Susie Can Stitch

Olfa Cutter

2011-07-05T17:19:00.007-05:00

It was a great Independence Day weekend here at the Susie Can Stitch house. I even got a little bit of sewing in! I had a Craft Critique deadline to meet and I got my article in on Saturday just barely on time.

I got to test out the Olfa Quick Change Rotary Cutter. Which is an indispensable tool for any sewer.

I used my rotary cutter to make a set of reusable shopping bags:

And I used specialty blades to make this frilly felt flower:

Comment on any of the Craft Critique Olfa posts running today and tomorrow, July 5-6, for a chance at our Olfa giveaway. I don't know how I could sew or quilt without one!

I love comments on my blog, but to qualify for the giveaway, you have to go over to Craft Critique!

Silhouette Giveaway

2011-06-29T10:08:00.002-05:00

Dreaming about one of those fancy electronic paper cutting machines? Craft Critique is giving away a Silhouette SD. With this printing and cutting machine, you can use their downloadable designs or you can design on your own using their computer software.

Papercrafters are very enthusiastic about this versatile cutting machine. Head on over to Craft Critique and check it out. Leave a comment there before July 2, 2011 to qualify.

Practical Guide To Patchwork Review

2011-06-18T09:51:00.004-05:00

My review of Elizabeth Hartman's book The Practical Guide to Patchwork is up over at Craft Critique.

It is an excellent book with very good modern quilt patterns. I had fun choosing some modern prints for the quilt top I made.

She always presses her seams open which is.. um.. not a technique I prefer, but it was necessary for the pattern I chose to make. I started this project way back before Christmas but I had to set it aside to host the holiday and only finished it this spring.

Check it out at Craft Critique!

Baby Boy Bibs

2011-06-18T09:16:00.005-05:00

There were a couple of baby boys born to friends recently. I have trouble crafting for boys, but bibs and receiving blankets are easy as there are lots of good novelty prints suitable for small boys.

These receiving blankets are a soft flannel on one side and a cotton print on the other and bound with packaged double fold binding. Fabrics are all prewashed and dried in the dryer. I make these blanket about 42 inches square, so they are larger than the little receiving blankets you purchase at the department store. At least they were larger than what was available a decade ago when I had babies!

I also made these baby bibs. Each is a layer of prewashed flannel and a fun novelty print. These bibs are more absorbent with two layers of flannel, but I forgot about that little tip until after the bibs were finished and packaged.

Honestly, I woke with a start in the middle of the night thinking, "TWO layers of flannel!" In any case, they are still absorbent and cute! I found a simple pattern free on the internet. They snap in the back.

One set of these were given at a shower to a mom who is an anthropologist/environmental scientist, so decorated the package with this elephant from the Martha Stewart website using fusible web backed fabric that I ironed on to brown paper. Have you tried finding something on the Martha Stewart website? Good grief... I'll keep looking for the elephant pattern and link to it if I find it.

My spring project this year was to organize my whole fabric stash in the basement. I'd say that I have needed to do that for about 4 years or more, but I finally got to it after rewiring some extra lighting down there and installing a television that runs Netflix Instant. I have a lot of fabric. In fact, I started to feel guilty, like I haven't sewn enough or something, but then I remembered all the quilts and pouches and bags and pillowcases I've sewn and I realized I've sewn plenty and I should not feel guilty about my hoard. I even used up some of the stash of red fabrics my grandmother started collecting for a Craft Critique review that will run soon. Here is a sneak peek at that project:

Catching Up

2011-03-03T16:12:00.005-06:00

In February, Craft Critique ran my review of Arterro Kits. These kits are really high quality, great for kids, and there was a giveaway.

I hope you add Craft Critique to your blog reader because there are so many giveaways, I can't keep up!

This month, I reviewed the Slice Fabrique. It was really fun to test! We are giving some away, so just answer the question at the bottom of the article to qualify for the drawing. Remember, the giveaway is at Craft Critique, not here.

Look what I made with it! I did this happy banner (or is it a bunting?):

I added these applique to a couple of felt bowls I already had made. These are those kinds of things that have snaps at each corner so they store flat, but easily snap into a useful little cloth bowl:
I also make this monogrammed bag for a little girl I know who has a new baby brother. Inside the bag is a little bunny doll, but I totally forgot to photograph the doll. It was a mini-moopy which I downloaded years ago when she offered it as a free pattern.

Her little brother got some bibs and a blanket, but I will wait to share those until they are received.

Happy Spring! I'm sorry I rarely post anymore, I still get site stats, but I wonder if anyone still has me on their blog readers.

Snowtorious 2011, SNOMG, Snopocalypse

2011-02-02T12:20:00.003-06:00

It was a blizzard alright! Just a little bit south of us toward downtown Chicago, they even got thundersnow. I think instead of that, judging by the photos I'm seeing online, we got a couple extra inches of the fluffy stuff. School is cancelled for the next couple of days and everyone is out shoveling and plowing.

That's the snow drift blocking the second story window in my foyer. Here are my neighbors across the street plowing it all away with their monster snow blowers. On my side of the street we have good old fashioned shovels. You can see the snow at the street covers the mailboxes.

They came over later in the morning and plowed us out, so I'll be baking cookies for them this afternoon. The kids are having a blast!

Hoopla Swap 3

2011-01-25T11:28:00.003-06:00

Check out my Craft Critique review of the terrific book Scandinavian Stitches by Kasja Wikman. The article ran a few weeks ago and I did all the crafting in a flurry before Christmas.The book is full of terrific seasonal projects. I highly recommend it.

I also recently did another Hoopla swap on Craftster. For this one, we needed to exchange a tiny 2 to 3 inch hoop motif. Because if the small size and because my partner, pugwash, mentioned him in her sign up information, I stitched up a little Mario:

A few days later the hoop she stitched for me arrived. We were completely on the same wavelength because she did a piranha plant for me:

Swapping is really fun. Thanks, Pugwash!

Amy Sedaris

2011-01-15T18:13:00.005-06:00

Have you seen Amy Sedaris' new craft book, Simple Times, Crafts for Poor People?

Judging by the wildly varied reviews on Amazon, Amy Sedaris is not for everyone. I am not offended by her tongue-in-cheek suggestions to refashion household items into useless silly crafts like rope dolls, marshmallow stars, and fake hot plates.

Here she shows how to make pom poms (she calls them pompons) using big scary scissors that don't cut well at all. I bet you have several pairs of bad scissors in your house you simply can't throw away:

I received this book twice for Christmas. I took some time to go through it and came upon this layout in the "Crafting for Jesus" chapter:

These are "Jesus Coins"

Cut a circle pattern out of cardboard. Use this pattern to cut felt pieces of the same size. Glue the felt pieces over the cardboard coin. This represents "sticking with Jesus." Any image you remember from the Bible can be recreated and placed on your coin.

These, hilariously, look quite similar to the felt disks I stitched up for my advent calendar. I made these in 2007, but only blogged about them this winter.

See my glowing cross in the center? That's the one we hang Christmas Eve. Here is Amy's from the book:

Too funny. I love this video too. Especially when none of the 5 bottles of glue she has works:

The various things I made for Christmas

2011-01-14T14:15:00.008-06:00

I am really behind sharing my projects! I made things for Christmas, but as usual, I didn't get to photograph them. My favorite items were the crochet edged pillowcases. I made 3 sets for 6 pillowcases in all. They looked great! How could I have neglected to photograph them?

I used THIS BOOK and the edges looked even better than those in the article...

Also for Christmas gifts, I made some reusable shopping bags from my fabric stash. I saw this pattern for a fabric produce bag online at Daisey Janie. That was an excellent pattern and I made 6 bags from it as gifts for an early holiday gathering we had a few weeks before Christmas. Alas.. I really craft in a rush for Christmas and I didn't photograph those either. The pattern conveniently uses a fat quarter and ends up quite narrow. Perfect for a produce bag, but I thought I could try modifying it to achieve a more useful size.

I used a full half yard and got this perfectly sized bag that measures 15 inches high by about 17 inches wide. I love that these bags roll up neatly when not in use. I also love the way the sales clerks respond when I pull these out to use them: "Nice bag!" "You made it?!" Sure! It was easy! You could do it too!

I've made a lot of reusable bags, but this is by far my favorite pattern. I made these two for me and another set of 4 for my mother-in-law. The fabric I used for hers was quite nice, but you'll just have to imagine it.

Take a look at this beautiful Queen Anne's Lace Scarf by fantasticmio on Craftster. When I saw that, I simply had to make one EXACTLY like it for my mom. I also got another colorway of the Bernat Mosaic yarn to make one for my Mother-in-law. They turned out terrific and that is a really nice yarn. This is the one by fantasticmio, but the one for my mom looked pretty much exactly the same:

My mom understands my crafty urges and she got me some cool yarns for Christmas. I've been playing around with them. First I made this Worm Scarf from a pattern by Julie Weisenberger using Lumpy Bumpy Yarn by Charlene.

I think there is a smudge on my camera... This yarn is really funky and squishy and I love the way this scarf turned out. I've been wearing it a lot since it is really wintery where I live.

Mom and I were really on the same wavelength in our yarn choices because she also got me this rainbow colorway of Mochi Plus yarn which is very much like the yarn I used for her scarf except Mochi Plus is wool and Bernat Mosaic is acrylic.

Since I already made two Queen Anne's Lace scarves, I decided to try playing with some of the motifs in my crochet books. This is my first try. It is maybe a little too lacy, I am not sure..

Once I started playing with crochet motifs, I pulled some stuff out of my stash to try this little clover pattern:

Here is the center:

And four motifs crocheted together:

Pretty cute, but my daughter turned up her nose and declared, "I don't like it, Mom." I like crafting for the seasons and holidays, but this may be just a little bit overboard to make a scarf like this for St. Patrick's Day.

I did even more crafting for some articles at Craft Critique. More on those later.

Small Treat Totes

2010-12-09T10:26:00.003-06:00

The pattern for these was in the fall issue of Quilts and More. You can get the pattern online HERE. As soon as I saw them in the magazine, I knew I had to make them. They are called Small Treat Totes by designer Monica Solorio-Snow of Happy Zombie.

They came together really quickly, but I don't really notice the passing of time when I work on certain projects. I am not sure what I will use them for, but they are super cute!

Advent Garland

2010-12-02T13:08:00.003-06:00

Since Jenny at Allsorts is revisiting this project from the past, I thought I'd share my version of it too. Back in 2007, as soon as I saw her felt pocket garland, I had to make one, even though I scarcely have room for any more holiday decorations. We don't have a mantle, so I have to get creative about where the stockings and garlands go.

Here is the Advent garland hanging over our old sorry sofa. I used to try to mask the pitifulness of that sofa with pretty blankets and pillows, but it was really bad. This is the post I wrote on the glorious day the garbage truck came and took it away.

Her pattern has some cute printables that you take out of the felt pouches each day, but I made a variety of seasonable felt applique disks. I loved making these and could scarcely stop until they were all done.

My kids actually agreed that we didn't need to stuff the envelopes with candy too. There is hardly ever a shortage of treats around here.

We celebrate Advent, but Happy Hanukkah to my Jewish friends and readers!

Hoopla Round 2

2010-11-29T14:21:00.003-06:00

Look what Luckdragon stitched for me in the Embroidery Hoopla Round 2 swap on Craftster!

I love the french knot lei on the little boy. She did a little bit of crayon tinting and it makes a very nice effect. I also like the thick texture of the girl's hair.

I just signed up for round 3 of this swap. This one went very fast and was a lot easier than the Tea Towel Tours I used to co-organize. Those were an extravaganza of messages, mailouts, and communications. This is a simple exchange with no extras. I imagine a nice display wall of hoops as I do more swapping. I have a lovely collection of fully decorated tea towels from my last several embroidery swaps, but those are hard to display.

Check out this link with just the image posts from the swap and you won't have to read all of the chit-chat.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2010-11-25T10:24:00.002-06:00

It's not a turkey, but it is the owl I stitched up for Luckdragon in the Hooplah 2 swap on Craftster. She made me an adorable pair of children, but since that isn't very autumn, I'll post it later.

Luckdragon indicated that she likes owls, and it so happened that I felt like stitching one. This is from an Aunt Annie's transfer pack. I've stitched from this package before and that owl also went out in a swap. One day I will stitch up an owl to keep. I palnned to do a colorful owl, but somehow it ended up in earth tones. I did lots of color changes this time.

