Fabric Heaven

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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!