Blue :D

2 more pillowcases completed for Blue Hills - that makes 6 done of 14, so I'm ahead of schedule since I don't need them until the beginning of December :D

Tomorrow I have to go to the dentist (eeeeeeeeeeeeek!) and then I'm going to run to the fabric store (run, lol - I take the BUS!) for something I need to complete a project - who knows what I might find there that needs to come home with me?  ;)

Happy Birthday Nick!

Happy birthday, shorty!  Love you! Here he is @ The Keg last year on his birthday - those are some sexy boxer shorts I bought him, LOL.  We'll be going to the same restaurant tonight - it's his and my favorite place to dine fine :D

I've started working on my second PHD for Myra's challenge (see link at right) - I had 7 phd's to finish by June 30, finished the first one last week, and am now working on #2 - Small String.  It currently measures 48X54" and I want to enlarge it to 54X72.  I've already made the extra blocks I needed, so I'm going to start putting it together today.  This will be birthed and tied like project #1 :)

 Here's the Patchyapple boxy bag I just completed - it's part of a travel gift set, and I'll get it mailed to the recipient this coming week :) 

 It measures 10" long x 5" tall X 4" deep - it turned out pretty damn good, if I do say so myself!   I have one more little item planned for this set, but the "hardware" is coming from China and it hasn't arrived yet - I'll mail it separately :D 

The peas didn't work out ...

I have some beautiful glass pea beads I purchased a few months ago from an ebay seller - I was going to make a beaded book thong today with the beads as the end focal points, but they just didn't look right - they were way too long, and they looked awkward.  The long skinny shape just won't work with that type of project, so I'll save those pretty little guys for a project that will suit them better ;) 

Since I already had the main part of the book thong strung, I added some pretty glass leaves instead of the peas - it worked out a lot better :)  The red bookmark is what I made tonight when I had my friends Nancy and Amanda over for a crafty hen party :D


Speaking of our crafty hen party, here are a few photos - none of us wanted to be in the photos so I had to focus the camera on the table and our arms ... HA!!!   As you can see I baked a (ginger peach) cake for the occasion, and started bringing out the beading supplies ...

Here we are in full swing - carrying on and playing with the beads :D

Amanda working on her pretty book thong ... or rather ... Amanda's ARMS working on her pretty book thong!

This is my work area - I was working with read and gold ;)  You can see Nancy's arm in the background on the left :D

Here are the bookmarks we completed - on the left is Amanda's (with the orange beads), then top right is mine, with gold/red beads, and bottom right is Nancy's, with pretty sea turtle beads :)

A close-up of our 3 projects :)

Thanks for the lovely evening, ladies - Wendy - these photos are for you - wish you were here to play with us - it would have been a hoot!

Santa, cupcakes and ... peas??!!

Today's completions - 2 drawstring Santa gift bags ... and ...

 3 cupcake zippies (note the pretty heart ribbon zipper pulls!) :)  These are actually the "gift wrap" for 3 small projects I have in the pipeline when I can get the items I need to finish them ;)


Tomorrow I hope to finish a pea project (LOL!) and will be having 2 friends over for a crafty party to make beaded book thongs - Wendy we'll get some photos for you - maybe one of these days you'll make it to Canada for a visit and you can join us at our tornado party!

The last of the ladybugs :)

I made these two book thongs tonight with the last of my ladybug beads - thanks Nanc for giving me some pretty little beads to help me with by new bead "obsession", and to finish these bookmarks :)   Thanks for the pretty fabrics too, lol.

I have a couple of fancy lampwork beads picked out for the next book thongs - I'm not sure if they'll work or not as they have some delicate bits, but I'll try.  I think they'll work, and I think I have everything I need to finish them ;)

A finished UFO and some littlies :)

My first UFO finish in Myra's PHD challenge - our oldest son's girlfriend is hiding under the quilt while Zoomer looks on, LOL.  This measures about 54X72, and is backed with a soft fluffy turquoisey fleece.  All the buttons (stitched to the intersections for quilting) are blue :)  6 more quilts to finish by June 30!

A pair of pillowcases I made for a local counselling centre - I need to make 14 by the beginning of December, and I have 4 done now.

2 lined gift bags completed for Christmas :)

Dedicated to Aubree ...

