TAST - The Fly Stitch

I was glad to know I didn't bore you all too much yesterday with my Living Room drama! It's been quite stressful for me. I like neatness, order, no clutter, "a place for everything and everything in it's place". And I like beauty. But this room is anything but beautiful at the moment!

I kind of have to have "tunnel vision" to deal with it. I set some rules for the space in which I stitch. No clutter on the coffee table, the TV cabinet or the DVD cupboard. This is what's in my range of view and thankfully, my husband has been respectful of that.

When all is said and done, it will be decorated with a Cottage Victorian feel. I'll be sponge painting the walls with an icy aqua glaze. The trim will be white and then I'll be stenciling little bits of ivy here and there. Not all the way around the room, just a bit here and there. I want it to look like a Victorian Sunroom. Eventually, I want white wicker furniture in there but for the moment, I'll have to live with what I have so I'll get some pretty covers for our sofa and chair. When it's done, which probably won't be for another couple of months, I'll share some before and after photos. You really won't believe the difference.

Onto stitching! I completed the handwork on the Red Hat Lady Society Purse yesterday along with the little Spring Cellphone Pouch. My husband took the camera today so I'll have to wait until tomorrow to share photos of those with you. Oh, but just wait until you see them! Esp. that Red Hat Lady!

Once those were complete, I started on this little pouch:



When I started on this, I had no clue about what to do. I wasn't thrilled with how it pieced up. The corners of the black velveteen were too harsh. I found the little butterfly applique in my stash but it was lost in that large space. I decided to try working with it but held off on sewing it down until I had some of the seams covered.

While digging though my "way more than I need" lace stash, I found the blue floral trim that I used to the left of the butterfly. I loved the way it looked and decided to stay with a blue and white color scheme.

If you're new to crazyquilting, that's a really good way to start. Pick one thing that you want to use, and work off of that.

I started with my beloved Feather Stitch on the top seam. I then wanted to work this week's TAST Fly Stitch into this so I covered the bottom seam with that. I of course, can never leave anything as intended so I added what I call "small fan" stitches to the bottom of the Fly Stitch.

That still left way too much space for the butterfly so I moved him up a bit and started my vine (which I use to add movement and soften harsh corners) at the bottom of the black velveteen patch. As you can see, it filled in that excess space! I simply did a stem stitch vine and added the SRE leaves. I was going to do the flowers in SRE too. But I didn't have any icy blue ribbons. In fact, my stash of blue ribbons is very limited so I'll be emailing Pat Winter and asking her if she might be able to put together a small custom pack of blues for me.

I have some design work to do now, so I'll leave you with the charted versions of the traditional Fly Stitch and then my own variation:





Click on one of the images to go to my Flickr site where you can download the larger versions of the patterns.

I'll have another update for you tomorrow!

Teddy Bear Pouch - Stitching Complete

I apologize for not posting yesterday. It was a busy day for us.

I think I've mentioned this before, but in case I didn't, we're in the middle of remodeling our Living room. We started this project last February. There was a drop-ceiling in that room which we decided to rip out only to find yet another drop-ceiling above it. So we ripped that out and then put a real drywall ceiling in and a gorgeous ceiling fan. Ripping all that stuff off of the ceiling made the ceiling 9 inches higher!

We then ripped the carpeting out. I've always hated carpeting. Once we got the carpet out, we discovered old linoleum from 1960 underneath. The reason we know it's from 1960 is because beneath the linoleum, was sheets of newspaper, all dated 1960. Why that was there, we have no clue! And, it was the ugliest linoleum I've ever seen!

Knowing that it would be awhile before we would get to installing new flooring, I painted the subfloor white. This house was built in 1937 and that old subfloor was dark and it smelled terrible. Painting it made it liveable for awhile.

Ok, so the next thing we did was to have the 6 windows replaced with nice, big new Pella windows and then we had 2 extra windows put in. It's a really bright room now! We also have an interior door going out to an entry room so we had that replaced with a door that has all the little glass panes in it. Even more light!

By this point, we had both enough for awhile so we put the project on hold for the Summer and started back on it in November.

