Wednesday, July 28, 2010

more freebie baskets


have fun stitching...................more later




.......have several more that aren't in the original pattern..................will wait for another day.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Monday Mystery project

sock monkey mischief on mystery monday. 



This time a felt or fleece monkey applique.  Several Christmases ago I made shirts for each of my nieces and granddaughter, also made one for DD#3.  Mom and I also made flannel sock monkey jammie pants.  This is now GD#1's shirt. It used to be DD#3's shirt.  It shrunk so, she gave it to Makenna.  Shirt has probably been washed 30 - 40 times.  It's a little pilly, but she's 9 and doesn't really care.  Instructions follow for you to make one of your own. I just happened upon the goofy black & white buttons a couple of years ago when I was making the monkey shirts.  Will give you patterns for felt eyes if you can't find any buttons, but a lot of buttons will work.  see below.............  cut these out of fleece, the one on her shirt is felt. 




HAVE fun, you can whip up a bunch of monkey's pretty quick.  Put them on shirts, jeans, totes, jackets,

cyndi




.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

St E picnic preview

The St Elizabeth Community picninc starts is a couple of hours, here's a preview of the quilts the community ladies made this year to auction off and a few to raffle off.  The population in this town is about 274, there will 10x 20x that today enjoying good food, lots of conversation with people you may have not seen for a year or so, and my favorite a quilt auction.  here's a quick preview. 



















Baby size to king, all probably machine pieced but all hand quilted.   All the ladies in the communities around here do this every year for their commuity picnics or church socials............so great to see all the support these small towns get from their citizens. 

WINNERS



First of all,  I'd like to thank all who particimpated, I love reading your comments.  I  drew numbers at random.org  this morning for the Monday Mystery giveaway from a few weeks ago.  I had 2 MODA layer cakes to giveaway.  The mystery was what fabric lines they were............................I had Harmony and It's Snowing  pictured below.   Harmony is a collection of paisleys and coordinating prints in dark colors it's on the right and the brighter blues, reds and greens of It's Snowing is on the left. Congratulations to:




the first number drawn,  #17 a comment from " Janet said...I forget things when I'm tired or when I'm having too much fun. Hope it was the latter for you. Happy belated 4th. "  Her blog is Caribou Crossing Chronicles............of quilts, the weather and other fun stuff.  JANET, email me your choice as to which layer cake you would like and your address of course and it's the the mail tomorrow.

And the other winner was "Mama Spark said... I have enjoyed reading your blog. The quilt mishap was too funny!"  Her blog is Mama Spark's World,    So she will get the layer cake that Janet does not choose, MAMA SPARK send me your snail mail and yours will be in the mail tomorrow too. 

Be sure to come back tomorrow for a Mystery Monday project. 

Saturday, July 24, 2010

FOUND MORE GIVEAWAYS

stars from a star swap that are somewhere in a pile of ufo's....
 at one time they were on the design wall.

If you've already registered for my givaway then hop over to Nola at just ramlin' she has a great giveaway that ends July 31.  Lots and lots of CHARMS!!

I found another great giveaway at Sherri's A Quilting Life, beisdes the great giveaway, check out the new quilt she is working on made from fresh cottons....................soooo Great!!!