... because she missed them :D

First UFO almost finished :)

At the beginning of the year I joined a ufo completion challenge at Myra's blog, at which time I committed to completing 7 PHD's (projects half done) by June 30 :)  I picked 7 scrap quilt flimsies that have been sitting in a cabinet in my craft room for several years.  They're certainly not keeping anybody warm in my cupboard!  Today I got the quilt birthed with some turquoisey blue fleece, and tomorrow I'll start sewing stash buttons onto the block intersections (I think it will take 35 buttons) - then PHD #1 - 54" x 72" - will be completed :)  Thanks for the kick in the pants, Myra!

I hope 6 is enough ...

for the intended recipient!!  These luggage wraps are part of a small travel set I'm working on - tutorial is here (and also on my tutorial page) :)

3 simple little wallets :)

This is a project I've wanted to do for a while, and I found a great tutorial for it at Quiltish - thanks Allisa!  Matteo (great nephew) and Matteo (neighbour) will be the recipient of the blue football wallets (made with recycled "electricians" denim [which is denim from my guys' work jeans, lol]), and the red doggy bones wallet will go in my gift box for a future gifting occasion.  I'll put fake paper money and some empty gift cards in them :)  I'll definitely be making more of these little treasures - they're really simple and quick to whip up!

 Another ladybug book thong completed, and now I'm out of wire guardians until my ebay order arrives, so beading is on hold for a few days.  I'll still be online shopping for beads though - I ordered some from etsy today, and have quite a few on my ebay watch list!

My Stickeule reindeer is coming along nicely - another few days and he (she?) will be completed :)

Canadian physics win :D

Burgundy :)

Here are the last of the wine bottle bags I kitted up to finish off some fabrics - I started these last night and finished them today.  I bought more sheer voile type fabric today but I'll put it away for a later date - I have other things that need finishing first :)  I finally got to Fabricland to get zippers for my Canada travel set so that's what I'll be working on tomorrow :)

Stickeule Reindeer :)

I found a fun XS blog a while back and decided yesterday to start a reindeer I found there.  Renate did two versions - this one and this one - I think they're both adorable!  Here's my start - notice the smyrna stitch in his (her?) belly - I love that stitch and try to add it to every project ... when I remember, LOL.

I also got another ladybug book thong finished tonight - I made it while hubby and I were watching the news.  I wish I could find my reading glasses tho - these old eyes of mine aren't very happy working on such detailed tiny projects!

One  more finish - 5 glitter wine bottle bags (link to tutorial is here).  They turned out just lovely, iidssm!  I have another set of 5 cut out and started in burgundy glitter fabric - hopefully I can finish them this weekend.  My newest crafting accessory = 5 wine bottles - I keep 'em on a shelf in my craft room now, for picture posing purposes, LOL!

Glitterfest :D

 Another wine bottle bag, this time made with glittery Christmas fabric :D  My sewing area is now festively glittered, LOL - that sh*t gets EVERYWHERE!  The bag looks gorgeous, tho!  You can see the rest of the bag bits beside the completed bag - I have 4 more under construction :)

My camera isn't good at taking close-up photos, but here's another ladybug book thong.  You can't really tell in the photo but I used some bugle beads with the seed beads in the centre section - I'm having fun branching out into new "designs"! 

Thankfully, not everybody has an ebook reader :D

 Here are the book thongs I've made so far - I have more ladybug beads to use, and tonight I ordered some fun lampwork beads from online :)

4 wine bottle bags completed - I'm very happy with these, and have the supplies ready for the next batch :D  I wonder if I can somehow incorporate beads onto them ... for added bling ;)

Another tiny little finish, made with the last bits and pieces of this dessert fabric :)

Crafting at a friend's house :)

 I was at a friend's house tonight to do some crafting - I love your portable Ott light, Nanc - I'll have to pick one up the next time D and I go Stateside :)  Here's the book thong I finished - it measures 12" long :)

Here are the two name labels I XS'd for kiddy wallets I'm making for Matteo 1 (our great nephew) and Matteo 2 (next door neighbour's son :)  Matteo 1 will get this for his 3rd birthday next month, and Matteo 2 will get his for Christmas (he'll be 3 by then) :)  The tutorial is from Sneezerville :D

My husband is VERY handy :)

I've been b*tching and complaining about my dishwasher for days now - no matter how I arranged the dishes, half of the items in the bottom rack would come out FILTHY, even if I washed them several times.  I checked to make sure nothing was blocking the arms, and I even ran the machine empty with some baking soda to clean it out, in case there was food stuck somewhere.  Instead of all my whining and wailing I should just have asked Dennis to have a look at it.  He took the racks out and worked his magic, and in very short order, I was able to run the machine with ever-so-delightful results.  Thanks D - you take such good care of us!

