Scarf and Hearts

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.

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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.