29 December 2014

Handmade Pegasus

This is another handmade gift that I made for someone this year. 

It's Star the Pegasus from 'The Guardian Herd'
We wanted to find something that would work for a stuffed animal in a fantasy book, but we didn't ever see anything that we thought would work. So, I decided to make something. 
I have an amazing book with patterns for stuffed toys for children. I would highly recommend it. I've made the rabbit and the horse now and I'm thinking about making some more of the toys. I've no idea who I'm going to make it for yet, but I am still going to make it. 


The book is called 'Storybook toys' by Jill Hamor.
Here is some pictures of the pegasus I made. The pattern is just for a horse, so I had to make my own pattern for the wings. It was fairly easy. 


The mane before attaching longer pieces. 



Attaching underbody legs together. 

Attaching the underbody to the legs and head.


The wings.



Attaching it all together. Inside out of course.This was the hard part. Making sure it all went together well. 









All together with the wings before turning it right side out. 


All turned around, before stuffing. 

I stuffed it and decided I didn't like the mane that the patterns suggested. So I added more hair to it. Little girls want to play with hair on all their calls. 

Pensive Pegasus. 

Attached button eyes, stuffed and sewn together. 

I had fun making this and I learned a lot about making stuffed toys and I am making plans to make some more stuffed dolls. Human ones this time. I made a bunny previously but never did get a picture of it. 

26 December 2014

Quilt for a Gift


I made this quilt for a girl in our family because the her mother's house partially burned and most of her stuff was smoke damaged and some burned. So, she still has some stuff, but I thought it would be nice to make this for her. Also, I really thought that she would like it. <3

I used 5" squares for the middle 1.5" strips for the black and 4.5' strips for the blue. It's a fairly easy pattern and some older quilters have told me that I could use a tube method to do what they called 'streak of lightening' I didn't know how to do that so I did it the way I know how to do it. I sewed all the squares together one at a time. I had to do it this way because I only had a limited number of squares and 1 more yard of each of the colors. Plus, for 2 of the colors I had an extra 2 yards each.  I had 8 colors to work with for this. I made a pattern on paper and figured out how big I could make it. It wasn't going to be enough with the amount of fabrics that I had available to me. I also bought this awhile back ago in another state so I couldn't get any more of the fabric. 
Working with what I had was difficult and fun at the same time. I wish I would have started this earlier too, but meh. I finished it literally the night before I was to give it to her. 
This is the pattern that I decided on and the colors I used. Honestly, it looks red in the pictures but it is pink. The batiks I used here are really pretty and pictures do not do them justice at all. 
I had to expand the quilt middle a little bit here. I love how this worked up and it is SO colorful! Perfect for a teenage girl. 
This is me putting the black around the middle squares. I thought it would help break up the colors in the middle from the border of blue on the outside and the pink binding. 
It worked out beautifully. 
 This is the finished top, sandwiched and quilted. I had to bind it, wash it, tag it and gift it still.

Some detailing on the quilted surface. This is her name on it. She has a lot of siblings and sometimes having something that is just yours is really nice in a large house. 
Close up of the borders and binding. 


The finished quilt. I was very pleased with it and she loved it! I was most pleased that I made something that some one liked. The rest of the family was amazed at my 'talents'. I don't really feel like I am that talented, but I took the complement. I'm still working on my quilting skills, but it did make me feel good that others acknowledged my hard work. 


I hope that you had a great Christmas. Did you give any handmade gifts this year?

24 December 2014

Tiniest quilt

This quilt was difficult for me. I thought that doing a smaller one would be easier. If anything I think it is harder to do because of all the tiny detail work involved in it. I kept going with it. 
I started it in a quilting class, but I didn't get anything done there except the cutting. Which I am apparently a fast cutter...who knew. I never cut with anyone before so I just assumed that I was doing ok at it. (Sometimes I feel really slow too though.) 
Anyways, I do not think that I will be doing a lot of these at the moment. I decided since I did it in 'Civil war fabrics' that I could use it as a doll quilt for my Civil War American Girl Doll-Addie. Yes, I have my own American Girl doll, don't judge me. Ok, if you must. I like dolls. (I need a little girl now so I can have an excuse to make more of these things!) 
This is me planning the quilt look. It's not sewed at this point, I just laid the fabric over the other to see it better. (This helps me A LOT!) 




Then I started sewing the middle pieces together. This was not too bad, but the scale of the quilt was hard on me. 

This is how the pattern shrunk from just laying out the pieces to actually sewed together. T-I-N-Y!
Those pieces in the middle are 1"x2" they are 1/2"x1" after they are sewn together.

I made it scrappy so I had some of the inside blocks left over. So, I made a tiny pillow to match it. I have a wooden cradle that my Uncle made me when I was little I figured that I could out the quilt and pillow in there for a doll baby to be played with by future children. It was a fun quilt to make and I feel like I learned a few things making it. 

This is Addy. This is her original dress too. Her hair is all messed up, but I got her at the Thrift Store many years ago ($20) These dolls run about $150 so I snatched her up. I think she was still in her box. I have it somewhere...maybe. 
Anyways. This came from a book called 'Civil War Legacies 2' If you are interested in making this one it is 'Hard Crackers.' There are many more and if you like small/tiny quilts or want to make a doll quilt for a child as a gift this is a great idea. Most of the children I know are boys or "too old" for dolls. (So, sad...how does one get too old for dolls??) 
Thanks for looking at my quilting work. 

