The Old Woman With the Blue Kerchief - A Funny Painting

I love to make stuff or do stuff and at times I get an overwhelming urge to make something. I am sure many of you other artsy people have experienced this at one time or another as well! This Christmas seemed to be an exceptionally artictic one for me. Aren and I spent the holidays with my family and while my dad was getting something from the freezer he noticed this wooden plaque with a painting on it. Suffice to say that it was not a picture my mum wanted hung in her home and it had been left in the laundry room presumably by the homes previous owner. As soon as I saw it I knew that I wanted to paint a new picture on top of the old one. In my excitement I forgot to take a before picture but it doesn't matter that much now. I primed the plaque with white to cover the picture and then proceeded to paint this rather comical grandmother in a blue kerchief.

Her extra large nose and curly lips add to her charm, don't you think? Haha. My mother claimed her but I have yet to see where her new home is. In this photo she is just propped up on the piano. As with everything, this was a lot of fun for me. Hope it gives you a smile!

Nifty New Pincushion / My Strip Quilt!

I got a new book from the library the other day and was pleasantly surprised by some of the projects inside. The book is called "Elegant Linens - 26 Projects for Creating Your Own Luxurious Linens" by Chippy Irvine. This project really struck me as cute (pretty easy too) and I decided to have a whirl at it.

Basically you cut out a shape twice in cardboard, set it on a flannel and trace it out, then on a fabric and trace that out. One layer at a time you secure the fabric/flannel to the cardboard. Once you have both cardboard pieces covered in flannel and fabric you sandwich them together and use tiny overcast stitches to secure it together.

Being the recycler that I am I used cardboard from a beverage 24 pack! Haha.

I didn't take any pictures mid construction (I don't know why..) but this is my finished pincushion! Cute, functional and ready for use. These would have been a great stocking stuffer for my family members who sew. Next year I guess!

Now don't everyone go and start thinking that I forgot about the quilt I started. I am still working on it (I have never made  full size before and gee it takes a long time!).

Here I have strips to be sewn together.

And MORE strips to sewn together.

And EVEN MORE strips to be sewn together. Slow going but I am well on my way! There are realy only 52 strips of strips so it's not THAT bad..... Either way it will be done by the time it is picnic season.

The CraZY String Quilt Project!

    So I have a LOT of fabric in my stash. I mean A LOT. I get fabric from thrift stores, family members, old clothes, the Reuse Centre, stores, everywhere basically. So I have been thinking for a while that I really wanted to make a quilt for use when we go out for picnics. When I was a child we had this heavy old quilt that had been made by my dad's mum. It was four layers of fabric scraps (no batting) pieced together and then tied with yarn. Most (if not all) of the fabric was from old clothes or other worn out items. We used it for everything: picnincs, playing in the sand, sleeping with, etc. By no means was it a perfect quilt but I think that is what gave it so much character. Well today I was online checking out some different string quilt pictures and I was getting frustrated with what I was seeing UNTIL I found this post on Lazy Gal Quilting.

This picture appears on her blog and is an example of a string quilt made during the depression era. It really reminded me a lot of the quilt my grandma made. No set pattern, no typical "quilt" look. I had been planning on making a quilt with my fabric but felt that I didn't want it to look like a typical "country quilt". Well this particular post really gave me the inspiration I needed to begin this project and I am super excited about it! Check out the post if you want, perhaps you will be inspired as well!

Lazy Gal Quilting - The No-Quilt-Police Quilt Show

Stay tuned for pictures of my own quilt once it is underway!!!

Christmas Presents!!!

Well now that Christmas is over I can actually post all of the pictures I took of the gifts I made for everyone. Hurray!

So for starters here are these really cute square box/bags that I made for my sister and my mother.

The one for my mum has two leather leaves sewn onto one side. The zipper is orange to coordinate with the lining of the tote I made her. All of the fabric, leather and even the zippers came from my stash.

This is the tote I made for my mum. Thread sketching is one of my new favourite things! It isso much fun to do and it is surprisingly easy too. I drew on the fabric first with a disappearing fabric marker and then stitched over the design. Sooo much fun.

The inside is a gorgeous shade of orange. I didn't put any pockets on the inside, I don't know if I had a reason for this... I think I just didn't want any pockets. It looks sleek and smooth and very shiny.

A close up on the little birds. These were so fun to sew. Honestly thread sketching opens up a whole new world of possibilities. I had done this before with random zig zagging or random lines but wow, an actual picture and it turned out so cool too. Can you tell I'm proud of this one?

My sister gave me these crazy pants a while back to be refashioned into somethin new. I hope she will be pleasantly surprised with the drawstring bags I made for her stocking!

This was SUPER easy since the drawstrings were already in the pants. I chopped off the legs, serged and voila! Two new drawstring bags. A great stocking stuffer.

Unfortunately I am unable to post ALL of the Christmas present pictures as my husband went to work today and took the memory card with all my pictures by accident. Hopefully he will be back before I have to go back to work!

Barbie Doll Dress from Ladies Capris

Unfortunately I took apart these pants a LONG time ago and so do not have a before picture. Suffice to say that they were a pair of crazy ladies capris that I purchased at the $1 Thrift Store in Edmonton last year. They came with a matching shirt. Ugghhh.

So for whatever reason I decided that I wanted to make Barbie clothes out of that fabric. This is a vintage pattern that I got at The Reuse Centre in Edmonton and amazingly enough it has ALL of the pattern pieces.

Dress #4 is the one I decided to try my hand at.

 

 Tada! It looks pretty good if I do say so myself. Sewing for dolls is quite tricky though especially as I hadn't done it since I was probably about 10 years old. I will probably get around to making some of the other doll outfits later in the year. Alas I didn't have any Barbie dolls in my house and I actually had to go to Sally Ann and rescue one. I think her previous owner gave her the haircut. Good thing bangs are en vogue.

Recycling Wrapping for Presents

I catch a lot of flak at Christmas time (well and on Birthdays) from family members because I like to unwrap my presents VERY slowly. Not to prolong the suspense or anything, but because I want to save the wrapping paper to reuse later on. Since I have been doing this pretty much since I can remember, people are pretty used to it. In fact as they are opening their presents my family will often throw the wrappings at me rather than on the floor to save me the hassle of picking it up. Lol.

I digress. I have heard different views on the idea of reusing wrapping paper and most often people think that it is cheap or that it makes the presents look cheap. Well folks, as the following pictures will show reused wrappings need not look cheap OR shabby.

Now sometimes the wrapping is really wrinkled from being folded up and stored for a year. Usually you can smooth it out but sometimes I iron it. Make sure to turn te steam off if you do this.

I reuse old tags as well by cutting off the part that was written on and attaching a new string. If I can, I save the tags that I use one year for the next year and eliminate all of the work. Of course it is easy to make your own tags too from old greeting cards or small pieces of leftover wrapping paper.

Here is the tag with a new string.

This is my stash of wired fabric ribbon which I have been collecting for the past 10 years or so. I have bought some of them (on sale) and the rest I received on presents. I also picked up some of it at the Reuse Centre in Edmonton. Wired ribbon is super long lasting and can be used year after year. It also looks really nice on your presents and keeps them from looking shabby.

And here we have our lovely present with recycled wrapping paper and ribbon.

As you can see these presents look just as good as any others. Because the ribbons are tied on and not taped and the tags have strings attaching them to the ribbons you don't get the unsightly tears/pieces of tape showing on the top of the present. It also makes it a lot easier to reuse the wrapping paper in the future.

And in case you were wondering all of the tissue paper is reused as well.

Merry Christmas!