When at first you don’t succeed

   I made these mitts with what I thought was a really cool pattern.  They were supposed to be form fitting and stylish.  The pattern was unnecessarily complicated and did not turn out as nice as advertised.  So, I frogged them!   Thankfully, the yarn frogged easily and did not knot up on me.  I am going re redo mitts with a different pattern and try again.  I think I will be happier in the long run.

Ouch!

 Ouch!  Who knew that yarn crafts could cause so much pain?  It seems that I have over done it and injured my shoulder knitting and crocheting.  Boy, getting old stinks!  Seems I will have to take it easy for a while.

A New Skill

I have been tryingmy hand at a new skill, spinning.  It is not as easy as it looks, but I keep practicing.  It seemed a natural extension of my other fiber related hobbies, so I thought I would give it a try.  I mean how cool would it be to knit or crochet something with yarn that you made yourself?  I think it would be pretty cool!  It was suggested that I learn with wool, so that is what this is and it is nowhere near anything perfect, but it is mine.  I have to be patient with myself.  I get frustrated easily, so I have to keep reminding myself that I am just learning.  Gotta start somewhere.

Until next time,

One Little Birdie

Hello again

Okay, so I admit that I have a problem.  I am a terrible blogger and I do not post as often as I should.  This was most recently and lovingly pointed out by my friend Karen on her blog. She is a much better blogger than I and anyone would be greatly rewarded by following either of her blogs.

Anyway, the business I started is moving right along and I have been able to do many great thread paintings for people.  This makes me very happy.

I have also been quilting, knitting, crocheting, and making lots of other cool things as well.  The pictures are just a sample of some of the things I have been up to. The embroidery machine has expanded my ability to offer all sorts of things to clients, as well as gifts to friends and family.

And to my friend Karen, I hope that I continue to inspire you, because you inspire me all of the time.  So let us both keep up the good work and I will try my best to blog more often.

One Little Birdie

Doggone Memories

My memeorials for pets business is doing pretty well.  The thread paintings are a huge success.  People really seem to like them.  Dogs are the main focus, but I have also done cats, a hamster and a bunny.  I am not sure why my ipad is not letting me add photos, but you can check them all out at my facebook page under doggone memories.

Quilts have been going well too.  They are surprises so no pictures there either for now.  I know, blog posts with no pictures are no fun!  I promise to do better next time.  And try to post more often too.  I have picked up my crochet hooks and knitting needles again too.  So, all kinds of crafty going on here.

I think I need to do a thread painting of a person next.  I think I can be just as successful with people as I have been with animals.  So if you know anyone who would like something like that, let me know.

Until next time, Ciao!

Here we go!

 So, these are some of the projects I have been working on lately.  They are very large sized thread painting portraits of two of my favorite dogs.  It's hard to say favorite, as they all are favorites in some way.  These two were extra special in a way, however.

These were my first attempts at large pieces.  I have learned from a local thread panting teacher, Robin at http://www.threadworkbyrobin.com/
to make a pattern so I can increase the size of the photo I am working with.  It seems to work very well.  I have also learned from Jennifer day at http://www.jdaydesign.com/ that a very good stabilizer is 15 oz canvas.  So these pieces are quite heavy.  It's an arm workout!

My smaller portraits were very popular during the holidays.  I am hoping that folks can look at these larger pieces as real art they wish to invest in.

Exciting things!!!!

Until next time!
One Little Birdie

New Endeavors

I have been up to some new and quite interesting things lately.  For a while now, I felt unchallenged by quilting and was having trouble coming up with new projects to sink my teeth into.  I was talking to a friend about this, and a general lack of interest in other things as well.  She suggested that I look for a way to combine my two loves, quilting and animals.

This was a great idea, so we brainstormed for a while and we came up with doing pet memorial quilts for people.  I started by coming up with designs and doing research on photo transfer products.  I made up samples of the designs and shared them on facebook.  People liked them!  Great!

I forget how we got into the next phase - thread paintings - but I tried to do a thread painting of one of my dogs.  It turned out pretty good, so I did a few more.  I kept sharing them online and people really liked them.  Soon, someone asked me to make for them.  Whoopie!  So, while the photo transfer quilts are great, these thread painted portraits really took off.

I named my new endeavor DogGone Memories - Sue came up with the name, so I need to give her credit. I am currently working on a website with my gracious brother's help. Now that the holidays are over, it is time to focus on that so we can grow into the next phase of this project.

I love new projects and this one promises lots of learning and growth.  Classes in techniques, learning how to market the project, exploring, designing, and creating.

This is just one example of a thread painting I have done.  Isn't this puppy just the cutest?  This is going to be fun!

