Another maxi mash up

I think we've established that the Lady Skater top is my go to pattern for dresses and all that I change is the skirt.  This one is just a rectangle that I pleated in front, gathered in the back, with stitched round pockets.  I get a ton of compliments on this dress and style.  The fabric is from Girl Charlee and is fading and pilling fast!  Boo!  I love the colors so much that when this one wears out, I will probably make another one.

Elephant shirt

Back when there was less of me to love I made a shirt from It's Always Autumn that was free on her website.  Actually, I made about 5 of them in various ways.  It was the perfect size.  In the last few years I've been gaining girth so I just estimated how much I needed to add to make the shirt fit me.  (Hint: it was a lot) Because this tahirt has kimono sleeves it takes me about 30 minutes to cut it out and sew it.  All the win!  The fabric is from Girl Charlee.  It's very thin, pills easily, and stretches out ridiculously.  But I love the print and style.  I just k ow it's not going to last longer than one summer.

Caahmerette concord

I love this pattern! It is a plain t-shirt pattern with a built in FBA according to your cup size!  Gloria!  I've made about 5 of these shirts.  The pattern comes with a lot of options but I like the plain tees.  The fabric is from Fabric dot com and it's some kind of bamboo rayon.  It's slick and light but drapey. It was a pain to see- you can see my topstitching difficulty!

Favorite maxi mash up

This maxi dress is my favorite mash up.  The top is Lady Skater by Kitschy Coo and the bottom is a rectangle skirt with pockets.  I accidentally made this dress more empireish than I had intended.  I was sewing like a crazy woman on Easter Eve to get my dress done to match The Santlads' ties and I was having an EITTTC day but I think it's mostly okay.  The pockets are a little high. The fabric is from Girl Charlie.

SOME CHRISTMAS CRAPTS

 The YW made these paper trees.  You just cut three sizes of circles out of paper, then cut a wedge out of the circle.  Glue it into a teepee.  Cut fringe in the bottom of the teepee and curl a little with a pencil.  This one isn't very curly.  Then string it on embroidery floss.  We had to tie knots to keep the papers where we wanted them, so they didn't just stack on top of each other.  The Young Women loved it and they did turn out so cute!

 We also made these ornaments as gifts.  They are glass balls and with sand and shells.  The poem says, "remember, remember try always to be as the One who walked the shores of Galilee".  BIG tip - glue the metal thingy on top onto the ornament because it WILL fall off and then you will have sand in your carpet.

I'm just sayin ...

I found these little felt people for a dollar at Target and I put them on a pillow.  Blogger is insisting they go on sideways.  What can you do?  It was a MAJOR pain to sew through the layers of felt and they were sticky backed which gummed up my needle big time.  Grr.  But now it is done and in storage to be enjoyed next year.  Haha!

 Also at Target, they had these felt trees, three for a dollar.  I was going to make mug rugs for my visit teachees with them, but that didn't work out.  Instead, I made these pillows.  They are the right size for my kids' heads.  I backed them with some snowflake flannel king size pillow cases that were still new.  I did wonder under these one, but at the last minute decided to sew around the edges.  I am glad that I did because the felt and the wonderunder were not good friends.

 I couldn't decided between the colors.

I think that I will send one to my daughter :).

Anyhoo ... that's a few of the things I've done.  I have more to put on here as soon as I get my act together.

Give Thanks banner

This is where I first saw this banner - it was made by Celestial's Creations for her week of So You Think You Are Crafty.  It didn't win (I think it should have and I waited a little while for her to post the tutorial anyway, but in the end, I just tried to emulate her genius.  So this is what I came up with.

In my town there is NO GOOD FELT.  It's rather frustrating.  But I did the best I could with the stuff I could find.  I used two of my Fiestaware plates to make the circles and a spool of thread as a pattern for the scallops.  Then I just freehand embroider some stitch whose name I can't remember - is it daisy chain maybe? - the letters on with that crochet thread stuff.  My turkey has special needs, but not to worry, he'll be dead in a few weeks.

So, this was fun and sort of fast - a few hours - and it's one of the few things I've made that I actually liked when I made it.  Crazy. Right?

mugrug madness

I LOVE to make mug rugs and I've had a few on my list.  The other day I sat down with my scraps and went to town!  Here they are:

The hexagon mug rug tutorial I got here.  It's my first time doing hexagons and they were fast and fun!  I like my mug rugs to be 6x9 -ish so I did things a little different - not to mention I printed a bunch of hexagons off the computer, I can't find the precut hexies anywhere.  I'm going to have my hubby make some patterns for me on my Silhouette.  It won't be my last hexagon mug rug! I loved it!