I'm very happy to say that we are finally getting ready to put the hardwood flooring in. Yesterday, after running some errands, stopping at Hobby Lobby and Michaels (yes I had coupons) and having lunch, we went to Home Depot and bought 19 boxes of prefinished solid oak flooring. It has to sit in the house for a week before installation but Scott will be putting that in next weekend.

We've had this house for almost 15 years now. We've done so much from gutting and remodeling the bathroom, updating the kitchen, replacing all of the windows, putting wood floors in throughout the house and I have to say, this living room project has been the biggest nightmare of all. It has been so much work, so much debris, so time consuming and expensive but finally I know, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel very soon!

Now that I've told you way more than you probably wanted to know, I will get on with the really fun stuff!

I finished up the stitching on the Teddy Bear Cellphone Pouch last night:



Isn't this just too cute?!! As I told you the other day, I had to dye the feather myself and I had to cut it into several small pieces to make it work. I sewed that down, added the Silk Ribbon Embroidery and then the beads.

I will assemble it on my sewing machine during the week and have it ready to ship to it's new owner on Friday. In case you're new to my blog, the cat in the top right-hand corner is my signature. He appears somewhere on every crazyquilt piece I do. If you'd like to see a larger version of the image, just click it to go to my Flickr site.

My next project will be this:



I had a request for a cellphone pouch without an image on it. Something with either a piece of vintage jewelry, or some embroidery or an applique. Just no pictures. I haven't decided yet where this is going so stop by tomorrow for an update.

My plan for today is to do the hand-finishing on my Red Hat Society Lady Purse and the Spring cellphone pouch. Once those are complete, I'll start on the blue piece.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with my Living room project! I just thought I'd mention this as it's been a big focus for me for a year now! I try to stay on topic here but since I work at home, my house is a big part of my life!

More tomorrow.....

Teddy Bear Cellphone Pouch Update

I only had about 2 hours of stitching time yesterday. I went for groceries in the morning and then did the machine finishing on my Red Hat Lady purse and the Spring Chick cellphone pouch. I still have the handwork to do on those which I have scheduled for over the weekend.

In only two hours, I did manage to get some beads on this:



I went through my package of feathers but no purple. So guess what I did? Yes, I soaked a white feather in purple dye and what came of that is the loveliest shade of lavender! I used my blow dryer to fluff it up and now it's ready for attaching to the hat. I'll have to cut it up a bit as it's way too big for the little bear but I'm sure I can make that work. If all goes well, I expect to have that attached for tomorrow's update.

I've been hearing that some of you were quite amused by my "duh" moment! Thinking about it, I'm still rather amused myself. I really wonder where my brain is sometimes!!!

Teddy Bear Cellphone Pouch

As I mentioned yesterday, I have received several orders for custom cellphone pouches. The first, is for one in purple and yellow with a teddy bear theme.

I searched through my bits of vintage jewelry but I knew I didn't have a bear. I looked through my copyright free clipart and vintage photo images but again, nothing with a teddy bear. I pondered this for a bit, trying to figure out what to do for a bear as a focal point and then suddenly, I remembered that I am a professional pattern designer that I've designed tons of teddy bears! Insert a great big DUH here!

The first design that popped into my head was Hatbox Teddies:



These little teddy bears having a tea party has always been a favorite of mine. The bear to the left with the Victorian hat was a perfect focal point! I simply changed the colors from pink & blue to purple & yellow, printed him up on commercial inkject fabric and pieced my block:



I embroidered the seams last night so this is what it looks like at the moment:



I want to go through some of my do-dads and see if I have a real purple feather to sew onto the hat. I then plan to do some Silk Ribbon Embroidery on the hat as well. I'll start beading it later today so stop by tomorrow for an update.

And in case anyone is wondering about the Hatbox Teddies design, it is currently retired.

At Home With Needlework Magazine February 2007 Issue

Zweigart has just released the February issue of their At Home With Needlework Magazine:



Here is the list of my designs which appear in this issue:

Butterfly & Berries Tabletopper - page 9
Summer Nap - page 12
Hummingbird In Flight - page 36
Touch Of Spring (Cover Designs) - page 45
Christmas Kittens - page 62