Friday, July 23, 2010

your opinion and giveaway


This one of my sock monkey patterns digitized and stitched out on a shirt by Peggy Johnston of SEW CREATIVE, Peoria Heights, IL and if anyone is interested, we were thinking she could have the digitized pattern available at her store, then eventually on my blog and hers if she gets it up and running.
  I want a shirt with the monkeys on it!! 
WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ABLE TO PUT IT ON YOUR OWN SHIRT?
Several people over the years have asked me if I had ever digitized my designs for embroidery machines, but I did not have the ability nor know anyone who could/ or would do it for me.  As a hand embroiderer, machine embroidery did not hold all that much appeal to me, so I never pursued it but now Peggy Johnston of Sew Creative in Peoria Heights IL kind of posed that same question in a different form to me.  She had already digitized one of my designs for herself and sent me a picture of what she did and wanted to know if we could collaborate on digitizing my designs.........  Now I only do hand embroidery but a lot of people are really into machine embroidery..........Are you an embroidery machine owner and would you like to be able to buy my designs digitized for machine embroidery?  She has had a lot of people come through her store and have requested the design she put on this shirt.  So now she wants to know if we could sell them as a joint effort.  You can email either of us if you are interested too.
This is the cover for the pattern she started with
So what do you think?  Should I do it or not, ? .....just curious if you are interested, what embroidery format do YOU need or use??  Have any of you done that with your designs and what is fair for sharing the profits?? I am a fish out of water when it comes to machine embroidery.

DON"T FORGET TO GO TO ONE TO MY OLDER POSTS AND REGISTER FOR THE LAYER CAKE MONDAY MYSTERY GIVEAWAY!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Mystery Monday

Today's MYSTERY MONDAY PROJECT is about my lessons on coloring on fabric, gel pens, and pictures of the testing I did for our chicks meeting. 
Here's page I wrote about to pass out at a chicks meeting but for some goofy reason I saved it as a jpeg, so it may print fuzzy, so I turned the picture into a pdf don't know if it will help or not?  These are the things I know for sure ...........to keep the most amount of coloring on the fabric through a wash or two,  You need to test your fabrics first, so you understand how your fabric and your coloring techniques will look before and after washing, because they will fade to a soft watercolor look on some of the colors and fabrics and brighter on others.  That your fabric needs to be 100% cotton and pre-washed before coloring on then heat set after your finish coloring.  Do not color hard, it will just end up stiff with a waxy, greasy shadow on fabric, around item after you heat set it.  And just so you know.......white crayons just end up just being a greasy spot.



































here's the pdf link to to the above notes on coloring on fabric



This is the unwashed version of fabric where I compared Crayola's, regular and washable crayons, and Roseart crayons( a little bit less expensive ones than Crayola, and they work just as well as Crayola for this project.  They even have a few different shades of crayons I might add) And various types of markers and gel pens as well, notice that I labeled things so I would know after washing

In the above picture the one on the left is before heat setting.......the one on the right has been heat set.  See how the color is blended into the fabric better.......less of the coloring strokes.  I tried coloring various ways, and made duplicates of each set and washing half of each set for comparison.  Just a note.................washable crayons are not completely washable on white prewashed fabric.........there is just the tiniest residue color left.  If washable crayons are heat set, they are permanent, and after washing look basically like the regular crayons maybe one shade lighter.  SORRY I thought I had pictures of the post-washed samples but I cannot find them.  Even  after the color has been heat set a lot of the color does still wash out but quite a bit remains.  If fabric is not pre-washed and cotton about 95% of the color washes out. 
see the pictures of the sock monkey book see the color levels I ended up with compared to the samples above..these books have been washed twice.  The first time I washed them in a warm/cold rinse load with a load of old t-shirts that I didn't care if any crayon transferred........I don't think any did, but I wouldn't put them in a load of good clothes just in case!  I wash most things warm/cold with regular tide.  So your laundy detergent may affect color level too.

twice washed sock monkey books

I found the best pens for the heaviest outline that doesn't bleed, run or fade are the Zebra g-8 pens from the office area at wally world or at an office supply store.................the pilot g-2 pens ran, just horrible when washed.  The new bleed proof sharpies look like they would work, I wrote on some fabric but I have not washed it yet.  Some gel pens do not wash well, heat set or not.  Some run, some fade.........run your own experiment on prewashed scraps of the fabric you intend to use.

here's a monster (click on on the word monster for a pdf link) for you to color so that you can
experiment with coloring on your own fabrics.............or if you want something more realistic below is a cornucopia, part of my basket collection.  is only a jpg, not a pdf.



