The year of the quilts

I already know what I'm doing for next xmas and I figure if I get half of them done, I'll be doing good.

Next year - this year - is the year of the quilts. I'm making postage stamp quilts for two friends, based on these lovely old embroidery patterns that have been converted into cross stitch patterns.

(Not the best pictures, but better than nothing.)

This two are from a book called "Small Scale Embroidery in Cross Stitch and other Techniques" by Brenda Keyes. The first one is called Elizabethan Flowers.



The second is from the same book and is called Victorian Flowers. It's much bigger, but the friend I am making it for has a much larger bed, as well as being married and needing more quilt to snuggle under.




The third is for that friend's daughter, one she asked me to make last year, but well, last year sucked. It's called New York Beauty out of a book called "In Love with Quilts" from Oxmore House. My friend wants it in purple and burgundy, which looks rather nice.




And the last one is from this years "Quilts" calendar and is for my uncle and his wife. I like Around the World patterns, my aunt likes blue and add in a bit of patchwork? Perfect. :)




Here's hoping this year is better than last.

xmas gifts

I had big plans for xmas crafts, which obviously were derailed. In the end, I only finished those crafts I had already started. I'll admit, I'm rather proud of the end results, but it was a rather paltry offering compared to what I usually do. Bless my friends, they understood.

There is a whole series of these black cat cross stitches. I got most of them on sale over the years and put aside, knowing that 'one day' I would make them and sure enough, they were the perfect gift for a friend with a a - wait for it - black cat.



These are a rather bittersweet gift. I spent most of my summer with my mom and since this series was small, portable and simple (black, black and more black), I kept them at the house to do while she was sleeping and we were watching movies.




They also went a rather circuitous route to completion. My initial idea was to frame them and then I was going to make them into door pulls and at once point I even toyed with the idea of turning four of them into an open cube to be used as a catch-all for a desk. In the end, I backed them and stuffed them, turning them into cute little pillows. :) I'm rather pleased with the end result.




This was the other cross stitch I spent the summer on, finally finishing it and turning it into a bit of a wall hanging/tapestry.




And finally I gave my friend the afghan I had meant for her birthday last October. She loves the colors, which suit her to a T.

Finished too late

My mother died in the night, slipping away in her sleep, the pain that has been plaguing her for so long finally at an end, though ours will continue for a time.

Looking around my house, my eyes keep falling on half-finished projects. A cross-stitch piece that would have been the front panel of a purse. A pattern for a nice dress and jacket set, a crocheted sweater, the pattern for a hat, all things I was making for her or had planned to give her for her birthday or xmas. Most of it will never be finished now, some will never be started. The sewing patterns will be added to my pattern collection, the cross stitch and crochet patterns added to my already full shelves, the fabric and yarn added to my stash, maybe to see use one day when I can look at it and not think about her.

Two things, one for her and one for me, I finished only today, too late to show her.



This sweater was for her. She's been asking for a sweater for a while, but we could never agree on a pattern or a yarn; I think we enjoyed the discussion more than anything else. I made this on a whim, thinking she would enjoy it and since it was something I picked, we would be able to continue our fruitless, never-ending argument. Now an argument that will truly never end.

It's made from four crocheted quilt squares that had originally been intended for a crocheted afghan, but in the end was converted to this sweater. I think it's rather pretty and it will go into my closet, though I'm not sure I will be able to wear it any time soon.






This poncho is for me, made from granny squares and carron so soft. I think the colors are great, not so bright it's uncomfortable to wear, but beautiful, slightly muted tones that just look great. Even mom thought so, when I showed her the half-finished project a couple weeks ago, before she began to loose her memory and ability to stay in the here and now.

Long summer

It's been a long summer and I'm glad that it's over, but I've come out of it with a half dozen almost-finished projects from nearly ever craft hobby I have. Yes, I admit it, I'm a flitter. A bit here, a bit there, over there and back again.

One of my first hobbies, the one I picked up on my own instead of learning from someone else as I did crochet and sewing, is cross stitch. I was in college, I needed something to work on and WalMart - at the time - had a fair selection of cheap and easy cross stitch patterns.

I let it fall off for years, but a whim had me picking it up again and now I have plans for gifts both this year and next. This is for a friend of mine. I'll put it in a shadow box and add a couple whimsical shoes.



The first day of fall is in late September and I'm working on ponchos for a couple friends. The blue is from the summer issues of Crochet Interweave and the second - though this picture ruins the color, it's a combination of pink and green that I quite like - uses a diagonal stitch that sometimes is called the crazy stitch.





I'm slowly making my way through my small group of friends, making them afghans for the hols and bdays. This is for my shoe-friend up above. She was down this weekend and I forgot and left this bright beastie out where she spotted it. Thankfully, she
commented on how much she liked the colors. Phew. It's much (much) brighter in real life, rows and rows of mitred squares.



