More Hedgies and other stuff

More hedgies.. shouldn't be a huge surprise there!  (For whoever actually reads this blog)  This time, they've been converted to hair accessories!  Aren't they cute?  I made these out of some scrap fabric from Ruthie's quilt fabric, a button-covering kit made by Dritz -which can be found at Joann's and various other places on the internet-, wool felt that I purchased from a local shop, and some snap hairclips I bought from Robert's -a local crafting supply store here in Utah and of course, plus my sewing machine, and a hand sewing needle and some thread, and a hot glue gun.. something I almost never use for anything.

The petals were actually made by me tracing the half circle template that's for the buttons; basically I just lined it up on the edge of my felt and just traced it with my water soluble pen and then cut them out.  The original tutorial tells you to use a full circle, cut them in half and go at it, but I cheated and just did half circles.  This project is particularly why I desire to buy a multi sized circle die for my cuttlebug, so I can make neater looking circles.

Anyway, once I had the petals situated and the buttons made -a tutorial can be found here; which incidentally is also how I found the petal tutorial-  I went ahead and warmed up my glue gun, and then I filled up the back part of the button with the hot glue, and then making sure I had them lined up properly, I put the  petals onto the back of the button.. you pretty much get one shot at it I think.  Because the buttons are basically made out of aluminum, they conduct heat quite well, so you kind of need to watch your fingers a bit so you don't get burned by the hot metal.  It's not give-you-a-blister-hot but I am aware that people may have a lower tolerance to heat than I do.. I'm famous for taking scalding hot showers after all.  Then, I used the white bottom of the button kit, and used that to trace a circle to cover up the center of the back of the button, and then I took a rectangular scrap and took that to my sewing machine to sew a cuff of sorts so I can change them from being lefties or righties.  What can I say? I'm cheap!  Anyways, after sewing the little cuff to the circle, I whip stitched that to the back of the flower and presto! It's done!

 The one thing I'm not entirely a fan of is you can see the shiny metal under the weave of the fabric.  I think I could probably double up the fabric.  However I haven't tried this yet, so I don't know how well it would work. If I do try this out, more than likely I'll do it with white fabric, to keep it from distorting the color of the top fabric.  Also, according to what I've read, using acrylic felt with this isn't ideal, because there's the possibility of the felt melting if you use the less-expensive stuff. I do know that the wool felt doesn't shed as much as the less-expensive stuff as well, which is another plus I think.  Nothing like felt flakes and fibers all over your hair to ruin your day, especially if the felt you're putting in your hair completely contrasts with your hair color. If you don't have a local shop that carries non acyrlic felt, Lollychops mentions this website as her source of good felt.  I cannot offer my opinion of them however, since I've never used them.  However, I have browsed their site and I can say they do have a nice selection of colors and types of felt, and the prices are what I'd consider to be fair.  And plus, it looks like they are now also offering felt in a bamboo/rayon blend so that's perfect for those who have allergies to sheep wool.  They don't have very many colors in the bamboo blend, however I'm sure more's to come.  And they also have eco-felt as well as another option; which is made from plastic bottles for those of you who are green-minded.

First Block For Ruthie's Quilt

Well, I was very successful in my endeavor to turn hexagons into a quilt block without having to do half hexagons, and it came out super well I think!

Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against half hexagons.  They appear to be super easy to quilt with; however because I didn't want to break up the hexagon pieces, especially of the hedgies, I kept them in one solid piece, which made it slightly more difficult to sew.  From start to finish -not including ironing, embroidering the hedgies or washing- it took me about... 2-4 hours.  I wasn't strictly keeping track and quite honestly I had a TON of interruptions.  But I'm REALLY happy with the end result!  The trick of these were to trace the 1.5 hexagons with the water erasable marker, and then cut them with a 1/4" seam allowance.  and then only machine sew on the traced lines.  I should have taken a picture/do a tutorial of this... maybe I will with the next hexagon block I do!  This quilt is going to feature a bunch of them.  Placement is very very important, and constantly checking to make sure if your fabric's pattern is going the correct way is as well -if you care- as well as ironing the seams is integral as well.  I discovered for hexagons, you HAVE to sew the seams open!

