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Ellia of greenbeanbaby, who is my swap partner for the Handmade Holiday Swap, alerted me to this: Gracie at graciebellabutterfly is giving away a couple of sets of her wonderful cards. Enter soon, before Friday the 30th in Australia, whenever that happens to be in your time zone!
Here are the fabrics I picked from Sew, Mama, Sew after I won a gift certificate (I wrote about it in this post). I love them all! The middle two, Amy Butler Nigella prints, are considered "home dec" weight cotton...they've got a wonderful satiny feel to them, which I wasn't expecting. The bottom one is a Michael Miller print which I'd never seen before...it's the whole alphabet in stylized blocks. Not sure what I'll use it for, but I'll figure out something!
I'm making fabric-covered magnets for Christmas presents for our community members...every year there's a Christmas breakfast, and people bring little gifts of some sort. There are several tutorials out there on how to do this, but it's pretty self-explanatory...I got covered button kits from JoAnn's, wrenched off the button loop, and covered the button blanks with fabric scraps from my collection. Next I'll glue a magnet to the back of each one. It only took a hour or two to do all of these (plus the sacrifice of my thumb pad, which had to push all those button blanks into the mold!), and they'll make cute little gifts. Much better idea than my failed coaster concept!
Only problem is...I got some small containers to put them in, but not small enough...with only four magnets apiece, the boxes look a little sparse. I may have to add a magnet or two to each set to fill up those boxes a bit!
I can't show this whole critter until after the (unnamed) recipient gets it for Christmas, but here's a sneak peek! He's made of mohair and wool felt.
I'm almost done with my dragon, a gift for a friend's daughter, and I'll be posting that up pretty soon. What an undertaking it's been! Quite an intense project. Lots of little pieces to turn right side out and stuff and stitch together. But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
Now, on to presents for the swap!
I just signed up for Storme's 2nd Annual Handmade Holiday Swap...you can get more info at her blog, but basically you make a gift for your swap partner and include a few extras. I've only got a week before the send-out date, so I've got to get to work!
In other news, here's a picture of my dad's Airedale, Darwin, waiting for his favorite treat...an apple!
Whew! Our computer was fading away on us, so we bought a new one...it arrived today, two days before scheduled! What a relief...I've only been able to log in for a few minutes at a time before another crash! Anyway, now our brand-new iMac is happily buzzing along (very quickly, I might add!), and so I can now download these pics. We taught our 3rd and last session of the Intermediate Beading Class at Rockland Center for the Arts this past weekend, and we had a great group of students. Here are a few of their creations:
I found this beautiful Rubblework Scarf pattern at Pink Chalk Studio...isn't it nice? I got the pattern and plan to make one up in a variety of materials, including some wool I've ordered. Should be both lovely and warm!
How exciting! I got an email this evening that I was randomly chosen for a $25 gift certificate at Sew, Mama, Sew for leaving a comment on their blog! They're having a great theme this month: a different set of tutorials every day. After my coaster experiments (see previous post), it was nice to see what other folks have come up with. What a great website and blog. Now I have to figure out how to use the gift certificate...I've been drooling over so many of SMS's materials!
I came up with this oh-so brilliant idea of making coasters for Christmas gifts, so I got some of Michael Miller's laminated cottons from Crafters Vision, the only place I could find that had the Carnival Bloom in stock. These aren't the best pictures (the lighting was a little funny, so the colors are off), but the two lower coasters are Carnival Bloom, and the upper round coaster is another pattern, Daisy Dreams. I started playing around with the material, which is laminated with a vinyl-type layer (I thought, how perfect for a coaster!), and tried a few different ideas. I first sewed the seams inside out, but when I tried to turn the coaster to the right side, the material got very wrinkly, and you're not supposed to iron the laminated side. The corners weren't very cooperative either.
So I decided to try leaving the edges exposed, a la Allyson Hill's Wipe-Clean Coasters, and used a stiffened felt in between the layers of cotton to give the coaster some structure. The cotton by itself isn't stiff enough. A simple running stitch seemed too boring, and the edges tried to curl up, so I used a tight zig-zag. I figured out that the easiest way to do the sewing was to cut out a larger piece, trace out my circle or square, and sew it...then cut close to the stitching after I was done. I tried both cutting straight along the edges, and with pinking shears. For the one pictured above with the pinked edges, I used two layers of the stiffened felt, because the others (with one layer) felt a little flimsy.
And yet, with all the variations, I'm not satisfied. The vinyl finish feels kinda cheapo to me...it doesn't have that hand-made, natural touch to it. I love the Carnival Bloom pattern (I'm a little less entranced with the Daisy Dreams), and I'm sure I'll find some other completely appropriate use for this material. But this is not it for me.
If anyone has any great ideas, let me know!
I saw these red leaves in the back yard...they were a bit more stunning in person than in this photo, but at least the picture captures a moment in time which will soon be gone.
I'm having a blog dilemma: I'm doing some creative work I'd love to document here, but it's for Christmas presents for people who may be reading this blog! My next project, though, I'll definitely share...a gift for a friend's daughter which will be a real challenge. More details to come!