Try some coloring on fabric, experiment first, then go bold.  Try new things!!!!!!!  Like coloring on top of textures......sand paper, those textured plastic scrapbook sheets, leavesof trees and ferns, lightly blend colors.  If you want to control precisely where you color without lines, use contact paper and cut out desired shape, peel and stick, color, remove contact paper then heat set!!!    all kinds of fun........!!!   My previous post has pictures of our monsters that we colored for a quilt or two.
Don't forget to go register for my mystery monday giveaway from 2 mondays ago, drawing closes July 24 drawing held on July 25.






Sunday, July 18, 2010

been froggin'

Now at my MIL's house, that means going around the all the ponds in season after dark, hunting bullfrogs for dinner the next day.....................They don't taste that bad, similar in taste and texture to shrimp, but I have trouble eating them because of the visual aspect!! And really hunting them for me amounted to my carrying the sack for of dead frogs', not my idea of a fun night............once was enough.

But for me, froggin' all  night meant rippin', rippin'. ripping, some of the monster blocks apart.  A couple of years ago, I did a demonstration, for our quilt group, on coloring on fabrics, and the various results of pre-washed versus not, and washable crayons versus not and different gel pens.  Then we all sat and colored some monster blocks that I had drawn of white quilt lining.  We had great time.  They were to take them home to square them to to a certain size and then add bright colored  borders.  But some of them didn't square up the blocks which were all different before they sewed on the borders and I could not make them work together they way they came back to me.  I haven't had time or the inclination to unsew until now.   I unsewed about 10 of them, am going to trim blocks and then re-add the borders back on. wasn't bad at all, should have done it along time ago. no stitches were teeny tiny. no back stitching or restitched line lines to rip out, was easy.  Several came back without any borders so I am doing those too.  So this is what I am going to work on now.  Here's picture of the piles of monster blocks and pieces parts  :)  Once the monser quilt is sewn together and quilted, it will end up at RACS (the rape and abuse crisis center or a hospital or something like that)




Don't forget to go to one of my previous posts about the mystery giveaway and leave a comment, which will close July 24, and then come back tomorrow for mystery monday?????

Monday, July 12, 2010

mystery monday project

Couldn't decide what to do for mystery monday so I thought I'd give you a family favorite recipe and something to stitch.  I have requests all the time for these, because two of those girls of mine who don't like to sew don't really like to bake either and love these, lol!  These are a spice bar chocked full of raisins!

Raisin Bars – 350 deg / 20 min

Pour 1 1/2 C hot water over 1 1/2 C raisins, let soak and COOL OFF while mixing other ingredients. In a bowl, mix 2 eggs, 1 1/2 C sugar, 1/4 C applesauce, and 1/4 C oil. Add just the water off the raisins and blend. Mix in1 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Blend in 1 3/4 C flour. Add the rest of the water/raisin mix and mix well. Batter is thin. Pour into greased and floured jelly roll pan. Bake till done 350 for 20 min, insert a toothpick to test for doneness. Let cool. Then dust with powdered sugar OR frost them the way we like them…………frost with: 2 C powdered sugar mixed with 3 T melted butter or margarine, 1 tsp vanilla, a pinch salt (yes) and enough strong coffee hot or cold doesn’t matter adding a little at a time, to make a good spreadable icing. (about 2T or 3T) Now I don’t drink coffee, so I buy those singles of instant coffee for this and put a little less water in the cup than usual.

Below here is another little something to stitch, maybe it could go in the corner of a tea towel???........................... ENJOY the raisin bars and the stitching. 
and don't forget to enter the mystery monday giveaway from last week!!
Cyndi

Sunday, July 11, 2010

what to do for mystery monday

Can't decide what to do for mystery monday so while I think about it, I'm going to show what I did late last night and early this morning.......................Jenny Reynolds at Jenny from elefantz see the daisy do button on my side bar, she is having a 4 month BOM and being one to not always follow directions I decided to go an opposite direction as far as color, however I should have READ the directions because I just chopped off a chunk of fabric and traced the design on a light box with a white pencil from granddaughters set of colored pencils.........usually I use a white or light gel pen on dark fabric but the gel pens were at home. And now I think it's not 8.5" and so I may have to do a little tinkering to get it to fit in her design.  oh well..........that's what I get for not reading the materials required, makes life a challenge........who would want it too easy, lol!!!  Anyway, here is my version of Jenny's first block.................

