crafty mcgee

extra bits

I have lots of fabric critters left over from the ornaments, due to the way I set up my gocco screen:

Being a big fan of fabric patches (one of these days I'm going to make something with my collection - stay tuned), I noticed a perfect opportunity when I saw it. I was going to do some plain circles, but when I saw Mimi's  tutorial on her ornaments (I'm getting one - yay!!), I decided to go freeform. I love the color combos. I also printed these tags:

I carved a nice eraser image, but it went a tad wonky when I tried to stamp it onto the tag. I should have carefully removed the wire, stamped, then even more carefully replaced the wire. Yes, that's definitely what I should have done. (If you listen closely, you can hear the voice in my brain saying "Ha! Fat chance!") They needed a little more hand-drawn embellishment than I planned, but I still think that they are not without charm.

my little forest

- with monkeys, of course. Here are the ornaments I made for this year's swaps (both Amy's and Cake & Pie's). I think I caught most of the critters in this picture. In addition to the monkey's, there are squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, owls and several other birds. They're gocco'd & embroidered, and are suitable for standing or hanging. Here's a shot of what the set-up pieces looked like:

I'm really happy with them. There's a close-up  on flicket. Since I made so many, there are two left over that are not spoken for. Let me know if you'd like to trade. Geez, you guys are speedy! I do have some unsewn blanks, so it is not out of the realm of possibility that I could stitch up a few more.

This time I have an excuse

To start this post, I'm showing a picture of the kind of place I wish I had been in for the last month. I went to the cotton yarn sale at a local knitting store, and found a new reprint of Jan Messent's Knitted Gardens a book previously available for $100 up used. Look at all the little animals, the knitted veggies, the beehives! Such an inspirational book.

But why, you ask, have I wished I was in a monastery? Well, August has never been my favorite month, and this year didn't change my mind. The first half was helping my son get shipped off to college across the state. A little sad, but mostly just hectic (and financially stressful - never good). I took the day off to help pack the truck and see him off. When I came back inside from my child moving away more or less permanently, I checked my email and learned that my high school/college sweetheart, to whom I was engaged, and who I've kept in touch with over the years, had died of a heart attack the very same day. Attached to that sad message was a photo of all of us in college. Well, the juxtaposition really threw me for a loop, and I've been a bit out of it the last few weeks. When I told my cousin the news, part of what she said was "maybe you should paint a room". Little did she know I had been doing just that! In the midst of the launch, I finally got around to refurnishing and repainting my bedroom, the very last holdover from my whole-house remodel four years ago. Yes, when things get chaotic, I'm the type that likes to push it to the very limit. And since Hunter's been gone, I've been converting his room into a craft room, with a closing door to restrict access to naughty cats. I could post some work-in-progress pictures, but I'm creating some special bits, and I think I'll save it for my next post.

I did receive some amazing things in the mail.

The fabric from Bethany's swap. I think that ALL of the pieces were truly exceptional (check them out), and I got all of my favorites! The cacti is Bethany's, Dorathy's pitcher plants, and Mimi's sweet little flowers. AND one of Michelle's batiked dolls:

A Halloween one! Yay!! I am going to very carefully craft it into a feature of this year's decorations.

I also received a pretty quilt from bekka, who is blogless.

Great colors! My near-disaster quilt was well received by my swapee, who found the story funny (in a good way). In addition to room decoration, a have promised a couple more pieces for various things. So I should at least post sporadically this month. Thanks for sticking around!

Flying Squirrel Jamboree!

After last week's little adventure, it was a real treat to have a project turn out exactly the way I planned. Here's the fabric I printed up for Bethany's fat quarter swap. The base is gocco printed, and the colored dots are from a sacrificed sponge brush. I've always found it a little tricky to print fabric with the gocco - the fabric tends to stick, and you have to put consistent pressure on the stamp printer to get the image even. But then I had a real light bulb over the head moment -

my knitting blocking board! I lay down a couple layers of newspaper, pin the fabric down, and stamp away! The board is made of fabric, so it has just enough give that the image always comes out even. Another plus, it's 48" wide, so it's simple to print an entire yard of fabric lengthwise. To finish the width, I just slide out the top layer of newspaper and move the fabric. It's the perfect printing surface. I love it when I find multiple uses for things. I've always felt a tad guilty for buying that board, since I only use it a few times a year. This will no longer be the case!

And because the gocco is so great, I was able to clean off the screen and print up some more colorful cards. The fabric ink doesn't come in so many colors, and I really wanted the graphic element of the circle in the fabric design. So far, the only other fabric I've seen for this swap is Mimi's (you need to scroll down a bit), but if hers is any indication, some great stuff is on the way!

What should I call this post?

Maybe...."Think Fast"; "The Importance of Contingency Planning"; "Holy @#$*/!"; "Adventures in Chemistry"? It's so hard to choose, they all apply. So here was the top of the quilt - finished.

Looks good, no? But not old enough.

I sacrificed a pot of coffee (decaf) and soaked the top for about an hour. Then....(insert ominous music here)

Like I said, holy *^$@<! The background fabric looked fine, but everything that had Stitch Witchery behind it stained, and sucked up the coffee like dye. After my initial shock, and disgust with my need to be a smart aleck, I did wonder whether or not the reaction would have been the same if I'd used cold coffee - but I don't think I'm curious enough about it to do an experiment. After an afternoon with a sponge brush and a bottle of bleach, I had this:

Well, that wouldn't do, so after a couple of washings and some fabric paint I ended up with something I really liked, and finished it up.

