Christmas Wrap Up

Ola Senorities~

I know, I know... it's the middle of January, all the Christmas posts should have been posted by now, but I have just one more. One last thing to show & tell, a really great gift from my hubby, and a few precious moments...

This was sooo exciting! Look what Sean gave me!!

A Singer Confidence!! Yaaaaaayyyyy! My old sewing machine wasn't "bad" per say, but it wasn't great either, I bought it about 12 years ago at Target, for around $75, it was just a basic-no frills machine. Right before Christmas as I was finishing up my gifts, it started sounding mighty funny. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk... you could hear it all the way down the hall, and it was vibrating a lot too. Zig-zag wasn't working right either. Not good. I'm really enjoying learning all this sewing stuff, and am looking forward to learning a lot more, but I didn't want to invest who knows how much to have a $75 machine repaired. Shoot, 1 hour of labor probably would have cost more than it was worth. I saw this lil beauty at JoAnn's and fell in love. When the weekly flyer came out, I saw this baby on sale ($189 down from $299) so I cut out the page and circled this model with a great, big, fluorescent pink heart and left the ad on Sean's keyboard, hehe... I'm not very good at subtle. Lo and behold, I got it!! Wooohooo!

Look at all the cool stitches!

I'm dying to make some stuff!! I don't even know what yet! I've done a few things so far, and a couple of repairs, but nothing thrilling. I'm pretty good at square things, but I'd really like to learn how to do patterns and simple garments. I have 6 nieces, so I also think I'd like to learn how to make cloth/softy dolls and cute clothes for them. Like my mom used to make for me. They were awesome, way better than the Cabbage Patch's my friends had. I'm 35 years old, and I still have every single doll my mom made me. I think that says something (like maybe I'm a pack rat!! Ha!). Anyhooo... I'm stoked!

Here also are just a few snapshots I wanted to share, good times with the people I love.

My brother Greg showing Josiah how to work his cool new snowboarding boots.

Ava, playing with her first Christmas dolly.

Time with Alex... home on leave for Christmas. We miss you kiddo!

By honey... you take care!

It all comes and goes so fast, doesn't it?? Yes Lola, this is how I feel too...

Now! What to get started on in this new decade, so many ideas and possibilities???

What about you? What are you starting on this year?

Thank you ALL so very much for the many lovely comments, compliments and suggestions on my last few posts! What fun to share with like minded peeps! It was a real moral booster to hear so many kind things, I can't thank you enough!

Big oxo's to you all!

Lisa

p.s. Just one more! These were among my favorite moments, snuggling with Ava looking out over the moutains from Greg's deck... Ana caught this one on film which I didn't know until much later (I usually prefer to be behind the camera) but I'm so glad she did. oxo.

Stop the presses!!!!!

Holy crow, yo!

A little bit of my embroidery (in fact, the first thing I ever attempted) is featured on Feeling Stitchy today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I could die!!!

LOOK!
LOOK!
LOOK!


 I'm so excited!! I have to go call my mom!!!

oxo~Lisa

Christmas Crafts Revealed Part IV

Hey, hey, hey!

Oh my gosh - four posts, four days in a row! Are you sick of me yet?? I wouldn't blame you, I'm kinda sick of me too. This post won't be so bad, lots of pictures and I'll try and keep the yackety~yak to a minimum... be warned, I said "try".

I've been DYING to show this to you! I know I'm not the only Twilight fan here in blog land, I know because I've already run across a couple of you... you know who you are... cuties! So this is something I made for Christmas for Ana, remember her?

And awayyyy we go!

♥ Edward ♥ Bella ♥ Jacob ♥ Bella ♥ Edward ♥ Bella ♥ Jacob ♥

Not since Romeo & Juliet have we been so obsessed with fictional (teenage) romance. The Twilight Saga is wickedly addictive. An incredible work of literature? Meh, not really. But, I dare anyone to read them and not get completely sucked in. Not to mention pathetically sodden with one of those boys. Impossible, I say!

Perez calls them the Trinity and I couldn't agree more, so that's how I went about making this project. Three. Three different fabrics representing each main character, three emblems, and three quotes. I'm pleased to say that this design was mine, all mine ♥

Edward... slightly old fashion and formal...the vamp.