I also put a quilt block on the back.

My daughter surprised each of us this Thanksgiving morning with little turkey drawings. Here turkey sees November on the calendar and observes, "My time is almost done!":

On this one the turkey is on a coffin platter ready to be buried in the ground, "Dinner too old?" Live turkey notes, "I'm just glad it's not me!"

Here the cow and the turkey have protest signs encouraging chicken meals. Frustrated chicken realizes, "Everyone's against me."

We are going to Grandma and Grandpa's for our meal this afternoon. Mom already called this morning with a turkey emergency, but I am confident that our bird will be delicious. Until just the last several years, we all went to Iowa every year for the holiday and never did any cooking, so we are still working out the best way to do the meal.

Have a great day! Tomorrow is shopping day! We always go to antique stores and stay away from the big sale craziness.

Vintage from Grandma Part Two

2010-11-04T13:40:00.005-05:00

This is a continuation of my last post. I suppose it will come up in your blog readers in the wrong order. You do use Google Reader, don't you?

I got a nice stash of vintage laces and embroidery at a family reunion from my Aunt Lavina. These are things that belonged to my Grandma, Leonace Burrell McKee when she was young. Here she is with my grandfather, probably when they were courting. They married in 1930:
There are some nice embroidered linens in this section of the collection. Times were tough for folks back in those days and Aunt Lavina told me of a story she remembered about a full set of embroidered sheets. After they were completed, I guess they were too scratchy and uncomfortable to sleep on, so the pretty embroidery had to be pulled out because there wasn't any money to buy a different set of sheets. Can you imagine? That was just the way it was, I guess.

Look at those perfect satin stitches!

These pieces are cut off of the ends of well used pillowcases.

Aunt Lavina and Uncle Larry have traveled the world and Lavina has collected linens and needlework from cultures everywhere she has traveled. She showed me her beautiful stash of stuff, but I didn't have time to photograph it. I am so happy she gave me these lovely things from the tradition of needlework in our family.

My mom has been giving me my stuff from when I was little. Handmade doll clothes, Joan Walsh Anglund dolls, a very old Raggedy Ann. My loved teddy bear.. not all of it is worth posting, but those vintage dolls... I've got to take some pictures of those to share..

Grandma's Vintage Part One

2010-11-04T12:57:00.006-05:00

It's November already! I still haven't planted my bulbs, but the garden and yard are all cleaned up and I usually don't really get to that until the spring thaw.

We had a fun Halloween, but my son at age 13, didn't even go out this year. My daughter's ice cream cone costume was a hit, and she loved all the attention. I got way too much candy again this year, but I found this yummy recipe for Shortbread Candy Bar, which was originally in Everyday Food. Ours shortbread candy bars are topped with Snickers and Milky Way and are way better than the candy alone.

So I've got to catch up and post all the vintage things the family has been giving me. Back in September at a family reunion, Aunt Lavina gave me some very special handmade laces and hand sewn items that had been my grandmother's when she was young.

She passed back in 1997 after suffering from late onset Alzheimers. I remember her as one of the sweetest and kindest women. She was an elementary schoolteacher before she married in 1930. We have generations of schoolteachers in our family.

Okay, so let's get to the pretty stuff. These are hand crocheted borders for pillowcases. Someone pulled them off the case to save them.

These are borders that were rolled up into strips:

Look at the elaborate detail:

Now, we aren't sure that these were actually made by Grandma, but they did come from her stuff. She was always busy with sewing and crochet. They certainly are of an old vintage.

This is a yolk and a collar that they would wear to pretty up a simple dress:

Look at this beautiful handmade dress. So delicate and lovely.

And this pretty underskirt:

Halloween!

2010-10-19T11:10:00.003-05:00

I finished my daughter's Halloween costume two weeks early!

She wanted to be a cowgirl, but I discouraged her because that would not be very DIY and I didn't want to buy her cowboy boots she would never wear again. Boots like that are not easily found up here in the upper midwest..

So here she is as an ice cream cone:

The pattern was in the Halloween 2010 Better Homes and Gardens Special Interest Publications magazine. LINK. The pattern was provided in the print version, and I guess they were the correct shapes, but you have to enlarge them at a copier to use them. The instructions were AWFUL. I mean really really awful. I did one basic version based on their recommended pattern enlargements and it would maybe fit a 3 year old child. I fiddled with it and just made really large pieces and got it to fit my 10-year old.

Other BHG publications are really good with instructions. I especially like the seasonal Quilts and More, but this was really bad. Basically it says, "Sew up the parts, attach the cherry to a headband... " and that is pretty much it. I am sort of experienced with these things, so as you can see, I figured it out. She loves it and it may be one of my most favorite of all the Halloween costumes I've made.

Here her cherry is a bit askew:

Felt is really inexpensive and easy to work with. I had polyfil, sweatshirt, and pom poms already, so the cost of this costume was about $12. Happy Halloween!

Pillowcase Borders

2010-09-23T09:54:00.001-05:00

I reviewed the terrific crochet book Around the Corner Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman over at Craft Critique. Check it out!

More Vintage

2010-09-16T11:42:00.003-05:00

Mom gave me these beautiful crochet pieces. They were part of her collection and not made by anyone in my family.

This is a lovely dresser scarf or table runner:

Here are two doilies that would probably have been used on the arms of a chair:

They were probably never ever used:

This is a lace trimmed linen table runner. If my dining room table wasn't piled high with sewing supplies and projects, I might use one of the many table runners I have in my collection. I think this is a kind of bobbin lace. I am not sure, as I have never tried making bobbin lace.

I like to use my rainbow crochet afghan underneath my crochet photos. I tired of crocheting that blanket before I finished it, but it does generously cover one side our our queen sized bed on chilly nights.

Block Tool Review

2010-09-09T12:08:00.005-05:00

I reviewed the C&T Quilt Block Tool iPhone App over at Craft Critique.

I liked this app, and I made these simple blocks with it:
Go ahead and check it out! HERE

Since my kids are back in school and I am still not working (although I would like for that to change), I've been playing with crocheting borders onto our pillowcases. I love them They are totally durable and washable! The patterns are in a book I purchased and this project will be part of my next Craft Critique review.

Nostalgia!

2010-09-09T11:38:00.003-05:00

One of the reasons I started this blog was to keep track of my own projects and to archive the vintage linens in the family collection. My mom has been cleaning out her house and has given me piles of lovely sentimental things and I am hopelessly behind on photographing them.

Among the things she has found in the corners of my childhood home are some art projects I did in school. Here is a very surprised looking portrait of someone:

I made this in 1976 when I was in Mrs. Mustoe's 4th grade class.

In fact, here is a picture of that very class. I'm the girl in the middle row on the far right below the teacher. On facebook, someone tagged the little girl with the glasses in the front row as Liz Phair whose indie rocker career has cooled a bit in the last decade, and the boy below me in the front row is a successful producer of short lived guilty pleasure prime time soap operas.

At any rate, don't think I was particularly talented with clay, but here is a wall hanging we appliqued in art class:

I love that blue burlap. I suppose someone still sells soft burlap like that, but I don't see it at my fabric stores..

Mom also found some very beautiful crocheted things. These were not made by anyone in my family, but they are still lovely.

My grandma gave these thread crochet aprons to my mom because Mom used to hold a little vintage style tea party for a small but lucky group of little students of hers. The tea party was a fundraiser offering at her elementary school. I think I was already away at college when the tea parties occurred.

If I had a vintage style waistline, I would totally wear these.

Felt Pinwheels

2010-07-07T19:48:00.003-05:00

I saw this adorable pinwheel brooch project by Betz White last month in several crafty places on the internet. If you browse crafty blogland, I imagine you saw it too. I had to make them especially since I have that cherry fabric in my collection.

This is the one that my daughter made:

She's a bit crafted out since she got a nice variety of craft kits for her birthday recently, so I let her be the designer and I would simply be the craftsman for the rest of our lot.

This one is my favorite. I love that dotted fabric:

They all have safety pin backs. We each wore one to our holiday picnic, but the rest we attached to little sticks and stuck them in the flower pots as decorations.

We had a relaxing 4th of July holiday! Hope you are enjoying the season!

Fabric Heaven

2010-06-07T14:31:00.003-05:00

For Mothers Day, my mom and I planned our own trip to the Indiana Amish Country. We had a great time! This area is a quilters heaven, so I wrote about our adventures for Craft Critique HERE.

Summer Already!

2010-06-01T09:11:00.003-05:00

It seems I have settled in to this pattern of only occasionally checking in to the blog. Last time I told you about the Chicago Quilt Show. If you want to see more quilt photos, check out my flickr photoset HERE. Gosh, I love a good quilt show..

It took me a long time, but I finally finished an African embroidery pattern for my mom. She picked it out several years ago when we were shopping the vendors at the Chicago Quilt Show.

At the time, I thought, "I've always wanted to try that kind of embroidery, I bet I could do it." This is the project where I first learned my most favorite chain stitch.

Thus began a long and satisfying love affair with embroidery.

As it happened, I got about halfway through this project and then I started doing Hillary Lang's Stitchettes. I never did finish all of those either... You can see the Stitchettes I did stitch at the bottom of THIS BLOG POST.

It was a rainy afternoon just before Mothers Day this year and I was watching some of the PBS craft shows, and the host was stitching this very African Folklore Embroidery project. I got my act together, and stitched the rest of this during several of my guilty pleasure DVR shows. (Aren't the Real Housewives crazy this season? And Eep! Hoarders!)

Mom finally has her African Girls pillow! I even managed to sew in a zipper. When she picked out the project, she figured that she never would go to Africa, even though she is fascinated by world travel and native cultures, folk art, and artifacts. Fortunately, the opportunity came and she went on a trip there with a good friend.

This pillow really looked cute on my sofa too, but I don't want to start another identical project that takes five years to finish.

In other news, look how cute the crochet bunny hat looks on the recipient. She is such a sweet little girl:

2010 Chicago International Quilt Festival

2010-04-26T09:17:00.003-05:00

Last weekend was the 2010 International Quit Festival/Chicago. I did a review article for Craft Critique. Read it HERE. Go to that Craft Critique post to see my photos of some of the winning quilts.

Because I went as a reporter, I had a press pass! Which means all my photos this year are totally kosher. Everyone takes pictures, though.. I am supposed to disable any way that you can steal my photos to use them on items for purchase...okay, readers, please don't do that.

I take nice, but slightly blurry pictures some of the time, but you really have to come and see a quilt show in person. The details are amazing..

"Foxy Sisters" by Ann Horton

"Emerald Treasures" by Barb Forrister

The following photos were from an amazingly detailed quilt from Japan:

This is "My Quilt Room" by Yasuko Ito and Oharibako. Every detail is done by hand including the quilting. The quilt shows their quilt group members enjoying making a quilt in each member's room.

The show has a section of beautiful vintage traditional quilts. I love this graphic one. This is "Sunburst" by Unknown Quiltmaker c. 1800:

I will share more photos in another post later, but you can see my set from the 2010 International Quilt Festival/Chicago on Flickr HERE.

Girl Scouts Craft

2010-04-23T13:20:00.003-05:00

I'm having fun being a Girl Scout Co-leader, although the badge requirements are getting more and more complicated. Fortunately, our girls like getting crafty. We meet in the school gym, so baking and cooking are tricky.

I brought supplies to a recent meeting to make felt flowers:

Unfortunately, I get kind of busy running the activity and I always forget to photograph the finished projects. I used the Klutz/Chicken Socks book Paper Flowers for the templates, although I had to make our own from tagboard. My daughter had fun with this book over the Christmas Holidays.

Cuddly Cute Crochet

2010-04-23T13:09:00.004-05:00

I am still around, but I guess I'm just blogging less these days. I recently did some very cute crochet projects for a book review on Craft Critique (disclosure). You can read the review HERE.

I used Red Heart Acrylic to crochet this bunny hat and mousie bib. My daughter wants the hat, but it is sized for a toddler, so I'm planning to give it to a sweet toddler of some friends of mine who live nearby.

My daughter's teacher is pregnant with a boy, so she's getting the bib along with a receiving blanket my daughter will sew in boyish fabrics.

Giveaway

2010-03-25T12:46:00.002-05:00

Leave a comment on THIS Craft Critique Post to get in on a giveaway!

