Decorating the Tree

All over crafting blogland, people seem to be joyously decorating for the upcoming Christmas season: hanging homemade advent calendars, taking pictures of their families wearing new Christmas outfits, setting up their tree. I went for a walk today and noticed many of my neighbors hanging lights and setting up horridly tacky lawn-art. Now I'm starting to get stressed, even though it's still NOVEMBER and not yet Advent. My house is a bit of a mess right now and I'm determined to get it as clean and organized as possible before starting any decorating. That probably means that decorating won't happen for a week - more likely two.

I was able to do a little tree-decorating of a different sort this past weekend. The family and I went to Long Island for Thanksgiving and we were able to spend some time strolling along the beach. We found a tree branch stuck in the sand and decided that it needed to be decorated. So, we went up and down the beach trying to find debris that could serve as ornaments for our tree. It was a lot of fun - probably more fun than decorating our real Christmas tree will be. I'm trying to figure out ways we can incorporate scavenging for ornaments into our holiday traditions without ending up with a tree covered in garbage sitting in our living room. So far, I haven't had any brainstorms.

Bok Bok Bok

I made these towels as a birthday present for my grandmother. I found the chicken fabric while browsing one day and knew that I had to make her something using that fabric. So, I sewed a strip onto the bottom of two towels and created some chicken tranfers by replicating the pattern on the fabric. Lots of split stitches later and I had these nice towels. They are currently hanging in her kitchen on two pegs next to the potholder I made her last year. She says they are too nice to use. I shouldn't be surprised.

Slouchy Bag

I made the pattern for this purse up as I went along and, as a result, it didn't turn out quite like I expected. Surprise, surprise! It looks silly when you lay it flat, since it's much wider than it is tall. However, it looks decent when you wear it because it gets all slouchy.

The exterior fabric is from an upholstery remnant that I got from a fellow Freecycler. Actually, it was rather more than a remnant. I probably could have upholstered a whole chair if I wanted. I decided to make a bag instead. Maybe I'll make another one with all that I have left and do some better planning. I'll keep you posted.

Creative Commons

If you look at the top of my sidebar, you will see I now have a Creative Commons License. I had an unfortunate incident recently where I found an almost exact duplicate of one of my original designs being sold for profit. When I confronted the person responsible I was told, "All of this is a complicated issue and the internet has really confused things for crafters." So, I wanted to make it a little less confusing by providing some copyright.

I thought that not copying someone's work for profit was common sense and that the internet crafting community was generally one of support and understanding, and I am still convinced that it is. However, there will always be confusion as to what exactly is inspiration and what exactly is copying. Hopefully, the creative commons makes it a little clearer.

Basically, all text, photographs and original designs on this site are copyrighted by me. You are free to copy them, provided that you give me credit and that you do not make any money from it. I, in turn, will do my best to credit anyone else's work I display on this blog (for example, the pattern for this duck came from a library book that I referenced in the original post and this oven mitt was inspired by Kathy at Pink Chalk Studio) and only sell my original work.

Of course, we can get into debates over what exactly is original. For example, there are many quilt blocks that are traditional and no one can really claim it as their own design. Does that mean that I can't make a log cabin quilt and sell it since I wasn't the original person to create it? Of course not. And that is where the confusion comes in. I'm not an expert. I suppose the only thing I can do is to follow my own head and my own heart and hope that others will do the same.

Here is a blog post from Whip Up about copyright and crafting from back in March, if you would like to read more about it.

Yes, I'm Still Working on This Quilt

This quilt really shouldn't be taking me so long to finish. The problem is that I'm very busy making Christmas gifts. Next week, we will be traveling up to New York to spend Thanksgiving with my family. In order to save myself money on shipping, I'm planning (hoping!) to be able to bring all my Christmas gifts with me. So, this quilt is being worked on steadily, but not constantly. This is its third Friday to be featured as a work in progress! I think I shall call it the sad, neglected quilt.

Sisters

This is another tiny, embroidered wall hanging made from leftover squares from these purses. I think my embroidery is improving, although I cheated somewhat. This is kind of a cross between a backstitch and a stem stitch. I just can't get the hang of the stem stitch.

The drawing is better than my previous wall hanging, but then I heavily borrowed from Teen Girl Squad. If you don't know what Teen Girl Squad is, then you need to go check it out. You will either love it or think it is one of the most ridiculous things you have ever seen. Maybe both!

O Christmas Tree!

I didn't plan this wall hanging - it just sort of happened. I was looking at all the fabric I had for my stocking ornaments and the idea for this little folksy Christmas tree just popped into my head. I made a sketch, cranked it out and then decided it needed some buttons. Luckily, I have a whole collection donated from my grandmother. She should be the sponsor of my Christmas gifts this year.

The echo quilting around the tree was a first for me. You may notice how very precise and evenly spaced the lines are. That's because I just couldn't bear the possibility that it might look horrible if I used my free-motion foot and mucked it up. So, I actually marked out all the lines and used my walking foot. I know, that's not what echo quilting is all about, but I had to do it! I must say, I'm very happy with the results. I'm going to have a hard time giving this one away. Of course, I could very easily make myself another one if I really want one. I never do, though. Why is that?

