Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Hiatus
Hey there, everyone. I just wanted to post a short note to say that I'm going on hiatus for a little bit. After all the craziness last week, my life has gotten hectic and uncertain, and my emotions aren't much better. So I decided to take a little break for my own sanity. I'll probably be back to posting in a couple of weeks, once life settles back into some kind of routine. Hope to see you all soon!
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Ugh!
Sorry I didn't get around to posting the free pattern on Friday, guys. This has just been the worst week ever..... well, ok, not EVER, but maybe the second worst week ever. Like, mom goes to hospital and sister gets arrested kind of week. Yeah.
So I'm just chillin, trying to get some kind of normal back to my days. The good news in that I'm doing lots of PC design work! I've got two new projects in the works. I just haven't gotten any pattern work done yet, which is kind of the important part!
Hopefully next week will be a little better *fingers crossed*
So I'm just chillin, trying to get some kind of normal back to my days. The good news in that I'm doing lots of PC design work! I've got two new projects in the works. I just haven't gotten any pattern work done yet, which is kind of the important part!
Hopefully next week will be a little better *fingers crossed*
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Spring Welcome Wall Hanging
Happy Tuesday, everyone! It's been a crazy couple of days for me. My mom had a serious medical scare, so I've been in the hospital and taking care of her house the last couple of days. That means no Tuesday Tip this week :( Sorry! But there will be a free pattern on Friday, yay!
And I did manage to finally finish my spring wall hanging! It's such a cute pattern!
I have some other cool patterns in the works that hopefully won't take as long as this one did! (And to think, I want to make the other two seasons to finish this series! What was I thinking?)
Hope you're all having a great week so far!
And I did manage to finally finish my spring wall hanging! It's such a cute pattern!
 |
| Spring Welcome Wall Hanging pattern, $4 on Etsy |
I have some other cool patterns in the works that hopefully won't take as long as this one did! (And to think, I want to make the other two seasons to finish this series! What was I thinking?)
Hope you're all having a great week so far!
Friday, January 27, 2017
Free Friday: Valentine's Heart Bag Clip
Happy Friday, everyone! Did you have a good week? Mine was pretty good, actually, though I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. I suppose none of us really do though, huh?
One thing I definitely wanted to get done this week was a Free Friday pattern because it's been weeks since I last posted one. Truth be told, I had this one done last week, but I was so tired that I never got around to posting it. So here you go, your belated pattern!
This week's pattern is a cute bag clip for Valentine's. I like dressing up simple things, like brown paper bags. It makes wrapping easy and inexpensive, and the clips are totally reusable!
This pattern could be altered in lots of ways. You could make the heart a solid color, or make it gingham, or checkered, or with flowers on it. You could change the colors to fit any season, really. Get creative! And if you come up with something cool, I'd love to see your creation :)
Click the image above to see it larger. You may share this pattern however you please as long as you don't alter it or claim it as your own. You may sell items made from this pattern. However, you may not sell this pattern.
I have another Valentine's pattern for next week, so stay tuned!
One thing I definitely wanted to get done this week was a Free Friday pattern because it's been weeks since I last posted one. Truth be told, I had this one done last week, but I was so tired that I never got around to posting it. So here you go, your belated pattern!
This week's pattern is a cute bag clip for Valentine's. I like dressing up simple things, like brown paper bags. It makes wrapping easy and inexpensive, and the clips are totally reusable!
This pattern could be altered in lots of ways. You could make the heart a solid color, or make it gingham, or checkered, or with flowers on it. You could change the colors to fit any season, really. Get creative! And if you come up with something cool, I'd love to see your creation :)
Valentine's Heart Bag Clip
Skill Level:
BeginnerMaterials:
- 7-count plastic canvas
- Yarns in colors listed in key
- Wooden clothespin
- Hot glue
- #16 plastic canvas needle
Instructions:
- Cut and stitch plastic canvas according to graph.
- Overcast around the whole heart with white yarn.
- Use hot glue to attach pumpkin to clothespin so that the bottom of the heart is near the opening of the clothespin. ♥
I have another Valentine's pattern for next week, so stay tuned!
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Wordy Wednesday
So I'm sure you've all heard of Wordless Wednesday, right? It's the idea of posting on your blog with just pictures, without words. I've tried that in the past (not on this blog), but you know what? I'm too wordy for that! So instead, today's post is Wordy Wednesday!
