New Projects

Yesterday when I opened Blogger to post, what I had in mind to talk about wasn't what I posted. Does that ever happen to you, you intend to do one thing, then do another?

I spent time with the grands over the holidays when I was off work. We did fun stuff like baking and crafts. One of the things that Miss A loves to do is color. Her mom doesn't enjoy the smell of crayons, so she colors a lot with markers at home, and more with crayons at my house.

I love crayons. In September when school supplies are everywhere, I just can't fight the urge to purchase a new box. Most of the time I buy the biggest box I can find. The more colors the better, right?

That used to be 64 but now it's 96.

OH HO!  Turns out it's not...  witness the Crayon Ultimate Collection, when did they come up with this?? I want one. NOW!

(Sorry the picture is so little, if it's larger it gets pixalated!)

One of the things we do with these lovelies is to make a picture of colors.  My mom used to do this with my younger siblings -- she said it exercised the imagination. Here's the plan: you take a large piece of blank paper and draw a doodle, crossing lines and filling the page with an outline.  Then you start to color each space.  You can make a pattern or what is the most fun for me is to use a different color for each space.

I like to play with the colors so they go from one spot to another, or they flow from blue to green to whatever.  This is one I did with A and we used the markers she made with her Christmas gift, plus the other markers we had around the house.  January in Wisconsin seems to be calling out for color.  It's either white, gray or black here this time of year.  I was thinking about how I could translate this into fabric for either a wall hanging or a quilt top.  It would involve a lot of fussy cutting, but wouldn't it be fun? 

Maybe I should think smaller... place mats?

Oh, the choices!

Sew on...

A Little Light Sewing!

While I was off work on my medical leave, I was looking for some small projects to occupy a little time and not strain the brain, or other organs.

Before I went to the hospital, one of the church ladies called and asked if I would like to make some things for the craft fair on November 3.  Now I had planned to do some reading, some knitting, and not too much else.  But I felt better after about a week, and wanted to just BE in my sewing space.  I'm sure some of you know the feeling, when you've been gone for a while.

I had grand plans.  I was going to finish up my 'fix it' pile (I hate the term "mending"...).  I was even going to refashion a lovely jacket I bought that was several sizes too large.  Needless to say, I did a few fix-it projects and quickly tired of that.  I did sew badges on the Daisy vest for Miss A.  But I was itching to CREATE.

Now, I've posted about my extensive book and pattern collection, and about my church quilting group's receipt of boxes of drapery samples in the past.  What could possibly bring these two together?  

Hmmm... remember that bag of zippers I got at the fantastically priced web site www.wawak.com?  Oh yeah, I decided to channel Mary Mulari! 

Bags for various things, using drapery fabric, old denim, and some remnants of faux suede and other fabrics.  Note the denim bag with the red/white/black trim... those are the discarded tail ends of zippers, strictly for show!

I had lent my book to someone so I was working from memory, but I have done Mary's flat zipper technique a bunch of times, so it came quickly back after the first try.  I had some patterns and some I just 'faked'.  How can you go wrong with a rectangle or a square.

The bag at the top is a fussy-cut circle from a particularly pretty sample piece.  Here it is a little more close up.

Also in the first picture are these bags, from a piece I really liked.  There's just something about roses...

These will hold glasses, cosmetics, whatever, and look pretty doing it!

Here are a bunch in some black striped fabric left over from a pair of trousers I made (who knows when?  but I kept the pieces!)

The front bag is black denim from a pair of worn jeans, as is the fourth one back.  The trims are bits left over from a quilt binding or two.  The pulls are tiny strips cut from a piece of faux suede.  The piece is folded in half and the fold gets pulled through the hole in the zipper pull and looped over the ends.  Tighten up and you're good to go!

There will be about 25 of these for sale at the church craft and book fair on Saturday.  If you're in New Berlin, Wisconsin, stop by and pick up a few.  The proceeds from the sale will benefit the preschool.  We have to pay for the new security system.

Oh, and I also made Miss A's Halloween costume.  She wanted to be a ghost.  Spooky but not TOO spooky!!

Here she is with big sisters Bumble Bee and Mad Hatter! 

Sew on!

Use Your Imagination!!

How much fun can you have with the stuff that's left over when you unpack a box from the UPS man??

Depends on what kind of material it is, I guess... I recently received a box of zippers and thread that I ordered from a place called WAWAK (that's another post, but trust me it was a great experience!) and the box came packed with some cool brown paper with perforations every 18 inches or so.

The day it came, Miss A was visiting and "doing craft stuff".  We opened the box and I naturally started to unfold and smooth out the paper.  At first she was disappointed that there was no bubble wrap.  Popping the bubble wrap is in the union rules for five year olds.

After I smoothed out the paper, she asked if she could have some.  Pulled into sections it suggested to her that it could be colored on, and turned into a mask and wings.

We had to find some 'string' in my yarn basket to tie the mask on, and it took two tries and some assistance from Gramma to get the eye holes right, but she flew around the living room for about half an hour.

Totally worth the effort!!

Thanks, WAWAK.  Get your own supply of paper at www.wawak.com and check out their on-line catalog of good stuff.

Keep on Sewing!