Still Stitching Away ... slowly

Whoa - it feels like it was just April and here we are, very close to the end of the year!  I can't believe that I never showed off my finished EMS Antique Sampler, especially since I actually did finish it before the end of the year - as in 2012.  I even got a cheery cherry-red mat and a frame for her, but I haven't gotten a chance to lace her in quite yet.  If I get a couple of minutes to myself one of these days maybe!  I am not placing any bets on that though.

Since the arrivals of my precious "smalls" I really have not had a whole lot of time to do much of anything.  I mean, some days during my maternity leave at the beginning of the year, I was happy just to get in the basics, like a shower, food, drink and bathroom breaks.  Somewhere around week 6, the girls actually started to sleep in shifts, so there was absolutely no breaks whatsoever.  Getting back to work was a piece of cake - all of you stay-at-home parents; I have no clue how you do it!  Good job!

Since sewing often is significantly faster than stitching is, I did have fun with my sewing machine and my piles of fabric.  I found a perfect freebie pattern and tutorial for this adorable Tulip Petal Sun Hat and managed somehow to swing a coupe together for the girls.  The hats are good sized, so the girls will be able to wear them for a couple of summers, I hope.  (Pardon the fact that Little Miss O doesn't wear any pants below...)

This is little sister, Lilla L.

  I

Posing together!

I had a lot of fun fuzzy cutting out the fabric so that the birds would be lined up beak-to beak and tail-to-tail around the rims.

Other than that, not a whole lot of crafting going on at home.  I did start a new WIP the other day; Hillside Samplings Folk Art Sewing Roll.  I have finished the easy (and boring) border, so I get to start playing with colors now - yay!  I think that this will be a pretty quick stitch, but I am not sure here I'll find the time to do the finishing work...  :-)

I am still really lucky to have a group of crafty friends at work, so I do get to stitch for a while over lunch every day.  Earlier in the year, I finished up this Blue Jay Silken Wings kit from the Crossed Wing Collection.  They have a bunch of different bird silk & gauze kits available, but for some odd reason they are not displayed on their web-site.  I had no problem picking from quite a selection when I called Paula to place my order and she was happy to send them to me.  I am excited about stitching the other ones sometime in the future.  As always with Crossed Wing, the designs are just perfect - delicate, realistic and detailed.  The only drawback is that the mat-boards that the silk gauze has been pre-mounted to varies in color between kits, so they won't look like a unit if hung together.  I guess that it is always possible to mount on a different mat.

Lately, I have been stitching a lot of Scandinavian monochromatic designs. 

The Christmas bell-pull below was a fun stitch and is a Handarbejdets Fremme design.  I need to hem it and find some suitable bell-pull hardware, but that shouldn't take too long.  My favorite panel is the center one.  it reminds me of traditional Scandinavian embroideries on the ladies blouses back in the days. 

*Baby Break*

This is a recent new start for me - my very first wool penny rug.  This is a total cheat.. everything was pretty much pre-cut and ready to go in this kit.  The only thing I have left is to attach the pennies to each other and to the center piece and it's done!  Quick and fun!  Now I just need to figure out where I can display it where chubby, sticky fingers won't get to it... lol

These super-cute and small mono-chromatic Christmas pictures are from a Swedish hand-craft society.  They are pretty hard to come by, so my mom sent 15 of them as gifts.  The society gives out a new design each year and I believe that the first one was published back in the mid-60s.  The kits have the most generous amount of floss that you can ever imagine - you can easily stitch the picture 3 times over and I bet you'd still have lift-over floss.  So far I have finished 5 and I have started on my 6th, but I haven't kept up with my photography.  The plan is to make a red-and-white quilted wall hanging to hang in our entrance during the holiday season. 

The grand plan is that I'll finish (I guess I'd better start it first...) this kit I bought from French General, Mansion de Garance, and I'll hang that in the same spot during the rest of the year.  Grand plans, but a girl can dream!  :-)

Speaking of French General - I did also pick up a couple of Odile doll kits.  I have cut out all the pieces and embroidered my girls' monograms on the apron pockets.  One of these days I'll get the sewing machine back out - I can feel it!!!

Photo curtsey of Leslie Jane Moran blog.

Well, I'd better run, but before I do -

Happy Halloween everyone!

 

Happy Stitching,

Letting the Machine Do All the Work!

Hi all - thanks so much for popping in! As you may have noticed, I have really tried to come over and visit all of you, but I am still working myself into a zombie at work. In all honestly, I don't really think that all of it can be blamed at work, but the season doesn't help. It is definitely getting darker and cooler out there, but compared to Sweden, it is a breeze! :-) I can't really whine too much; today DH and I finally took a long walk, which I have been promised for about three weeks now. DH calls it "walking the Swede", LOL! The sun was not out and it was really windy for central Kentucky, but it was warm and the trees are just spectacular to look at. We saw hawks and a bluejay and a bunch of neighborhood dogs on the way - it was really nice. I always used to roll my eyes at all those "looking for a future spouse" ads in the papers where people claimed that "taking long walks" were among their hobbies. Guess what - I'll have to do a lot of eye-unrolling now, since that is probably one of the things I enjoy most nowadays...