Bella...the ever in danger damsel...heart pulled in two...

Jacob...the wolf...muy caliente!

Edward, ever the gentleman from another century.

Bella, frequently dazzled...

Jacob, young, open, honest and straight to the point.

Bella, forever awkward...

This was the first arrangement

I ended up removing Bella's quote to Jake because I wasn't happy with the stitching. I had used a different kind of thread because it was the only red I had in the house when I made that piece, but I thought it looked sloppy next to the others, so I edited it out. Kind of a bummer, I liked that quote.

Here is the backing fabric.

And a little something for Ana...

All together now!

So tell me... Team Edward or Team Jacob? I waver, but I think untimately, it's all about Edward. Ana, on the other hand is totally Team Jacob.

Only one "bad" thing happened on this project, (please tell me I'm not the only one this stuff happens to) when I put the "right" sides together to sew them, I got the top/bottom/sides confused as I put it on the machine. Unlike the Hawiian pillow, this one was not meant to come apart. Ana takes really good care of her things, so I did not plan to make this a "washable" piece. Back to my confusion... I sewed the wrong sides together, aww crap! 

Crap, crap, crap! Hehehe... Sorry.

I still get annoyed by this mistake. I wanted to insert the pillow form into the bottom of the cover, but nooooooo. In my infinite intelligence I sewed the top, right and bottom sides together. Meaning I had to insert the pillow into the left side. I have "finishing" problems. Like I've said before, sewing is still new to me, and finishing a piece always trips me up. I needed that last seam to be at the bottom where it wouldn't be so obvious because it probably wasn't going to look that great in the first place, but nope. There it is, big as life and right there in plain view... nuts!

It's hard sewing a puffy pillow into a closely fitted pillow cover... I had to sew that last side together standing up so that I could use my left forearm to squash the pillow and use both hands to keep the piece straight as it passed under the needle. Is that normal? I kind of don't think it is, but I was doing ok, until I looked down because I was losing my footing on the petal... then this happened...

Big sigh... Well... you win some, you lose some I guess. Worse things could have happened.

Ana really liked her pillow. She said her bestie was jealous, yes! Mission accomplished >:o)~

Well my friends, that about wraps up my Christmas Crafts show & tell, I sure hope you've enjoyed it. I did make a couple of other things that I forgot to snap pictures of, a camoflauge crayon roll-up thingamabob for my nephew Josiah, that looked something like this, a simple (but big) super soft fleece blanket for my other neice, Alex and a "princess" dreamcatcher for yet another neice, Anais. It was so nice watching everyone open the gifts I made this year, I got a lot out of it. I put a lot of love into these pieces ♥

I love that we get to share what we're all doing with each other here in blogland. Thank you all so much for your positive, encouraging, wonderful, and kind comments so far. I think you girls are the bees knees!

oxo~Lisa

Christmas Crafts Revealed Part III

Hey Everyone~

Round Three, ding, ding, ding!

Picking right back up from where I left off yesterday. I'm finally sharing the Hawiian Quilted Pillow from Martha Stewart that I gave you a peek at back in December. Greg & Apryl (my brother and sister-in-love) loved their pillow (and matching sheet set), which made me happy.

Whoo boy! This was a doosie. The echo quilting wasn't hard exactly, although it did require a certain bit of concentration to keep all that echoing even, but it was very time consuming. I estimate this took about 26 hours to complete, not including actually sewing the pillow front & back together or the Velcro debacle, that part was done by machine and went quick. I don't think I'm an especially fast or slow stitcher either, I just wanted all of the stitches to be uniform and tight.  Let's go look!

Here I go... this picture is at the very beginning... Well, not the beginning actually. At this point the appliqué was well, appliquéd, which took about 4-5 hours in itsself... at least. I know this because we watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince one and a half times (Ana, my neice was staying the night that evening and she fell asleep the about 1/2 way through, so we had to watch the second half of the movie again the next morning) as well as all the special features before I was finished applying appliqué. By the way, have I ever told you of my love for Harry? I loves me some Harry Potter!!! But that is a whole different cauldron full of hot, strong love ... moving right along...