The zig zag mug rug tutorial here.  It's the same girl as the hexagon mug rug and I have the fabric and everything ready to go to make the very zigzag quilt she refers to!  I really need to get started on that - it's been waiting for me for ... well, crikey ... three or four years!

The wonky starburtst mug rug tutorial here.  My daughter calls this one Farm in the Rising Sun because it looks like rows of farm food and a rising sun rays.  When she pointed that out I got all kinds of inspired about colors and where to place them.  This tutorial stressed me out.  I am pretty cerebral when it comes to making things look random.  When sponge painting was in my walls were a mess - I had to do them all right handed.  But in the end, the randomness worked out okay and I love this mug rug most of all.  It already has a home (with a polka dotted mug) for my friend who is having surgery.

Now if only it would get cool enough down here to use a mug rug for something warm instead of a smoothie or a slushie ... which just doesn't sound right - slushie mug?  Definitely not!

MY FARMER'S WIFE QUILT BLOCKS SO FAR

Well, I don't think I'm going to be a wife.  I'm definitely counted as a mistress, though!

Here's what I have in numerical order:

FWQA block #1 Attic Windows

FWQA block #2 Autumn Tints

FWQA block #4 Basket Weave

FWQA block #5 Bat Wing

FWQA block #6 Big Dipper

FWQA block #7 Birds in the Air

FWQA block #8 Bouquet

FWQA block #9 Box

FWQA block #10 Bowtie

FWQA block #11 Broken Dishes

FWQA Block #13 Buckwheat

FWQA block #14 Butterfly at the Crossroads

FWQA block #15 - Buzzard's  Roost.  This is a redo.  My first one was an EPIC FAIL:

Told you! Yuck!

FWQA block #16 Calico Puzzle

FWQA block #17 Cats and Mice EPIC FAIL - Clearly.  I spent about 17 hours and 4 days on this sucker.  I hate it too much to just destroy it.  I want it to suffer.

FWQA block #18 Century of Progress

FWQA block #19 Checkerboard

FWQA block #20 Churn Dash

FWQA block #21 Contrary Wife

FWQA block # 23 Country Farm

FWQA block #25 Cups and Saucers  EPIC FAIL.  Two days and a bottle of Tums later.  I need to remake this one for sure!

FWQA block #28 Duck and Ducklings

FWQA block #29 Economy.  I was so economic that I made two.  Duh!

FWQA block #29 Economy

FWQA block #30 End of Day

FWQA block #31 Evening Star

FWQA block # 33 Farmer's Puzzle

FWQA block #34 Flock

FWQA block #39 Friendship

FWQA block #40 Friendship Block

FWQA block #44 Gentleman's Fancy - and I completely fancied making this one.  It just sewed up all perfect the first time.  Took less than 20 minutes.

FWQA block #46 Hill and Valley

FWQA block #47 Homemaker - grief and I think it's ugly

FWQA block #49 Honeycomb

FWQA block #53 - Jackknife

FWQA block #54 Woodshed

FWQA block #54 Kitchen Woodbox

FWQA block #55 Linoleum

FWQA #56 Maple Leaf

FWQA block #58 Mother's Dream

FWQA #59 Night and Day

FWQA block # 60 Noon and Light

FWQA block #61 Northern Lights

FWQA block #63 Ozark Maple Leaf

FWQA block # 64 Peace and Plenty

FWQA block #66 Periwinkle

FWQA block #69 Practical Orchard

FWQA #71 Puss In the Corner

FWQA block #73 Rainbow Flowers (can you see the total screw up?  I built a bridge and am over it.)

FWQA block #74 Ribbons

FWQA block #76 Sawtooth

FWQA block #77 Seasons

FWQA block #78 Shooting Star

FWQA block #80 Single Wedding Star

FWQA block #81 Snowball

FWQA block # 83 Spider Web

FWQA block #84 Spool

FWQA block #90 Storm Signal

FWQA block #97 Waste Not

FWQA block #103 Whirlwind

FWQA block #108 Windmill

FWQA block #109 Windows

Basically, if I didn't want to do the block, I skipped it.  I won't do a block that has hand applique because I know I am TERRIBLE at that!  Really, really, REALLY bad and I don't want to suffer or waste fabric.

I have about 62, I think.  With a few repeats and a couple I need to remake.  I think that will make a nice size lap quilt and I can be done with it.