The Holiday Season

It's been almost a month since I have written anything or posted pictures of my projects. This is the time of year that my depression really kicks in worse than any other time of the year. This year I have tried to do everything in my power to not go into such a deep depression as in years past. I have been trying to keep busy doing something, anything.


 I made Christmas ornaments this year.
These photos don't do them any justice. They really turned out a lot cuter. I use toilet paper tubes to hold the ornaments after I paint them and I use soda bottle caps to hold the flat painted items off the surface of the table. Here is the link for the cute little Santa stars only I used wood cutouts instead of the heavy plaster ones. Star Santa Ornament and the Snowman ornament Textured Glass Snowman Ornaments . I also made some cute little glitter and mod podge bluebirds from some little wood cut outs I bought last year.

I also made some presents for my grand children. I found these cute I spy bags online and decided to make 4 of them. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of them. They really did turn out cute. This is the link where I found the original idea HomeSpunThreads: Eye Spy Bag Tutorial (a year in the making)

Here are the cute alphabet letters I made for the girls. I also made a small bag to put the letters in. I saw these on Etsy ranging in price from $25 to $40. Just type in "fabric alphabet." If you're not to sure you can do them yourself.  I found they were pretty easy to make. I used my word perfect program to find the type of alphabet I wanted and enlarged them to the size I thought they should be. I used fat quarters that I had on hand and ironed on fleece between the layers before sewing and cutting out. I also used a fat quarter to make the bag.

I got all my presents wrapped and mailed out yesterday. At least this year I got everything sent out to their appointed destinations in time for Christmas.

I realize it's probably early, but I am already starting to look for new Christmas ornament ideas for next year. Thank goodness for Pintrest, a place I can locate all the ideas I find and can located them in one place.

Decluttering My House and My Life

I saw this website a couple of weeks ago that said "40 days 40 bags". It was an older post about a woman decluttering her house during Lent. Well, I know this isn't Lent, but it is the Holiday Season with Thanksgiving just a few days away and  Christmas just around the corner. Now I'm not nearly as enthusiastic as that woman was, but I am eager to get rid of a bunch of stuff that is cluttering up my house, my closets and my life.

I love crafts and doing them. I love to knit, crochet, sew and paint. I just love doing fun stuff. But I have found that I seem to have yarn, paint, fabric and scrap booking stuff all over the house stuffed in a closet, foot stool, cedar chest or storage boxes. I have sewing patterns that are over 20 years old and now to small for me or my daughters who have grown up. I have magazines that are almost as old and books that I never use anymore.

A couple of years ago I went through some of my craft and quilt magazines and gave some of them to my DIL and my niece. A couple of months ago when my DIL and son were here I gave her one big box of fabric and a small one with Threads magazines in it and I still don't know what to do with the ZigZag magazines and Sew Beautiful. I still have my school stuff from taking facial and nail classes. Plus I have a year or two worth of Nails magazines.

Today I cleaned out the cedar chest of all my yarn, various loose pieces and a couple of UFO's that I have had for twenty some odd years and never finished. This stuff is in my trunk to be donated to charity tomorrow.  I did however keep all my knitting needles and crochet hooks. That's a small investment over time and I might still want to work on a project or two now and again.

My main problem is I enjoy doing all this stuff and just don't seem to have enough hours in the day to be able to do all them. So I end up with projects half started or not quite finished and have lost all interest in finishing it like this really pretty purple afghan that I started 6 years ago. It's just shy the size of being lap size, but my dog Sadie has found she likes it.

Two years ago I wanted to make doll clothes and sell them. I have bunches of patterns, the dolls to fit them to, the fabric but inclination to do it. I am gradually selling off the dolls and keeping a few to give to granddaughters. They aren't really old enough yet to want to keep the clothes on the dolls. So I will keep the patterns for now and in a couple of years I can make clothes for their dolls. I remember my grandmother making me Barbie doll dresses out of the scraps from her ball gowns.

I have all kind of zippers, buttons, snaps, ribbon. A very good collection from 30 or more years of sewing and crafting. Wow, I am getting way off track tonight.  I still have closets and dressers to go through to clean out clothes I can't or won't wear anymore. I don't have a big shoe collection anymore. I got rid of most of those when I stopped working and having to be dressed up all the time. I know it's going to take me awhile to "Cleanse" my house, but it will be well worth it. I have found that I really liked making the couple of quilts I have made. I plan on just concentrating on doing those and maybe some small quilts to hang up or place mats.

Then maybe I will have some small control over the chaos that has taken over my house.

Tylers Quilt

It's finished! I was beginning to think I wasn't going to have it done in time for Christmas. I have worked really hard on this. I should have taken a better picture of the border and binding. I added my own special touch to the binding. Originally when the binding was cut it was also cut from the same fabric as the border and therefore wouldn't would show up very well. I just happen to have some extra fabric leftover from the backing so I cut it up and used it kind of like putting piping on but without the cording. I hand stitched the binding.

I had quite a bit of extra fabric and squares leftover that I decided to make two pillow case covers to match the quilt.

If I have to say so myself, I do believe I did a pretty good job for my first big quilt.

