crocheting the time away

I started knitting some gloves but became very frustrated with them so I veered off on a tangent with yarn. I found this peaches & cream cotton yarn and crocheted a baby cap for Rosemary. It's not very soft so now I want to get some softie baby yarn and do it again.

Fabric Postcards - Nativity Scene

I finished a few sets of these - Christmas Postcards.
Nativity Scenes with Carol Lyrics.




Peace on Earth.








Away in a Manger.









Unto Us a Child is Born.










Silent Night.







Sparkling Hand Lettering with jewel star on the back.

Padfolio for Laura's friend Farin

Batik dragonflies and cattails.
Fused to Timtex & stitched down with rayon machine embroidery.














Here's the inside. Laura made the sunshine.
Slots for pens & stuff.












Finished Outside.
Picture frame is for her new baby.












Glass button & velvet tie to complete.

Postcards for my ETSY shop

Laura's Padfolio

I start making this by making the outsides with some applique, the insides with some applique and pockets. (oops this picture is a bit blurry)











I sewed them all together and added a ribbon & button for the closure.















I made it to fit this sketchbook. Pens & accessories go in the small pockets.














It closes up nicely!














And ties up with a bow.

2 Art Cards

2 cards I made for my daughter.
5 x 7, batiks. decorative stitching, fused to cardstock.
I like these a lot!!












Maybe I like this one the best. But if you had twins and they aren't identical, would you love one more than the other?

Sew Day with Mel & Katie

One day last week I made some gadget bags with 2 of the girls
First we chose a background fabric. I have lots of batiks so we dug into that.
Melanie wanted bright green, Katie chose purple.

Then they decided on a design and cut that out of fabric with fusible on the back. I have mountains of scraps of this so we went through that and found lots of bright bits.

Katie wanted to make her name but Melanie decided to make a penguin!




After fusing on their designs, we stitched around them with some bright threads. Here is Katie's after stitching. They are getting kinda big to sit on my lap but we didn't have enough time for me to teach them both how to use my machine and do it themselves.

Katie's letters are bright and fun!




The penguin is so cute! Mel named him Gilbert.








Mel was getting the hang of the sewing machine.


we put in the zippers, added the handle and sewed them up wonky , which makes them a triangle shaped bag.





penguin pouch












Katie's purple & bright batik pouch with her name all the way around.

Today I started a batch of strawberry wine.
I used About 10 lbs of Strawberries

















Puree in the blender.

















Add 5lbs of sugar - put in a straining bag inside a fermenting bucket.
Smells like strawberry jam mmmm.













Add the juice of 4 or 5 limes, and a cup of strong tea (4 tea bags)















Add the other ingredients, (except the yeast) and about 2 gallons of boiling water.Looks nasty now! Those are a million strawberry seeds floating on top.

Cover and stir for 24 hours and add the yeast. Ferment!! Ferment!!

Check out the 2 berries I didn't puree! I switched to the blender as soon as I realized how long it would take to chop them all up.

What I'm working on Today

I started on some cards for Ashley, Melanie & Katie.
Here's the first one, just the fabric for the top.
Batiks, freemotion stitching. 5 x 7.











Tennessee's Cats
A few years ago I bought all these cat blocks that a woman had made but never put together into a quilt. She only wanted $2 for all of them, plus the book!! It was a little challenging because there are 37 big cats and 18 that are 1/4 size.
Those are going into a border with mice. Here's the center with the cats. All the fabrics are cats and the sashing has cat words. click to enlarge. (I think it gets huge)

Rian's Summer Top

Quickie Tie on Summer Top
Reversible
Applique Fun!
Rian wanted a Tree & a Butterfly.
We were going to make leaves but Ian said the tree looked like a winter tree in the night, so we made a moon from Angelina!










She ironed.













But didn't want her picture taken!













The only problem we had is I edged the tree with some Razzle Dazzle and its itchy when it's on the inside. :(

Cadie's Sew Day with Grandma

I invited Cadie to come sew a dress for her birthday present.
I put several sets of fabric in zippy bags for her to choose from.
She picked these Daisy Kingdom prints.










I added some polka dots & lavender from my stash.









I framed up one dancing cat and put it on the back of the bodice
And another one for a pocket.
The skirt fabric has valentine candy hearts with all the usual sayings
.. Be mine
... I love you












She "helped" me sew. We had fun together.
We also had hot chocolate!
At Starbucks she told her mom she didn't need any
because she would have some at Grandma's.

She didn't want her picture taken!!












We sneaked a few anyway!

Quilted Postcards

I completed 5 postcards today, and stitched on a few more.
First the completed ones.



Marsh Crocus












Leaf








Dahlia Sunburst







Pear












Dragonfly










These are the backs.
click to see detail.



Here's the postcards I worked on but didn't finish today.

Some need more stitching. None have a card back yet.


Marsh crocus (3)
Batik Leaves (2)
Batik Pears (3)
Dahlia Sunburst (1)