Here's my current project - a Brittercup Christmas puppy, almost finished :)  He's from the JCS Christmas ornaments (2006) issue.  Obviously my psoriasis well under control (thank you, Humira!!) so I'm able to work on cross-stitch :D  Here's what the finished stitchery looks like - isn't she cute? Yes, that's a girl puppy ;)

This is why you do a trial run :)

I found a wine bottle bag tutorial @ Sew4Home and decided to give it a try.  I used some scrap tropical fabric for the trial run, and wasn't very pleased with the results, LOLOL.  The ribbon is attached too low on the bag (and actually ties around the wide part of the bottle - who does that?!).  The bottom flaps are MOST unattractive and floppy in their version!

My adjustments:
Step 4 - place the top of the ribbon 3" below the mid seam - not halfway down.
Step 6 - instead of leaving the opening on the bottom edge, put it on the side (on the lining).  After stitching around 3 edges, box the bottom of the outside and lining by cutting 1.5" squares and boxing as normal.  Finish the bag the way the instructions instruct :D

With my changes, you'll have THIS result - I think it's much prettier :)

My version versus theirs ... I do like the look of mine better, especially the bottom and the ribbon placement :)

Some donation items for a local centre ...

The staff @ our local live-in family counselling centre (BH) asked if I could make some bags for the kids to carry their toothbrushes/toothpaste in.  Here's the prototype - I'll send it to them with Amanda and see if it works for them :)  (Note to self - the pieces were cut 5x10 for this one).

Pillowcases made to use up this princess fabric.  I'm going to send these to BH with Amanda to see if they can use them - I have lots of theme fabrics I'd like to use up, so hopefully the kids there could could make use of some new items?  Fingers crossed!

I just can't get enough of this bird fabric, in both red and blue - I love love LOVE it!  This bag is a surprise gift :D

I found the shoe bags ...

along with a passport receipt bag I forgot I had made, lol. Sheesh I must have made it within the last few weeks, and I don't remember making it!  Oh well - I got the 2 small zipper bags done today, so the set now consists of 3 shoe bags, 2 zipper bags and a passport receipt bag :)  I still need to get the zipper for the boxy bag, and I have to find the tutorial for the luggage hande wraps so I know how big to cut the fabric.  The set is coming along nicely :)

I also finished another rainbow gift bag and a gingerbread pillowcase today, and organized a wicker basket full of project kits to work on.  The kids were in school - their orientation for trade school (term 1 of 3 for C and term 2 of 3 for N) - they start regular classes tomorrow.  The relative importance of that statement, of course, is that it means I get my days back to myself, sans kids, LOL.  Selfish I am! ;)

Where did I put those 2 shoe bags?!

I'm certain I finished 2 "Canada" fabric shoe bags late last month but do you think I can find them??!!  NO!!  I finished the 3rd bag today and wanted to photograph the trio together, but I have no idea where I put the first 2 I finished, lol.  I have a "boxy bag" cut out to work on tomorrow [I use Patchy Apple's pattern - and there are there are freebies available on the web - here and here and here, for example ;)] but I need a zipper - oh dear - shopping needed - poor me!! ;) 

Here are the projects I got finished today - I finally had time to sit downstairs at the sewing machine to PLAY! ;)

 Cupcake bibs - I kitted up several bibs to use up some fabrics from stash.  Here are 2 of the bibs I made with the kits :)

Shoe bag #3 for She Who Will Be Travelling Down Under With My Brother :) (aka my SIL, lolol).

 I'm making 13 winter pillowcases for a local family counselling centre - these will be gifted in early December for the kids that live there.  I'm going to make 2 a month to get them done in plenty of time!   I have enough fabric in this line to make most of the pc's :)

Rainbow gift bag for my sister :)

PhD Challenge :D

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and a fun and safe New Year! I've been sick with a cold so have been out of it for the last week, lol. Today was pretty much the first day I've been out and about since Christmas - we spent the day with hubby's family for a magnificent dinner (OMG the food! THE FOOD!!!!), and had a wonderful visit with his family.

 I found a stack of quilt tops in my sewing cabinet that are only keeping the sewing room dust bunnies warm, so I decided to get off my butt and get some old projects done this year.  To that end, I joined a PhD (projects half done) Challenge with Myra and a bunch of ladies - here's the first PhD's I need to get completed.  I have until June 30 to get these done, so I need to concentrate and git'r'done!