Become a charter member of Club Creating Keepsakes to receive a whole lot of goodies and membership benefits. Membership to this Club is free, but become a charter member and to receive special benefits including a subscription to Scrapbooking Tips and Tricks magazine.

Go ahead and read about it!

Disclosure

Scarf and Hearts

2010-02-24T21:41:00.003-06:00

I saw this project on Craft Hope. It's a part of the Orphan Foundation of America's Red Scarf Project . I'm sharing my scarf late, because it was sent out before Valentines Day. My scarf isn't red, but I am sure I read on the instructions that other collegiate style colors were welcome...

I handstitched a cute little red felt heart tag for my package. It was fun to knit again! I used some of Vanna's Choice Yarn which is a squishy wool/acrylic blend.

I'm also finishing up one of my quilts. I sewed on the binding last week, and my Olympics project is to cuddle up under it and handstitch it down on the backside whle watching various events. We find that we really enjoy curling! Go Canada! I like the Winter Olympics better than the Summer Olympics, because I think the events are more fun to watch. How about you?

Most of the fabrics on this quilt are from the Katie Jump Rope collection by Denyse Schmidt. I liked that little red floral so much I found an etsy seller who still had it in stock and I bought two extra yards to do the binding and to gaze at lovingly.

________________

My friend Sarah Moore, from Craft Critique, is organizing a professional crafters convention taking place here in Chicago this October called CraftyCon

It will be a great opportunity for crafters to network with other crafters, and to get hands on training with industry experts. Sign up to get on the CraftyCon email list or follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Its going to be a great event!

Floral Granny Squares - Wool

2010-02-07T13:32:00.003-06:00

I had fun making granny squares with acrylic, but the yarn was so scratchy, I yearned for a more satisfying fiber to work with. I took a trip out to one of the Big JoAnns stores (my local one is one of the small ones, fortunately it is always pretty busy), and I found an endcap of all natural Stitch Nation Yarn. We just saw this yarn debuted at CHA. There is 100 % Peruvian wool, an alpaca/wool blend and a very soft bamboo/ wool blend. Each lovely skein is only $5! Not even the tiniest bit of synthetic fiber is in this yarn, the 100% wool is a squishy singly ply, and I don't have to go to a specialty yarn store or the internet to find it!

Here is my blurry pic of Debbie Stoller with her yarn at the Red Heart booth at CHA:

The colors I selected are my favored bright and higher contrast, but not as bright as the Red Heart Acrylic.

I'm making the squares into a throw pillow by special request from my husband and daughter. The pattern for this very nice granny square is free at Lion Brand HERE.

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Today is the Superbowl here in the USA! Go Colts!

Granny Square Explorations - Acrylic

2010-02-06T21:10:00.005-06:00

I am inspired to craft again since CHA! Last week I got out my crochet hooks and started crocheting floral granny squares from this pattern at Lion Brand HERE.

First I played with Red Heart Acrylic because I wanted a stack of pretty scrubbers and I have a lot of that scratchy yarn to use up. They are super bright.

I dug up these old ones I made 3 years ago with Caron Simply Soft. That yarn is more like sport weight than worsted so these are much smaller than the Red Heart Acrylic ones. I'm pretty sure I made a few scarves in some nice colorways as gifts one Christmas. I don't always photograph the stuff I make at the holidays:

Tomorrow I'll share the ones I stitched up with some new wool yarn. They are bright too, but oh so nice in a natural fiber!

Professional Quilting

2010-02-05T16:26:00.004-06:00

Finally! It's quilted!

I went over to the professional quilters house a couple weeks ago to drop off this quilt top I've had finished for at least a year.

Alice has a ton of space to give over to her hobby in her basement. Here we laid out the quilt on the floor to be sure our backing and batting would be sufficient:

Look at how gigantic her machine is!

It's a Gammil Optimum which is a top of the line model. Her husband is a carpenter so he understands about nice tools. They bought this for a retirement hobby.

She's like me in that she likes to make things for the joy of it and not so much to sell. Marketing and selling takes some of the fun out of creating for us. I feel lucky that I found her one summer at a booth at our local Farmer's Market. Our local quilt shop also has connections to professional quilters, but they take longer and have a far more limited selection of stitching patterns.

She let me take a few photos of her house which is full of quilts by Alice and handmade wooden things created by her husband.

Look at the cute spindle idea they came up with:

It's a spool of thread with a bobbin on the end! She has a lovely quilt collection:

I still need to do the binding on my quilt, but look at the swirly back:

Hooray!

CHA 2010

2010-01-26T12:14:00.011-06:00

I just got home from CHA. What a show! Our Craft Critique reporters are still hard at work covering this amazing trade show. There is a ton of patterned paper and cutting systems at CHA, but we spotted lots of other kinds of crafting too. Read our coverage HERE.

I spotted a few craft celebrities at the show. Last year, amusingly, Paris Hilton was hawking some stamp designs and paper. I don't think that worked out too well for her with stores looking for crafts to buy, but she was a bit of a sensation.

We didn't have that level of "celebrity" this year, but I totally got butterflies when I saw Carol Duval. Some of you may remember her show on HGTV. Did you know that they used to show crafting on HGTV and DIY networks? I learned to quilt from television and I learned that I could do pretty much any craft from Carol Duvall. Sadly, although there are a few great shows, it is hard to find well produced craft programming on television these days.

I took like 50 bad pictures of her. I think I might make a bad picture flip book and reenact her talk.. Later on, I missed her book signing, but at an event that evening my friend, Sarah Moore, made sure I got to meet her. Click HERE to see Sarah with her Carol Duvall signature on her arm. I'll take Carol Duvall doing crafts any day over Martha Stewart...

Also spotted at CHA was letter turning yarn diva Vanna White. I missed her talk, but she has nice yarn at Lion Brand!

Deborah Norville also has some soft and squishy yarns for Premiere Yarns. We used some of her samples at our consumer booth and it makes nice squishy pom poms. Her sweater is really soft, although she admitted that she didn't knit it herself.

Read our coverage of what's new in yarn HERE.

I saw The Crafty Chica several times, but I didn't take her picture. Everyone agrees that she is so nice!

TV Hosts Cathy Fillian and Steve Piacenza have new products they are showing and as I was listening to them a woman came by to ask me to photograph them all together. While I was having trouble with her camera, I looked at her badge and it is Donna Dewberry of One Stroke Painting. Y'all, Donna Dewberry has a crappy camera. This is the pic I took of those three notable personalities with my camera:

Finally, Craftster was there at the consumer portion of the show with their parent company Namemedia. That's Leah, Me, Jungrrl, and KittyKill, underneath the felt banner expertly handmade by Jungrrl herself.

Uh.. trade show food makes me bloated and I learned that I am totally allergic to California... I forgot to tell you that I got a Best of Craftster award again this year! More on that another time...

Still making things, but slowly

2010-01-19T10:10:00.003-06:00

I like winter, but I do get kinda lazy during these darkest days. It is clear that I have been neglecting my blog. My son, husband and I have been retreating into our XBox. We do play together and talk about all the gaming strategies and game plots, so it is sort of a family "activity" for us. I did make some cute things for Christmas, but I never photographed them! They were a cute apron and two sets of very cool potholders for my Mom. I'll try to get a photo sometime later when I'm at her house..

Yesterday my kids were home for MLK Day and fighting over control of the television. (They are deeply divided over the watchability of Supernanny.) I decided we had to turn off all media and do something else. My son is not crafty so he found other stuff to do, but daughter and I decided to do the Craft of the Day that came as an email from Martha Stewart. It's called a Heart Felt Bag and it was easy to make, although it is more decorative than anything because that cute little handle isn't very sturdy.

See? Cute! We need to reglue with hot glue because the hearts are slipping off. The handle and top of bag also form these cute hearts:

In other news, I am super excited to finally get to attend the Craft and Hobby Association trade show in Anaheim, California! CHA is a big deal in the crafting industry. I'm going as a reporter with my friends from Craft Critique. Prior to the show, on Friday and Saturday, January 22-23 is a big Craft Supershow for anyone and everyone who is crafty. Read about what Craft Critique is planning for the Supershow HERE. We even have a discount coupon if you are planning to attend!

Come and find me at the Supershow! We are in booth 1101. If you can't attend, be sure to follow Craft Critique for the latest news about products and trends in crafting. I will make it my mission to find the cool fabric and fiber craft products!

Glowing Stitching

2010-01-12T07:52:00.002-06:00

I stitched a glowing snowflake for Craft Critique to review Glow in the Dark Embroidery Floss by DMC. I liked it and it really glows a lot!

Check it out HERE.

Tea Towel Tour 5

2009-12-14T11:57:00.008-06:00

The Susie Can Stitch family is still around, but I've been busy and a little bit overwhelmed by various things lately. Only one more week of school and the kids are home for the holidays! The craft show I did a few weeks ago went well and I think it is one I may do again since both times I've done it have been successful.

I realized that I never shared with you the lovely Tea Towel that was stitched for me in our Tea Towel Tour 5 swap on Craftster!
As you can see, there is a large area for me to add my very own motif. I plan to get to that sometime. Probably after Christmas when things settle down a bit. Ugh.. those colors are all messed up in the above photo. The towel is white, not greenish and pinkish... Cloudy day with artificial light makes for bad pictures. I did want to share an ironed towel with you. THIS PHOTO has better lighting, but the towel needed to be pressed.

First, this is the stitching by Pearliepie. She used rich colors to stitch these beautiful stylized flowers for me. I love their folk arty feel and that outlining stitch is amazing:

Next is the stitching by j-q-adams. He uses variegated floss to great effect! I love the french knots and a bird motif was a theme I was thinking of going with until I decided not to specify a theme for this towel.

This is the stitching added by Kitten Wrangler. She did a Hungarian motif not even knowing that I am 1/4 Hungarian! This is amazing satin stitching and there is an unusual sort of weaving done on one of the flowers:

Here is the motif by SarahJ2001. I adore Hollyhocks, but I haven't been able to get them to grow here in my Chicagoland clay soil. Her stitching is full of charm and warmth and I love the pretty variety of colors she chose:

Finally, this is the stitching by Ritaizza. This is a design from a crewel work book she has. Crewel is a tapestry embroidery done in wool, but the desings are easily adapted to cotton floss. I think she has done a sort of twisted stem stitch on some of the flowers which adds a cool texture.

I absolutely love my towel! Thanks so much to my talented swap partners who kept up with our demanding swap!

Winter Whimsy Sale

2009-11-30T08:24:00.005-06:00

Tuesday night I'm doing a fun craft show with my friend's neighborhood in Evanston, Illinois. This is a group of very talented women and the show is busy!

Usually it is held it at one of the neighbors houses, but the show has outgrown that space! This year Winter Whimsy is Tuesday, December 1 from 7-9pm at the Robert Gold Salon, 2942 Central Street, Evanston, Illinois.

I'll be selling my embroidered pouches:

Hand Dyed Crochet Flowers including red poinsettias

And a big selection of cute embroidered felt hairclips:

Come on by and say hello if you are in the area! I'm baking butterscotch brownies and there will be other refreshments too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T14:38:00.002-06:00

It's getting close to mealtime around here! We are just waiting for the rest of the family to arrive.

I resurrect my Grandma Nelson's favorite Bob White dishes for this special holiday. For years and years this was the holiday we spent in Iowa visiting our lovely relatives. Actually, for a long time as a child I thought only old people lived in Iowa and the kids I saw were just visiting like me.

Roasting the turkey in a bag is a great method as is having one of those thermometers you can read from the countertop. Our turkey is now resting peacefully in the kitchen awaiting the carving and gravy prep.

Enjoy this wonderful holiday!

Geekery with Quilters Interfacing

2009-11-23T10:27:00.008-06:00

Check out my article at Craft Critique to see what I made with Quilters Interfacing. It's a really fun and easy product to use. The only hard part is trimming and ironing the seams on the back to reduce bulk.

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I also spent some time listing inventory at my Etsy shop. Click through to see some great gift ideas! I have lots of new pouches, felt hairclips, and hand dyed wool flowers.

Snowflake Crochet Pillow

2009-11-21T10:28:00.005-06:00

I stitched this Snowflake Crochet Pillow this week. Fortunately, it isn't that cold here yet, but it's time to retire some old holiday pillows I have for some new winter decorations.

The pattern was in Crochet Today last winter, but I found the pattern online. Click HERE.

The snowflake was kind of hard. I kept getting mixed up and ripping it out until I started using the chart provided with the pattern. It took a long time to applique it onto the pillow!

