hexagon Quilt - front

Love this line of fabric!  Lots of rockets, paper airplanes, and stripes for boys and hopscotch, florals, and gingham for girls.

hexagons
The back was much easier to put together.  If you look closely you can see where I didn’t have the backing pulled tightly enough during quilting.  But thankfully the wrinkling process is very forgiving.

Hexagon Quilt - back

I have another hexagon project in mind – one that will definitely be easier.

Last-Minute Christmas

Today is Christmas Eve and I am grateful to have gotten some baking done.  Instead of cookies for the neighbors this year it was fresh-baked bread and a jar of jam.

Bread wrap 1

 And each loaf needed it’s own bread wrap so a little last minute sewing was in order.

Bread wrap 2

We love this bread recipe.  It’s dense and heavy and makes great toast.

My favorite gift-wrapping  job this year?  A tomato container that held my mil’s gift of sewing accessories.
present

Tomorrow we celebrate with good food and good company.  I wish you all blessings this Christmas!

Oh, and someone else is feeling festive over here.

 Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Quilted Cushions

Three girls.

Three favorite colors: pink, yellow, purple.

Three quilted cushions for Christmas.

quilted pillows

Well, three plus one, actually.  I went a little overboard with the pink quilting and had enough for an extra one.  It’s in the shop.

quilted pillows 1

All fabric was from my stash.  I was a little afraid that I wouldn’t have enough for the purple one, but I shouldn’t have been.  There is still plenty of purplish fabric in the stash even though I don’t remember ever specifically shopping for purple fabric.

Before…
quilted pillows 2
After…

quilted pillows closeup
I love the transformation of fabric.

And I love quilting.

I made a dog toy!

A couple of weeks ago I came across some old skeins of wool that I had forgotten about and I turned them into felted balls.  I thought they would make a great dog toy for my giant dog who loves to chew on soft things, but after about 2 minutes he had chewed through the outer felted layer and spread yarn all over the room.  Fun for him, not so fun for me.

Then over Thanksgiving we dog sat a little dachshund and he didn’t have any toys, poor boy.  On top of that, our dog’s toys were about the size of this little guy’s head – way too big for him.  Here he is, posing with my latest project – isn’t he cute?

So I gave him a little wool ball and he loved it!  The good news is that he can’t tear it apart.  For the most part he just runs around with it, but catching a shot of a running dog is impossible for me so here he is mouthing it.  Any loose fuzzies can be trimmed off so he doesn’t ingest any.

He’s a cutie. I love our big, burly, 100-lb lab, but I can see the advantages of a little dog (like how he doesn’t knock me over when we’re playing).
Buddies.

Crayon Legos

Around Christmas I like to give my little children’s church and Bible study kids a little something handmade.  When I found these Lego molds at this Etsy shop, my love of crayon melting kicked in and  I knew I had found the perfect boyish gift.  The girls will be getting crayon cupcakes.

crayon legos

These guys are 1 1/2″ tall.

My biggest beef with melting crayons is the process of peeling the paper off.  It’s a pain.  It makes my  hands hurt for days and it’s really not worth all the hassle.  That’s why my kids help me.  But I don’t feel good about making their hands work so hard either so I came up with a solution.  I cut through the paper on my paper cutter…

crayon cutting

and the boys peel the paper off.

crayon peeling

The cutting can be a bit tricky and takes a little getting used to.  In fact, I don’t let my kids do it (except for taking these pictures) because of the potential for cutting your finger.  I have another paper cutter that doesn’t hold the crayon well and I’ve given myself a nice injury before using that one.  If you want to try it, make sure you tape a little piece of foam or cardstock to the base to keep the crayon from sliding while cutting.

Instructions for crayon melting are here.

Quilt Market – Fall 2011

It was a last-minute, quickly-planned trip.  Short and sweet.  I think this is the way I prefer to do Quilt Market:  grab Cindy, drive down in the morning, take it all in, drive home in the late afternoon.

For me, seeing the new products is just part of the fun.  Here are some of the things that caught my eye.

COLOR INSPIRATION

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Moda Fabrics, A Stitch in Color, by Malka Dubrawsky

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Robert Kauffman Fabrics

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Art Gallery Fabrics, Modernology, by Pat Bravo

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Windham Fabrics, Echo, by Lotta Jansdotter

DESIGN INSPIRATION

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Shabby Chic by Rachel Ashwell

While I loved this fabric, the wooden walls on this booth made me want to put wooden walls in my own home someplace.

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Anna Griffin Fabrics, Kitchy Kitchen, by Maude Asbury

I’m not a big veggie fabric person, but the veggies on the top print were done beautifully.  Love the ladder.  I want one for my living room.

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Michael Miller Fabrics

Michael Miller’s booth display is always over-the-top fun.