Margo

This is my favorite handbag pattern:  Margo by Lazy Girl Designs.  I have made this so many times.  The zipper can be a little tricky, but if you follow the directions closely and pay attention to the photos you will get it right.  I often have overthought the zipper part, which led to much unsewing.  Just follow the directions, really.

When I find a new birdie fabric, I just have to snap some up and make something.  This bag is perfect!  The green is very calming and zen.  The white just makes me happy.  And the grey with the birdie feet tracks makes me smile!  It has a bright pink interior and blue pockets so you can see well inside.

I have been very busy

 As you can see, I have been rather busy.  I have a rather long Christmas list and I attempt to hand make as many gifts as i can.  That usually leaves me with wondering what to make.  I think I have made everything for every body.  However, I have come up with a few ideas for this year.

Lots of these are gifts, so I will not say who they are intended for.  I have had a lot of fun designing these - choosing which fabrics are appropriate for each person.

This is a decoration for the house - a table topper.  As Christmas and Hanukkah coincide this year, I thought it would be fun to have some  Hanukkah inspired decorations.

 A couple of twin quilts of the same pattern, in differing colorways from a collection of fabrics at the shop where I work.

 This one is a cheater panel, but it is very appropriate for the person I am giving it to.

 This is a scrap quilt that was inspired by a quilt I found online.  I used my scrap stash very effectively - only buying the background fabrics and backing.

Here is a close up of the swirl quilting I did on it.  I backed it with flannel to make it extra cozy.

I think this will be the last quilt I make for the home for a long while.  We have plenty of quilts now and I am running out of room to store them.  There are worse problems, I suppose.

I guess I will have to think harder on things to sew in the future. 

Until next time,
One Little Birdie

The Night Sky

So my niece is having a baby.  Her nursery theme is the night sky.  naturally, I had to make a baby quilt.  Inspired by one I had seen on Pinterest, this is the result.  I rather like it and she seemed to at her baby shower.

Yes, I have been Busy

Yes, I have been busy.  But I thought I had better get blogging.  The two quilts I have been working on are the results of the effects that working in a sewing store has on a creative person.

The fist one here is a very bright an modern quilt for our personal use.  I have turquoise walls in my bedroom, so finding bedding that matches can be interesting.  One of my coworkers was working on a sample quilt for the store and I got the idea from that to make this quilt.  The focus fabric is the black with the leafy print and the rest of the fabrics are essentially blenders.  The blocks are very simple, so this was a quick one to piece.  Which is a really good thing because piecing is my least favorite part of quilting.  My favorite part is the designing, picking out just the right fabrics.  Next is the quilting.  Now that I have access to long arm machine, it is even better.

The quilt is too large for my design wall - it ended up at 106 X 120 - more than big enough for our bed.  Good thing I can use the long arm - no way I could handle a monster this big at home.

This is Genny.  She was helping me in my sewing room and was being a very good girl.  Her favorite job is being an area rug and keeping me company.  She will also offer her opinion once in a while on my progress in her own way with a series of dramatic sighs.  Genny also makes sure that I take frequent snack breaks and lets me know when it is time to make dinner.








This is Chai, Genny's little sister.  She is not one to be upstaged by Genny, so she thought she should also have a photo op and give her opinion.  That opinion consisted of telling me that I was spending too much time sewing and not enough time letting her into the yard or scratching her belly.




This is the result of my boss getting in a new collection of fabrics.  Normally, I would not choose anything like these.  But seeing those bolts on the shelf, I just kept looking at them thinking how great they looked.  I just had to make something with them.  I have to say I am not sure that the block pattern I chose is actually the best one for these fabrics, but I think it is working.  It ended up being a square quilt, 74 X 74.  It will most likely be a holiday gift for someone.  Now to choose a backing for it and get it sandwiched so I can quilt it.  I can do this one at home, if I can get it basted.  Finding basting space is the big challenge.

I have another idea germinating for a holiday gift quilt, so now it is time to choose fabrics for that.  Onto the next project!  Gotta keep busy!

Ciao, for now
One Little Birdie

Happy Holidays!

It's that time of year!  Holidays to celebrate, baking and cooking.  My favorite time of year.  Here is my Genny, who would like to taste test these espresso chocolate crinkles.  Of course, she cannot, but she likes to try.

I was raised in a Catholic family.  The whole time between Thanksgiving and Christmas was a time of preparation, or Advent.  My parents had a few tricks up their sleeves to keep us kids in check and not get crazy with anticipation.

The first was St. Nicholas day.  The evening of December 5th, we would put our shoes out on our steps by the front door.  In the morning, the shoes would be filled with small toys and goodies that St. Nick would leave for us.  It was a nice way to start things off.

Baking goodies would also be going on.  Making pizzelles and biscotti and favorite cookies.  Our parents would also get these absolutely huge apples and oranges from the produce market.  Just one could make a meal.