It's been a hectic week, but I did make some progress on my projects, and I thought you'd all like to see how they're doing! I have a PC pattern almost done. It's totally stitched, but I need to get around to making the pattern now, but for some reason I just feel totally blah about doing that today (which is why I took these pictures instead, lol). Here it is:
It's a spring version of my Fall Wall Hanging for sale up at Etsy. I plan on eventually doing one for each season, but gee whiz! These wall hangings take forever to stitch. I've been working at this one for two weeks now, I believe. Of course, it probably would have taken less time if I hadn't also been busy with a quilt and taking care of a sick guy.
Speaking of my quilt, it's really coming along too. I sewed up the first block last night, and I have to say, it's going to be one weird ass quilt, lol. It's a lot brighter and wilder than I usually make my quilts! But my MIL gave me a bunch of fruit and veggie fabric a while back, and I love this pattern so much, I thought I'd give it a try. I figure if nothing else, it'll make the perfect picnic quilt.
I also wanted to share my newest toys! I decided to buy myself some books to help me with my designing since I'm still pretty new at it and I want to become really good at it. Here they are:
The one on the left is 501 Rotary-Cut Quilt Blocks and the one on the right is The Needlepoint Book. Yes, I know the one is a quilt book! However, I bought it because I've always had intentions of incorporating quilt designs into my PC designs, and this book will certainly help with that. Especially since it's specifically rotary cut blocks, the designs should translate to PC pretty easily.
There's lots of gorgeous designs! I'm excited to get working on those. Plus, I'll have it on hand for my quilting too (someday I'd like to start designing for quilts too, but that's in the future somewhere).
Did you know that Plastic Canvas is actually a form of needlepoint? Until recently, I had no idea. As a designer, I really want to bring something new to the PC world, and I especially want to make pieces with lots of texture and interesting techniques. So many PC designs are super simplistic, using only the continental stitch. That's ok for a beginner, but as you progress, you want to make something more complex and interesting, but there's very few designs out there that fit that bill.
That's where this book comes in. Since PC is a form of needlepoint, I'm hoping I can learn to beef up my designs with what I learn. I have to tell you, this book is fascinating! It has well over 300 needlepoint stitches! I spent over an hour just flipping through pages, staring wide eyed at all the new possibilities. This is how much of the book is just stitches:
And here's a picture of some of the cool stitches in the book.
I can't wait to try some of these out! I'll be sure to share anything I learn, too.
So that's what I'm up to this week. Have any of you got any interesting projects going on?
It's been a hectic week, but I did make some progress on my projects, and I thought you'd all like to see how they're doing! I have a PC pattern almost done. It's totally stitched, but I need to get around to making the pattern now, but for some reason I just feel totally blah about doing that today (which is why I took these pictures instead, lol). Here it is:
It's a spring version of my Fall Wall Hanging for sale up at Etsy. I plan on eventually doing one for each season, but gee whiz! These wall hangings take forever to stitch. I've been working at this one for two weeks now, I believe. Of course, it probably would have taken less time if I hadn't also been busy with a quilt and taking care of a sick guy.
Speaking of my quilt, it's really coming along too. I sewed up the first block last night, and I have to say, it's going to be one weird ass quilt, lol. It's a lot brighter and wilder than I usually make my quilts! But my MIL gave me a bunch of fruit and veggie fabric a while back, and I love this pattern so much, I thought I'd give it a try. I figure if nothing else, it'll make the perfect picnic quilt.
I also wanted to share my newest toys! I decided to buy myself some books to help me with my designing since I'm still pretty new at it and I want to become really good at it. Here they are:
The one on the left is 501 Rotary-Cut Quilt Blocks and the one on the right is The Needlepoint Book. Yes, I know the one is a quilt book! However, I bought it because I've always had intentions of incorporating quilt designs into my PC designs, and this book will certainly help with that. Especially since it's specifically rotary cut blocks, the designs should translate to PC pretty easily.
There's lots of gorgeous designs! I'm excited to get working on those. Plus, I'll have it on hand for my quilting too (someday I'd like to start designing for quilts too, but that's in the future somewhere).