PROJECT INSPIRATION

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Such Designs Sewing Patterns by Carrie Bloomston

Carrie Bloomston’s booth and patterns stood out to me as super creative and sweet – just my kind of projects.  Check out her designs here and you’ll fall in love with them just like I did!

Quilt Market Fall 2011

Cloud 9 Fabrics

No little girls in my house, but if there were, we’d have one of these. What a fun idea!  Love the curtains in the windows!

WRAP UP

Quilt Market is inspiring every year and this year did not disappoint.  Hopefully a little bit of the inspiration I found can inspire you as well!

Brickheads

How can I call myself crafty and never have made a costume for my kids for trick-or-treatin’?  All these years of watching people do things for their kids and I’ve never had anything to show.  Well all that has changed.  The kids were supposed to have a Lego-themed costume for a trunk-or-treat.  They all had soccer games, with no time to change so these were perfect.  Brickheads!

This experience has taught me that I prefer sewing to spray painting, but the kids loved them.   When I heard some kids say, “Look!  Lego heads!  Cool!”  the little kid in me had to smile.  A nice bonus is that brickheads are easy to spot in a crowd.

And now they look pretty cool up in the toy room.

Cad Bane has been trapped on a planet of giant brick mountains.
But worse, he has lost his hat…

Grandma

Do you ever read stories about women in the “olden days” and wonder how they could be so strong?  Sometimes I wonder if I would act similarly in a situation or if I would just crumple in a heap and give up.  My Grandma was one of those women.  She was widowed with 8 children and was able to leave China with them in the 40s before the communists took over.

**I have a feeling that last statement just got my blog banned from a certain large country in the Far East**

Anyway, I mention her here because not only was she strong and brave woman of faith, but she was also a seamstress and the daughter of a seamstress.  She passed away when I was in 2nd grade so my memories of her are few, but now as a mom who sews to maintain my sanity, I find myself wondering if she and I would have had much in common.  Our conversations might go something like this,

Me:  “Grandma, how did you find the strength to take care of all your children after Grandpa passed away?”

Grandma:  “Well, dear, God gives you strength when you feel you have no more.”

Me:  “I don’t know if I could have done what you did.  It seems so incredibly hard to have 3 kids and a dog.  I don’t know if I could manage 8.”

Grandma:  “Well, dear, you are rather wimpy in that you have 2 cars, a house and an easy life.  Perhaps you are too soft to handle the kinds of pressures I had to deal with.”

JUST KIDDING.  I know she wouldn’t say that, but then again, she might have thought it because I think it about myself ALL the time.

Yep, these really are pictures of my Grandma.  In fact, the littlest one in the chair and hat is my dad!  Such a cutie.  I wish I had a picture of her sitting at the sewing machine.  I wore several dresses that she made for me.  The only picture I could find was one of my sister wearing a dress she made.  So sweet!

I’m honored to have this kind of history in my family.  Grandmothers on both sides who sewed and a mom that taught me to sew when I was young enough to get my finger stuck under the needle on the sewing machine.  That’s something you don’t quickly forget.

He’s Stellar!


When we were on vacation this summer, hiking in the mountains, resting for a snack on a large boulder, there was a little blue and black bird that hopped around us while we ate our snack.  He had the cutest little grouping of feathers on his head.  They made him look a little cocky and a little silly all at once.  I had to snap some shots of him.  After a little internet search I found out that he had a name.  He was a Stellar Jay.

Today is the first post of my tutorial for an advent calendar over on SewMamaSew!  This little project was a lot of fun to create and there is plenty of time to make it before Christmas.  I liked the idea of a pear tree, but couldn’t really bring myself to try to draw a partridge.  A partridge isn’t a super cute bird imo so I decided to go with something a little more stellar.

So in honor of that friendly little guy who probably would have loved some of my granola bar, but didn’t get any, I’ve added him to this advent calendar.  Not a partridge, to be sure, but certainly just as handsome, if not more.

In A Pear Tree


“In A Pear Tree” Advent Calendar

I’ve been putting together an advent calendar tutorial for SewMamaSew. Information is on her blog  here (note: there are prizes involved).

The pears on the ground and the leaves around the tree open up to create 24 windows behind which Christmas-themed art can be hidden.  My proudest part of this project is that the windows are held open with little buttons.

The first post is on Wednesday!  I hope you all enjoy.  The Flickr group (should you be so inclined to join) is here.

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Craft Apple

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, right? Well, crafting is my apple. It's what I do to maintain my sanity while taking care of the little guys that live here (my three sweet kiddos - ages 8, 9, and 10), and homeschooling. I am a quilter, a bagaholic, and a pattern designer.
© 2006-2012 Craft Apple Creations

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