Category Archives: Craft

2020 1st Q Creative Wins !

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Every Day Life, Fiber fun, Handmade, In the Studio, Knitting, Make Stuff, quilting, Quilting, Scrapbooking, Sew this, Yarn hobbies by

May 3 – I am finding one way to grab any kind of positivity out there is to look back and acknowledge things that I have completed (Complete – my 2020 word) and celebrating that…since 1/3 of the 2nd qtr of 2020 is done (how did that happen…because we are all just working and/or sitting in our houses) I figured it’s high time to note what I managed to complete in the first quarter of 2020 for my own tracking…

January

Memorykeeping: Finished my December Daily album (38 layouts) and made 10 other pages. Worked on Stacy Julian’s 20in20 class setting up project ideas and completed 1 project for that, finding photos of myself for an project about me.

Fiber: Started a Cables and Colorwork Class taught by my friend at Cambridge Center for Adult Ed. Worked on broken rib cowl, worked on Briochealicious shawl. Finished mini quilt and quilt blocks.

Went to FLA with the Fam ! (Album or photo book forthcoming this year)

February

Memorykeeping: finished my OneLittleWord album for 2019 (27 layouts), and made 8 other pages.

Fiber: Continued C & C class, broken rib cowl & Briochealicious shawl. Finished a cable knit hat, with fun faux fur pom pom. Started the Hinterland dress in yummmmyyyyyy red buffalo check flannel. Took old binding off of circus quilt…

Other stuff: Designed a poster of Gun Digest covers painted by my Uncle, James Triggs.

March:

Memorykeeping: Made a photo book of Shadows “stick of the day” and sent copies to the girls at school. Completed my March One Little Word work. I think I only did one digi-layout … I know I have other scrappy layouts but quite frankly, March was when the world fell apart so I am amazed I did anything at all…

Fiber: Finished! Hinterland dress in yummmmyyyyyy red buffalo check flannel (photo before I put the black buttons on… I actually don’t think I took a photo of it completely done… at any rate, it qualifies as secret pajamas.

Re-bound the vintage circus quilt (Pretty sure it was my sisters quilt when she was little so it’s going back to her so she can use it with her grands!) Binding is still one of my bugaboo’s in quilting, v tricky for me to get right on both sides with the machine stitching… but I keep plugging away at it.

And March was when mask making and scrub cap making started… I only made two caps for my Dr friend but began what would end up as over 200 masks for family, friends, church family and donation to a nursing home.

Alright then. Things are so weird right now, no other way to say it… I find that if I don’t jot down or take photos of what’s going on… it all becomes one big blur of mush overlaid with nothing but bad news from the outside world, especially from the middle of March onwards… But that is why we make things right? To keep our hands busy, our minds calm and to spread some cheer in the world.

What are you making this spring? Stay safe and wash your hands everybody…

Super Casual Craft Room Tour

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Every Day Life, In the Studio by

Hi everyone! Writing to you from Boston on a very cold and dark and rainy day. It is super miserable and the twinkle lights are on all over the house.

I’m a part of the Simple Scrapper community, and a few weeks ago, I posted an idea for whoever wanted to, to post a super casual video of your craft room… not spic and span and fancy but a “real” video. I volunteered to go first, and so I did. I thought I’d share here on my blog as well. Completely amateur video skills happening here, but hope you enjoy a slice of the craziness over here.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are staying well and safe during the Pandemic. xo Sue

2020 Mini Quilt project – January

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Handmade, In the Studio, Make Stuff, quilting, Quilting, Quilts by

I have been thinking about crafting goals since last December. I have the habit of making lists of things to do that are so huge that there are literally not enough hours in the day to get it all done. Then I get frustrated that I can’t get 40 hours of work done in a 16 hour day (assuming 8 hrs for sleep … but not accounting for anything else like work, or dog walking or laundry… you get the idea). SO This year I decided to set ATTAINABLE goals for my creative endeavors. I am still working through the details on knitting and memory keeping (but enough to say that my goal is to use up both stashes of supplies) but I have narrowed down quilting and garment making.

Today…I present to you completed project #1 on the quilting list for 2020! My quilting goal this year is to complete at least one quilt block and a mini quilt each month following Alyce Blyths “Mini Master Pieces” book of 12 essential blocks and techniques. I love Alyce and several years participated in a Half Square Triangle quilt along with the result being a beautiful quilt for our home!

