Tea Towel Tour 3

My group is all finished stitching for round 3 of our Tea Towel Tour at Craftster. Check out the gallery HERE. The thread is well over 100 pages long now, so if you click on the tab that says "show images only" you can see the stitching and skip the chit-chat.

Here's my fantastic towel. I sent it out blank except for the bias trim. My partners all used just a little bit of red on their motifs and that really unifies the whole thing.


This geisha is by AlwaysInspired. Her name is O-Ren because AlwaysInspired was watching Kill Bill when she stitched her.


Here is an overheated saucepot embroidery by KittyKill. This is an Aunt Martha pattern packet that I also have and love.


GatsbyGirl designed these heart flower applique flowers herself. They are ironed on with fuseable web and then the border is chain stitched.


Fruitloops did this fleeing pear and happy cherry embroidery. She found these patterns at Hoop Love on Flickr.


Lovebirds by Amyracinrose in a tea towel swap on Craftster. These birds are a Sublime Stitching pattern and I think they are in the new CraftPad.


Thanks to all my partners and our fearless organizer, Rectangel!

Phew, I was afraid I wouldn't get that posted before I left town to go on our first camp out with the Boy Scouts. I'm a bit apprehensive (so is my son and that's why I'm going) because it's still pretty cold out and I really don't know all the other volunteer dads. One mom friend of mine is also accompanying her son, but he's been in poor health so my fear is that they'll stay home. I'm not too excited being the only woman camping with a bunch of men and boys, although they are all very nice people. Since I'm not a leader, I think we adult tag-alongs can do our own thing during the day when the boys are rock climbing and stuff, but I don't know if I'll have my own car. Add to that the fact that it is supposed to be rainy this weekend. I'm pretty sure there is a shower at this campground, but I wish my husband didn't have a prior commitment and could go with us. I'm planning to hang in and enjoy it! I do love camping!

Gnome Embroidery

I did a disgruntled gnome for my last tea towel in my swap on Craftster. Actually it was a colorful apron for Always Inspired. He's not disgruntled for any particular reason. He's just a gnome and that's how they roll.


I wanted to use unusual and bright colors for this one. It occurred to me that I have never seen a red and white mushroom like the ones you always see on fabrics. Is it that they don't grow like that in my region?



This is a pattern by Andrea Zuill also known as BadBird. Click HERE to download it for yourself.

(edited to add: The magic of google showed me tons of photos of the famous red with white dots mushroom. I'll probably have to search really hard to find a blue one with purple dots.)

And the winner is....

BaileyGirl5!

Thanks to everyone who came out of hiding to comment on my blog! My daughter doesn't want me to mention her, but she picked the winning name at random out of one of our applique pouches.

My camera is loaded with photos from the Chicago International Quilt festival. It was terrific as usual, but it felt like I didn't give myself enough time to experience it fully. I didn't get through all the booths this year, alas. Did you see my flickr photoset from last year? I bought a set of five one yard cuts to do a cool geometric quilt. The fabrics were from a booth for a shop that is located near me in Rockford, IL: It's For Quilting, Etc. llc. They don't have a website, but their fabric offerings were very youthful and modern.

Okay, so tonight I have to edit all those photos I took.

BaileyGirl5, I'll send your items to you as soon as possible!

The Movie

My son came home from school the other day a little bit freaked out. He's in fifth grade and that day was the day of The Movie. You remember the one.. the day the boys go into one room and the girls go into another and the teachers do their best to stifle the nervous laughter. The son of one of my friends didn't want to talk about it, but just told her, "It was really graphic".

My son was a little bit more open. The most disturbing thing they saw was actually seeing the transformation from boy to man. My husband gets nervous even talking about this stuff with me, so I was the one who had the "talk" with my son. Not the talk that includes any discussion about mechanics and girls, the other one about puberty. They sent him home from school with a pamphlet and a free sample of Old Spice deodorant. He's been wearing deodorant since he turned 9 and two of the 11-year old boys we know have already shaved. My son thinks it's hilarious that The Movie was sponsored by Old Spice.

I told him, that girls change too, but he really didn't want to know anything about that and I didn't want to tell him. This all reminds me of the family trip we took once to the Art Institute of Chicago. I was trying to get my children interested in all the artwork and not surprisingly, my son was totally fascinated by all the nudes. He was only about 7-years old. I tried to pry my son away from staring at one beautiful Renaissance painting of the Three Fates, by getting him to go into a different gallery and look around and see what artwork in that new room was most interesting. "I want to stay in this room. This painting is really interesting."

This is sort of related. Check out THIS POST from my archive. Be sure to click on the "Click here" link to see the naughty bits.