I am sorry that the pretty patterns I picked out got lost, but now it looks really, truly old, and like it has a good story to tell. The amazing part is that I'm finished on time, in spite of a very hot day when nothing got done, and what shall now be known as "the coffee incident". I hope my swapee likes it, I know that some folks don't appreciate my "creativity".

"....found at the the bottom of an old cupboard"

In an attempt to get back into the swing of things, I joined Round 2 of the Doll Quilt Swap. The phrase above is how my secret swap partner (I'm pretty sure she doesn't visit my blog) described the kind of quilt she likes. Also "not too keen on brights". So a challenge for me!

The quilt pictured above has probably spent its share of time in the bottom of a cupboard, but it's actually just a very old baby quilt that's been in my family since before my birth way back when. I have not manipulated the photo in any way, it looks exactly like this. I'm using it as a point of reference for my quilt. I don't have (and couldn't find) any suitably old-looking fabrics, so I used beautiful, vibrant Japanese prints from the great "Petit Pattern"  books (I'm the proud owner of the whole series), washed them out in Photoshop, and printed them on some Printed Treasures inkjet fabric. Here's what I made:

Another unmanipulated picture...you think they are pale enough? Here's a start of the quilt -

I have a few other cunning plans to make it look even older. It has to be mailed in about a week, so check back soon for the final product. I'm also really excited about joining Bethany's fabric swap, which also has to be done soon. And I'm still doing admin duties for A Month of Softies and this month's theme is "Outer Space"...so this space will be active at least during the month of July.

I tried to answer most of the comments, but I apologize if I missed anyone. Things have been kind of flaky lately.

Valentine Preview

It's not one of my favorite holidays - and it's nearly two weeks away - but I stilled joined Amy's swap and have spent the last few days working on it. I decided to make ATC's that look like little envelopes. I wasn't sure if the horizontal format was OK, but went for it anyway. I embroidered some handkerchief fabric that I got from Reprodepot. It was a little pricey, but I had a gift certificate (thanks Dale!) so I didn't feel so guilty. I like the way they turned out. Check out the flickr set if you want to seem them all finished, as well as some other folks great submissions. We were also tasked with sending "treats" for this round, so I embroidered still more valentine fabric and made these button sets:

7/8"! I'm thinking I need to make something extra large soon, lest my work get so tiny that I have to ship out magnifying glasses to my readers.

How do you like my new bland blog look? I was getting real tired of the old banner, and couldn't think of a new one just now. The fancier one may come back....someday.

Happy Christmas from a Bad Blogger!

Whoops! I certainly didn't intend for weeks to go by without posting but my trip really threw me off my game. I promptly caught a lingering cold, was trying madly to get the holiday together, and basically just collapsed at the end of the day without even looking at the computer or responding to comments (sorry....). But the image above a big reason why I still keep blogging - it's my Tree of Craft, filled with ornaments from fellow crafters in swaps and such. It's one of my favorite decorations, and I hope it continues to expand until one of these years I'll need a second one. Thanks especially to everyone who I received things from in Amy's ATC and ornament swaps. I got so excited when the box arrived that I hung everything on the tree without first checking for emails. I love everything!

My cousin Di (you'll see why I totally dig my family if you check her post and see what her husband got her for Christmas) tagged me for a "5 things you don't know about me" meme, so here's the holiday version:
1) I still write a letter to Santa every year - on Christmas Eve, and then I burn it (gets there faster that way) It works! That's all I'm sayin...
2) The melancholy Christmas songs: "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", "I Wonder As I Wander", "We Three Kings" (the list is pretty vast) put me the most in the Christmas spirit.
3) The only thing that can make me grumpy this time of year are the people who kvetch about how much they hate all of the decorations and such.
4) I really, really miss snow at Christmastime. In the 25 years I've lived in the Northwest, I've only had two white Christmases.
5) I wish all of you and your families whatever kind of Christmas you dream of in your heart of hearts. OK, that's cheating, you knew that already....but I mean it!

Back to Crafting

Right back to business with no real vacation update, except to say I had a marvelous time. You'll just have to take my word for it, because I forgot my camera!!!! I couldn't believe it either, but c'est la vie. While vacationing I worked on these eight tiny reindeer that I printed with my gocco before I left:

They are embellished with embroidery, and can either be hung, or stand (my preference) with the aid of the little cards. Five of them were sent of to Amy's fabulous ornament swap. I've got a couple left to trade for other ornaments, so drop me an email if you're interested. Gone already! You guys are fast! Amy was concurrently running a Christmas ATC swap, and here's my contribution:

I like to refer to them as "how to turn felt into cardboard". After I embroidered them, I printed the swap info on inkjet fabric, and glued them together with some watery glue. After a night on the heater vent they were nice and stiff. I should have tested it first, because I actually didn't know if it would work, but they turned out fine.

Thanks to everyone involved in and visited during our trip. It truly was a wonderful time.

Orangework

Here are the embroidered patches I sent out today for faun's swap. The platypus is almost 3" wide, if you're wondering what size they are - next time I'll add something appropriately tiny for scale. These were so fast and easy to make it's got me excited about a whole lot of similar items. My original idea here was to put three unusual animals together one one patch (I had planned to use a crocodile, a fox, and an emu), but then I thought "heck, odd animals deserve their own portraits", which is how these guys came about. I still have to make the original three individually.