To be honest, I was mostly winging this.  I started out by laying out the fabric on my cutting mat to get an idea of how I wanted to do the blocks.  The key to working with hexagons is that you do a 'flower' and then just work around that. start in the center and work your way out basically!

Here's the completed -but not squared- block.  There was no real rhyme or reason to how I laid out the hexes -with the exception of the gray and white blocks, I put them in the corners on purpose- except that I followed the rule of threes.  Basically I did not let more than three of the same fabric touch each other at once.  Granted, I didn't completely follow this rule since there's only two periwinkle hexes along with only two embroidered hedgehogs, but I think it still creates an interesting looking block, because somehow it works.  Or that's what I'm telling myself anyways, I'd be interested to know your opinions.

And of course, here's the squared off block!  It measures 10.5 inches wide by 13.25 inches tall.  There was a few issues with puckering in the corners where the hexagons meet, but other than that it lays pretty flat.  Ruthie got pretty excited when Jeff showed it to her, and explained that it's going on a blanket for her -it's sitting on my bin of fabric ontop of the ironing board- and she got grumpy when he told her she can't touch it.  Then she tried to sneak over with a step stool to pull it down.. I think it's gonna have to go into my bin before she tries THAT again.

Here is a closeup of the hedgehogs.  I angled it since it's easier to see the detailing of the girl hedgies and beacuse it's an artistic photograph.  I did the girl's hairbow, eye and nose in DMC #327, and there's an H instead of an R in her heart.. I figured including first and last initials would really personalize it for her.  All I did was just trace the hedgie in the water soluble  marker for the girl hedgie, and because it kind of bled through I was able to follow the outline pretty easily.  Her hairbow was done using the lazy daisy stitch/detached chain stitch; the tutorial found here -by the same lovely lady who did the french knot tutorial I used and showed you in my last post-

I'm really excited about finishing this quilt.  I will be showing my progress; however it may be interupted since we're taking a road trip after easter and I won't be taking my juki with me which makes me sad, because I've got a foot for my machine that has a foot with a build in bumper for 1/4 seam allowances.  Oh well!  I'll be taking my babylock, but I most likely will NOT be sewing anything for this quilt with it.. I've learned when you use two different machines for one project, it's very obvious.

Latest Quilting Project from Start to Finish

Like most awesomely cool things that turn out well, it started with an idea.  I recently found this fantastic blog called Film in the Fridge, which features -among others- a really nifty tutorial on string quilt blocks.  I'm not entirely sure what or why it's called a string quilt, but I like the end result!  Ashley's got a ton of super awesome talent with quilting, and is quite inspirational with her work.  In addition, I was also inspired by her baby birds and butterfly quilt.  It's done in log cabin blocks, but instead of following traditional log cabin-ing work, she defied tradition and went for a more whimsical wonky look for her log cabin squares.  And so a quilt was conceived.

I designed a quilt that will be alternating string blocks with a wonky log cabin block for Ruthie.  I found some great fabrics to come together, and I'm in the process of acquiring the fabrics.  However, I have picked out the fabrics online.  The top two are from Amy Butler's Lotus line of fabric; the left one is Wall Flower in Cherry, and the one on the right is also Wall Flower in Sky.  The browns aren't done by the same designer; the one on the left is Michael Miller is called Etta and is in the toffee color.  The brown on the right is Riley Blake and is from the All Star line, and is Firecracker in brown.  The next two fabrics are from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane line; the left one is in pocket book tangerine, and the other one is in pocketbook green.  The next two are probably my most favorite fabrics that are going into this quilt.  They are from his Hedgehog Group line, and the left is Hedgehog Heaven in aqua, and the right one is in gold.  The last two are also Riley Blake and I believe they are from the all star line as well, but I'm not entirely sure.  But it's tone on tone orange circles, and tone on tone red circles.  In addition, I'm also planning on adding a solid fabric, however, due to the fact that I don't have ALL of the fabrics yet the solid is still undecided.  I was thinking of a green of some type and plan on getting it in a Kona cotton; but I want to wait until I've got all of my fabrics.