I have other projects in the works. Time to get them finished in time to send out for Christmas. I also got a new toy that I will blog about next time.

Busy Busy Busy

I've been really busy the last few days working on Tyler's quilt and getting ready for Christmas. I have actually finished quilting the quilt and the borders. I decided to stipple the borders. Now all I have to do is trim the quilt and put the border on. I am thinking of doing a dual colored binding. I saw it on a board in pinterest and I think it will solve my dilemma of the border and the binding being the same fabric.  I have enough of the backing left to put between the border and the binding, kind of like an edge or flat piping.

This is a close up of the stippling on the front

You can see the stippling better here on the back

I dont think I did half bad quilting.  I'm really excited about getting the binding put on and sending this off to my grandson. Since I will have it ready in time it will be a Christmas present for him.

These really werent that hard to make

I am in the process of making Christmas presents for both of my granddaughters. I also saw these Fabric Alphabet Letters on pinterest and went to Etsy to see about buying some. After looking at the price that some people are charging I decided just to make them myself. It only took me a little over a half a day to make the first set.  I think the girls will like them.

Quilting the Quilt

This is the corner with the border sewn on

It's been over a week since logging on here. I have had some family issues to deal with. Now that that is over I am back to sewing on Tyler's quilt. I finally finished putting all the blocks together and put the borders on. I really like the border, but I'm not a real big fan of the fabric texture. It's a little more of an open weave than should be for a quilt, but I think it will work well as the borders.

It should be noted that this is my first time quilting a "quilt". I know I just finished the Princess quilt as you go quilt. But for some reason I just dont consider that being a "real quilt" at least by my standards. My husband reminded me that I have quilted before and I reminded him that those were baby blankets. I guess I just never thought of them as small quilts, but I suppose they were. I have never quilted on a project this large before. I looked at alot of sites trying to decide what type of design to do. I finally decided to do something really simple, just follow the lines of the blocks and do stippling in the border.

This picture shows a closeup of the lines so far

I still have about 3/4's of the quilt left to quilt. I should note that I laid this out on my queen size bed and spray basted it together. It was somewhat difficult to do, but I dont have any floor space in my house large enough to tape a quilt down. Plus my floors are all carpeted and I didnt want to chance getting glue on the carpet. I can wash it out of the bedspread. I did find a site about a lady who used skirt hangers and taped the quilt to her wall, but here again all my walls have something in or on them or not quite big enough to tape a quilt.

Christmas Ornaments, Past and Present

I enjoy a colorful handmade Christmas tree. I have never really liked the plain old shiny balls that always covered our tree when growing up. After decorating it she would put angel hair on the tree, covering it from top to bottom. It's kind of pretty if you like the colored spider web look.

Years ago when I first got married we had our first live tree. My mom gave us some leftover ball ornaments for the tree. One of the first things I remember doing wall cleaning off all the chipped paint on some of the ornaments. I had seen in a magazine how to redo old glass ornaments with colored water and using shank buttons and glue to cover and seal the hole. They were pretty, but they were really heavy and had to be hung on very strong branches.

That same year I had bought the cutest set of clothespin and balsa wood ornaments that you punch out, paint and glue together. That was 37 years and two husbands ago. :) Ever since that first Christmas I have always tried to make something new to hang on the tree and sometimes to give as gifts, if they happen to be really cute. I have missed a few years in the past, but I am trying to pick it back up again.

My children are married with families of their own and I have given each of them a few of my treasured hand made ornaments. I have also started making some new ones again for my tree and some extras to send to the kids to add to their collection of handmade ornaments. Which brings me to the ornaments I am making this year.
I found the projects on Michaels project pages.

I am making the Star Santas from wood cut outs and not the ceramic stars. I think they are really cute. My other ornament this year is the Mr and Mrs Snowman faces. I found large glass balls at thrift store and thought they would be perfect for this project. When I get them finished I will post a picture of them here.

New Look

OK. I have decided to try and give my blog a more appealing look. Even though I might like purple (A LOT). It wasn't very good for a blog and trying to read. I hope the new look is a bit easier to see and read without your eyes crossing. It's really important to me try and make this blog work, if for no one else but for me. 

It's more like a journal of my life and the projects that I enjoy creating or remaking.

The other day along with the sewing accessories I had stopped at a different thrift store and as always looking for sewing related materials. Instead I found some large size gold glass Christmas balls and some ugly gold snowflakes. I intend on spray painting the snowflakes white and covering them in white glitter. The balls I have already painted them with baby blue enamel paint, two coats. I saw this idea on Michael's.com in their project area. I am going to paint girl and boy snowmen on them. They are so cute. Also I have some wooden stars I got last at the end of the year close out sales. I have painted them red. They will soon look like Santas. Yes, I got the same idea from Michael's project area. I think they have some good projects. 

I have two bags bags of the round wooden clothes pins. I haven't come up with anything that just jumps out and says "make me, make me". If they were flat I would make a few of the reindeer. I really enjoy making ornaments and giving them to my children and grandchildren. That way when I am long gone, they can say " I remember Mema made this" Or "ya know, Mema is up there watching us."  Yes, I can become very sentimental at times. Will post pictures when they are done.