I used dk cream, a taupe and dark brown floss on a brown/black tone on tone.
I was supposed to be sorting stuff but the needle called and I had to pick it up.

AND I thought I'd introduce to our super helper/super monster, AKA Cami (Camryn).  She's granddaughter #2, and is age 3.  She wanted a Super Helper cape in red......................Now don't you just love fleece.............no raveling jsut sew and go.  I had lots of fleece but alas no red................what to do.................hmmmm Cami and I thought about it for awhile, her house is 40 miles from town so we couldn't just hop in the car and go to town, so we decided to make a super monster cape, but kind cute and not so scary, she thought it was a bit scary until I added the tongue, then she thought it was funny.  So now she zooms around the house in her super monster cape, being a super helper.  I didn't make it so it would tie around her neck................it has straps sewn onto it that she puts on like a coat or shirt.  They sit up at her shoulders so I wouldn't have to worry about her choking herself somehow.  She would only stand still today while we were cleaning for a few seconds so I had to be quick........she was too busy being a super helper for her mom and did not have time to have a picture or two taken




I should have gathered it more between her shoulders but she wears it as is and loves it.  It will grow with her.  It doesn't really show on my computer but the cape is black and the face parts are kind of a pale neon green.   The "hair was some scraps leftover from the face parts, it was all cut freehand and sewn on as is. 
Any way she is our little super monster, super helper.


Don'f forget about last meek's mystery..........am hosting a giveaway.  One layer cake ea for 2 different people.   Givaway ends at midnight my time CST.  Drawing will be sometime the 25th




Thursday, July 8, 2010

LUCKY ME, lucky you


Have you seen this book?
  It was written ny Cherri House at Cherri House Quilts.
I get to see this book up close and personal.......................a  signed copy will be zooming my way any day now..........Jackie at Canton Village Quilt Works was having a giveaway and I won............I  won this book, and if that wasn't great enough, she got the artist to sign is, I AM SOOOOOOO EXCITED!  Go Visit Jackie's blog and see all the goodies there.  Then go to Cherri's blog and see all her goodies, such fun places.   Thank you Jackie for having such a great prize!!   Oh and if you would like this book Jackie says she is selling them in her store Canton Village Quilt Works

Speaking of prizes, Janet a new Canadian blogger, at  Caribou Crossing Chronicles of Quilts, the weather and other fun stuff, (go by and say hi!), won one of my giveaway prizes recently.  But what is better than that (as far as I'm concerned) is that she sent me my very first quilted postcard.   I have been dog-sitting at my one of daughters lately in another town, so I'm not sure when it came, I know it wasn't there by July 1, but the other day I had to take my son to an appointment and ran by the house for a few minutes and lo and behold............goodies for me, (including yucky ole bills) and a beautiful quilted FABRIC postcard from Janet.........so cool., lots of little pieces of Kaffe Fassett style florals.  Another cool thing is her post master/mistress was very careful when they postmarked it, it's a perfect postmark, you can see every detail about it.  Thank you Janet, I LOVE it  I always wanted to try one, now I know I will!!!!  If you're friends with your postal person tell tham thanks for being careful with the postmark.
Here's some pictures so you can see my surprise prize.  Sorry about the quality of my photos.



cool huh!!!!!!

If you want you can join in the MONDAY MYSTERY GIVEAWAY,  I have 2 layer cakes to give away to 2 lucky people.. one layer cake per winner...................Is one of them you?????????????