Speaking of neighborhood animals, we got a new family member! Introducing Princess:

"Hi, I'm Princess. Look at me - am I not the cutest?" "Oh, you are not sure... - we-e-ell let me move closer so that you can see my big eyes and my long, dark eyelashes..."

Bubba is furious! He can not believe that we brought home a white rat!!! I think that he is secretly terrified of her... She is super-energetic and happy-go-lucky, which infuriates him even more. She has jumped over to sniff him a few times (while Bubba has been restrained by yours truly), and he is not at all amused. Back when we got Bubba, I bought him a cozy basket for him to snuggle up in. He simply looked at it, wrinkled his nose, and turned his back to it. In all honestly, it was a tad too small already in those days.... Since then, Bubba has grown quite a bit and DH got him a dog-basket that he loves to sit in. Princess got to inherit the tiny basket:

Princess says: "It takes so much energy to be this adorable. Time for a power-nap!"
Both bunnies are hanging up on top of the couch...

...when Bubba suddenly decides that he does like the tiny basket after all...

"Whaddaya mean I'm "being silly"? I have always loved hanging out in this thing!"

That reminds me of a funny story Littlest Sis told me about our niece, who is turning three in December. She got a baby-brother a while back and is having a hard time readjusting to not being the baby and having to share her parents and all that jazz. The other day, she came up with a pretty clever idea, which she shared with her parents. She thought that it would be great if her little brother could move in with mormor and morfar (my mom and dad) instead of living with her. After mulling things over a little bit longer, she suggested that maybe it would be even better if little brother moves in with farmor and farfar (dad's parents). What is so funny about this is that their paternal grandparents live pretty far away, so they only get to meet them 2-3 times a year, while they hang out with my parents several times a month. That is one clever young lady right there!

Since Princess' arrival on Saturday last weekend, a certain big black rabbit has been even more of a snuggle-bunny than normal. Bubba demands that consistent cuddling is kept up, which means that there has not been a whole lot of stitching going on in the house lately.
I did manage to finish one of my finds form Salty Yarns last weekend. This is Sow Kind Seeds by Bent Creek. It comes as a "Zipper Kit" containing pattern, 18 ct linen, button and WDW perle cotton. I decided to stitch it with tent-stitch over one to make it smaller and I finished it as a little planter sign. The stick was a broken bunny-toy that was finished up with a button tied to the top using a thin ribbon.

A super-quick stitch, easy finish, and now I feel a lot less guilty about picking up so much stuff at Salty Yarns...

Other than that, I have spent a lot of time with my sewing machine. One of DH's co-workers asked if I could help her finish a Christmas stocking that her mother stitched for her husband. Here are the before and after shots:

Since the machine was up and running, I decided to tackle that "scrappy star quilt" that I found in a BH&G magazine a few weeks back. Here are the fabrics I picked out:

Progress on Wednesday night:

The star in the front center is made from a couple of fabric cuts that L-bug gave me last year. It may be hard to tell from the photo, but the dark-blue fabric is star-spangled - how cute is that!? The "US star" will be the center star in the finished piece.
Finally, this afternoon:

I noticed pretty quickly that I enjoy the sewing and pressing steps so much more than cutting the pieces. That cutting process was really boring and I am thinking that this may be what will keep me from doing a lot of patchwork/quilting in the future. Now I only have to find backing, binding and some other assorted fabrics to finish this up with.
Here are a couple of blocks that ended up being left-overs. I am toying with the idea of making a narrow table-runner, but I am not sure that I feel like playing with the cutting mat again... Maybe I'll give it another go one of these days.

After that, I decided to swing right along into a table-runner project that I have been thinking about for a long time. I found some really neat tutorials for Disappearing Nine-Patch runners on-line (here is a link to one of a vast number of tutorials) and decided that I wanted to give it a try. I had always been attracted to the fabric line Authentic by Sweetwater for Moda so when I saw the D9P I finally knew what I would love to use the Authentic fabrics for. The problem is that Authentic sold out really quickly and very seldom pops up at Etsy or Ebay. After searching for the layer cake for weeks, I finally got lucky and here is the result:
Nine-Patch:

Cut, Flip & Disappear!:

Love:

While I am at it, I really ought to get this tiny topper done too:

Oh, how I wish that I livd a lot closer to my quilting-buddy L-Bug!!!