Crochet Today is published by Coats so the projects are mostly using their inexpensive yarn like Red Heart acrylic or Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread. I'm coming around to the Red Heart Acrylic. It isn't nice for stuff next to your skin, but it is inexpensive, sturdy with no dye lots. It's nice for amigurumi, home dec., and scrubbers.

Sharpie Tie-Dye

2009-11-11T10:17:00.005-06:00

You have to do this project. I saw this on Happy Things. She saw it on Steve Spangler Science.

You draw on fabric with Sharpies (I suppose you can also use other types of permanent markers. I happen to have a lot of Sharpies.) Draw a design that is at least an inch in diameter. More ink bleeds more. Drip rubbing alcohol into the center of the design and watch the ink bleed out to beautiful effect. More highly concentrated alcohol works better. Look for 70% or more concentrate at the drug store. This is probably what you already have in the cabinet.

I probably have a medicine dropper somewhere, but we just used a straw as a dropper for the rubbing alcohol. Let them dry completely. After a few minutes, we laid ours out on an old towel to dry. To set the color, they must be heat set, but be careful with the iron or the clothes dryer because alcohol is extremely flammable.

We were totally mesmerized by the process and could not stop. I had some white muslin that I cut up to use, but we used that up quick, so I also cut up an old sheet.

We had to quit when the alcohol smell got to us. My daughter already cut up some of our creations to make a card for her teacher. I think we might put some beads onto some of these and stitch them into pretty ornaments. We haven't decided. They would look great in a quilt too!

** Edit: How fun! I was contacted today by Sharpie and Steve Spangler about this project!

Gift Mascots

2009-11-10T10:48:00.005-06:00

It was my birthday over the weekend. My daughter found a project in my felt mascot books and made this for me:

Cute! I love her running stitch in a contrasting thread! I'm wearing it on my jacket for fall. My mascot books are all in Japanese, but we aren't intimidated!

A few weeks ago I helped her make this elephant as a gift for a little sister of her close friend:

The little girl reports that she sleeps with her little blue elephant every night.

Here is the creator with her creation:

My husband and son got me some Gingher embroidery scissors and water soluble transfer pens. Husband has learned to go into JoAnns and just ask the ladies for help. He says he is totally unable to navigate the fabric, which I completely understand.

Gingher scissors are expensive, but they do seem like they are touched by a heavenly enchantment to cut fabric beautifully. I also have a nice spring green LeCrueset enamel stock pot! Yay for soup and stew!

Kawung Style Embroidery

2009-11-03T08:35:00.002-06:00

I reviewed Dritz Mark-B-Gone Marking Pens for Craft Critique. Click HERE to read my article.

I also finished my last stitching for my Tea Towel Tour swap at Craftster. Click HERE to see our gallery. Find the "See Images Only" tab to edit out the chit-chat.

Kitten Wrangler indicated that she was interested in traditional Indonesian design so I did some research. I found mostly batik designs, but a motif I thought would translate to embroidery was this style of interlocking circles called "Kawung".

It is a beautiful loose weave linen cloth, so the circles came out very slightly wonky. Batik motifs are also imperfect, so I'm being authentic, right? I used DMC Color Variations embroidery floss for the circles. It is lovely floss! Note to family: Good Christmas gift for Susie is the multipack of Color Variations Floss.

Here is Kitten Wrangler's finished towel. Actually it is a napkin, but in this swap I call everything a towel regardless if it is an apron or something else. Click on the photo to go over to Flickr to see the labeled photo. I didn't do most of this lovely stitching!

Halloween: The Aftermath

2009-11-02T16:03:00.003-06:00

It was cold here! My son has decided that he is too old to trick-or-treat, so he stayed in and handled the door while we watched a "scary" movie. (Poltergeist made him jump a couple times, but he declares he wasn't scared t all.)

Lots of people were out-of-town, and we live on the side of the street that gets less trick-or-treaters. I have never ever had an impolite kid come to the door. My husband took my daughter around and it seems she knows every kid in the neighborhood. She's our little extrovert in an introverted family! I let her design our doorway display. Her costume is a vampire bat styled after one of her stuffed toys. At the last minute I made the ears from some polar fleece so that she could have her chilly ears covered.
These are my stand-by costumes for my husband and me. One year my husband was a skeleton with our son. I am a candy corn, but some kids think I am a fried egg. People totally laugh at me, but I think it is fun! I got the most laughs when I went as a giant duck. That costume has deteriorated, unfortunately.

We are rationing our candy! Hope your Halloween was a fun one!

Happy Halloween!

2009-10-31T10:19:00.007-05:00

Have any of you noticed that completely new movies are running on cable TV? This excellent horror film House of the Devil was on one of my HD channels this week. It was very creepy. I didn't know it was a new film until I looked it up on IMDB. It faithfully recreates the feeling of the "girl in peril" films of the early 1980's. The suspense got to me. I was watching it alone when everyone was asleep and I kept having to switch on the guide to minimize the picture to get some relief.

My husband and I watched this classic The Devil Doll this week. It was good! Lionel Barrymore cross-dresses to foil his enemies.

I tried to go through the guide on my tv and find old movies to tape. TCM is showing a LOT of Boris Karloff. They aren't so great..

Here's another really great classic. Ever seen Haxan? It is a 1922 Danish "documentary" about the legends of witchcraft in western Europe. The imagery is unforgettable. Since it is such an old film it has this weird authentic look. Calling it a documentary is pretty much a stretch since it seems to me an excuse to stage creepy and shocking stories of superstition through the ages.. Anyway, it plays on IFC pretty regularly and it easy to get at Netflix.

Is it just me or is everyone sick of vampires? I got through just two of the Twilight books. What a pathetic girl. Those teenagers are supposed to be smart and they have the dumbest conversations ever... Zombies are way more fun. Did you see Zombieland?

I'm not into the popular torture movies that are out lately. I also don't like it when these are stories of real life murderous rampages, that's too upsetting. I like ghosts, hauntings, good vs. evil, foreign horror, classic horror, and horror with comic relief. I also experience movies intensely since I am a strongly visual person, so I like to see this genre on my television where it isn't nearly so scary. Also, feel-good movies all the time are too saccharine.

Click HERE for an interesting article about why people sometimes choose unpleasant experiences.

Felt S'more Needlebook

2009-10-27T14:09:00.003-05:00

These are some needlebooks I made for a beginning Brownie Troop. Their leader contacted me and since it happens that she is from my hometown and these Brownies go to my very own elementary school, I took on the project.

I used that Ecofelt which is made from recycled soda bottles. I also machine stitched the components because it went a lot faster and I had only a few days to finish them.

They each have a chocolate colored monogram. The closed needlebook can also be used as a pincushion.

These were fun to make! I have a couple left that just need to be handstitched together.

Flirty Taco Chips

2009-10-16T08:45:00.003-05:00

These are the flirty taco chips I stitched up for ritapizza in our Tea Towel Tour on Craftster. This is a pattern by Jacque Davis that she made available free in the Hoop Love group on Flickr. Get it HERE.

They are bathing in guacamole. I decided that if Rita doesn't like guacamole, then it is spinach dip. Rita reports that she does like guacamole so all is good! I used chain stitch throughout, except on the eyes and boys' faces. The chain stitch gives the ladies puffed up collagen lips which I like (in stitching, not in real life..)

Here in Chicagoland we have the best, most delicious corn chips ever in the history of taco chips. If you eat Tostitos, I am sorry for you. These are in every store in Chicagoland in big displays. They are so fresh they taste like they are right out of the fryer. They only have four ingredients: corn, lime, corn oil, and salt. They are made locally by El Ranchero. We call them "Chips-in-a-Green-Bag" at our house. I don't know if other people call them that, but it seems like when I say that everyone around here knows exactly the chips I refer to.

Interestingly, their price seems to fluctuate with the price of corn, but they are always a better price than commercial brands. My son is one of those kids who really likes very crunchy snacks. If we don't have green apples and Chips-in-a-Green-Bag in the house, I better get to the store quick!

Maurice Sendak

2009-10-15T00:08:00.005-05:00

Watching the hype about "Where the Wild Things Are" has me reminiscing about the books I loved as a child. Do you folks who were kids in the 1970's remember the Really Rosie specials that aired on TV? My mom had a record of these stories in her classroom and I would always listen to them and read along in the books when I went in to her school to "help out".

Here's the catchy "Chicken Soup With Rice":

I especially loved "Pierre". Yes, that's Carole King singing:

Let me know if you remember these too. Once when I was a teacher I had the Chicken Soup With Rice book and I talked to someone about the song and they thought I was totally crazy and didn't remember it at all.

Wolves on T-Shirts

2009-10-13T08:05:00.005-05:00

I suppose you've heard about the Three Wolf Moon shirt phenomenon. Last May it was all the rage. You can still get the shirt on Amazon but it isn't the #1 selling item anymore. It is a really stale internet meme, but Dwight wore the shirt on The Office, so I share a video I shot with my family months ago.

We went to the Wisconsin Dells way back in early May (and didn't know about the Three Wolf Moon shirt) . The Dells are home to gorgeous upper-midwestern scenery, excessively fun waterpark hotels, and tourist trap souvenir shops. This shop was near the Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum, which we had just visited for laughs. We found several other versions of this shirt. Our favorite was one we called "Purple Wolves in Love":

These are all extremely elaborate designs for t-shirts. They are all quite um.. distinctive. Please note, I know the plural of deer is not "deers". It was just a slip of the tongue.

Also: This article at the Onion seems relevant: CLICK HERE.

More of Quilts from the Village

2009-10-09T10:58:00.004-05:00

These are quilts shown at the Lake County Fairgrounds by the Village Quilters of Lake Bluff/Lake Forest, IL.

"Stars in the Night Garden" by Kathy Stuart. This one was one of several of my favorites. She has crystals adhered here and there adding to the beauty.

"Sisterly Flower Celebration Quilt" by Ginny Moore. These are watercolor quilt bocks.

A whole wall of Sudoku quilts:

Three Roman Stripe quilts:

Another wall of quilts done in the same pattern. I don't know what pattern this is!

Amazing! I still have more photos from this show, so stay tuned! It's an icky rainy day here, perfect for cutting up fabric and making something new of my own.

Edit: I never got to that quilt, although I am planning it in my head. Instead, I have a migraine and am going to nap.

Quilts from the Village 2009 Show

2009-10-07T09:47:00.005-05:00

There was a great quilt show right here in my town! This one was put on by a local(ish) guild: Quilts from the Village XI by the Village Quilters of Lake Bluff/Lake Forest, IL. That guild is a little bit far for me, but I think I really should join a local quilt guild.

"Stephanie's Quilt" by Sandra Lewis

"Museum Rose Sampler" by Caren Pfaff. Hand quilted by Nancy Pederson. This quilt was a finalist at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. It was on the cover of Quilters Newsletter Magazine and it made their 2004 calendar too.

"Savannah Sunshine" by Linda Warren

"Dreamcatchers...A New Beginning" by Wayne Sneath. This pattern is called "Montana Cartwheel"

"Erica's Snuggle Quilt" by Kris Johnston. It's all flannels and I think the border was that very soft snuggley stuff. My daughter and I really had to restrain ourselves from handling it.

I have more pictures that I will share later. It's a good thing I am not a professional photographer, I always come home from these shows with blurry photos. I take the pictures really quickly because I don't want to get in anyone's way and I don't want to draw attention to myself, although I did check and photos were okay at this show. Once my mom told a booth operator at a quilt show that I have a blog and the woman got very pissed off about bloggers. I calmed her down, but I don't like confrontations when I'm just trying to look at pretty things. I was going to buy stuff from her, but I hightailed it away after making nice-nice. Attention Bloggers! Make every effort to credit artists! Also, that lady needs to get with the times...

Also, What what the heck, Safari? Why do you always mess up my font sizes in Blogger. This is super irritating.

Craft Collective

2009-10-03T12:10:00.005-05:00

Look what Melanie made!

Melanie is a member of our Chicagoland Craft Collective. Our group started through Meetup, but we are in the process of switching to a free host site. I'm thinking maybe ning, but possibly google groups might be better. I don't know. We've started meeting at a nice new venue: Craft Fancy in Arlington Heights. This great store has vastly improved lighting and electrical outlets!

Great work Melanie!