Quilt Top

Quilt Back

Since I'm planning for the quilt to be a good quality one and hopefully last Ruthie a very long time, I figured it would be an excellent idea to do a test run of some sorts.  After drawing out and coloring the design in my sketchbook, I went ahead and cut out the fabrics and sewed the blocks together.  What was nice about doing this, I was able to figure out exactly what size strips I would need for the quilt, and was able to make notations in my sketchbook.  That way, when I do the final product, I know my measurements and I won't be guessing.  Well, once they were done, I went and grabbed some polyfill batting I bought ages ago for some other projects that never got done.  I actually discovered that it's much easier to use 100% cotton batting, such as Warm N Natural or other stuff, and I do not plan on using polyfill for a serious project ever again.  It is ideal for practice projects like this, so I will keep it until I've used it all.  I realize that the strings are not perfectly lined up; Which is okay considering this is like I said; a practice piece.  I think the reason why they didn't line up is because when I drew my line on my paper squares, they were not perfectly corner to corner.  Of course, when it comes to doing Ruthie's project I will be making sure that they are lined up properly.  After using curved safety pins and quilting it, I trimmed the batting down, and cut the strips for the binding.  Thanks to my friend Nay of Nay's Needlebook, I was able to do -mostly- mitered corners following the directions on this tutorial.  Granted, I didn't do all the prewashing and that jazz, but I followed the directions for the french binding with mitered corners.  If it's done right, it comes out beautifully.  For those that are curious, I used my Babylock Xscape for the piecing, and I used my used new Juki, model number TL-98 Q to do the quilting.   I had a lot of fun using my juki for this project, since it was the first time I used it.  Seriously, it makes quilting MUCH easier, and while there was a bit of a learning curve with figuring out how to thread the machine, and winding a bobbin, one I figured it out, it was smooth sailing sewing!

Closeup of quilting.

The Juki in action!

And of course, here's the end result:

The front completed and bound.

The back completed and bound.

I suppose I could have taken it outside to get better pictures, but It's been kind of snowy and wet outside, so I didn't really want to.  I really did have a lot of fun with working on this and I can't wait to get started on Ruthie's quilt!

Two New Blogs I Found This Week!

Last night -or early this morning, depending on how you like to look at it- I'm pretty sure I mentioned that I wanted to continue my post, however my thumbs were getting tired.  Well, it was more like my forearms and biceps.. I'm probably gonna end up buff from all of the thumb typing I've been doing.

So, the first blog I found was a blog I came across on either Thursday or Friday, called "Made By Rae".  I was discussing bag making with my friend Nay -who now has her VERY OWN blog!- and she somehow was able to give me the link to Rae's blog.  Her blog is sewing themed, and I immediately started following it.  She has a few various patterns on her blog, free as well as ones to purchase the licensing to make bags from her pattern and then to sell them.  She has some free patterns but they are personal use only.  I liked the look of her Buttercup Bag, but of course before I commit and spend the $10 for the license fee, I wanted to take the pattern for a test drive!  So I did!   I realize it's not the best quality picture, but since I wanted to finish writing the blog, rather than waste time nitpicking the picture of the bag, I went with this one.  As you can tell, it's quite different than her bag.  I used a solid brown color for the top part of the bag, and the straps have tabs on them -not sure why I did this actually- and the strap is made with the same fabric as the inner lining, and features a knot since it's in two pieces.  I also added some decorative stitching on the top part in variegated pink thread.  Since I was just experimenting with the pattern to see if I could do it, the fabric is quite wrinkly.  My favorite part of the bag is the green fabric I used as the lining and the straps, but especially how the fabrics don't really match, yet somehow it works out.  I adore the green fabric and I do plan on going back and purchasing more of it.  The neat part about this bag -in the smaller size anyway- is that it can be done with two fat quarters and a little extra.  I highly encourage you to check her website out!

