Crochet away

I've been on a crochet kick lately, sometimes its nice to sit and do something that takes little to no effort for your brain to accomplish. For me that is crochet.

I learned how to crochet when I was around 7 or 8 years old, and that skill started a long line of crochet dresses for my Barbie dolls, crochet blankets for my model horses, and crochet blankets and rugs for our doll house.

Looking back I wish I had kept some of those pieces I was so proud of as a child, just to see them from the critical eye of adult hood. These days it's more crochet scarves, beanies, headbands and booties than fantastical Barbie ball gowns made of scratchy acrylic yarn that is so rough it actually squeaks when you use it.

I think that is when I knew I loved to make thing, tangible useful things. Although my definition of what is "useful" differs slightly now from my childhood, the love of making things has stayed.

Also I think it is a love of doing something you're good at. Thinking of something and being able to make it exactly as your minds eye sees it. While for many other areas of my lift things do not come easily, with crochet for some reason it always has.

Heres a few pics of my most recent completed project for Etsy, I love the buttons so much I'm making one for me to keep! :)

Happy Crocheting,

Janice

Back after a long interim

Having a second baby puts an amazing demand on your time, patience, sanity, and ability to accomplish anything other than simply making it to the next day. My youngest is now almost three and the crafting bug has bitten again.

Over the past few months I have found myself making things just for the sake of making it, and that has really pulled me back into the world of blogging and my Etsy shop.

Looking back I realize now what a catalog of the things I was doing this blog had become. Having time to get back to these things I am looking forward to having it to look back on in the future.

When I have the time I will post tutorials, or at request. Otherwise I am simply going to focus on the things I am doing and attempting to document with some regularity.

Here's a little sample of some of my newest creations...

Happy crafting!

Janice

Gone, but not forgotten...

Apparently having a second baby means all time you have for anything other than babies goes bye bye! As you can see by my nearly one year hiatus, it has taken me about 10 months to get my grove back. Finally, both kiddos are taking a nice nap in the afternoon, which means I have been able to slowly get back to working on a few projects here and there.

While I can't promise posing with any regularity, I can say that I'm back to it. In the past year I've missed posting, missed writing down what I'm working on, missed chronicling things that I'm doing, and missed the little extra motivation to get things done. 

Also, as major motivation, I've discovered Pinterest and Instagram, to both of which I am thoroughly addicted.

So here we go, again :)

Happy sewing!

Janice

Stitched by Hand

My Sweet Cream Dream quilt is finished, and I even accomplished the embroidered label. While it shows that this was my first time hand stitching a label on a quilt, I'm happy with the end result. Just don't look too close :)





Some of the letters are a little wonky, but overall not terribly embarrassing. It definitely looks better from a distance.

I also finished my cheater's cross stitch project. This is another project that I think is a "close but not quite" candidate. The colors were not blue enough to really make it look like Irises. It was good practice thought, and definitely got me back in the swing of doing things by hand (without a machine).

My stitches turned out pretty even, and overall I like it. A little grandma, but that's not a huge surprise for those who know me ;) For my next "nightstand" project I'm going to make baby 2 a crocheted quilt.

Happy sewing,

Janice

Limbo

I have all of my fabric cut for my next project using some wonderful bright colors. I'm still in limbo a little bit on it because I'm winging it, so there is no real pattern to follow. I'm nervous to start, and need to just bite the bullet and go for it.

Here are the colors again:


I'm hoping the recent completion of my design wall will aid in the process. I finally got it finished, and even have massive amounts of thread storage on one side :) Although from the photo you can see it is mostly used up already...


I ended up making it with a thin piece of melamine for the back, then used spray adhesive to attach 1/2 foam insulation sheets (3 total) from Home Depot to give me something to put pins into, and covered it with a layer of poly batting and then white cotton flannel.

In hind sight I think I should have used cotton batting for my final layer over the flannel, it is much clingey-er than the flannel. But if/when the flannel gets dingey looking, I can always re-cover the board with it and put it back up.

Total cost for the board was around $30 including the cotton flannel, and it has been everything I thought it would be. It makes quilting so much easier when you can put your blocks up as you go, and really see your progress! I hope it helps with my next project... My goal is to have the top pieced for my next post :)

Happy Sewing!

Janice

Sweet Cream Dream

This quilt is going to a girlfriend whose favorite color is cream. She is due just weeks after me, and the gender is a surprise.

I hope she likes the colors I chose. Even if they decide to go with blues or pinks for the nursery in the end, I know this quilt will look great in her living room.

Here are some photos of the quilt in various stages...

Fabric selection...

Half-square triangles all made...

First block pieced...

Quilt top pieced...

All quilted and bound :)

My quilting, an attempt at straight lines, but I'm still figuring out my walking foot...

Yes, satin blanket binding.
Un-traditional, but then so is the super soft chenille back.
I thought it was baby appropriate. :)

All done!

Amazingly I am not finishing this one the night before the baby shower (its in December!) In this specific instance it would have been disastrous, considering her shower is just days after my due date :) I think I'm going to try my hand at embroidering the label for this quilt.

Hope you like it! I really loved the muted colors, but working with all of these soft, earthy tones has me wanting to do something really bright next, like this ... Bring on the solids!

Happy sewing,

Janice

Fancy Little Boy

These are my latest creation:




Both of these were made from full sized men's ties, and are scaled down to fit a 3-4 year old boy. I use elastic for around the neck, and did my best to get the dimples in the right spot for the ties so it looks like they are actually knotted, even though they aren't.

Everything was hand sewn, and they took about 20-30 min each.

I have a HUGE pile of ties that got sorted out with our last major closet clean out... some of them are definitely destined to become ties for my two little boys :)

Happy sewing!

Janice