We made these quick butterflies at our last meeting:

Martha showed us all up by making this one with buttons:

And while we are on the subject of Chicagoland, I'm sad we won't be getting the Olympics here. My husband is relieved because of all the traffic/transit woes we already have, and that little problem of corruption in our fair city. I think we would make a terrific showplace for the world, but so will Rio. My area of Chicagoland would have had the equestrian events. Alas, it was not meant to be. We have friends and family from Brazil and are happy for them!

Fall Flowers

2009-10-01T10:13:00.003-05:00

October 1! Where did the time go? Since it's hovering in the low 40's in the morning this week, the first frost isn't far away. Sadly, this will mean the end of my favorite garden annual. I like to plant things carefully in the spring and then totally neglect them as they grow wild all summer. I do water, occasionally, especially when I notice the plants laying flat on the ground, wilted and suffering. Zinnias are very cooperative with my method. I start them from seed in the spring and transplant them in May. I usually do 2 flats of them in several sizes and colors and I plant them just about anywhere there is lots of sun

By mid summer they start to bloom and on the first day of school in August, they look lush and awesome. The blooms last a very long time and they really do not mind drought or hard clay soil. Unfortunately, these blooms can't take frost, so I'll probably enjoy them for only a few more weeks.

I also put in some gerbera daisies in a pot that was looking neglected. I first enjoyed these blossoms in my wedding flowers. I think these were on the table arrangements, but I got married a long time ago. I've never grown them, but they seem to have survived nicely even though I haven't watered them in awhile either.

My husband and I also learned that we aren't such good vegetable gardeners. The garden got a white mold all over the squash plants. I know it is an easy milk-water solution to treat this, but we got to it too late. We'll try again next year. Seeds are not a big investment, and it was fun to watch early in the summer. Chocolate zucchini bread is the most delicious quick bread ever.

I hope your gardens are looking beautiful for this last gasp of the growing season!

Bias Tape Maker

2009-09-30T11:21:00.003-05:00

I reviewed the Dritz Bias Tape Maker over at Craft Critique. Read my review HERE.

I managed to bind my tea towel successfully, but my feelings on this particular tool are: buy the Clover brand one instead. The extra dollar cost is worth it.

Cowboy Small

2009-09-29T10:44:00.005-05:00

This is Cowboy Small. He's the embroidery I finished for Pearliepie in our Tea Towel Tour swap on Craftster.

She wanted a Wild West Saloon theme, but I remembered this adorable children's book from our collection and wanted to stitch him up Here is his coiled up rope:

He's an image from a charming children's book first published in 1949. Lois Lenski won the Newberry Medal for children's literature and probably should have won a Caldecott Medal too.

Chain stitching throughout! I tried french knots for his eyes, but they pulled through so I used small satin stitching instead.

Clown Fish Embroidery

2009-09-21T20:55:00.006-05:00

This is the clownfish embroidery I did for j_q_adams in our Tea Towel Tour 5 swap on Craftster. He wants an aquatic/oceanic theme for his towel, and I thought that the clownfish might be the most charming fish in the ocean. I remember teaching about the coral reef back when I was a teacher. The reef pictures I found just didn't have the appeal of this little guy.

His towel is a nice ecru color. I did my favorite chain stitches with 2 strands of embroidery floss. I used a coloring book image, (I think.. clown fish images were easy to find) and just started stitching the outline in black really late at night. About halfway around, I realized that doing the outline that way meant that I would have to fill-in a lot. I have a phobia about fill-in stitching. I don't know why, because I think these rows and swirls of chain stitches look cool.

Something else I noticed is that DMC embroidery floss is really nice and silky. The black I had was something I've had in my stash for a while, maybe Coats and Clark or something and it was just noticeably not as easy to work with.

Sad Sad Sofa

2009-09-21T15:46:00.005-05:00

My friend Susan is moving this week from Chicago to San Diego. I cannot imagine why! We have glorious, dramatic season changes here, and a lovely lakefront. She sold a lot of her beautiful like new furniture. We got a very nice, long sofa and two classy looking side chairs. We are so happy to be able to banish this horrible sofa to the junk heap.

That's it, outside in the rain. I like to think it is weeping tears of humiliation for being so excessively uncomfortable, and for the upholstery fading well before it should. We will never ever buy from Thomasville again after this expensive travesty. Our experience with this purchase reminds me of the Chevy Vega my parents bought when we were kids, and it was such a horrible car, it ruined us for Chevrolet forever.

We feel much sadder about Susan moving away! Farewell, Susan! Safe Travels!

Tea Towel Tour Round 5!

2009-09-08T14:27:00.006-05:00

I think this might be my 7th Tea Towel Tour! This is the stitching I did for SarahJ2001:

Stalking her revealed a love for roller coasters, so I thought this coloring book motif would be perfect.

Whee!

And because I love it when people do these title motifs, but I never do it myself, here is SarahJ's stitching for her own towel. She says she is new to embroidery, but she did a great job!

In other news, I think we had the H1N1 flu in our house over the weekend. It hit my husband and son hard, but my daughter and I have no symptoms. It was a nasty flu, but it didn't last that long. Turns out there is no real way of knowing if it was the notorious virus going around because they can only test for that when symptoms are just beginning or at their worst, and.. uh... my guys were stuck in the bathroom at that point. In any case, we are on the mend, but we missed some fun Labor Day activities we were looking forward to!

Sewing Tool Article

2009-08-28T08:05:00.004-05:00

I tested the Dritz Magnetic Seam Guide. It is a useful little sewing tool. Read about it at Craft Critique HERE.

Envelope Pouches

2009-08-28T01:15:00.006-05:00

I used THIS tutorial from maya*made to make some very easy envelope pouches.

Cute, Huh? That black and white fabric is a home dec weight from Ikea. I bought it to use my fabric markers to color in areas here and there, but I never got around to that.

These adorable pouches look great with fabric covered buttons. It may be hard to believe, but I have never covered fabric buttons before. I heard that it is easy. I think it is the prices on the notions wall that kept me away for so long. Dritz charges half these prices under their Prim brand at WalMart. Say what you want about Wal Mart, but at least they still sell sewing notions.. Seriously, that one large covered button is $3.49?!?!

Well, anyway, this could be super thrifty project if the covered buttons weren't about 75 cents apiece... So all my parts are lined up:

Get all that fabric straight and tucked in:

Push it all together with the little tool. Push hard until it snaps in place:

Voila! Nice right? I want to make about 50, just to have a big pretty pile to use for whatever strikes my fancy. Anyone got any bulk suppliers to recommend?

I was going to review this little product for Craft Critique, but Kim Fox beat me to it! She used hers for papercrafting. She also didn't say anything about the price. I would be much happier to have gotten about 10 or 12 buttons in the package for the price instead of just 5.

Craft Social

2009-08-20T10:50:00.003-05:00

Last Friday I went to Craft Social in Chicago. (Actually, it was in Evanston, but nevermind...) There were many crafts to choose from including Embellished Dinner Napkins, Advanced Paper Airplanes, Fabric Coil Bowls, Paper Greeting Cards, and many more. The cost was only $5 and it was really fun!

Since I haven't been stitching, I chose a craft that was familiar to me: Felt and Button Flowers. These are really funky and our teacher had a box of lovely vintage glittery things to use as embellishments.

We noted that the felt was sort of floppy and flimsey, so I stitched together two layers for stability.

I don't like to make a big thing about men crafting because I think that men are just as creative as women, but here is a man spotted next to me learning to stitch. His creation has a superhero medallion look to it.

The stitcher next to me used velvet ribbon as one of her layers. It looked very sophisticated, but I didn't get a picture!

It was fun! I hope they have another Craft Social really soon! I could teach embroidered felt mascots!

Intervention

2009-08-10T18:59:00.001-05:00

I feel your pain, Fred.

Intervention Intervention with Fred Armisen from Fred Armisen

RIP John Hughes

2009-08-07T11:57:00.003-05:00

News of his death gave me a bit of a pang.. He filmed his movies in the north suburban Chicagoland of my youth. They just don't make teenage movies like they used to.

I recall that some of my friends and I loved that song "Don't You Forget About Me" and Maria, who was moving back to Houston after graduation, asked us not to forget about her while the song was playing. Done, Maria! 25 years later, every time I hear this song I think of you!

I used to sometimes fake illnesses to get a Day Off. Instead of running around downtown Chicago, usually on my bonus days, I slept in and watched Happy Days when it came on at 10 am. I used talcum powder to look pale and I held the thermometer up to the lamp to get it to register a fever. I think my mom knew about the faking.

Minus Long Duk Dong, Sixteen Candles is a sweet movie. My high school friend, Sarah looked eerily similar to Molly Ringwald, only prettier and without red hair.

Sixteen Candles - Final Scene - Movie Ending - For more amazing video clips, click here

His films provide some of the soundtrack of my youth too. My roommate in college and I played our Pretty In Pink cassettes on our boom boxes until they wore out. HERE is the Amazon listing, scroll down for the music clips.

My hometown, Winnetka, also claims the Home Alone house. These two guys visited and wrote about it HERE. My brother's best friend lived in a house diagonally behind it. We were all in college when they filmed there. For a few Christmases, the family used the extensive holiday lighting left by the movie company. It was the brightest house in a 2 mile radius. They also used to have a cardboard movie cutout of Kevin doing the scream in the front entryway window to alert visitors on pilgrimage that they indeed found the right house.

I think I'm going to try to get Planes Trains and Automobiles from Netflix. It's one of Roger Ebert's Great Movies.

Charlotte Vacation

2009-08-05T12:44:00.006-05:00

I went on vacation with my family last week. We visited relatives in North Carolina and had a relaxing time. They live on a lake in Charlotte, so the kids loved tubing and swimming.

It surprised me how woodsy it is there. Here in Chicagoland, Midwest, our rural areas are all farmland or grasslands with a few trees here and there. Out east in the hills and mountains, the rural areas are all woods. It was kind of striking.

We drove a bit on the Blue Ridge Parkway contemplating the difference between the Appalachians, The Smokies, The Blue Ridge Mountains, and the Piedmont Region.

We spent a full day visiting The Biltmore House and Gardens. For years people have told me that I would LOVE it there. I thought much of the house was extremely fussy and overly ornamented, but certainly of it's time. Many of the rooms were lovely, especially the newly restored ones. The mountain location is spectacular and the forested grounds designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead are beautiful.

There is so much to see in that region. I hope we can return in a less steamy time of year. Some time I want to do an artists retreat and learn a bunch of the traditional handcrafts of the region. One friend of mine has done this several times. Next time I want to do more history and nature hiking. My husband and I love that sort of thing, although he grew up in lakes country in Minnesota and likes to look out on sparkling waters too. The kids go along with anything, but they do really like playing in the water.

I read three novels while we were gone including Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Funny!), Life of Pi (Wonderful, thoughtful, and fun), and New Moon (Uh... really a glorified romance novel, but the plot compels me forward.)

The kids at home have taken hold of my crafting mojo and will not release it. They go back to school in a few weeks. Until then we are working on building up our vitamin D outside in the sunshine!

Veggie Garden

2009-07-19T11:09:00.005-05:00

This spring, when the snow finally melted, my husband and I built a raised vegetable bed. Actually, I made it, but he carried some of the wood and handed me the drill when asked. I like building and putting things together so this works out. We filled it with a combination of bagged compost and bagged topsoil with some slow release fertilizer mixed in. SInce I built the bed with cedar and we purchased all the soil for it, we aren't really saving any money on vegetables this season.

We put in some seeds and hoped for the best! It was already kind of late in the season, so I bought potted tomatoes from the garden center. I am amazed at how well the zucchini is doing! I harvested some last week and gave most of them away.

The zucchini is so happy, it has taken over and covered up the lettuces and the strawberries. I think I need to make a second vegetable bed! Our beans never got larger than about 3 inches. I think rabbits feed on them every day. We also have some chives and some carrots. The corn seems to be doing okay. Despite the fact that my entire extended family is from Iowa, I really don't know much about growing corn.

This is our first year trying this sort of garden. Next year I'm going to do lettuces in a separate small bed. Some of the varieties get really bitter as they mature but are delicious in the early stages. I also will plant more nasturtium because I love them and some of those little orange flowers that keep the rabbits away. I forget what they are called. I grow herbs in pots that are right outside my patio doors. I used to have a patch of mint, but that turned into an entire bed of mint and then part of a lawn of mint, so now I grow that in a pot too. Fresh mint on a dessert is a delicious touch.