Done with the echoing! My poor fingers! I think each and every one of them was poked several times. Ouch.

It's hard to see in these photos, but the colors of the echoing threads change through out the pillow. They are what I called "soft" Rasta colors, instead of red, green and yellow, I used a mellow gold thread inside the appliqué, a sage green for the first three echoes, and a mauvy pink for the last five echoes. This was one of those "change gears in the middle of the project" things. I had planned to only use the yellow in the appliqué and the sage around it, but it felt too muted. I wanted to give the quilting a little more contrast, but not be too "loud" about it. Does that make sense? Anyway, I'm SO happy I did, because the pink is really pretty and adds a tiny bit of femininity to the design.

This is the fabric I used for the back. Again, this wasn't the original plan. Originally, I had cut fabric for the back that was sort of an olive green micro suede (you can actually see a bit of it in the lower left corner of the picture above) but I changed my mind and couldn't use it, it was so DRAB! I hate drab. Yuck... rummage, rummage, rummage through my fabric basket...bingo! I really like this print; it was part of a fat quarter pack that I bought for another project, which wasn't used. Woo! It's perfect... (to me). Lush flowers and pretty butterflies are much more reminiscent of the Hawaii where G & A were married, than crummy old micro suede!

Here you can see what the two fabrics looked like against each other. Yes, much better than army olive green.

Sadly, this is the last picture I took of the pillow before it was sewn together, wrapped up and given away. Now I understand how that happens when I've read that on other blogs. You just get so busy, and into the groove of what you're doing, you forget to stop to take photographs. Bummer...

After I had sewn the front & back together, I tackled the bottom. I knew from the start that I needed to make this pillow cover removable so that it could be washed if needed. G & A have two little ones and I have no illusions that this pillow will remain pristine. I used Velcro for easy removal... twice! I hand sewed the Velcro the first time, but it looked funny, the pieces didn't lay together properly, so I cut it off and did it again by machine with a much better result, although I don't think it was a hand vs. machine issue, I think it had more to do with the way I finished the bottom...

One other thing that I ended up doing twice was the stitching at the very center of the appliqué, originally I just used the golden thread and went in a spiral until I got to the very center, but I didn't like it, so I cut those parts out as well and redid them with the pink thread that I used at the outter edges of the echoing, and in a star pattern. Much better.

Gosh I wish I had a picture of the completed project... darn it. Well you can imagine, right?

***crickets***

Right. So, this is my first completed foray into quilting of any kind! What do I think? Well, I think I liked it, and I think I'm going to take a quilting class soon One thing is for sure, I have A LOT to learn. :o) Yay learning!

I have one more thing to post tomorrow to wrap up my Christmas Crafts Revealed, can't wait! All you Twihards are going to dig this! Stay tuned!!

oxo~ Lisa

Christmas Crafts Revealed Part II

Hello Lovies~
Show and tell is fun, so let's get right back to it, shall we?

The next thing I wanted to share was an ornament I made for my mom. This was not what I had intended to make for her, but I was running WAY short on hours in that last week before Christmas, and so her original Christmas gift, will now be her Mothers Day Gift... yeah, that sounds about right... if I start now, I should be done by May. ...insert uncomfortable laugh here...

Sooo, anyway! Do you all read Posy Gets Cozy? It's the blog of Alicia Paulson, it's great. I check it every day, but she only updates once or twice a week (I'm such a stalker!) I love her blog, she makes really pretty things, and really great looking food. I loved her set of Walk in the Woods felt ornament kits. I would have loved to order a set, but I swore to myself I'd stay on a tiny Christmas budget this year. Besides, I already had everything I needed to make the one I liked best for my mom. Seriously, I didn't have to buy one, single thing. How nice is that? So, since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and I didn't sell anything I hope that it's ok blog/craft etiquette that I share it with you guys...fingers crossed! My design wasn't as cute as hers... I did a quick sketch for reference a couple of months ago, and never rechecked it... shame on me. With that said, I think it came out pretty well. Here we go!

I kinda got so busy near the end that I wasn't taking pictures, here in this first picture, I've pretty well got most of the "cottage" put together.

Next I added a cute little flower/wreath thingy on the door and Christmas "lights" to the shrubs.