Here is a picture of it sandwiched, before quilting.



Here is the picture of it after quilting. I wanted to keep with the civil war look so I didn't fuss with it or make it look too modern.  

15 December 2014

Fermentation and Vacation

I’ve been struggling to get over this sickness most of the month. Everyone tells me that I have something different, but I really don’t care what it is as long as it goes away. It seems like everyone here is getting sick lately. I’d love to be the friend that takes over homemade soup to someone, but when you are also sick it’s really hard to do. I haven’t had anyone make me homemade soup when I’m sick. I usually end up eating too much sugar and watching too many old movies. 
I have come to the realization that maybe this isn’t the best idea. 
I’ve been looking at a lot of homesteading sites and homemade food recipes and ideas lately too. 
I really want to do more fermenting of my vegetables for winter. I’d love to make my own homemade lacto-fermented root beer. Mostly because it’s actually good for you and has way less sugar. I really need to cut back on the sugar. Yet, I love ice cream so much! How could I ever stop eating it? 
I really try to do everything in my kitchen homemade. But, I realized while I was sick that it makes it harder for my DH to make dinner for me that way. I realized that I need to make some soups and can them for future uses. Vegetable and chicken (sans the noodle to be added after opening. You know, so they don’t get all soggy or worse disintegrate in the jar.)

I’d love to get a fermenting jar to make sauerkraut, uh I mean 'Liberty cabbage’. I’ve been looking at some things on pinterest. So many things can be fermented. You can even ferment salsa. I’m in the process of making my own ACV right now. It’s really easy. I need to get my DH to help me strain all the apple pieces out of it and put it in a bottle to use it. 

In a way I really want to get back to the land and do everything from scratch so my family and I will be more healthy. Yet, going on vacation is difficult when you have animals to take care of at home. Asking my neighbor to watch them makes me feel bad. Yet, I did it anyways. Because we are going to visit family eventually and they live so far away. 

Do you farm and take vacations readers? How do you do it?

29 November 2014

Making a good start with quilting-Placemats

I was nervous about getting back into quilting and I wanted to do a little project to make myself have some more confidence in it. So, I decided to work on 4 placemats for our little table. Not that it's usually anyone more than DH and I, but oh well. So I got some fabric picked out in the colors that we decided on: red, blue and yellow. As you know I painted the rooms a soft yellow.  I've been trying to add the blue and red through accent pieces. I have more red than blue at the moment. But we use Fiesta dish ware and we have the scarlet, lapis and (a discontinued) soft yellow.

This is the way that my table looked. Also a peek at the colors of my fiesta ware on the table. I like to mix the colors up like this. It makes dinnertime fun. Also, believe it or not, having beautiful dishes makes washing them that much more enjoyable. 

Now, I am making 4 placemats total. 
Here is the pieced parts of them. I have not yet bought the backing and cut our the binding. I'm going to a group of ladies that have been ever so helpful with my questions and I will be going there next week to bind my placemats and get started on my next project. Hopefully that will be a larger quilt. We will see how things go. 
 This is the colors and patterns that I chose. I was still cutting them out here in the top picture. The next one down I had cut them all out and decided how to sew them so they would mix and match. 
It's hard to imagine what they will look like exactly.

All 4 laid out to view the colors. YAY. Progress. 

This one was placed to check that this was what I wanted to do, then sewed up and I think they look nice. 




And here they are finished




I think they look really nice. I've pieced a quilt before, but I never did the batting, backing and binding. This was a fun project. It was supposed to be a small one, but it took much longer than anticipated because I hand bound them. I have several more projects in the works, but more on those later. 
Isn't quilting fun?
Have you made anything lately?




14 November 2014

Dahlia Sew-a-long Part 2

So in doing Christmas presents and trying to get organized for our trip and I didn't get this finished in the timeline that was set forth, but I still want to finish it. So, I'm continuing my project and documentation of it. So, thank you for looking in on it.

I made my fabric selection in the beginning of December. I made a huge mess in my sewing room trying to find it. I was gifted this fabric from someone who made a kilt from it. I've been trying to figure out what to make from it ever since. I really hope that I have enough to make this dress. If not, I'm going to be so bummed. I'm not sure who's family name is goes with, nor to I really care, but I love the colors and the feel of the wool fabric. I'm thinking it will be a nice warm dress on cool fall and colder winter days here in Minnesota. It's snowing outside today for the first time this season. I was told today that it snowed much earlier in the season last year and that was a terribly long and cold winter. I'm hoping that it is not much of the same this year. *update the first snow was November 10th and so far it has been a mild winter for Minnesota. I'm so grateful. I'm still cold though.*

I bought dark blue bias tape and zipper for this project. I really wanted the dark green, but they did not have the bias tape in stock. I blame Christmas sewers. *whomp, whomp*
I've got my muslin all cut out and I aim to put it together sometime today or tomorrow. Since we are in the middle of a snowstorm, I have plenty of time to work on it. There is still time to join me on the 
Dahlia Sewalong.(I think.) Hey, its a cute dress.