Unfinished Object

2009-07-17T08:42:00.012-05:00

This week is all about unfinished projects. This one really makes me feel bad. I had it out for a long time hoping that viewing it would make me work on it, but instead, viewing it made me feel a pang of failure and I still didn't pick up my quilting threads. Finally, I stuffed it way under my bed and allowed the kids to play with my Q-snap quilting frame. The Q-snap pulls apart into sword like sections and my son preferred this to his actual toys.

I started it a long time ago and it was meant to be a simple, quick quilt. I hoped to bring it to the family that graciously hosts us at their summer cabin every year. I even considered the colors of the living room at the cabin. It's more of a lake house really. They've also redecorated since I selected this pattern. This pattern is called "Sticks and Stones". The blue and yellow squares are the stones and the other squares are (obviously) the sticks. If I had to do it again, I would probably not select this pattern and I would not use so much yellow.

My excuse at the time I quit working on it was that I was having an uncomfortable pregnancy. My daughter turned 9 this summer, so that had to be 10 years ago. Next summer will be our 25th year visiting the cabin, so maybe I will finish it for that milestone.

I successfully hand quilted five quilts before this one. Most of those were small wall sizes. On this project, I don't know why I didn't just quilt in the ditch, but I decided to do traditional quilting 1/4 inch away from every seam. At some point in this project, I realized that I hate hand quilting. My grandma and I used to have conversations about what a slog it is to hand quilt things. Gram used to love traditional hand piecing, but she could never deal with the hand quilting part.

So anyway, I know you all have projects like this that you have never finished. People who don't craft will ask, "Why don't you just finish it?" There is no good answer to this question. Often, I don't finish small projects and I just toss them out and forget about them completely. I can't do that with this project, there is too much fabric and time invested in it. Several of these fabrics were given to me out of grandma's stash. All my cabin friends know how much I sew and I really do want to make a project for The Cabin. Alas..

This past weekend was our annual trip. My husband and I got to sleep in what we refer to as The Love Shack. The family refers to this as The Honeymoon Cottage. I think I remember the story that this was the original cabin on the lake property. Other sleeping accommodations include The Dorm, The Sofa, The Master Bedroom, Danny's Room, The Loft, and sometimes The Inflatable Mattress on the Floor. As I recall, some years the sleeping arrangements included Under the Stairs in the Hallway, and Nick reports that once he slept out on The Pontoon. 20 to 25 of us attend each year, often with babies and sometimes with kids, so sleeping arrangements have to be creative.

Summer is more than half over already! I hope you are enjoying yours! I think I'm going to get outside and forget about today's to-do list and just enjoy!

Loose Ends

2009-07-16T10:41:00.003-05:00

About 9 months ago, I put up these Ikea curtains. I still have to hem them.

If I clear the fabric off this table, I might not use up this fabric!

These are the parts of a tote I made for a gift. I gave it to the recipient before I photographed the finished tote! I have to stop doing that. The tote looked really cute. I've noticed that I so adore floral prints that I almost don't even realize they are florals. Same thing with pink. To me, pink and red are neutrals.

More floral pillowcases I made for our bedroom. They are so lovely. I think I need to make a whole quilt to match them. Fabrics are Kaffe Fassett and I got them at Hancocks of Paducah.

Acrylic crochet scrubbers and a ballband knit dishtowel. I hoped the knit towel would work with my new Swiffer. I don't care for the scent on the wet wipes for the Swiffer. Also... Swiffers are overrated.

Later I will share with you my most egregious unfinished object. It's been stuffed under the bed for 10 long years.

Blue Bedroom

2009-07-10T08:43:00.003-05:00

At my parents house, Mom has a napping nook previously referred to as "The Little Red Bedroom". I didn't get a picture of it when it was all vintage reds and whites, but it was very welcoming and comfy. There wasn't anything dated about the Little Red Bedroom, but Mom had it that way for at least 15 years and was finally tired of the red and wanted a change.

We used my sewing and quilting skills to makeover the room. We kept flashes of red, but changed the color scheme to this rich blue, pink, and hints of chartreuse. It isn't finished yet, but I did all the main sewing of this quilt, a set of pillowcases, and the curtains.

On the blank angled wall above the bed we picked out some fabric swatches to display in some embroidery hoops. You've seen this. It's the Swatch Portraits idea from The Purl Bee. Our swatches are laying on the floor under the window.

There are plenty of opportunities for us to add colorful funky things to this room. It is my daughter's room choice when she sleeps overnight with her grandma and grandpa.

I didn't photograph them, but Mom has dresser drawers full of hand embroidered pillowcases that she uses here and in another guest room. She needs a new lamp, but we temporarily gave this one a makeover with this fabric skirt. With a little rick-rack, this lamp might get to stay!

I'm off for the weekend in Wisconsin at the lake! I usually come back exhausted, but rested and renewed It's the best weekend of the whole year!

Indoor Picnic

2009-07-07T18:26:00.004-05:00

It rained on the 4th here, so we had our picnic inside at my parents' house. My mom has fun little decorations for every holiday.

Mom can get things looking really cute!

She has a vintage styled red and white kitchen and she has vintage collections on display there.

There is little point to collecting things if you don't use them!

My daughter and I made little yarn pom poms for everyone. We waved them at the parade earlier in the day and a little bit during our indoor picnic at the dining room table.

I'm getting us ready for our annual weekend escape to The Cabin in Wisconsin with a large group of old friends who did Stage Crew with me back in high school. I'm bringing up gallons of homemade ice cream and a vat of hummus. It is such fun to get together with friends who remember all the fun antics of our teenage years! We've been doing this for 25 years or so. I don't look nearly so cute in a bathing suit as I did back then, but who cares!

Happy Fourth!

2009-07-04T09:30:00.007-05:00

Happy Fourth of July!

Uh.. please keep the kids away from lit explosives.

I made a raspberry chiffon pie for the evening. Let's imagine that my pie looks as perfect as this one. This image is from Cook's Country Magazine... Mine is sort of collapsed, although I am certain my rustic looking pie will be just as delicious. I should have used a 10-inch pie plate instead of a 9-inch as recommended in the recipe.

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At Craft Critique, we are getting involved in the Butterfly Project. Please craft a butterfly for this worthy cause! All week Craft Critique will be posting butterfly tutorials to give you inspiration.

If I were a papercrafter, I might make a butterfly like these!

Circus Embroidery - Free Patterns!

2009-06-25T09:01:00.003-05:00

Last spring I posted about a circus embroidery piece my Grandma Nelson did for my mom when mom was a child. That would have been sometime in the 1940's. People really liked it and recently Shawn Lorette contacted me at Flickr to see if I would allow her to make tracings of that embroidery piece so that free patterns can be available to people who want to embroidery it themselves.

HERE is her flickr photoset for the tracings. If you want to copy them, you choose the picture you like and click on "All Sizes" You can download the image to your own computer or print off a copy in a size you choose.

Thanks, Shawn Lorette for making these available! Be sure to let me know at Flickr or here on my blog if you stitch any of these circus motifs. My Grandma would love it!

My Own Kids' Baby Blankets

2009-06-24T10:00:00.003-05:00

I want to share the quilts I made several years ago for my own sweet babies. My son turned 12 this spring and my daughter turns 9 next week. Where do the years go?

I was a very new quilter when I was pregnant with my son. Before I was pregnant, I tried to make a baby quilt for a nephew who is just a bit older than my son, but that quilt was a total disaster and I never finished it. I learned that I really need to work from a pattern with nice, clear instructions. That nephew received a sewn fleece blanket and a hooded bath towel instead of a quilt.

The pattern was in the book Quilts for Baby by Ursula Reikes. This is a great book and it is still widely available. I saw it the other day at my JoAnns. My son hid from the ultrasound camera so I had to make a gender neutral quilt for him. I hand quilted it. I always intended to quilt the border with some sweet handprint outlines, but I never got around to it and at this point, it does not matter. When he outgrew the quilt, I let my little daughter use it with her teddy bears. My son forgot about it until he saw it our baby photo albums and I told him the sweet story of how I was so excited to have a baby and I couldn't wait to make something special to wrap him up in. He reclaimed it from his sister and I noticed that the quilt was showing up in various places in his room and in his play. It has long since returned to the closet. Seeing it brings back sweet memories of new parenthood.

I have always had a harder time crafting things for boys and men, so just in case I had a baby girl, I made this flannel receiving blanket. Those look like little colorful bunnies, but they are really little stylized flowers.

This was a pattern in a book or magazine I had at the time, but I forget which one. I used fuseable webbing to fuse the shapes down onto cotton flannel, and then I stitched around them with a blind hem stitch using the old sewing machine my grandma gave me. It is two layers of cotton flannel with a homemade double fold binding. I made it while I was dreaming about motherhood, and I didn't use it until my daughter was born.

This animal print blanket was one of the kid's favorites. I found that adorable print at the fabric store. It is backed in flannel and has a fluffy poly batting inside. I wish I knew what brand that batting is, because there is no bearding on that blanket at all. I hate the way poly batting beards...

I cut out some of the animal motifs and stitched them onto some baby clothes that became favorite shirts for our son. We particularly liked the jumping frog and we called our darling son "Froggy Man" when he wore it. I did several other fabric-flannel receiving blankets and another blanket like this one with cars and trucks all over it, but I just couldn't keep everything and those went away to a new home on a charity truck.

There is another gender-neutral quilt I made for my daughter when I didn't know if she would be a boy or a girl, but it is probably down in the basement and I don't want to go down there and face the epic-junk-room-mess, I'd rather be up here getting nostalgic with you.

When I had a new baby girl to craft for, I couldn't wait to sew up this pattern which was in one of my Quiltmaker magazines. I could use various colorful prints I'd collected and I liked the restful blue background. I used these leafy-viney prints to make some little accessories and curtains for her baby bedroom in our first house.

I love this quilt, but it isn't my daughter's favorite. It simply isn't pink and girly or cute enough for her. She prefers the one that is down in the basement, because it has a fun jungle theme.

These babies are growing up! My son is at sleep-away Boy Scout camp this week and my daughter is spending a week away from us alone with her Nana later this summer. Here they are on a weekend trip we took recently to the Wisconsin Dells:

Pom Review and Wedding

2009-06-22T08:46:00.006-05:00

I reviewed another pom pom making tool for Craft Critique. Read my thoughts HERE. Turns out that even though it's cheap, it is still not worth it.

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Today is my 18th Wedding Anniversary! The years tick by faster and faster all the time. I was almost the first of all my friends to get married right after college. We were so happy then and it has just gotten better over the years. We sort of only celebrate the big anniversaries every 5 years, but I think we'll go out to a nice restaurant tonight.

It rained on our wedding day in 1991, and that is supposed to be good luck. It was! We had a big traditional wedding early in the day. I was blissfully ignorant about wedding planning and just went with the flow. I remember my Mom planned the food and my younger brother figured out the wine-and-beer bar offerings. We hired a talented florist who was just starting out. I told her that I liked big romantic flowers and pink and she did the arrangements and they were perfect. Actually, the florist was a nervous wreck and my mom and I were calming her down.

Our cake was a delicious chocolate with raspberry cassis. Our baker was being featured in Better Homes and Gardens and she called us up the week before the wedding to tell us that our cake was being photographed for the magazine! It was in the batter stage and the photos never ran, but still! That was fun!

We married in my north suburban Chicago hometown, but at the time we were living in hot and steamy south Texas and hoped for cool honeymoon location. My husband and I do not tolerate hot weather very well. It was our dream to go to Alaska, but we were young and low on funds, so we went to San Francisco instead. It was chilly and rainy there that week, but we loved the weather. Alaska is still our dream vacation and we have never been able to go. We have been to Hawaii and it was nice, but it was not Alaska... Maybe for the 20 year celebration.

Green Tote

2009-06-16T16:05:00.004-05:00

I loved the Amy Butler Birdie Sling Totes I made for Mother's Day gifts so much that I had to make one for myself:

Can you tell how large it is? This would make a great market bag. I plan to use it when I go on summertime outings with my kids and I need to carry a bunch of this-and-that.

Last year when we were in Estes Park, Colorado, my mom and I found a fantastic fabric and gift shop. Mom picked out these lovely green prints and passed them along to me when she realized that she wasn't going to sew anything with them. The greens are Anna Maria Horner Garden Party prints. I can't figure out what the brown and blue print is, but I like it!