Then I hung the "lighted garland" around the eves, and a couple of "porch lights" as well as added a rickrack loop for hanging and some "smoke" for the chimneys. I finished by lightly stuffing the piece and  stitching on a back piece. This was a fun little doodad to make, but it took some time... I'd say probably 5 or 6 hours.

Here's my little Snowy Cottage, on the tree and ready to be wrapped up and given to mom. She really like it. Truth be told, so did I... again... shoulda made one for myself.

 

 

So tell me crafty ladies... you sew and stitch up a storm for everyone else on your gift list, but what about the most important person? Your other half, your hubby? Somewhere close to my deadline it occurred to me that none of this crafting would have been possible without MY sweet husband. I mean, for three weeks I came home from work, barely cooked a little dinner then disappeared into the spare bedroom, where my sewing table is set up and didn't hardly come out again until well after he'd gone to bed every night (I'm a night-owl, Sean is not. At all.) He'd pop in and sit for a bit, then it was back out to the couch & ESPN. Poor Sean was spending a lot of time alone (which, who am I kidding, he probably enjoyed not having to share the remote), not to mention doing a lot more than his fair share of chores so that I could get all this stuff done, and for what? I wasn't making him anything... He's such a sweetie, he may not be my loudest cheerleader, but he's my most supportive. I decided this wasn't fair. He needed something special too. Sew... what to make for the man? Hmm... he likes ice hockey, and Star Wars... Star Wars!! There had to be something... Google here I come!

I found a couple ideas that I

1. Already had the materials to make and
2. thought I'd be able to tackle (on my lunch hours... no, seriously)

Yes, I'm deranged... in the last minute madness I took on 2 more projects! But what the hay, he's worth it!

These pieces were both inspired by things I saw on Stitch Wars. Just goes to show, even when you think your creativity tank is near empty, some really cool things can happen. I actually like these two little pieces quite a bit. Geeky goodness!

Here is the first:

Boba Fett! A galactic bounty hunter... Sean's favorite guy. Here's a close up.

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but this was fun! These felt pieces come together fast! Oh! I stand corrected, I did have to buy something for this project, a new 7" hoop. Wood, I painted it black. When I was finished stitching Boba all together, I cut the fabric (spare from this project) close around the edges of the hoop, I'd say 1/2" or so, then ran a bead of hot glue around the inner rim of the hoop and folded down the extra fabric neatly. Easy peasy! Sean loved this, he was so surprised! He didn't expect that I would have made him anything. That felt good to me, I like giving him surprises.

Oh no, that's not all! I wanted a little companion piece for Boba Fett, so I also whipped this little baby out.

Heeeheeeheee! He really wasn't expecting this one! If light sabers were real, Sean would have one in every color, I'm sure of it. Looks a bit of a mess though, doesn't it? It's organized chaos, French knots, tons of them! Here's a close up. I cut a small square out and placed the embroidered piece against some starry black fabric (that you can't see very well), then framed the whole thing in a small black frame. I left the glass off so you can feel the texture, it's neat, all nubbily and stuff. Me happy!

This concludes show and tell for today boys & girls! It's so neat to be able to share this with the world at large, how fun! I'll be back again tomorrow to wrap up with the Christmas Crafts show, I hope you've enjoyed taking a peek as much as I have sharing these with you guys.

oxo~ Lisa

Christmas Crafts Revealed! Part I

Hey Y'all~
I'm so excited to finally get to share some of this with you! So much sewing & embroidery these last couple of months, and all of it top secret... until now! Now that the gifts have been delivered, the holiday habaloo has calmed and the tree is dow... (well, let's be honest, the tree is still very much up. But Sean is on swing shift this week, so tomorrow, instead of chatting with you all, I'll be packing ornaments)... it's time for show & tell!

I vowed (to myself) to make all my Christmas gifts this year, and I actually did it! Is it possible to ruin your eyes in the course of a month? I don't know, but I can't find my glasses which hasn't ever been much of a bugger, but lately, whew... I need those puppies! I gotta find 'em.