The first lesson is a basic 9-patch block, super simple so I wanted to play with dark backgrounds and using some fabrics from my stash that have been aging like fine wine under the piles ;-). I’m very happy with the result!

The block finished size will be 6″ square and I made up 7 to set aside and see what percolates after working on more blocks from the book.

I don’t have a design wall but fortunately, the mini quilt is about 24″ square so laying out the squares on the craft table totally works! Some blocks were fussy cut around motifs and I will admit to liberal use of the seam ripper when I sewed blocks together in the wrong order and upside down.

No photos of quilting, I used two layers of scrap cotton batting… I think by the end of this project I will have used up my bin of batting scraps in the attic – huzzah! I set my machine to it’s slowest setting and used my walking foot, remembering I had quilting gloves after about 1/3 of the way done. Definitely room for improvement as far as machine quilting. But that is the beauty in smaller projects, room for experimenting on a small scale.

I am very pleased with the finished product! This series will also be a good exercise in binding. My corners need a bit of work and there was a bit of hand stitching involved but still a success!!

Looking forward to Februarys block…I’ve got my fabric all pulled and set aside!

What projects are you working on in 2020?

(Also…am not a huge fan of this new “block” arrangement on WordPress, I feel like it’s getting in the way right now more than it’s helping…anyone else out there have feelings on this???)

A few photos into a book…

Posted in Craft, Creative Practice, Documenting Life, Family Fun, Memory Keeping by

Well…so this is how  – let’s send Dad a few photos from the girls prom –   turns into… let’s do a whole project…involving other people…just a few days before father’s day!    But it’s done done done.   Is it fancy?  Nope but will he like it?  Yes.  And that is the whole point.

I lucked out and found a Heidi Swapp storyline album on sale at JoAnn’s so I snapped it up as the base for the album.  My sister Tina sent me some photos and I included a few snaps from my sister Nora that I grabbed from a few places online… mixed them all up with my organized and tagged photos from Lightroom (not to be confused with the photos that are still waiting to be organized and tagged) and voila!  A book for Dad.  So excited to get this in the mail to him today but wanted to share a recap for my sisters and friends online.   Here is my not so fabulous completely amateur finished album video!

In the Studio:: On tossing out and starting fresh

Posted in Around Here, Craft, Fiber fun, Handmade, In the Studio, Make Stuff, Sew this by

This past week I did an extensive studio clean-up and scrapbooking supply organization (don’t get too excited, still not quite done with that part but it’s coming along nicely).  I have a pile of sewing projects to start/finish and a list of layouts and albums both digi and paper to work on, oh and hello…December Daily will be upon us before we know it – ahem!

I have been vexed by a dress that I sewed in April, and it has been in the pile and on the list since then.

Enter McCalls M5890

mccall-s-patterns-m5890-misses-jackets-top-dresses-and-pants-in-2-lengths-size-ff-16-18-20-22_7353165

I had a lot of trouble with my sewing machine which resulted in not a great sewing outcome for this garment… the fit was OK and I wasn’t as wild about the fabric as a long dress, and the topstitching was horrible due to said machine problem (since having machine thoroughly cleaned this fall, the problems have all resolved themselves…magic!)  and I just wasn’t feeling it.  at.  all.   For months I’ve been going back and forth… can I fix the topstitching?  Should I just make a skirt out of it (I have about a yard extra to make waistbands etc…) and try and salvage something?  Do I even like the pattern anymore?  Do I like the fabric anymore?

Answers to above ?’s ??  No fixing the topstitching… No to the skirt, it’s just too contrived…No to salvage….No to the pattern, at least the top of the dress, don’t like how the neck/arm/capsleeve came together weirdly…No to the fabric, maybe for a t-shirt or shorts but not a dress, plus, it’s winter now ugh.

So here is my answer to the above conundrum:

freedomfromtiedye

Yep…86’d the whole thing… including the extra fabric…and I crossed it off my list.  I have to say, it was really hard to just toss it in the trash.  The save-every-scrap part of me was screaming but for the good of my sewing karma, it had to go.

I feel so much better now.

On to the next project!

Have you ever totally trashed a project?  Was it freeing or guilt inducing?