I also made another simple styled square tote for my daughter's teacher, but I was in such a rush, I couldn't photograph it! I used four coordinating fat quarters and we packed it with some stuff for her dogs.

Its been really rainy and beautifully cool here and we have a sort of swamp in the backyard. This is finally the year all my neighbors are going to have drains put in so that we can use our yards again. My next door neighbors have younger children and this spring they gave up and let the kids be little mud people for an afternoon. It was adorable, but they didn't like getting washed with the garden hose!

Library Tote

2009-06-07T20:35:00.004-05:00

I made my niece this little tote at the last minute for her birthday. Her mom suggested that she could use a bag for her library books. This fabric and straps are all from JoAnns. The red floral was a couple of fat quarters. I wish my store had that print on the bolt because I really like it!

I backed both the lining and the outside fabric with interfacing so this little bag stands up on it's own and is quite sturdy.

The reverse is cute too. The little pocket is for her library card. A couple of years ago, I made this same little girl a pink Hello Kitty tote. I always intended to make another one of those, but I never got around to it!

Vintage Tea Towels

2009-06-05T12:24:00.005-05:00

I unearthed some more of the adorable embroideries Mom gave me from the things that were my Grandma Nelson's. She definitely used these tea towels. I remember them sort of in her kitchen.

Don't you love the gingham applique? The angry flowers are so funny.

Here are a colorful girl and boy in their folksy clothes out in the jaunty garden.

Tonight I'm taking the Brownie Troop to see Mary Poppins downtown in Chicago. Everyone is raving about the show. This is our last activity as Brownies. Next year they'll be Junior Girl Scouts. How fast things change!

More from Paducah

2009-06-03T21:47:00.005-05:00

I'm still here! Arent' warm weather colds awful? First I thought it was allergies, but well.. whatever.. I also couldn't locate my camera for awhile.. While I have been away, I built and planted a raised vegetable garden bed. We've already had salad from the lettuce we started from seed.

My children are in the last waning days of the school year and I fear that my daughter will be way more busy than my son during the summer months.

I didn't share enough of the quilts I saw in Paducah. I'm sorry these photos turned out so bluish. I thought I fixed it, but now they really don't look quite right. Here is a beautiful one that is all done with fabric markers. I neglected to note the artist so if you know, please email me or let me know in the comments!

EDIT: Quilter Linzi Upton wrote to tell me that she suspects this quilt is by Irina Bluhm.

The quilting is incredibly detailed. I think I remember reading that she thought it would be easier to do a whole cloth quilt like this and then it ended up being this epic masterpiece:

I've been looking at paint to redo my bathrooms and green is really catching my eye. I want a bright green and white bathroom... This quilt, "Botannica Kentucii" By Linzi Upton, was an eye-catching and fresh colorway in oranges and greens.

She used these charming thread crochet motifs with buttons. I love this!

Rick-rack and vintage style feedsack prints! *swoon*

Anyone know why it is that when I switched over to my iMac from our PC, the little window on Blogger that I use to compose my posts got really really small. Also my font sizes go wonky. Usually I sort of embrace wonkiness, but this is bugging me.

Winding Ways

2009-05-22T07:54:00.003-05:00

I wrote about a great quilt book called Winding Ways Quilts by Nancy Elliott MacDOnald. Check it out over at Craft Critique. I even made a short how-to video so you can hear my very northern-midwestern accent. It is also hard for me to talk and sew at the same time.

C&T Publishing is doing a giveaway over at Craft Critique, so leave a comment on one of the C&T vendor spotlight reviews before midnight tonight (Friday) to qualify.

Mothers Day Totes

2009-05-11T13:27:00.002-05:00

These are the bags I sewed for my mom and mother-in-law for Mothers Day this year. I still want to make one for myself, but none of my local fabric stores have the right woven interfacing and don't want to risk puckering if I use the wrong kind..

This is an Amy Butler Birdie Sling Tote pattern. Mom and I saw someone carrying a version of this bag in Paducah and I decided to challenge myself by making one from the pattern. The first one took me pretty much all day to make, but the second one was much faster.

I used fabrics I rummaged out of the remnant bin at Hancocks of Paducah, plus one from my stash for the lining on the orchid colored bag. It is hard to tell, but these are large bags and carry a lot of stuff. This is a good thing for my mother-in-law who carries EVERYTHING in her stuffed purse and then wonders why she gets shoulder pain...

Mothers Day

2009-05-10T08:56:00.004-05:00

I'm remembering my sweet, gentle Grandma McKee today. In this photo, it is the mid 1930's and she is holding her first baby, my Uncle Curtis.

She always had a beautiful project in her hands. When they stayed with us in the summer and over the Christmas holiday, she would always be making beautiful thread crochet motifs that she would assemble into heirloom tablecloths for all her grand daughters and grand nieces.

Here she is with my beautiful Aunt Nancy who sadly passed away this year.

She made cross stitched quilts like this one for all of her adult children. This one was Aunt Nancy's. I am grateful to the family who saw to it that I would receive it. She made a red version of this for my Mom and Dad. This blue one is dated 1965.

I feel a strong connection to both of my grandmothers. Their personalities could not have been more different, but they had the same hobbies which I find that I share. My Grandma N favored sewing and quilting and crafted with her girlfriends for sales and church bazaars. Grandma McK was a content and kind spirit. She stitched in her younger years, but I only remember the thread crochet. Several family members have handmade wool braided rugs that she made with scraps. Her afghans were used and loved.

Gram passed away shortly after Mothers Day about 12 years ago after a long, devastating decline from Alzheimers Disease. Even in the worst stages of her illness, she was kind, loving and sweet, especially to my Grandfather.

Happy Mothers Day to you all. I hope you take this day to remember sweet times with the matriarchs in your families.

Paducah 2009

2009-05-08T07:50:00.005-05:00

I feel like I am falling behind on things! Last night we tried to schedule out the summer. It is not easy to find activities for a 12 year old boy who isn't much into a sports camp.

Paducah was absolutely fantastic! I uploaded a bunch of pictures of it to my Flickr account, but I still have to credit all the artists. It really does seem like the show has outgrown the venue in Paducah. The quilts are squeezed into a smallish expo space and it is hard to really experience them with all of the crowds as the aisles are small. In Chicago they have a very large convention center with plenty of open space so the quilts are displayed in gallery like areas instead of tight aisles. There are several exhibits all over town and in various separate areas of their expo spaces.

A big thing to do at the Paducah event is the tent show with Eleanor Burns of Quilt in a Day. Now that I am home, I wish we'd seen it, but at the time we felt on overload. We visited her shop and it was shoulder to shoulder crowded with enthusiastic quilters. We chatted in line with a quilter on a tour from Australia. She'd been to Chicago the previous week with her tour and had another show out west coming up.

Mom and I were there for 4 days. We found delicious restaurants and the town is charming. It was very challenging to find a hotel room, but Mom located a local hotel that was .. um... a throwback to the motor lodge experiences of yesteryear. The room was non-smoking, but the air system is all connected so we still had smoke blowing on us in the night. This kicked up our allergies so we tried to stay away from the room as much as possible. Since we stayed at a super cheap room I had more money to spend on fabrics!

For the quilt show, Hancocks of Paducah fills up a whole back area of their warehouse with large tables stacked high with one yard cuts of their designer fabrics. Each cut is just $5. When I visited the shop last year with my family in the winter I collected Kaffe Fasset and other coordinating prints and made this quilt as a gift for my mom.

Rifling through these piles was the most fun of anything we did. Busloads of travelers to the show stop at Hancocks to buy their yardage. I love fabric so much. This is a picture of the remnant room. Usually they only have two tables with remnants.

Sorry about my blurry photos. I didn't notice until I uploaded them..

I made a couple of Mothers Day things with the fabric I found here and I already regret not buying more!

Another must see is the National Quilt Museum. On display were 25 years of Best In Show quilts including large pieces and breathtaking miniatures. Unfortunately, the museum doesn't allow photographs.

My mom doesn't even quilt and she loved the show. She says she learned things about the artistry of quilting that she never realized before. I'm not sure we will be able to do this show again, but I am so happy to have experienced it! Paducah at any time of the year is worth a visit to see their riverfront town with shops and nice restaurants, the Quilt Museum, Eleanor Burns shop, and Hancocks of Paducah.

More of the Chicago Quilt Show

2009-04-21T13:51:00.003-05:00

Here are some more quilts from the recent International Quilt Festival/Chicago 2009.

This one is a detail of "Three Guinea Fowl" by Pamela Allen:

She used some velvets and satins in this charming quilt:

This one is "Polka Dot Eden" By Luella Morgenthaler. All the fabrics are polkadots. I should have gotten a detail pic of it...

This gorgeous masterpiece is "Hawaii Sunset - 1845" by Linda Wilkey and quilted by Dana Goyer:

"Leaf Motif" by Laura Wasilowski:

"Red Owls" by Karin Pierce

"Winter to Spring" by Kathy York:

We couldn't tell if the fabric was striped or if it was pieced in these tiny stripes. In any case it was beautiful and textural:

This is "Overcrowded World" by Irene MacWilliam

I'm leaving for Paducah tomorrow! We have quite a drive straight south from Chicago. I can't wait to get away! My mom and I travel well together and have fun. I hope the weather is warm and pleasant. We just can't seem to shake off winter here in Chicago.

Quilt Show 2009

2009-04-20T17:33:00.003-05:00

Posting has been kinda slow for me lately. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm trying to focus more on house projects and cooking rather than crafting lately. I am still crafting, but I'm not really getting anything done..

This week my Mom and I are going to the BIG quilt show in Paducah, KY. We've never been, but I've heard good things!

This past weekend was the International Quilt Festival in Chicago. This is the first year I took my daughter and she was super excited to get to come along. My friend Donna also brought her crafty daughter and we had a great time.

Here the girls are coloring quilt squares with fabric markers at the Project Linus booth:

We went on the last day and were racing around a bit to see everything. I didn't notice until I got home that I had some blurry pictures. A large part of the exhibition doesn't allow photographs so I really recommend that you try to attend and see things with your own eyes!

I don't even know where to begin! I think this quilt was one of the most impressive that I photographed. This is "The Breath of Life" by Harumi Asada:

I love this one called "After the Rains" by Betty Busby. each stone is a gorgeous batik:

Traditional patterns are really wonderful. This one is "Two-Color Pineapple Quilt 2007" by Anita Grossman Solomon and Miriam Janove, Quilting by Janice Petre. Red and white is somehow always seasonal:

I'll keep posting my pictures, but I'll be away from my computer for several days when I'm in Paducah.

Tra-La-La

2009-04-09T08:04:00.006-05:00

Lets take a moment to recall one of the shows I watched after school in the 1970s. My parents limited our television, but allowed us to crash in front of the tv for awhile after school. Sometimes, I would also be playing a board game or cards with my brother. I think we pretty much only watched TV after school because I only remember these reruns that aired and I don't recall watching many new shows.

First up, The Banana Splits:

One of the cartoons on the Banana Splits was The Adventures of Gulliver. Flirtacia was the blonde who had a crush on the handsome dark haired giant and hero. One of the Liliputians is a depressed pessimist and he always drones, "We'll never make it..." when the group is in danger.

This is the unforgettable theme to "Danger Island":

"Uh oh, Chongo!"

Another cartoon was The New Adventures of Huck Finn. In this one, live action children actors would walk around in animated environments. I loved the idea of walking around in a parallel universe like this and I would imagine I was Becky. Becky, Huck and Tom are always on the run from Injun Joe.

The Banana Split show was where we kids would see all the Hanna Barbera cartoons like Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole:

Also on the show were Atom Ant, Magilla Gorilla, Wacky Races and more.

These clips are totally dated and my children are absolutely not interested in the shows I has so much fun watching as a child. Alas...

Happy Easter and Passover Blessings to all!

Gnomes and Birds

2009-04-08T08:22:00.005-05:00

This week at Craft Critique, we are doing a vendor spotlight on Meyer Imports.

These are a few of the projects I made with some of the lovely vintage style German craft items from this supplier.

Their items were fun to play with! See what else I made and read about it HERE. Leave a comment at one of the Craft Critique posts and qualify for the giveaway at the end of the week.