One of the first quilts I tried to make was a postage stamp quilt. Epic disaster, if I do say so myself. As much as I enjoy looking at these exercises in frustration, I have avoided making another until I came across the technique where long strips of blocks can be sew together vertically and then horizontally, creating even corners and an almost-stress free sewing experience.

Enter in a cross-stitch sampler pattern that just screams to be made into a quilt. This is the first four blocks, a hundred inch and a half squares (yeah, I have a couple screws loose) per block, 10 blocks by 10 blocks. The plan is to have it made by xmas for my mom. She might have to wait until next year.

And an important note for anyone thinking about doing this. I went to the store and found the floss recommended by the pattern and used that to pick out my colors. Otherwise I would have made a huge mess.



And finally something for me, because every crafter knows you have to do stuff for yourself as well as other people or burn out. This is based around Caron's Tulsa jacket, but in bright neon colors and black, because I'm peculiar like that, in microspun, which is silky soft and light.

I've been beading

Well, I've been doing a bit of everything this summer - and thank the crafting gods that this summer is over - but the beading is what I've got finished.

When you live in a very small town where the local craft/fabric/yarn store is in fact WalMart and getting to an actual craft store is a bit out of range at the moment, you learn to make do with what you got and get a bit creative.

I've gotten a bit creative. :)

Ribbon, pony beads and pendants are about the easiest and cheapest things going. As much as I love the exquisite collars and delicate frou-frou necklaces that are so common in the beading mags, I don't make them and I sure don't wear them. I would break them within moments of fastening the clasp.

Ribbon, et al, are much more forgiving and in their own way, just as attractive.

Sometimes I do it simply. A length of ribbon, a pony bead and loop for closure, a pendant and voila, necklace.





Sometimes I get creative and crochet beads into the yarn.





Sometimes I get silly and see how long I can make the chain along with the beads and sometimes a heavy pendent.





And sometimes I get even more creative. Yes, that is a peyote stitch with pony beads and yarn. The current plan is to go until I either run out of beads or ribbon. No clasp, I'll simple knot it behind my neck (I prefer pedants about halfway between my cleavage and the base of my throat) and let the ends (already long) dangle down my back. Might be a bit odd, but I think it will be a neat effect.




Coming soon, afghans, shawls, quilts and cross stitch oh my.

The costumes

Not the greatest pics, but it's hard to do this right when you live alone. It's not like my cats can take the pics, lol.



The woman who was going as fire had to cancel. I was less than pleased with the way one of my costumes was going and here were perfectly good black wings (see previous post) going to waste. :) I found some thin black fabric for a shirt and harem pants and some red for a bodice and voila, fire fairy.



This is the earth fairy and it's brighter in real life. That green is like a line green and it's trimmed with purple. The shirt and pants are a dark colored but lightweight jungle type print. I'm an earth fairy on acid. :)




A good view of the wings. I took a normal bodice pattern and simply made it longer and put bias tape around the edges for a bit of punch. Because of the way the shirts lay - exposing my upper chest and shoulders - sunscreen is going to be a must.



And my friend's toga, made without a pattern. I found a picture and just made it up as I went along and I'm very pleased with the end result.



The wings look really good with the toga, probably the best looking of the bunch.

First a note about wings

About the wings...it's like an addiction. Once I figured out the basic idea and got over my 'i can't make wings like that!' and figured out that wings were wings and it didn't really matter that they weren't perfect and like movie-wings, I had a blast. I'm having a hard time stopping and actually ended up making wings for both days instead of just one. :)



This set... I had a lot of fun with this one. It's for my 'earth fairy' costume. I was going to go with browns and greens, a proper earth fairy, then well...that was boring, so I went for bright instead in greens and purples.

I simply wrapped the wire together, covered it in floral tape and tied tufts of green and purple net along the way. I also covered an elastic headband and wristbands in the stuff. A bit itchy, but the overall look is great.



This is actually one of my last attempts. I simply croceheted around the wire frame with sparkly gold yarn and though it doesn't really show up well here, in real life, it's rather pretty. A friend is wearing a 'store bought' costume the second day and the yarn on this matches a snood I made her. The dress is restrained by my standards, so I was going for something simple and discreet.




This one isn't quite finished, but everything else is and I didn't want to delay posting pics and enjoying a sense of a job well done, so...just pretend this one is finished. I found a different type of wire for the last set of wings, it's thinner but a bit stronger than the first type and I discovered it twists in such a way that will very little effort, I get nearly perfect 'butterfly' type wings. If I had known the first time around there would have been fewer temper tantrums!