The next blog I found was in the wee hours of Sunday morning, just after midnight.  I went searching for a tutorial on pleating.  Now, before you get any crazy ideas in your head that I don't know how to pleat, get them out!  I DO know how to pleat -otherwise I wouldn't have been able to make the bag you see above- but I wanted to find out if there was any magic mathematical formula regarding pleating and reducing the inches down.. something like this... x size pleat * times y pleats = total inches reduced to equal new width.  That actually makes more sense in my head...  Anyhoo, the first thing google popped up was this tutorial.  I knew enough that smocking was kind of in the other end of the spectrum for the type of pleating tutorial that I was looking for, but I didn't care.  I always had an interest in smocking, but it wasn't until I came across Marie Grace's blog that I was hooked.  Her blog isn't really about smocking exclusively, it's actually a blog primarily about knitting, but she also shares stuff about her family, sewing, quilting, and smocking projects as well as her goats and other animals.  I was instantly drawn in, and I laid in bed  reading her blog for about 2.5 hours (or more) before I looked at the time, realized it was after 3 in the morning, put my phone down and went to sleep.  I recall having a pleasant dream, and despite only getting 5 to 6 hours of sleep -I need at least 8 or 9 so I'm not a grumpy ogrette- I woke up quite refreshed and spunky, something I highly attribute to reading her blog right before falling asleep.  Don't misunderstand, it didn't BORE me to sleep, but I knew if I didn't stop where I was, I was going to be up until 5 trying to finish reading her entire blog.  I know I got as far as May of 2008, and I plan on finishing reading her blog.  I left a comment on her blog, and woke up to a very kind email to which I responded to.  She's awesome!

Oh, and I never found a magical formula for pleating.  I decided to dart the fabric instead, which is the shell for a purse I'm designing.

My Upteenth Goal to Blog More

I realized when I posted this orginially one of the pictures wasn't working like it was supposed to.  I was planning for these two to be placeholders anyway, so they're now changed.

Well, this is my first attempt to blog from my shiny new cellphone. It's an experience into itself so hopefully, it actually works the way I want it to, so I can blog more.

Well, a few new things I feel like blogging about! I recently -and also successfully I might add- finished my very first quilt that didn't look like it belongs in a Salvador Dali painting! It was a baby quilt that I gave to my sister-in-law as a gift for baby D who is officially due on March 3rd, but will probably come sooner than that; we'll have to see! Here is a picture of Jessica holding the quilt up. My favorite part of this is that you can see her cute bump poking out a bit.

And of course, I also had to make a diaper cake! I can't help myself, they are really cute and fun to make. Plus, there's also a wow factor involved as well.

Cute, isn't it? I like to think so!

Speaking of quilting, this week I got the deal of the century! Here's how it happened. I was browsing on the local classifieds looking to see if anyone was selling beads. There wasn't unfortunately, or at least I didn't get far enough to see. Anyway someone was listing a quilting machine and quilting frame for an awesome price! I had planned on buying one eventually, however it was a deal I could NOT pass up! Right now, it's in pieces, but after our road trip, I plan on setting it up and using it. We're probably leaving in about five or six weeks and I figured there is no point in starting a project now and having to abandon it for a whole month I know that would drive me insane! Hopefully, while we are on the road I can find small privately owned quilting shops and add to my stash of fabric. Once we get our route mapped out, I can do some research of stores we can stop in. Can't wait!

I was also planning on discussing my etsy shop in this post, however my arms are getting tired from thumb typing and it is rather late, so I will post later today on that... it is almost an hour into Monday after all!

(To be honest, I'm shocked I even made it this far!)

Taking a Break...

In paper crafting that is.  This year, I've completed an unknown amount of scrapbooking pages, cards and other assorted projects.  And before the year's up, I've got more to complete.  I've simply burned myself out.  I've kept this an open ended blog; not so much exclusively scrapbooking and papercrafting, but I had the foresight when I created this blog back in July of 2008 to keep the possibilites open for showcasing some of my other talents.

