Baby Dolly quilt

Hello,  everyone.  There are various projects in the hopper, but some have to be kept secret until later.

A late birthday gift (the birthday girl was supposed to come over and learn to make a bag but never has time) is one of them. Also various Christmas things.

A Christmas thing that can be published:

This is a baby-doll quilt. At least, it's the top. I used various pieced blocks from stash, print blocks the same size (also stadh--there is a whole Zip lock bag of this size!) and added 2 inch top and bottom borders. These will finish at 1.5 inches. All the dolly quilt needs now is quilting and binding. And a dolly to cover!

The quilt is small enough that I might try doing the embroidery machine quilting on it. Since there is at least one of those patterns in the house. We'll see.

Little embroidery stocking stuffers

 Hello, everyone.  By stocking stuffers, I  mean small gifts that would be suitable for younger children. If y'all are inclined to seek it out, there is a least one old post about little minky-type animals and angels.

Well, Christmas  giving approaches, and it's coming at quite a clip. Also I happened to be looking at the various fleece like fabrics in the stash and encountered some polyester baby flannel, left over from making gifts for babies. 

I decided to see how the baby-garment brushed poly works with the angel and animal patterns.

I also wanted to sew more than one at a time, cutting down on stabilizer usage, fabric usage, and time consumed in hooping.

The angels used pink fabric. I had figured out that the angel is an applique pattern, so I used some gold left over from the Camino Trails project and a lace sample that was also in the stash.

The stitching time according to the embroidery machine for a pair of angels was 61 minutes. This doesn't include thread changes, fabric preparation for the back side (it needs a turning opening), turning and stuffing, and stitching the opening by hand. The texturing on the wings takes quite a while to stitch out.

The fish, on the other hand, have fewer color changes and no texturing on the fins, so they take about a fourth as long to complete a pair. I used mint green brushed poly for them.

In the picture,  for an idea of scale, I included the small trimming scissors that is usually used for cutting out projects and trimming off excess fabric from the in-the-hoop appliqués. 

The fish are from an OESD pattern set. The angel is from the Janome blog some while back.

These little things are fun to make and fun to tuck into a stocking, pouch, child's purse, or to use as party favors.

Revisiting fleecy embroidered toys

Hello, everyone.

Yesterday I tried a new approach to the stuffed toy made in the hoop: making an opening to begin with in the back side.

How? you wonder. By piecing the back from two pieces of fleece with an opening in the seam for stuffing later.

The final back side of the kitty. (The seam line can be brushed out if one wants, the minky style fleece has a definite, though short, pile.)

While trimming I accidentally cut the seam allowance off on one of the paws, but that was easily repaired.

The only tricky thing about this pieced back was the sudden discovery that it is really important to tack down the seam allowances of the center back seam. (The seam allowance got eaten up by the foot, and it was a bit tricky to cut it free. Plus there was a small hole in the fabric at the end.) With that adjustment, the trick worked. And an opening that is hand stitched closed with seam allowance at the opening is sturdier than one that is just pulled together with stitches across a slit, and a better looking result than cobbling together seam allowances at the slit that will work like an unplanned dart. IMHO.

This is one of the Minkee Pals toys. It's about hand-sized, and you use the small (not miniature) hoop to make it.

Obviously, since the fleece I have is white, the colors were changed. I think they work out okay. And even though I bought the white remnant expressly to make these critters, I am going to use up the rest of the white: it's officially from stash now. (Found the remnant at Hobby Lobby.)

The kitty can be a toy for a baby, as everything is securely stitched down. It can be a small Christmas gift. It can be a package tie-on. It's a little bit small for a fidget, I think, but the back side is uninterrupted pile so it could even be that. Maybe it could be tucked into a pocket on a fidget, with a little tethering ribbon so it doesn't get lost. A flock of them could be party favors for a children's party.

Beading bits n bobs

Hello, everyone.

There was a lot going on in December. Who has time to shop?

A gift for a young lady, made of beads:

The bracelet is child-sized. The necklace is about 16" long. I think the colors will work for: Christmas season, Valentines season, Fourth of July season...and also if the child lives in a school district where the local school colors are some form of red and white. Also with that length she can wear the necklace for a while.