Other than that, not a lot of crafting going on. I have been stitching a bit on a gift for Littlest Sister:

I spoiled myself with yet another Vera Bradley bag (from the Floral Nightingale collection):

An article was published in Sweden about my great-aunt Vera Frisen (and thanks an old blog-post, the self-portrait of Vera that my parents own was published!):

Yesterday, members from our SWE chapter (Society for Women Engineers) volunteered at a GEMS event (Girls Enjoy Math and Science) from 10AM to 4PM. I was pretty much beat after that, but it was fun and the girls seemed to learn a lot. We talked about chromatography, color science, and women inventors through US-history. Here are a couple of the slides that we showed:

Really makes one think, right? We are so ucky to be born in this day and age (and in free societies)!

Well, I had hoped to jump over to Stitching Bits & Bobs for some 20% off sale shopping, but I see that it is past 1AM, so off to bed with me.
Take care, Happy Stitching and talk with you in a bit!

One Stitchy Post Coming Up (as promised....)

Hi all! As always - thanks so much for all your wonderful comments! I am glad that my last post about the Harry Potter finale did not bore you all to death! :-) Now I am back with the stitchy post that I promised to post before this weekend has ended...

So, I did not get a whole lot of stitching done, what with sick-days and movie watching into the wee hours. But one can be productive with not a whole lot of time, right? Give me the internet and I can be real productive in seconds flat...
So without further ado, introducing this weeks stash enhancement. First off, I wish that I have not checked out Silverneedles "just in" page last week, since I thought that all the new Sweetheart Tree kits were adorable! The welcome kits are really neat for us lazy individuals - you can order the pre-cut mat-board so that the finishing will be reduced to a minimum. Me likey!
I did also keep with the Halloween theme from last week and ordered Hagatha's Hats by Just Nan - both versions. Interestingly enough, the orange one is on back-order. Well, at least I got the linens...
I did also purchase "The Guest House" by Bent Creek. It has a crazy chemist working in his lab (I assume Dr Jekyll) and I know quite a few "crazy chemists" at work, who would love to get this tiny picture (me included - I may have to make one for myself to display at work...)

On Friday, the mail-man brought me the highly anticipated Loose Feathers, part 1, from Blackbird Designs. Let me tell you, this booklet does not disappoint! At $12, this is quite a find on today's market, where we now are pretty much used to paying $8 for pamphlets charting one minute ornament... Here we have three generous, large and beautiful projects. After I read this baby, I went on-line and ordered an assortment of chenille trims off e-bay. I got to work with chenille trim at the Shepherd's Bush retreat last year and I just love it! It is easy to work with and looks great, so I am looking forward to fondling them sometime next week...

I did also manage to pass by Jo-Annes yesterday to pick up some beads and ribbons. My plan is to finish the Moonriders and Crowjackers with a beaded seam. It looks grand in my head, but time will tell how reality looks... ;-)

Here are the fronts and the backs, just waiting for someone to stitch'em together... (I have been waiting for the finishing fairy in vain.)

While picking up all the trimmings, I also happened to pick up these adorable reusable totes from JoAnn. How cute are these - I love that they are "real craft totes"!

(I was not real crazy about bloggers new picture loading tool, until just now - I discovered that I can type while to photos are loading - yay! - Scratch that - I am about ready to go absolute boinkers.... What do the rest of you think?)

So, did I do anything constructive this week? Seeing that I shamelessly increased the stash, did I manage to reduce it? Yes, I did (but not proportionally so)!
Here is the second Fremme piece. Progress pic, finished piece, and together with the companion.

These were so much fun to stitch on! (In the second photo you can see the project that I am determined to finish next; the Patricks Woods' Lucet pre-stitch....) I just met with my once-a-week-stitch-buddy, Pink, who told me that she really likes the third picture in this series. Sigh! I think that she just twisted my arm -Oouch, stop it Pink, it hurts! ;-)

I saw the cutest finish of these pictures on a Japanese blog. After some careful observation I have concluded that the borders are finished with picot-edge ribbon. How sweet is this!? Now I need to decide whether I should use black or green ribbon.

I did also spend some time girly-fying our bathroom this weekend. DH is pretty wonderful when it comes to things like this - he just says "Mmm, that's nice honey". In other words, he really doesn't care a whole lot, which works out fabulously well in many situations.
We started out with some Amy Butler towels last weekend. All the solid-color towels were pretty blah, so I decided to go with the big orange print with aqua ends (DH: "Whatever makes you happy, honey"). I expanded to the Amy Butler shower-curtain this weekend. So, as you can see, I am still in my "trying to go bolder" phase... :-)

I will try to make a custom-size bath-mat from one of the towels using some aqua and orange print fabric. I found a bunch of neat tutorials on-line, for example this one or here is a very cute, much more ambitious one at The Moda Bake-Shop (isn't that polka-dot terry fabric just the cutest!?.
(Speaking of cute home-sewn stuff, check out this really neat site - lots of great projects, ideas and free tutorials at Sew4Home.com!)

I am leaving you with some happy summer photos from our front yard. I love the summer season!

Happy Stitching and Talk with You in a Bit!

PS - Wohoo - I made it before the weekend is over - it is 11.44 PM as I post this! Must be a personal best, even though the picture posting process slowed me down significantly... ;-)