Crafty Purchases

This weekend, I went to Joann's to look for tea towels. They don't have them. But, they did have Simplicity patterns on sale. Five for five dollars! I've been itching to try my hand at making baby clothes for a while and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I've never made clothes before and I've never used a pattern before. Last week was my very first adventure into the world of both, but I cannot post the project here because it is a Christmas gift for someone who may check my blog. So sad! The week after Christmas I am going to post a bajillion pictures of projects I've been working on. Anyway, the thing I made came out decent enough that I want to try more, and I figured that baby clothes are both practical and quickly made (with a simple pattern, at least - nothing uber-tricky here).


I also found this great frame at Joann's. I've been looking for a frame just like this for months now and have been quite unsuccessful. It figures that I'd find one when I wasn't looking. And it was such a great price. There was a little ding on one side, but I covered it up with my trusty old sharpie marker.

I've been trying to get good shots of Simon representing different colors of the rainbow and this is what I have so far. I'm not thrilled with the red picture, but I figure it will work as a place holder until I get a better one. Now I just have to figure out where to hang it. There are so many blank wall-spaces that want pictures in my house, it's just so hard to decide. Oh, and don't ever expect to see on this site any of those Corners of My Home pictures that other bloggers are so fond of posting. My house has such dismal natural light that I can't ever get any good pictures. That's what I get for living in Northern Virginia: a middle unit townhouse with a few windows that never seem to catch any sunlight.

Quilt-y Progress.

It's Friday again and I've made some nice progress on the quilt this week. I was able to find just the right green I was looking for and I didn't have to travel too far to find it! Last night I finished piecing all the blocks. Now I need to get to work piecing all the blocks together. Woot!

Christmas Ornaments

These little guys are about four inches long and are the perfect size for a few lip balms. I'm planning on giving them to family and friends for Christmas this year (although I'm not planning on actually stuffing them with lip balm... maybe). I really wanted to make some ornaments, and I debated for a long time on what to make when the idea of little stockings finally came to me. They are quilted and lined and very, very cute. This is just the first batch. I have many more to make.

I really like the idea of homemade ornaments. In fact, my favorite tree ornaments are all homemade. My sister made a different ornament as a Christmas gift every year when we were growing up. I have beaded crosses, painted sticks (actually one of the best ones), little angels, and various other ornaments. My grandmother also used to make ornaments and stitch my name on the back of them. Maybe once the Christmas tree is up and decorated (not for a while - don't worry) I'll do a few blog posts featuring all my homemade ornaments. In the meantime, I need to get to work on the rest of my Christmas gifts!

Can You Believe I'm Still Embroidering!!??

When I made these purses, I cut out little squares in order to give them a square bottom. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go here. Anyway, the result was that I was left with 16 squares of fabric from the linings (since I made four purses) and 16 squares of the denim exterior fabric. I could have thrown away the scraps, but that wouldn't have been very thrifty or economical of me, so I decided to make a teeny tiny quilt.


I decided that the squares would make a pretty border, but was stumped about what to put in the center squares. My first thought was to appilque a scene, and the colors made me think of an apple tree. But, I soon decided that those would be some pretty tiny appliqué pieces and I had no desire to face the headache that would ensue from that attempt. So, I settled on my new favorite craft: embroidery!

As you can see from this quilt, my embroidery is severally limited by my drawing skills. This looks like something a five-year-old would draw. I think I should devote some time to actually trying to learn to draw, rather than lamenting my deficiency.

This little wall hanging is now displayed in my guest bathroom. I decided that it wasn't quality enough to try to sell and the colors just happen to match my bathroom perfectly. It makes me happy to see it hanging there. It's not perfect, but it is cheerful. I'm not perfect either. I suppose I should work towards being cheerful as well.

Quilt in Progress

It's Friday, and that means it's time to look at a work in progress! This is going to be a lap quilt and looks entirely unremarkable at this stage in the game. Even the colors look blah because you are missing the ones that will make it POP.

I've been chugging along on this quilt all week. It's been difficult, because I am all about the embroidery right now and making 96 little triangles is not an appealing alternative. This is a departure from my usual scrappiness. Apparently, the scraps make my brain think that making a quilt is less tedious than it really is. For some reason, all the different fabrics are so much fun to look at that I don't realize that I'm actually making 96 versions of the same exact thing!

I think I need to get a book on CD from the library to make me want to spend more time in my sewing room. And a space heater. Our basement is freezing!

Gift For New Baby

And the embroidery continues! These long-sleeved onesies were made for a brand new little boy. His name starts with the letter "D", so I made sure he had some other friends whose name also started with "D".

The dinosaur is the split stitch again, while the dog is a stem stitch. The stem stitch gave me some problems. It doesn't look quite right all along the back of the dog, but it's better than my past attempts. Hopefully, that's mean I will keep improving with time.

The dinosaur was drawn by my husband, who claims that he is a very bad artist. Whether or not he is, that is much better than any dinosaur I could make. The dog was modified from a pattern I found in an old quilting magazine. I made the pattern a wee bit simpler and gave it a completely different head. My first version had a head that was proportionally way too small for his body, but I fixed it with ye olde copy machine. Ah, technology.