The beads are red glass rounds, white perle rounds, and crackle glass clear rounds. All from, stash on hand!

This week's training activity

Hello, everyone.

We did two training walks this week--the 7 mile loop at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, with included spiral staircases, and a stitched-together 5 miles at Bentsen State Park.



The canopy walk (AKA rope bridge) at Santa Ana. This feature is about two stories tall and has spiral stairs at each end of the bridge. Very popular with the elementary school field trips!

There is also, not in this picture, a three story hawk viewing tower there, also accessed by spiral stairs, with a flat viewing platform that goes part of the way around on the top. There is an excellent view of the area from there.

We use these as incline-walking practice, since we are not aware of any stadiums in the area that will allow the public to walk the steps.

We did see some wildlife while walking on Tuesday morning--here is the coyote who walked out into the road to look at us.

We were fortunate enough to choose Tuesday for the Santa Ana walk--on Wednesday the refuge had a brush fire and was closed down until the trails can be assessed. (A grass fire on the Mexican side of the border threw off some wind-blown brands. The evening news said that about 300 acres had burned.) We had noticed that there was a LOT of dry vegetation alongside the path. It's been a dry winter and spring so far, even though there have been rains. The refuge staff  need to do a flood irrigation there IMHO--they do this from time to time to replace the former riparian floods that watered the trees. The advent of flood control on the Rio Grande pretty much put an end to natural spring flooding.

On Thursday we stitched together the main loop at Bentsen with a side loop called the Rio Grande Trail. Together they totalled 5 miles. (No stairs, sadly, nor of course any hills.) The side loop is located close to the hawk observation tower there, which is about two stories tall and has a gentle ramp going up to the top. It also has a couple of benches for sitting on while waiting for a bird to fly over. 


This little fellow, who was very camera-shy, was at one of the observation blinds along the main loop at Bentsen. He had a friend with him, too. Both of them were very nervous about being seen. Given the time of year, they might have been migrating through and stopped off for a rest and a snack.

I think she doesn't like the weather change coming

Hello, everyone.

The weather is supposed to change this evening.

I think Kitty doesn't like the prospect. It's supposed to be in the fifties and dropping (Fahrenheit) tomorrow, and colder yet on Thursday. Winter has finally deigned to arrive.

On another note, the angel gifts are done:

This was actually a Pinterest post, too. It is a small purse for a young girl. These particular ones depart a little from the lady's pattern: I put piping into the seams and used premade ruffle instead of pleating a piece of quilting muslin for the ruffle. And I lined them all in poly satin. They are loaded, of course, with the kinds of things young ladies like to receive.

There will likely be some more of these made, possibly with a slight change in the shape (the curves are a little nerve-wracking to sew) and maybe even with an internal pocket or a zipper closure. We shall see! (Stash busting for the win! Except for a small supplement to the interfacing supplies, everything in these little beauties was from the stash.)

Approximate width of the bag, 9 inches. The little handles were cut to 14 inches long before the attachment to the bag.

I dearly hope my little angels like their gifts!

Sharing the fun (embroidery)

Hello, everyone.

Recently there arose an opportunity to share the fun of embroidery with DGD--who is just about kindergarten age.

This Pin had been saved with the hope of future use--and the source site talked about using the method with children about the same age. So we were off to the races!

There was a stack of foam plates in the pantry. There was a large assortment of DMC thread wound on cardboard bobbins. And there was a packet of size 22 tapestry needles. (Big enough for the whole 6-strand thread, not super-sharp, and easy for her to hold.)

First she tried a couple of random stitches to get the feel of sewing with the needle. (Which isn't all that different from the cardboard sewing cards in her toybox at home.) Then she traced the outlines of  a heart, to practice following the line, and then her initial. After that, she moved on to a more-complex piece: a flower with 4 front petals, 4 back petals, and a center.

The reverse. Freezer tape used in lieu of knots.

The front.

With this age, even if they can thread the needle themselves once in a while, it's still just at the edge of their coordination abilities, so an older person needs to help with that, and with keeping the floss from making a knot on the back.

Small Tree (Egg Ornaments)

Hello, everyone.

As Thanksgiving is over, and the refrigerator is slowly approaching normal (from total overload!) levels, we've begun getting Christmas things down and the decorating is slowly getting going.