The next little holiday we would celebrate was St. Lucia Day.  We are Italian, so we celebrated this a little differently than the Swedes.  On December 13th, we would plant in a small pot some rye grass seeds.  Being the youngest, I helped to keep it watered and watched it grow a bit every day.  By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, it would be about 10 inches tall.  My cat used to love this grass, by the way.

Anyway, do you notice something missing from my nativity scene here?  Well, the baby did not appear until Christmas morning in our house.  When I found this nativity, it was just like the one we had when I was little, so I had to have it.

So, back to the grass.  On Christmas Eve, right before we went to bed, we would cut the grass and place it in the empty manger.  This was the coming baby would be comfortable and warm.  The baby Jesus was in the manger on Christmas morning.  This really helped us to remeber the real reason for the holiday.

Well, it is time to get back into the kitchen and continue this year's preparations.  I have a lot of baking to do.  Of course there will be pizzelles, both anise and chocolate.  The afore mentioned espresso crinkles, a couple kinds of biscotti, as well as traditional favorites of peanut blossoms and chocolate chip.  I also make peppermint patties and peanut butter cups.  Lots to do!

I hope that you have a wonderful holiday season filled with love, laughter, and lots of goodies.

Buon Natale!

Ciao,

Birdie in Cucina

I have been busy, really!

That's right.  I have been keeping busy.  That is why I haven't blogged in a while.

I have been doing pretty well at my part-time job, so I rewarded myself with a new machine - a serger!  Meet Sergio.  He is a Babylock Eclipse DX with jet air threading.  So it is easy to thread - just put the end of the thread in a hole and push a button and poof!  The thread shoots through all that it needs to so it is foolproof.  Trust me, this is important.  Threading a serger is a real bear.  I use a lot of HBO words when I have to thread the lesser sergers.

So, the first thing I did was make Sergio a cool cover so he won't get all dusty in between projects.  It needed to be badass because I think that sergers are pretty badass machines.

 One of the first projects I made with Sergio are these really cute gift bags.  Cuz the holidays are coming before we know it and having things to put gifts in is important.  They go together quickly and give your gift an extra special touch.

 Meanwhile, I had been working on this quilt for a long time.  It's called Salsa and Cheddar, designed by Debbie at The Little Shop in Haddonfield, NJ.  It is finished now and I got to put it on a long arm to quilt, which was fun!  I did my best to do a design that had chili peppers in it.  They looked like a three year old drew them, but I did it!  I like the way it turned out.

 This is a bigass bag that I made for my best friend.  She already wore out one version of this bag and it was time for a new one. 

 This is a small portion of my flannel stash.  I decided to put my serger to some good use and make us some flannel pillow cases.  I never seem to have enough pillow cases, so these will come in handy.  I know, it is a hodge podge of colors, but frankly, I don't care about my bed being matchy matchy.  These colors happen to be in the quilts we have, so they will work fine.

This is a bigass load of linen(like) fabric.  Most of it is destined to become a couple of table cloths.  My coworker gave me the idea that having a plain table cloth and putting table runners on the table is a really nice way to change up your table dressing.  I am in the process of also making two different table runners.  Hopefully they will be done by the holidays when we have our big open house.

So, I still have a lot of work to do!



Keep on the good work!
Until next time,
One Little Birdie

Only 5 months until Christmas!

Well, it is mid August.  I know that it seems early, but it is about now that I start getting anxious about the holidays.  Because i prefer to make most of the gifts that we give, it means I need to plan and start prepping pretty early.

First comes inspiration - what to make?  It feels like we have made almost everything for everyone at this point.  But I got the idea of doing stockings for most folks and filling them with cute stuff.  Browsing Pinterest, I wanted ideas of what to put inside the stockings that would not just be junk.  I am always open to ideas to be more earth friendly too.  I came across this great idea for reusable snack bags at this blog.  The pattern is great and easy.  My variation, however, it to line the bags with fused recycled grocery bags.  It makes a kind of fabric and can be wiped off easily.

This are the first results and I must say that I am very pleased.  I think they could be put into the washer to clean, but I would air dry them instead of the dryer.   I wish I had white Velcro on hand, but I used what was in my stash.  I am going to use these bags myself and make more for others - sort of customize them.  I think people will like them.

Skulls on Top!

Hi everyone!  I recently did a black and white quilt challange with BadAss Quilters Society.  I decided to make two table toppers.  I purchased a special bundle of skully fabrics.  I had to use all of them, plus any black and white I had, but no color.

Here is how they turned out.  They just need binding.  I will likely do a solid black binding.

Thanks for stopping by!

One Little Birdie

Scrappy fun and the winter blues

I don't know about you, but this brutally cold winter is really getting to me.  I have been in a real funk creatively, both in the kitchen and the studio.  You would think I would be cooking and sewing my guts out.  Maybe I need more sunlight or something.

