Monday, November 27, 2017

Making gift bags.........

 Today was pull out holiday gifts, at least those finished or bought, and start sewing gift bags to put them in. I usually bring my own reusable shopping bags to the store but when I forget I don't worry about it because I'll make gift bags out of the store bags that have handles on them.  I cut them into two pieces, turn them inside out and sew away. I do cut with a rotary cutter but I don't worry about being exact in any of the sewing.


Here are just a few of the many bags I made this afternoon, most from Trader Joe's bags. Of course right after I cleaned up I found another bag so I'll sew that one up another day. I can make a variety of sizes but they can only be so big so there are some gifts I'll have to figure out another way to wrap them. I'll make some cute hangtags for these. If I were really energetic I'd stencil something on the front of them but I'm running on empty these days so that won't happen.


Sunday, November 26, 2017

A bit of inkle weaving in the works for ornaments.

Nice news for me last weekend. I entered 3 scarves in the WeGO 2018 Traveling Exhibit and all 3 were accepted and 1 of them won the Complex Weavers Award. WeGO stands for Weaving Guilds of Oregon. This exhibit will travel the state next year, in the past we've had it in our area but the closest it will be to us this time is the Arts Center in Roseburg - not too bad, a bit over an hour north of us so I'll get to see the exhibit in April/May. It was a real bright spot for me last weekend to get the email about the exhibit as we were running back and forth to the hospital an hour away due to a critically ill relative.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving which suited us just fine and no Black Friday shopping for us, we didn't leave the property. Now it's panic time thinking about getting holiday gifts finished up, some need to be mailed. I can't wait until the holidays are over this year - I need some time to nest/hibernate in my studio. Life has been overwhelming this past year and I see no let up in the near future......more studio time, when I can grab it, will be good for my mental health.



Thursday, November 16, 2017

Why did I procrastinate for so long?

Ok, so today I used the walking foot on my sewing machine for the very first time...........and this machine is almost 11 years old. Was it the unknown? Was it not having the time to figure it out? Was it because it's so much easier to leave the machine the way it is rather than pulling out the book and reading directions? Probably a combination of all three. Yes, very silly and kind of lazy.

I pulled out the manual and walking foot because I'm working on a project that uses not only a heavy interfacing on the backside of the fabric but also a product called soft & stable which is a 1/4" foam covered by tricot on each side. I didn't want to mess up trying to quilt all of it so I pulled out the manual and the walking foot. Why did I wait so long??? I love this foot. I can seeing using it all the time for quilting projects. I used to have such problems with the top fabric feeding at a different rate than the batting and backing fabric - but no more.

And sorry, this is another one of those projects in Santa's workshop so I can't show it right now. I do have supplies at the ready to make myself one too but not sure if that will happen before the holidays or after them.



Wednesday, November 15, 2017

Felted.........

I felted a wool sweater, on purpose, a couple years ago for an ornament project but I never got around to making them. So I took it with me over to the coast and cut all the little squares. I thought I'd get 3 ornaments out of this sweater that shrunk down to 10 year old size but I got 10!!!  Sorry, no posting of the finished ornaments until after they're gifted. Hmm, I wonder if anyone can figure out what they are...........

Sunday, November 12, 2017

There must be mice around here...........

There must be mice around here because the owls are showing up again........this time in browns and rusts. Someone saw the other owl towels and wanted some in browns/rusts - I hope she likes them because they're stinkin' cute.



Thursday, November 9, 2017

Hoot - Hoot

 A friend requested a couple towels with blues and ended up picking this cute owl embroidery pattern. The borders on the towel look black in the photo but they're not - they're blue. My cell phone can sometimes be challenging color wise and I was too lazy to run up the stairs to get the camera.
Here's a close up of the owl - it is so danged cute. I may eventually stitch some of these for my etsy shop but right now I don't have time.