I just received my package for the “Another Pin Cushion Swap Round 10″ on Craftster.org. This is my second time doing the pin cushion swap, and once again I’m blown away! Check this out:

This beautiful cushion comes to me from my fabulous partner Nannetta in Germany.  I just love the beautiful cross stitched monogram (I’ve actually never had a monogrammed anything before!) It’s kind of hard to tell from the photo, but the L is done in my favorite color green.  The colors make up a really sweet and warm feeling palette. I found my package in the mailbox just as I was heading out to run some errands and this gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, and that means a lot when you’re headed out to bicycle around town in February!

The edges of the cushion are lined with this beautiful sequin trim with beaded fringe.  It’s so sparkly it never fails to make me smile.  A velcro strap on the back makes it so I can wear in on my wrist while I work at my dressform which is perfect, I really needed one! The extra stap attaches to the wrist strap and fits right onto my sewing machine. It’s so convenient!

Dear Nannetta also included some adorable amigurumi that I could never imagine putting pins into:

On the left is Resisty the resister… so funny! He’s earned a place of honor in my sewing area to act as a resister for stress, haha! On the right is an un-named elephant, but I think I’ll call him Morris.  He’s found himself a job here as well.

He’s helping IDog to protect my sweets box.  That’s where I keep a few  little candies and chocolates on my computer desk. These guys make sure that I don’t sneak any out until I’ve finished my work. Speaking of chocolate, Nannetta also included some delicious candies in my package that I forgot to get some photos of.  Rest assured that the few that made it past me and into the box are well guarded, though. Thanks Nannetta, you were a great partner!

Here’s a few snaps of the items I sent off in exchange.

There is a large quilted pin cushion and thread catcher, a little matching needlebook, and my first attempt at a cross stitch biscournu.

Another great craft swap from Craftster.  I’ll be looking forward to doing another swap soon!

Closeup on some of the beads I made. Cute, right?

I saw some cute little paper beads while browsing Craftster the other day and thought they were so cute and clever! http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=285330.0 I was instantly transported back to my childhood on one of those long summer days when you just have to whine, “I’m bored!” My dear packrat Grandma pulled out some old craft magazines (like 60′s or 70′s old) so I could find a project to do.  I found an article in one magazine on making paper beads and spent the rest of the afternoon with a stack of junk paper, a bottle of Elmer’s glue and a plastic handled paintbrush (to wrap the paper around). I can still remember peeling the glue “skin” off my fingers and stringing the beads onto a piece of yard to make the most beautiful necklace I thought I would ever see.

Hit with that blast of nostalgia, and an evening with nothing to do, I decided to once again try my hand at making some paper beads.  I loved the idea of using the insides of the security envelopes so I dug through the recycling and found a few.  I used my rotary cutter to slice long strips of the envelopes, then tore the long strips into shorter lengths (the torn ends seal better than cut ones).  I opted for glossy mod-podge instead of the classic Elmer’s and thought I’d be mature and apply the glue with a paintbrush instead of dipping and wiping with my fingers.  I wrapped the paper strips around a thin DPN and slid them off carefully to dry.

I don’t know how I had forgotten all about paper beads for so long, but now I might just have to make a few more. I started thinking about cute scrapbooking paper I’ve seen and how they might look.  I don’t really do much beading, though, so these are just sitting in a little box on my desk for now.  I think I might just string a bunch of them together and toss them on my keyring with some pretty glass beads.

(p.s. I ended up giving up on the paintbrush about 5 minutes in.  By the end of the night I was peeling off my extra layer of mod-podge skin with a little grin.  What can say?  Sometimes your hands are the best tool, even when it means getting a little messy.)

A couple of days ago I succumbed to an impulse buy and got myself a little serger.  It’s the Singer ProFinish that JoAnn’s had on sale this week.  I spent the first night I had it practicing threading it and playing with adjusting the tension for different fabrics.  I’m pretty happy with the machine.  It didn’t take me long to figure out how to thread it, and it seemed to work pretty well through all of the scraps of fabric I threw at it.  I gave it it’s first trial run with the task of reconstructing an extra large men’s shirt into a medium sized woman’s shirt (with a little extra cuteness).

