Inspired By Pat Winter

I have always loved the work of Pat Winter.  I discovered her work years ago on Art-E-Zine.  Once she started blogging, I followed her religiously and still do to this day.  Pat's delicate embroidered crazy quilting, in soft Victorian hues can calm and quiet the busiest of minds!

I was quite taken with Pat's Embellished Brooches.  Beautiful Victorian images surrounded by needle felting, silk ribbon embroidery, beads, sequins and charms.  Here is an example of Pat's work:

Is this stunning or what?!!!!  Now I've been making needle felted heart brooches for a few years but Pat's pretty ones kept showing up on Pinterest and I finally asked her if she minded if I made a few for my shop.  Now I have to tell you, in case you've never talked to her, Pat is absolutely delightful!  She is sweet as can be and quite generously told me that she didn't mind at all.  I truly felt that I had to ask her because I know she sells some of her handmade pieces in her Gatherings Etsy Shop.  I believe in being respectful and I didn't want to take away from her sales.  I just felt that it was proper etiquette to ask her first.

So, here are my newest embellished needle felted art brooches worked in the beautiful and elegant style of Pat Winter:

I really enjoy making the little heart brooches but I have to tell you, I love making these even more!  And I am planning on doing a few more but I need to do some crazy quilting first.  Thank you so much Pat! 

If anyone is interested in making some of these, Pat offers a tutorial in her shop:

You can find the Instant Download for Felting And Embellishing A Brooch here.

And speaking of crazy quilting, I spent all day yesterday running my treadle sewing machine.  I'm sure I put a good couple of miles on it!  I sewed up a ton of purses, a pillow and a door hanger.  So have loads of new things in the works.

Finally, on a sad note, my mom lost her beloved Chooch this morning:

Chooch was the most wonderful and gorgeous black lab.  In her earlier years, she was a therapy dog.  Mom would take her to the local retirement center and she would visit with the residents there.  Chooch was awesome at that!  My mom gave her a wonderful life and she lived to be over 14 years old.  I will miss her terribly.

Crazy Quilt Hanging Pillows

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you might remember the examples I did for the online crazy quilt class I taught last year.  There were 9 blocks all together.  I sewed them all into little Crazy Quilt Hanging Pillows.  So here is what they look like now:

It took me over 3 hours just to stuff these and sew the little butts shut on them!  LOL!!!  Anyway, most of these little Crazy Quilt Hanging Pillows are over in my Etsy shop in case anyone would like to have one.

Sewing and Brooches

I spent all morning and part of the afternoon sewing up the example blocks from the online Crazy Quilt class that I taught last year.  They will be little door hangers.  All I have left to do is stuff them and do the hand finishing.  I expect to have photos of those ready tomorrow so please stop back to see them.  They're gorgeous!

In the meantime, here are 2 more needle felted brooches that I made:

There are more coming!  I have 4 more of them in the works!  Special thanks to my sweet friend Pat Winter for her inspiration! 

More Needle Felted Valentine Brooches

Since I've only had small amounts of stitching time lately, I've been making some Needle Felted Brooches:

All are embellished with embroidery, silk ribbon work, beads, sequins, lace and some fancy trims.  It's nice to make some small things now and again that go fast.  Instant gratification can be a good thing sometimes.

I'll get back to Crazy Quilting later this week.  I have some more finishing to do this week too and since it's supposed to snow almost everyday this coming week, I believe I will accomplish a lot!  Spring starts on March 1st, right?

Crazy Quilt Purses

I don't think I shared photos of these while I was stitching on them.  I worked on them between Thanksgiving and Christmas and since that's sort of a crazy time for me, I just stitched but didn't snap any pics.  I finally got around to doing the finishing on them the other day so here are my latest Crazy Quilt Purses:

I have a few more things to finish up on.  I decided to finish the example blocks that I made for my online crazy quilt class into Door Hangers.  There's 9 of them all together.  I'll be keeping 2 of them but I'll put the rest in my Etsy shop when they're ready.  Just in case anyone would like to have one.  I'm planning on getting them assembled next week so I'll post them all here again when they're ready.

I also plan on having a fun sewing day next week.  One where I can just pull out my fabric collection and sit in front of my treadle machine all day.  I love to piece blocks and I want to sew up a huge pile of them!