Chicago 2016

2009-04-04T16:00:00.004-05:00

It would be awesome if the 2016 Olympics comes to Chicago. Last week the IOC was here sizing up our beautiful city as a venue. This video features Chicagoland Olympians including Michael Jordan and my childhood next-door neighbor Paul Moran who has competed in 5 (!) Paralympics in sitting volleyball and tennis.

EDIT: They are here right now! Unfortunately, we are having very chilly weather and a chance of snow.

Embroidery Floss Review

2009-04-02T10:49:00.003-05:00

I reviewed DMC Linen Embroidery Floss for Craft Critique. This floss is slightly expensive, but I liked it! Read all about it HERE.

Last month I also reviewed Satin Embroidery Floss. I was decidedly less enthusiastic about this floss. I'm told that it is more cooperative if you use beeswax with it but since DMC did not specifically recommend this, I used the floss as it came out of the package. Read my Satin Floss review HERE.

See how wild it looks in that photo? It was the same to stitch with...

Birthday Berry Pie

2009-03-26T13:50:00.005-05:00

Last Saturday my son turned 12. He has never been a big cake fan so he asked that I make him a triple berry birthday pie instead. Sure! I had plenty of pie crust dough leftover so I made these little cinnamon crisp cookies. They were yummy too. As you can see, I like a rustic casual style with my baked goods.

We allowed our son to buy his own Xbox last year. It took him ages to save up the money but he finally got his dream gaming system and is just like most boys this age.. he is always wanting to play his video games. I understand this complusion as I have been addicted to Mario and Zelda games on our Nintendo.

Before we opened gifts, I took some pictures. Sam was really nervous that he wouldn't get his dream game and the tension is all over his face here when he is trying to smile. He also has trouble holding his pose and holding his eye contact with the camera. Maybe you can't see it, but this face is saying, "I hope this birthday goes exactly as I have imagined it.":

But dreams do come true! He got his dream game and all is well!

It is wonderfully rewarding to see our children grow up! I am so proud to have such a hardworking, smart, and funny young man in my life. Only one more year until he is a teenager! Happy Birthday, Sam!

Vintage Printed Linens

2009-03-17T10:03:00.004-05:00

I love winter, but this was a really bad one. It was frigid cold for a long long time. At least we had some snow here to brighten things up. The weather here has turned beautiful, at least for the last few days. My lawn is starting to green up a little and I see some very small buds on the trees.

With all this bright sunshine, I feel like I want to put away my old stuff and make way for some new things in my house and my life. My mom has been doing just that. She cleaned out her vintage linen collection and gave me some of her treasures. We think some of these printed linens may have been my grandma's but at this point, we can't remember and we aren't sure that it matters. Mom has collected vintage kitchen linens at antique stores for years and years. She has always favored red.

This one may be my favorite:

This one is a beautiful soft linen. It must have been used and loved, but it has no stains at all:

I think this one is new. A long table runner was cut in half to make two shorter runners. Mom used these out in her back garden for summer picnics and luncheons:

This is a vintage tea towel. It is a soft, thick cotton.

For awhile, the style was to collect these vintage things and sew them up into kitchen curtains and throw pillows. I think that may still be in fashion, but I don't have the heart to cut vintage things up unless they are stained and worn out. I'm so happy to have these lovely things for my kitchen and my summertime patio.

Thanks, Mom!

Craft Talk

2009-03-09T16:21:00.002-05:00

I've seen this from Leslie Hall several times today and I can't stop listening to it. Thanks Sarah, Zakka Life, Craftzine, and Craftastrophe.

My recollection is that gem and bedazzled sweaters were an early 90's phenomenon although they do look 80's. I was a crafty elementary school teacher, so I also was familiar with the iron-on applique puffy paint t-shirt thing of the same time period. In fact in 1993, I received a fully sequined t-shirt as a going away gift from my teacher friends back in Texas. Sadly, she used the wrong adhesive for the sparkles and they very quickly fell off. I don't usually wear sparkley things, but it was a quintessentially Texas sort of gift.

I love the way she says, "You sure looking happy, cause you make it snappy.. and not very crappy."

I also think "Do you want to paste together something we can use forever... I'm thinking Key Chains" could be the motto of our Chicagoland Craft Collective.

Enjoy! And "work through the pain" my craftastic friends.

Craft Critique Giveaway

2009-03-09T11:00:00.004-05:00

My friends at Craft Critique have a HUGE giveaway going on.

Pop on over there for a chance to win a large collection of papercrafting supplies, stickers, stamps, and all kinds of other cool stuff.

You can follow Craft Critique over at Facebook too.

Green Fundraiser Quilt

2009-03-07T08:33:00.004-06:00

This is the second of the two quilts I made for a school fundraiser. My participation in this project was assembling them into blankets. I wish I knew what products they used to color the blocks.

This one is themed "Make the world Shine... Like a Star!" But I messed up and stitched the blocks backwards so it says "Like a Star! ... Make the World Shine". I have since fixed this mistake.

Red Fundraiser Quilt

2009-03-06T08:20:00.004-06:00

Someone at my daughter's elementary school organized a quilt making project. The children in the 3rd and 4th grades (I think) each colored a fabric square according to a theme determined in each classroom. They solicited fabric and batting donations from parents and they sent out a note for sewing volunteers. My participation in this endeavor was the sew-it-into-a-quilt part.

Here is the first of the two quilts I assembled:

This one is themed "The Hands of Friendship". It measures about 55x42 or a lap quilt size.

It turned out cute! I decided against a complicated setting because I didn't want to distract from the children's darling work. Well.. that and I wanted to keep it simple for my own reasons. I get bogged down with design decisions and I didn't give myself enough time with these to do any bogging down..

I think what happens is that all the classroom quilts will be bid on in a silent auction at our annual Family Dance on Saturday. They'd been doing teacher themed gift baskets and decided on this project to change it up a little. I hope this project generates a lot of money!

Bibs

2009-03-05T08:34:00.003-06:00

I'm one day late with my school fundraiser quilts, but thankfully, the deadline was flexible.. I'm doing the bindings today and turning them in this afternoon.

Meanwhile, I still haven't quite sent my last baby package. We got a message that sweet baby is already 4 months old and there were gorgeous pictures attached. As I recall, we started introducing solid foods around 4 months (or was it 6?). I decided to try my hand at bib making to add to the package:

These are infant sized bibs from a pattern I found on the internet, but I forgot to bookmark it for you. They went together pretty easily. I used two layers of flannel on the back. I am also happy that I went ahead and ordered a big supply of size 16 snaps on the internet so I no longer feel that they are too precious to use up.

Today is feeling a little bit more like spring around here! Time to get out the springy decorations.

Baby Quilts

2009-03-02T00:48:00.004-06:00

These are two long overdue baby quilts I made for some friends and their new baby girls. The block is the churn dash which was a favorite of my grandmother. I used a beautiful fabric set that my mom gave me as a gift for my birthday.

I was happy to have the fabric pack because shopping for novelty children's fabrics is always a big challenge. I matched up the fabrics in contrasting colors and made two complimentary versions of each block. I delivered the above quilt to my friends and their gorgeous baby girl this weekend. I still need to send out the quilt below to the equally beautiful baby girl who lives out of town. I'm pretty sure the out-of-town parents don't read my blog, so the surprise is safe.

I beat myself up a little bit for not using sashing and border on these, but they were already big enough and I didn't want to worry about shopping for the longish yardage needed for borders. I used packaged double fold bias tape for the binding so that step went really quickly and easily. I like how they turned out although I took longer than I liked to get them ready to give.

Right now I'm stitching up some quilts for a school fundraiser. The school children each colored a muslin square which will be assembled into quilts for each classroom. I only have to do two of the quilts and I procrastinated as usual so it's a mad rush to get them done by Wednesday. Unfortunately, the fabric used for the kids drawing is really inferior and it is fraying and falling apart even though I am being really gentle with it. Alas...

Oscar Memoriam Montage

2009-02-25T21:21:00.004-06:00

I love the Oscars and I thought that this year's show was a good one. Some of my favorite parts of the show are the montages of past films because I like to see how much I can recognize. This year they did some weird staging of the "In Memoriam" segment so we couldn't really see it on our televisions at home. Here is that part the way they should have shown it. Thanks to Roger Ebert's blog for posting this.

New Computer

2009-02-23T07:46:00.003-06:00

Goodness, it's like we died and went to computer klutz heaven! Since neither my husband or I cares to ever really learn the ins and outs of Microsoft, we purchased an iMac over the weekend. It is so nice! I am happy to find that much of our family photos were uploaded to Flickr or Shutterfly so we only have a small window of missing photos. My craft pictures are all on Flickr and we did a bare minimum of word processing on that computer. Transferring the Flip Videos we took and uploaded to the laptop has not been working...

There is a new call for reporters at Craft Critique. Click HERE to read all about it! Craft Critique is a popular craft product review site.

Computers and Robots

2009-02-19T19:03:00.006-06:00

I don't know what happened, but our desktop computer failed the other day and is completely unsalvageable. Be sure that you have your files backed up somewhere! We did backup. Unfortunately the last time was in 2007, so we have a year's worth of photos and all our music files lost on that faulty motherboard. Alas.. We now have to purchase a new computer when we've been saving up for other important large purchases.

We have this horrible little laptop which is something, I suppose...

In any case, I like to post big colorful pictures, so I went back into my Flickr archive and found this felt robot project I made.

That old camera I used back then was so unreliable! It bugs me that these pics are not quite focused.

I actually made several of these and gave a few out as gifts and shared them in a swap:

The pattern was from THIS book. I was able to assemble some of the parts with the sewing machine, but the details are handstitched.

Wish us luck on our thrifty-but-powerful computer quest. We are not particularly excited about it.

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

2009-02-12T11:47:00.007-06:00

Today is the 200th birthday of America's Greatest President.

I embroidered a children's coloring page illustration that I found on the internet. The fabric trim is a cheerful vintage print that came to me a few weeks ago from my Aunt's stash after she passed away. I made it into double fold binding using my bias tape maker. This is a flour sack tea towel that I found at Cost Plus World Market. The quality of the towel is exceptional and the price was great. Unfortunately, the last time I shopped there they were out of these perfect tea towels.

I like these low, side angle photos:

My daughter brought her Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln dolls into school today. We got them at the Lincoln Library in Springfield, Illinois. You should definitely go to all the Lincoln stuff they have in the Springfield area. We had one of our funnest, least expensive vacations with the kids in Springfield. At one small county museum, the proprietor let my son handle the axe that Lincoln used to cut shingles before he left his labor job to become a state legislator. It had the initials "AL" on it.

Happy Birthday Mr. President!

Basic Grey

2009-02-11T20:06:00.003-06:00

Paper giveaway at Craft Critique!

If you join Craft Critique at:

Facebook

Twitter

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Email Subscriptions

Blog Carnivals

and then you leave a comment on THIS Craft Critique post. You will qualify to win a paper and stickers package from Basic Grey.

Please note that I'm not doing the giveaway! It's over at Craft Critique. They'll choose the winners on Feb. 14.

Good Luck!

Kreativ

2009-02-10T15:05:00.009-06:00

Aww-- Thanks Nan!

Rules:List 6 things that make you happy. Pass the award on to 6 bloggers for Kreativ. Link to the blogger who gave you the award. Link to the blogs receiving the award. Notify the recipients

So.. 6 things that make me happy:

1) My family. My husband and I have the same goals and values. We enjoy many of the same things and agree on so many essential things about life and faith, except politics. We avoid discussing politics. Our children are delightful!

2) Nature and the outdoors. I love living where we have dramatic seasonal changes. I enjoy nature walks, geology, birdwatching, camping, cooking over the open fire, all that outdoorsey stuff is awesome.

3) Seeing movies at the movie theater.

4) The ability to see things and know that I can make them myself if I try hard enough. This is also a curse because I don't always have the will or the supplies to try hard enough.

5) Going away on vacation to a cool, quiet, natural place. If I can't do that, then I want to go somewhere historic and educational.

6) When we all sit down to supper together and everyone likes the food.

Okay, now for my 6 award choices. I read so many inspiring blogs! It is hard to narrow it down.

I love the creativity gone horribly wrong over at Craftasrophe.

Bent Objects makes the most humorous wire sculptures.

Syko makes fantastic things up in Finland.

Sharon-Lizette cooks vegan and creates gorgeous projects at NastyWench's All Things Crafty

Peacock Chic might inspire me to try harder at garment sewing.

Quilt While You're Ahead- beautiful, colorful projects.