Here’s a snap of the original shirt:

It’s just a basic, shapeless, men’s polo shirt in a nice, soft fabric.  I was especially drawn to the argyle print since I love argyle.  To this I added some raw knit fabric I had in my stash in a dark grey color.

I cut up the original shirt into my basic pattern pieces.  I used the full width of the bottom of the shirt and added some pleats to the front and some gathering to the back to match it up with the new, smaller waistline.  The sleeves were re-cut and attached with a little gather at the top.  I also replaced the wrist cuffs with some long cuffs made of the grey knit.  I made the yoke for the front out of the grey fabric, and made the ruffle by simply serging the edges of a strip of the knit and then folding it into place as I stitched it down with my regular machine.  I also added some shiny little black buttons for a little extra cute.

Here’s a shot to show the gathering in the back.

The serger really made it a quick and easy project.  I can’t wait to start my next serged item!

I have a love for Victorian fashion, and I think it would be great to bring back a few fashion accessories from the time in a new way. There were my fleece legwarmer spats last winter, and I’ve been making a bunch of faux fur muffs lately (I’ll try to write something up about them soon), but today I’d like to share my little wool capelet I made.

I love pleaty goodness!

It has a nice big hood lined in black faux fur, and a big double box pleat in the center back. The front has topstitched princess seams and closes with a cute vintage style button. I added a pretty cord braid around the hood for a special little accent. So what do you think? I’m hoping it’s a piece that has a Victorian feel, but can fit well into a modern wardrobe. I know I like it, and I think I’ll go ahead and buy up some of the lovely wool I’ve been eyeing at the fabric shops this fall to make a few more.

October was a great month!  I did really well and didn’t miss a single day in my poto-a-day challenge.

As always, you can keep track of my daily photo on my aminus3 photoblog, updated each day before midnight.

On Saturday, around 2 o’clock I decided to clean out my fabric room and in a frustrated moment trying to deal with my massive scraps collection I started cutting them up into blocks.  I made a bunch of 2 inch and 4 inch squares.  i don’t consider myself much of a quilter, but I have made a few quilts with large base blocks, and I had the idea to make a random scrap quilt out of these scraps for a while.  I didn’t do any math to figure out the quilt size or number of blocks or anything so it really is random. There are still a handful of squares scattered around my desk, but I got lucky used up almost all of the scraps I cut  to get the right size for full size bed.  (never mind the other large box of scraps i still have hidden in the back of the closet… I’ll just have to get to those later! haha)

Some of my 2 inch blocks

I took all of my neatly stacked piles of 2 inch squares and put them into a box and shook vigerously.  Then I just sat the box up next to me and reached in blindly pulling out two squares at a time.  If I ended up with two of the same I’d toss one back and draw again.  The different fabrics in this quilt vary wildly from modern to retro, from cute novelty prints to beautiful batiks, lights and darks, and everything in between.  It was interesting too see how much I have used some colors since I started adding to this scrap collection.  This quilt has a pretty strong brown and green trend, I think.

Little Squares all Mixed Up

I just sewed and sewed and sewed.  First making my 2 blocks, then stitching them together to have 4 blocks, then 8 blocks, then 16 blocks.  Once I had all my 2 inch squares to this point I made a bunch of blocks out of four 4 inch squares and added them to the mix.  From there I just kpt going randomly grabbing squares, stitching them together, snipping, ironing, stitching, snipping, ironing, etc.  I was at how quickly it went  when I finally sewed the last squares together and realized it was just 4pm and only 28 hours after I first got the urge to start this. (and yes, I did get a full 8 hours of sleep in there somewhere!)

The finished quilt top hanging on the wall

Of course it’s still just a top at this point, so it’s not really done, but I was excited to share it!  I’ll have to wait a bit before I can pick out my backing fabric and other supplies, but I don’t think i can wait too long. I’ll be sure to post an update once it’s quilted and done, so look forward to it!

I think it’s beautiful.  But is it too busy?  What do you think?