Anyway, I have been sewing and my challange is to work strictly from my stash.  I have been intrigued by the notion of a scrap quilt for quite a while.  I spent two days sorting and cutting all of my scraps into uniform sizes to do this.  I found a pattern that I liked.  It seems that it needed a constant background in order to please me.  I had purchased a bolt of muslin a while ago and so I decided to use that as the constant.

So, I decided on a Bonnie Hunter scrap quilt pattern I found on Pinterest.  Most people paper pieced this, but I just took my 2 x 3 inch scraps and strung them together.  Muslin triangles on each side.

Here are the blocks all squared up and ready to be put into rows.

Here some are on the design wall.  I decided I didn't need to plan this one out as mich as I usually do.  Just trust the scrappiness!

Here is the top, all finished!  Well, I need to swap around that one small section of the border that's going the wrong direction, but other than that...  Can't have the birdies flying upside down now, can we?

I even pieced the backing for this one from flannel scraps.  It isn't the most beautiful back in the world, but it works in the spirit of scrappiness and will be nice feeling when it's used.  This quilt is actually big enough for our bed!  Most of my projects tend to run smaller.

Now I need to sandwich this one and get it ready for quilting.  And this is the part where I always get stumped... How to quilt this...  I think something more complicated in the muslin areas is in order.  Leave the scrappy area pretty much alone.  What do you think?  Something will come to me, I am sure.

Until then, ciao!

One Little Birdie

Manly Sewing

As I mused in the last post, sewing for men I find quite difficult.  Fabric seems to have an inherent feminine quality.  Coming up with gifts for the men in my life proves more difficult every holiday season.

This year. we decided to make homemade dry rubs, ketchup, sauces, and such.  We want to make a gift basket out of something useful, like a salad bowl, and I thought I would make kitchen towels and potholders to go with it all.

So, for the manly chefs in my life, manly fabric is needed.  I have had these waiting for a project.  I just loved the moustashe fabric and the shirtings were perfect.  Now, onto the potholders.  I need to get some heat resistant batting to be sure that the potholders are useful.

I hope they like them.

Until next time,
One Little Birdie

Design and Paranoia

So, I realized that there was one friend I had not made a quilt for yet.  It's a guy, and I think designing quilts for guys is hard because I feel that most quilts are inherently feminine.  I know he is a batik kind of guy, so I thought that a neutral to bring the batiks together would work, hoping that the lighter batiks wouldn't come off as girly.  I had a good collection of 6 inch batik squares, so I went with that and used the gray in the same way.  I really like how it is coming together and it is easy to piece.  The top is actually done now, so all I need to is sandwich and I can begin to quilt.

I will probably stew over quilting design for a while.  I always do.  Need to get inspired on that to get started.

In the mean time, I also realized I had not made my nieces quilts.  so I need to get busy on designing something for them!  It being July, I have enough time to do those before the holidays.

The girls share my love for the lullaby, Little Birdie in a Tree, as their mother (my sister) sang it to them as children.  In fact, they too have tattoos based on the song.  So I am going to try and design quilts with that song in mind.  They each like bold colors, which I think will add fun and excitement to the quilts.

I love designing with specific people in mind.  Trying to capture their personality in the design is a challenge I really get into.

Now, we have a new puppy in our house.  A puppy, a 12 week old puppy.  trying to accomplish things and concentrate with a puppy biting at your heels and getting into things and house training is, well, interesting.  I have to take her outside at least every 30 to 45 minutes.  I need to keep her entertained so she chews on appropriate things.  And, I need to make sure that I do not step on her accidentally.  Keeps us all on our toes! 

My sewing studio is on the second floor and Chai is one mobile puppy!  She is currently asleep on the sofa downstairs, so I need to check on her every few minutes.  A quite puppy is a very suspicious thing, let me tell you.  I have become one paranoid puppy mommy.  I need to remember to check on her and not get lost in my work too much.  Thank goodness, for now she is young enough to sleep quite a bit, as long as she also gets some exercise.

Genny, our other dog, is six years old and, frankly, a pretty lazy dog.  She has to be on her toes too and a bit paranoid herself with the puppy around.  She has been extremely patient.  Right now, she is currently doing her best imitation of an area rug on my studio floor.  A difficult hurdle when walking around when one needs to avoid an 80 pound lump.  She is just happy that a puppy is not chewing on her ears.

Well, I had better take advantage of the quite to get something accomplished!

Until next time

A Modern Spin

Trying a more modern feel with these crocheted necklaces. 

I have been busy

I picked up those hooks and I have hardly put them down.  I seem to be focused on jewelry and other small objects like bowls. 
With this much going on, I decided to reopen my etsy shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/BirdieinaTree

I am having fun.  I have also made a few new things to help me display this new inventory at craft shows.