Did you know that Plastic Canvas is actually a form of needlepoint? Until recently, I had no idea. As a designer, I really want to bring something new to the PC world, and I especially want to make pieces with lots of texture and interesting techniques. So many PC designs are super simplistic, using only the continental stitch. That's ok for a beginner, but as you progress, you want to make something more complex and interesting, but there's very few designs out there that fit that bill.
That's where this book comes in. Since PC is a form of needlepoint, I'm hoping I can learn to beef up my designs with what I learn. I have to tell you, this book is fascinating! It has well over 300 needlepoint stitches! I spent over an hour just flipping through pages, staring wide eyed at all the new possibilities. This is how much of the book is just stitches:
And here's a picture of some of the cool stitches in the book.
I can't wait to try some of these out! I'll be sure to share anything I learn, too.
So that's what I'm up to this week. Have any of you got any interesting projects going on?
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Tuesday Tip: Wrangling Craft Cord
Happy Tuesday, everyone! I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was not quite so great; hubs just got over a bad cold and I was going crazy because I hadn't been alone for well over a week. Eeek! (Good thing I'm not a parent, right? Lol) Thankfully he's fully over his cold now and back to work, and I have the whole house to myself again!
So this week's tip came to me when I was working on the Floss Card Pattern. While I was wrapping up my embroidery floss, I had to untangle it from a bunch of my craft cord, and I thought that the floss card idea would work great for the cord.
Of course, the cord is much thicker and comes in pretty long hanks. It's even more unwieldy than loose embroidery floss, if you can believe that, so there's no way that it would fit on the floss card. Instead, I decided to just wing it and make something that looked appropriately sized.
Here's a before picture of a hank of cord:
And here's the after:
Much better!
Since I didn't use a specific pattern, I decided to make this a tip instead. Basically what I did was I made the floss card pattern only bigger, and finished off with the tape just like I did with the floss card. I just used scraps of plastic canvas in shapes that looked big enough. Then when I was done, it all fit nicely into a little shoe box with my collection of embroidery floss.
Tada! Now instead of a messy ball of knots in a dark and dusty drawer somewhere, they're neatly wound cards filed away on my crafting bookshelf.
So how do you keep your small bits of cord or string organized? This is the best idea I've come up with, but to be honest, before I did this all my string really was balled up in a drawer out of sight! Which worked until I needed something, lol.
Have a great Tuesday, everyone!
So this week's tip came to me when I was working on the Floss Card Pattern. While I was wrapping up my embroidery floss, I had to untangle it from a bunch of my craft cord, and I thought that the floss card idea would work great for the cord.
Of course, the cord is much thicker and comes in pretty long hanks. It's even more unwieldy than loose embroidery floss, if you can believe that, so there's no way that it would fit on the floss card. Instead, I decided to just wing it and make something that looked appropriately sized.
Here's a before picture of a hank of cord:
And here's the after:
Much better!
Since I didn't use a specific pattern, I decided to make this a tip instead. Basically what I did was I made the floss card pattern only bigger, and finished off with the tape just like I did with the floss card. I just used scraps of plastic canvas in shapes that looked big enough. Then when I was done, it all fit nicely into a little shoe box with my collection of embroidery floss.
Tada! Now instead of a messy ball of knots in a dark and dusty drawer somewhere, they're neatly wound cards filed away on my crafting bookshelf.
So how do you keep your small bits of cord or string organized? This is the best idea I've come up with, but to be honest, before I did this all my string really was balled up in a drawer out of sight! Which worked until I needed something, lol.
Have a great Tuesday, everyone!
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
My projects!
So I said before that I've been super busy lately, and I bet you're wondering what I'm busy with! Well, here's a couple pictures to pique you're interest!
My latest design:
The beginnings of a cool quilt:
I'm also still working on organizing my crafts, though to be honest, I'm just waiting for a package from Ikea to get here so I can finish everything. I can't wait to show you what I've done!
So that's all! I'll be sure to post more pictures of my projects when I'm further along with them.
My latest design:
The beginnings of a cool quilt:
I'm also still working on organizing my crafts, though to be honest, I'm just waiting for a package from Ikea to get here so I can finish everything. I can't wait to show you what I've done!
So that's all! I'll be sure to post more pictures of my projects when I'm further along with them.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)