Lots To Share Today!

First, I want to share a photo of the vintage lace that I handpainted yesterday:



It took me over 5 1/2 hours to paint everything but I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoy doing this! So many different patterns and designs! Each piece is so beautiful in itself but once painted, the patterns really pop!

I'll be starching and ironing today and I'm sure that will take another good couple of hours but again, I so much enjoy this process and being able to see and touch such a variety of old lace pieces.

Allison asked me what fabric dyes I use. I use Dye-na-flow by Jacquard. I started purchasing the small sampler packs at Michaels. They were perfect for my personal use. But now that I'm doing this on a larger scale, I order the larger bottles online.

When I finished painting yesterday, I worked on my green cellphone pouch:



This is complete now so I'll be starting on this one next:



On another note, Sharon asked her readers to mention her "Take A Stitch" project which will be starting on January 2nd. To learn more about it, hop over to Sharon's In A Minute Ago blog and read her post for today.

I'll be joining in on this project too, sharing patterns, stitches and designs with you. In fact, sometime in the next week, I'll be writing up the tutorial for painting dryer sheets. One of my first projects will feature "dryer sheet flowers" which you can use on your crazyquilts and other projects. I want to get that tutorial to you before the "Take A Stitch" start date so if you want to make some of these flowers, you can have everything ready in advance.

If you want to make some of the flowers but don't want to mess with the paint (it is very messy and time consuming and the paints are rather expensive), I still have several of the Painted Fiber Sheets packs available in my Etsy shop.

Ok, I'm off to starch and iron all that gorgeous old lace!

Cellphone Pouch And More Vintage Lace

I started some beading on this little cellphone pouch:



I really like the way the stitching looks all in one color. The reason I wanted to experiment with this is because last week, I sewed up a larger block that feels a bit wild to me. The fabrics looked great until I had it all sewn up and now, it seems a bit too "all over the map". I'm thinking that using all white thread will help bring it all together. When I get to it, I'll blog that project so you can follow my progress.

I expect to complete the green pouch later today. For now, I have another batch of vintage lace to paint:



This batch is quite old! I would definately say pre-30's on 90% of it. There's are lots of small pieces and some nice motifs in here. I'll be putting it together in "variety packs". In the meantime, I'm off to paint!

Green Cellphone Pouch Update

I didn't have alot of stitching time yesterday. I wrapped Christmas gifts which took a good bit of my time, but I did manage to get the seams covered on this. I used DMC Ecru #5 Perle on all the seams and I must say, it has a nice look! I wouldn't do that on every piece but I thought it would be fun to experiment:



We'll be visiting with my in-laws today but I do expect to have a bit of stitching time this evening.

A note on tassels, first, one of these days I'll either learn how to spell or I'll start using the "spell-checker"! Ha, ha, ha!

My friend Cherry emailed me and suggested that I look at using some of the cool new yarns available these days. She said they're great for making tassels. Cherry, why didn't I think of that?!!! Thank you! Yes, those beautiful yarns would make great tassels and both my WalMart and Michaels stores have an excellent selection. Thank you Cherry! I'll be doing that next time! And whatever I have left over can be used on another Fish Under The Sea block!

Tassles

Nothing all that interesting to share today. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I wanted a big gold tassle for my Girl With A Kitten purse. Well, my only near-by fabric store option is WalMart and they didn't really have what I wanted. I bought 4 gold tassles and ended up just sewing them together. Then I wrapped some braid around them, the same braid that I used on the outside of the purse and sewed that on. I sewed the tassle on to the bottom of the purse and then added a pretty button:



It works. I do wish I had put a velvet ruffle at the top of the purse. I didn't think about it until last night when I sewing the button on. I guess that's a good idea for the next one that I do.

I was tired from being cold all day yesterday and didn't start on the green cellphone pouch. But I did paint an applique for it:



I will be stitching on this today. I want to experiment with stitching all in one color. Maybe just white or cream thread on this piece and then embellish as I would normally. I'm not sure what kind of effect that will produce. Maybe a sort of lacy look. Or maybe not. Stay tuned to see where this goes!

Cellphone Pouch

I'm really running late today! I've been grocery shopping, been to WalMart, went up to Richmond to put a few more things in my showcase and stopped at the Post Office on the way home. It's a bitter cold day here and I'm frozen solid!

Among my other finishes from earlier this week, I completed this bookmark:



Last night, I did the beading on top and bottom. This is one of the items I took up to my showcase. I can't say that I would enjoy doing a bunch of these. The horizontal piecing made it difficult to handsew the opening shut after turning right side out. I added a piece of heavy duty interfacing to the inside to give it a bit of body. And as you can see, I kept the embellishing to simple flat beads and seed beads.

My next CQ projects will be several more little cellphone pouches. I have three of them sewn and ready to stitch. Here's the green one:



Like the last one I made, this one will measure 4 inches wide X 5 inches high. I want to start on it tonight but I first want to make a tassle for my Girl With A Kitten purse. WalMart didn't have what I was looking for and I didn't have time to run to the fabric store in Crystal Lake. I bought a few things that I think I can work with so stop by tomorrow (Saturday) to see what I come up with!

Well, I'm off now to curl up on my sofa with one of my warm patchwork quilts, one of my cats (whichever one will stay) and a cup of hot tea! More tomorrow!