Winter Holidays

Every day that passes without a new blog post seems to sink me further and further.  So, in an attempt to get back on my horse, I'm writing this post and filling it will lots of miscellany which is what my life is all about these days.  I have been finding tiny chunks of time to sew, much of it by hand in the evenings.  I've got some projects that are *almost* ready for blogging and am hoping that I can keep a more regular schedule soon.  Much of my time recently has been spent in the ongoing project of organizing my studio.  I am finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, and will share the "big reveal" here when I'm finished.

Technology is a wonderful thing, except when it's not.  My old laptop died a few weeks ago and I had to replace it.  Which also meant reinstalling all of the various programs I use.  Photoshop needed to be installed before I could hope to post any pictures so I set about that task today.  Except that my new laptop doesn't have a CD drive, so I had to download all of the necessary files and then spend an hour on chat with Adobe before they finally told me I'd have to upgrade to the latest program to be compatible with my new operating system.  Sigh.

Christmas came and went.  Along with making multiple batches of my usual Salted Caramel Chex Mix and Rosemary Pecans with Cranberries I sewed my boys a couple of walking capes which can function as attire for Jedi, Hobbits, Medieval peasants or whatever takes their fancy. Here's a shot of the two capes, front and back.

The fabric was rayon/linen and very nice to work with. I flat felled all of the seams which makes for a nice, clean and sturdy finish.

I'm still working on a couple of "big white shirts" (think pirate) for them as well.  I've got to set the grommets still but they are nearly finished.

We had a big snow storm in January and the newest member of our family, aptly named Winter, really enjoyed it along with my kids. I, however, lost a week of my life. :-)

A few years ago I blogged about making King Cake for Mardi Gras.  This year I tried a recipe from Southern Living.  The Southern Living cakes (the recipe makes 2) are assembled jelly roll style rather than braiding like the recipe I've always used in the past.  I made a different flavor for each of the cakes.  The first was the traditional cinnamon-sugar filling complete with green, gold and purple sanding sugar.

The second had a cream cheese filling and cherry preserves (the recipe for the cream cheese filling is included in the Southern Living recipe).  I skipped the sanding sugar on this one.

This recipe was nearly as good as my original and much less work.  The best advice I have is to make sure you don't overbake the cakes which will dry them out. Also, the area where the two ends are joined together to make the ring is always a little skimpy so I used a bit of extra dough and wrapped the join to add a little substance to that area.  Make sure that all of the seams are well sealed so the filling doesn't leak out while baking.

I invited a group of my friends over to celebrate Mardi Gras and help me eat up these sweets.

Next up is Valentine's Day.  My kids are busy making cards for their friends and I'm gearing up to lead the craft at the class party (no surprise there).  We're going to make a cute card holder for the delivered valentines.  I found this idea on Pinterest.  Here's my version:

It's simply two paper plates, folded in half and then stapled together in a heart-shaped configuration.  Decorate as desired, punch some holes and hang with a ribbon.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day.

Love Letters

Last year I was inspired to enter a contest sponsored by Interweave Press and FiberArts magazine in which I created a fabric Valentine postcard, addressed it to my husband, stamped it and mailed it in an envelope to the sponsor.  After the judging was complete, Interweave Press mailed the cards back to the addressee with a hand-canceled postmark of Loveland, CO (where the company is located).  I didn’t win one of the top prizes but my card was one of the ones featured in the magazine article about the contest.

I started with a piece of Timtex as the base for my postcard.  I created fabric confetti from some of my hand dyed cotton by cutting the fabric into very thin strips, about 1/16” – 1/8” wide with my rotary cutter.  I then stacked these strips and cut crossways into tiny pieces.  I applied fusible webbing to one side of the Timtex, scattered the confetti over it and fused into place.  Next I machine embroidered an all-over stipple design which helped hold the confetti in place.  With this as my background I fused the bleeding heart design and leaves on top and stitched them into place.  I used muslin as a backing on which I could write my message and address and finished the entire piece with a bias binding.  All of the materials used (with the exception of the muslin) were from my hand dyed cotton collection.

Watch for a post in the future about creating other fabric postcards.