The Mozart Journey Begins

First, since "loose ends" make me crazy, I decided to take today and do the finishing on my 3 most recent crazy quilt projects.

My Little Brown Bird purse is all together now. I just have to do the hand-finishing:



Next is my Heart Shaped Peacock piece. I have no clue on what to do with this. I want to make it into a cellphone pouch and I have several ideas for accomplishing this. First, I could sew it up into the heart shape with a backing and then do the same with another heart and then top stitch the two together. This will automatically give it a lining and I would only have a little bit of hand-sewing to do then. But my top stitching is not always perfect so I'm think my best option would be to sew it into a heart shape with a backing, then sew my regular cellphone pouch and attach the heart to the front of it. My mind is telling me that this is my best option so that's probably what I will go with.



Finally, I want to finish my Button Flowers into a cellphone pouch:



This one will be finished just like all my other pouches. I was asked how big this was. The stitched/beaded area is approx. 4 inches. This pouch will be just a twinge bigger then what my CQ pouches are. I'll have to go 5 inches X 5 or 6 inches. No big deal. More room for more money and hands-free shopping!

The Mozart Journey began last night! But it was a slow start. I think I put way too much thought into this and when I looked at it, I had no idea what to do with it. I decided that I didn't need to see the whole staircase, I only needed to take one step at a time so I started with auditioning some lace pieces:



The lace isn't sewn down yet. I need to look at it for a bit and see if this works. I'm pleased with the antique metallic gold lace to the left and the cream colored lace to the right but I'm not sure about the rose appliqué yet. If I do go with it, I'll give a hint of a salmon pink color and then antique it.

So what do you all think? Does the rose appliqué work? Or do you think it's too large?

Button Flowers

I apologize for not posting yesterday. My in-laws were here for the weekend so we were out the door early yesterday morning and didn't get back until late afternoon. Then Scott and I went out again to pick up a few things from town.

Anyway, I finished the beading on my Button Flowers project:



First, I cut a piece of denim from my pile of old jeans and then added a piece of flat lace to top of that, tacking it down along the edges. I then cut out my stitched piece leaving a 1/4 inch extra and hand appliquéd that down using the needle-turn technique.

Once that was done, I cut a small opening in the back, through the denim and the lace, stuffed a bit of poly fiberfill in there and whip stitched the opening closed. This really added alot of dimension to it!

After that, I sewed on a piece of gold sequin trim and then little by little, added flower beads and leaves.

Finally, I added some gold bugle beads and the butterfly charm.

My intention at the moment is to make this into a cellphone pouch. That of course can change depending on what other inspiration comes to me between now and getting in some finishing time on my sewing machine.

For now, I have design work to do. A lot of it! But stop by tomorrow because I desperately need to stitch. So The Mozart Journey will begin later today!

If you're interested in trying the needle-turn method of appliqué, but have no clue on what to do, you can find good directions here.

Flea Market Finds & More!

You may remember me mentioning this awhile back. I've never been big on doing Silk Ribbon Embroidery but I love the way it looks so I've been adding more of it to my crazy quilting. Well, I never seem to have the colors that I want so I bought some plain white 7mm silk ribbon and hand-painted it myself:



I did these yesterday afternoon. Aren't they pretty! I can't wait to stitch with them.

Today, Scott had to work so I did my usual errands. I picked up my drycleaning and stopped at the bank. There was a flea market at the park so I thought it would be fun to look around there for an hour and see if I could find some goodies. And did I find goodies!



Look at that metallic lame fabric! Gobs of it in every color imagineable. And I found some vintage rhinestone buttons, some dyed Mother Of Pearl buttons in aqua, some vintage jewelry pieces, lace... Oh and ironically, my 12 inch quilters hoop that I use for my 9 inch blocks broke on me the other day. Scott glued it but we don't know if it'll hold. Well, I found another one at the flea market. An older and much better made one. And only for $1.00! I am in heaven!

Of course you know, it's not like I don't have anything to play with here. I've never had any trouble justifying my supplies. But I got all of that stuff for about $15.00!

My real prize though, is this white wicker rocking chair:



Now that the majority of the Living Room remodel is done, Scott brought my bentwood rocker down for the corner by the window and guess what? It just didn't work there anymore. It looked heavy and out of place. I decided that I need a white wicker rocking chair there.

My old furniture, which is pretty much hand-me-down stuff because I never could figure out what I wanted, does not work with my Cottage Victorian theme that I'm going for now. I've decided that I want all white wicker furniture. It's light, airy and easy to clean (remember, I have 4 cats). Anyway, I do like the mis-matched look and when I saw this chair, I knew it was mine! I'll probably put a fresh coat of paint on the runners but the rest, I'll leave as is. I'm sure you can tell that Lucy has already claimed it as hers! And can you believe, I only paid $35.00 for this chair? I have no idea how old it is but it's in really good shape and I love it.

So next, to find a white wicker sofa, chair and side table!

18th Century Lace

In my research regarding my Mozart purse, I came across an article and images of 18th century lace. Now, I know that nothing I have here is that old. The lace I have here is from the late 1800's to present but in seeing images of lace from that era, it looks to me like much of it has a sort of netted background. I do have a variety of lace that resembles this look and hopefully, I have something that will work nicely.

You can find the article at The Costumer's Manifesto website.

Custom Apron Order Complete!

Just a quickie for today everyone. (You're probably all thinking, "thank goodness!") I ran some errands this morning and still have 2 more to run. And I desperately need some quality stitching time.

You may remember that I received an order for a custom vintage style apron. It's complete now:



My first stop will be to the Post Office to send this off to it's new owner!