The small tree is up. Next to the polyclay ribbon candy ornament is a little ceramic ornament left over from when I would give gifts to my CCD students every year. It has a painting of the Holy Family on the front. On the other side of the ribbon candy ornament is one of the ones made during the mad tassel phase: embroidery floss makes lovely tassels that are just the right size for hanging from egg shells.

One practical note: with the fake trees, the top is too floppy to hold up a tree topper of any normal kind. I had to add a stiffener to it in order to get the star to stay upright. The stiffener is wired onto the tree with green pipe cleaners and is pretty much a permanent item. Then when decorating the tree, I put the last of the white mini-bulbs up at the very tip so the star would be lit from within.

Another practical note: the small tree looks much bigger because it's on top of the coffee table. I put a table cloth over the table to protect the surface from scratching by the tree stand. This also hides at least some of the extension cord clutter.

Almost all of the eggs made it onto this one.

Some years past, when MIL would come down for several weeks at Christmas time, we would have a large tree in the living room, a 3-foot tree on top of the buffet in the dining room, and this tree in the upstairs hall. That was when there were helpers still living at home with us, of course. Now we're cutting back on the over-the-top decorations. This year I decided to put the upstairs tree in the room with the piano. (The buffet was retired to the Salvation Army with the over-large table and chairs that matched it. They weren't heirlooms or anything like that. We just felt like we were crowded out of our place a bit.) The 3-foot tree was outside in the Man Cave shelving over summer a couple of years ago and a mouse moved into it and chewed up the whole thing, so that one is gone. That left only two places to put all the egg ornaments that have been made over the years--and this tree is in better proportion for the smaller items.

The trick with eggs is to use your handy corsage pin to break up the yolk before you blow it out the holes that you carefully drilled with your Dremel. (Or chipped patiently open with the said pin and a starting hole made with the point of a sharp knife--less mess on the tools, but more eggshell breakage!) On the side, there was so much eggshell cutting going on at one point that DH got tired of finding egg white on his things and got me one of my own!

One nifty thing to do with an egg shell is to cut a slice in the shell while the egg is still inside, allowing the cleaned shell to be used to display a tiny angel or other scenic element. My grandmother's friend Mrs. Beckley was an expert at this and even made an egg shell with a tiny skating scene once. She sent us each an ornament, back when I was a child, and I still have mine.

The Beckley egg

She used graduated pearl beads and velvet cording around the opening of the egg, along with the golden fringe. There is even a bit of frou-frou on the back of the egg! She was an amazing egg artist.

(This photo taken before we stopped buying a fresh tree every year--now, sadly, we have fake. The expense of the extremely large fresh floral item over two or three years was the same as the cost of a nice fake tree which lasts for five years or more. And let's not talk about the problem of keeping smelly mold from growing in a water-filled tree stand for several weeks!)

When making Christmas eggs, I find that painting the washed and dried egg shell with gesso covers over the slight texture of the natural shell and makes it stronger. Then the shell can be perched on a bamboo skewer--one that you don't intend to re-use for food--and spray painted. That will give a smooth, shiny surface for further decorating. (Link goes to a really huge container of the stuff. My gesso is in about a 2 ounce bottle! And if you're only painting egg shells it goes a long way.)

The children and I would have "Christmas in July" over the summer holidays and make egg ornaments. They would paint words or even little scenes on the shells. They never broke an egg shell, either--they were all old enough for elementary school by then. (For younger children, I'd stick with popsicle stick crafts. There is only so much manual dexterity available before about age 8!)

Model paint works really well for painting words and tiny scenes, but requires mineral spirits for clean up. The tiny brushes sold in the model department are wonderful for the work.

Acrylic paint works well also, and is very easy to clean up, but after the paint is all dry the shell must be sprayed with sealer before any lacquer coat is added. Otherwise the carefully painted flowers or whatever will run. The tiny brushes can still be used, or one can go with a more elaborate floral kind of decoration.

Acrylic paint is also more generally available (in scads of colors) even if there is no hobby store in the area. Wal-Mart has it, Hobby Lobby and Michaels and JoAnn all have it, and if one gets into elaborate shading and such there are even blenders and extenders to give more working time. The gesso is also sold in little plastic bottles in the acrylic craft paints section of stores.