In addition to papercrafting -something I only started back in 2003- I have interests in other crafting mediums.  For my 9th birthday WAAAY back in 1994 -I do realize some of my readers are chuckling at that statement- I was given my first sewing machine for my birthday.  I don't remember the model number (I do believe the numbers involve just zeros and ones, and the letters H, I or J) but I do remember that it was a Babylock.  I was quite fond of that Babylock, and is currently with my dad in Virginia.  Then in 2005 when I was pregnant with Zoe, I had the fanatical desire to purchase another sewing machine, and I got a Brother sewing machine on eBay.  It wasn't in the greatest of shapes; honestly it was worth every bit of the $15 dollars I paid for it, and not a penny more.  Eventually though, it ended up on it's last leg, and I replaced it with my current machine back in October of 2007.  Because I had such fond memories of my Babylock, I went back to the brand and purchased another one.. this time buying a Babylock Xscape.  It's portable and is actually a little smaller than most machines -it advertised as being 2/3 the size of a standard machine- and only weighs about 13 lbs.. even came with a bag to carry it in!  I was also lucky enough to get it during a good sale, and ended up saving myself roughly $299.  I won't tell you how much I paid for it, and how much the original price was.

Around the time that I got my first sewing machine, I also gained an interest in yarn crafting, something I got from my Aunt Mary.  She's one of my dad's younger sisters and was probably one of my biggest influences into creativity and crafting.  I remember watching her crochet, and being absolutely fascinated with how quickly and nimbly her fingers worked the yarns and crochet hooks.  I wanted to learn.  Unfortunately, I'm left handed and she's right handed -like 90% of the world's population- and all I managed to learn how to do was a chain stitch.  Years later, when I was a sophomore in High School, during my lunch break I discovered a book in the school library.  I don't remember the title of the book; I just recall it being very light and small and was excited to discover it had crocheting patterns in it!  And even more so, I was finally able to make sense of what my aunt was trying to show me 6 years earlier.  And just for good measure I grabbed the book next to it or nearby and taught myself how to knit.  I had difficulty casting my stitches onto the knitting needles, however; I met a very nice lady at a crafting fair not too long after that and learned how to cast stitches properly.

So there you have it.  For the next while, I will be focusing on going back to these crafts.  I will occasionally do cards and whatnot; but my main focus will be sewing, knitting and possibly crocheting.  I do hope that my followers that enjoy seeing my paper crafts will come back and follow my blog still as I journey back into knitting and sewing.  Of course, I will occasionally do some paper crafting, but that will become the exception, rather than expected.

Cabbage Roses

A while back, I was planning on making myself a sash belt with cabbage roses on it to wear with a dress I purchased but ended up having to return because it was too big.  That happened after I had already bought a sash, something I no longer really need, but that still did not put a damper on my interest in creating cabbage roses.

So today while conversing with my friend about sewing, I had the urge to sew one, and ended up making two.  I used some fabric I had bought over 4 years ago when I made Zoe's baby bedding, and because of how careful I ration my fabric, I ended up with a respectable amount of fabric left.  Some time ago, my friend had found me this link, which I bookmarked and I pulled it up today to figure out how to sew these flowers.  It's a great tutorial; however if you're left handed like me, it's got a bit of a learning curve, because I tend to work clockwise, while right handed people tend to work counterclockwise.  I ended up having to save the files and then reversing them so I could follow the directions, however my flower didn't come out quite as well as I'd like, however for a first timer attempting to work in reverse, it came out alright.

The center stabilizer is actually a pearl.  As you can see the flower is worked around clockwise, which for some reason I find aesthetically pleasing.

Then I of course decided to try again, and this time without the stabilizer bead and I added a second piece of fabric between the folds and sewed that together to give it a different look.

This one is done without a center stabilizer, and it's also got another piece of fabric.. and it's quite a bit larger as a result of using longer length of fabric. And it also goes counter-clockwise.

I'm not sure which one I honestly like more, since they are both pretty and unique in their own ways.  However, I cant wait to experiment with different fabrics as well as different finishes.. the instructions suggest to hide the raw cut edges of the fabric, but I think I want to try this with the raw edges showing... there's just so many possibilites with this one set of instructions!  You can also do this with ribbon and other types of fabric.. satin, organza.. as long as it's not too thick it should work!