Thanks for all your comments about my ring episode and my giveaway.

BaileyGirl5 said...

I hate that sick feeling when you realize you've lost something. I know this sounds weird but I always say a prayer that my eyes will be drawn to my missing object. Lo and behold, I always find it!

I don't know why I didn't say it before, but that is exactly what I did. I'd torn apart an area I was sure it would be and I got on my knees and prayed to God that the stone would reveal itself. Only shortly afterward it did in a completely different part of the house. You can believe what you want, but I believe the prayer worked. My mother-in-law once lost her diamond in a gravel parking lot at her church. It was found and returned 3 weeks later.

Finally, because this post needs a picture. Here's the tattoo embroidery I did for KittyKill in our Tea Towel Tour on Craftster.

Foods Package

My felt foods package arrived from across the ocean! Thanks Kiiss!
I love love love miniature felt craft, so this little package is just perfect. She even sent each thing in it's own plastic case!



Mmmm... rick-rack chocolate drizzle and felt whipped cream dollop!


Can you see the tiny perfection of this sushi? This package is really for my daughter to set up her tea parties and she really loves sushi so she is excited about this!


Finally a little crochet chocolate sandwich cookie. So cute!

This was for a swap on Craftster. Are there crafty people out there that don't know about Craftster? It is the nicest, easiest to use forum. I'm still waiting for my Ravelry invite, so I don't know about them. Etsy forums are wildly erratic and too often devolve into crazy ranting for my taste.

Moderators at Craftster keep things friendly, encouraging and focused on crafting. It's divided up into boards according to the craft medium. I'm not so into clothing and papercraft, so I don't really pay attention to those boards, but quilting, crochet, and embroidery are my thing. Projects run the entire range of traditional to offbeat and contemporary, beginner to skillful and artistic. People are mostly open about sharing links to patterns and techniques. I like the swapping over there because they have very good guidelines and deadlines. When you swap it's like getting into a craftalong with other people who are working on the same thing and that makes it even more fun.

Flickr is another of my favorite communities. I find the group chatting to be more difficult, but there is no better place to indulge in glorious photographs.

That's all for now! I have my last tea-towel to stitch today! She's getting a cute gnome pattern that is a freebie from BadBird.

Giveaway

I neglected the blog in the last week. We were away in Minneapolis for a family wedding that was lots of fun. I had a terrible scare when I looked down at my hand and the diamond had popped out of my wedding ring. This happened only once before about 12 years ago. My sister-in-law saved the day this time when she found it on the kitchen floor. I was already having discussions with my husband about homeowners insurance and in my mind I was weighing our need for new hearing aids for my husband against my having a diamond wedding ring. The hearing aids were winning....

Note to everyone! Get your rings appraised and onto your insurance policy! I'm going to do this with the jeweler that does the repair. I remained almost too calm when it happened. My husband barely flinched when I told him I lost my diamond but when I said, "You might want to help me look because this thing is worth several thousand dollars", he jumped up and started pulling apart the sofa cushions. I was exaggerating the value, but it got him moving! I have a way of completely internalizing my stress, because after this happened I had a terrible migraine for the rest of the day. Many thanks to Jodi for finding the tiny little jewel for us!

Last month was my one year blogiversary and I've never done a giveaway, so now is the time!


I have 2 applique pouches and a little red riding hood hair clip for some lucky person who leaves me a comment on this post by Friday at 8:00 pm Chicagoland time!

These appliqued items pouches are super cute, and handmade by me!

Random things

Nobody tagged me that I know about, but here are some random things about me. I'll let you decide if they qualify as "weird":

1) I routinely fall asleep in action movies, particularly during the "exciting" sequences.

2) As a teenager, my dream car was a station wagon. I always thought that sports cars and sedans were impractical. This has not changed, although now I'd like a fuel-efficient minivan.

3) I have giant feet and hands. I wear men's sized gloves, socks, and shoes.

4) I "watch" (actually "craft-to") Oprah and The View every morning. The View is goofy and Oprah has a lot of "Well, Duh" moments, but I watch anyway.

5) I didn't realize how much I enjoy quiet solitude until my children entered grade school and I had long hours alone in my house.

6) I have terrible listening skills. I can't remember names until I see them written down and I must doodle to pay attention in classes. Conversations are different. I remember those, but there are more visual and social cues in a conversation.

7) I blog actively and embrace the internet, but I am a lone holdout against cell phone ownership.

8) I have always hated writing. Can you tell? I do, however, like chatty correspondence and explaining things, so blogging is fun.

If you read this, have a blog and haven't done the list of weird or random things, consider yourself tagged!