Sew! On with the pictures I say! First up are some little goodies I stitched up (I love it when Paulette says it like that!) for some of the girls in my book club. These are magnetic bookmarks, my favorite kind. A simple solution to a dastardly problem for book lovers everywhere... the dreaded slipping bookmark! This bookmark folds over the top of a page to hold your place, and never slides out because there's a magnet on each side of the paper. These were fun and turned out better than I'd hoped.

First, I embroidered each of their monograms.

(Look at Butch back there lying on his bed. He looks positively thrilled about me spending the afternoon embroidering, doesn't he?)

Then I cut the monograms out and sewed them to the fabric that I used for the outside of the bookmarks. I wanted something bright & cheery since I used chocolate brown for the monogram background. I chose a lime green (the picture doesn't do it justice) with white, five-petal flowers. Cute! I wavered quite a bit on this, if you had seen me in JoAnn's you'd have thought I was debating the repercussions of nuclear war... sheesh.

Next I sprayed the backside of some sturdy, spare scrap booking paper with aerosol adhesive, carefully laid the fabric down over the sticky glue, sewed around the edges in a contrasting thread (hot pink), then finished the edges with pinking sheers, that way the fabric and the paper were the identical size. Voila, a dinglehopper! Oh, sorry... Little Mermaid flashback.

At first I thought these would be totally made from fabric, but it just wasn't feasible. The magnets I bought would have been too thick if actually sewn in, so I improvised with magnetic tape that I already had on hand, you know the kind that comes on a roll? Yeah, I'm guessing it had been in that roll for about 10 years, the curl was rather tight. After super gluing the magnets down, I had to squash them overnight with a big, fat stack of albums... no, not picture albums, records! Those things are heavy!! And to think... we had to go turn them over and set a needle down every 20ish minutes to listen to music, talk about buzz kill... and no jumping either or the needle would skip! Crap, I'm getting off track, just let me say Lordy, do I love my iPod. Constant shuffle, baby!

This was the first one I finished, my little experiment. I gave this one to my mom. She digs it. I didn't get any good pictures of the others up close... but here you can get a good idea of how these work. They are terrific I tell you. Make one up, you'll see. You could make these in a million different styles. I should have made one for myself...huff.

Next up in show & tell, some thingies for my newest sweet, sweet niecy-poo, Ava. Ava is my brothers daughter. She is 8 months old, and super cute! She surprised us when she was born 7 weeks early, only 3lbs. 2oz! She's still a wee little thing, but perfect in every way! She's just starting to wear 6 Month size clothes, darn she's cute... look!

Ava is starting to put everything she can reach into her mouth, so I wanted to make something soft and cute but durable. I had a trillion ideas, but settled on a plush Mary Englbreit book called A Merry Little Christmas. I know these are pretty common, but I'd never made one. I definitely see the appeal; fast, inexpensive and relatively easy. I think I'll be making her another one for her birthday. I bought the panel to make this book on eBay for $5 including shipping (score!). I chose this project because I knew she'd be gnawing on it, and I thought the sewing machine could make stronger, more secure stitches than me. If something were to come loose... oh, I shudder at the thought... On with the cuteness!

To make it special and just for her, I did a little bit of embroidery on the name plate on back.

 I also embellished a trio of onsies for her (more for her mom & dad actually). These were fast & fun! Much more like playing really, I enjoyed doing these and can't wait to do some more. I'm a little worried about how they'll hold up in the wash though. Some of the felts I've been finding are darn thin. I advised Sis to hand wash in cold with Woolite... I hated to do that, to give her garments that have to be washed special... I've seen how fast laundry piles up with a baby, I didn't want to add to her burden, but she said she didn't mind because they were so cute (*blush!*). Any advice on what I shoulda or could use in the future? Wool maybe?? I'm perplexed.

A cute lil cupcake!

(Sorry for the fuzzy picture. My camera is acting so weird lately, like the flash is malfunctioning... I might need to nab Sean's new one soon...)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Puddin' Pie (her daddy's favorite)

Had enough?? Muahahaaa... There's lots more where these came from! I have tons more to share, but I think I'll break it up into different blog-i-sodes :) I'll try to post again tomorrow. I've love to hear what you all think, and I honestly can't wait to see what you've been up to! The blogi-hood has been jam packed lately with everyone’screativity, I loves it!

Toodles!
Lisa