Natural Fabric Webinar at Winnipeg Sews

 Just a note that Katherine has joined with Leila Kelleher to offer a Fabric Webinar which will cover how to identify and sew with natuarl fabrics!!! You can check out the details on her website by following the link below!!

Winnipeg Sews

I think it will be an invaluable resource for buying fabric or clothes second hand such as at thrift stores and garage/estate sales, etc.  Invite a few friends to join you and make a play date to watch the Fabric Webinar together!!!  I will be there!!

Therese

Slow Stitching Projects - cats - Q2 ( row 5 & 8) and butterflies

 I have finished row 8 of the second quilt of cats!!  I perused my blog to find that I had not posted row 5 so it is the top one and row 8 is the bottom one.  I have really enjoyed working on these cats but I am taking a little break.  I have prepped some butterflies and cut out squares for boats and apples this week.  I will have to find applique patterns for them and get them cut out so I will have a bit of variety for the next while.  I am not even sure how many rows I have in each quilt but there seems to be a small pile yet to go.  I do have quite a few that I can incorporate into my next quilt and I do have bright fabrics set aside for that so that will be in the works shortly.  

I will be slow stitching butterflies today.  These were die cut using my Big Shot and the Stampin UP Beautiful Butterflies Bigs Die.  I will be stitching them to squares of light blue cotton.  The body and antennae will be stitched in black.  

I am linking to Kathy's Quilts - Slow Sunday Stitching.  Check out the wonderful art being created by the participants in Kathy's challenge.  I find them to be most inspiring!! 

Check out the Natural Fiber Webinar I just signed up for at Winnipeg Sews!!

Therese

Birthday card with rolled candles, ribbon and a font greeting

 A birthday card for my oldest grandson who will be thirteen at the end of the month!!!! How time flies!  I have admired these rolled candles on cards over the years and decided now was the time because this card will be mailed in a parcel so how thick it is will not be an issue.  I rolled blue paper scraps around a wood skewer gluing as I went.  I put them aside to dry and worked on the flames.  Quite a few candles online had just wicks but I thought flames would be better.  

I cut them from variegated orange yellow tissue paper and then twisted the bottom so it could be glued into the top opening of the candles.  I added red watercolour to the back to give them a bit of a glow and also added a black line (sorry, thought of this later) to simulate the wick.  I added glue glitter glue to the fronts to make the shiny and glittery.  While those were drying I cut a kraft card to fit in a large envelope and found this great decorative paper which worked perfectly for the look I was going for.  I found a strip of brown card stock in scraps and tore both edges.  

I embossed it with letters and glued it over the background paper.  The greeting is a fun font which I laser printed and then embellished with watercolour so it would better coordinate with my card.  I trimmed the outside edges with deckle decorative scissors and then used my distress tool to roughen up the edges a bit more.  I added four lines of paper piercing with my pattern tracing wheel.  I added a gray ribbon from the left to below my greeting and three little ribbon flags on the right hand side of the greeting. I added to my card using 3D foam tape.  Finally I adhered my candles using slim strips of double sided tape.  I am very happy with how it turned out!!  Therese

Fabric wrap for a gift of cards

 I made this little fabric wrap up for a set of four cards I made up for a friend who was willing to share some of her garden bounty - a bag of Evans cherries from her freezer!!  Excellent!!  I made bavarian and a crisp with half of the bag this morning so we will have delicious desserts for a few days!!  This piece of fabric was 13.5" x 13.5" before I hemmed it and you can see that it is just barely big enough to tie a nice knot.  I think I will have to cut the next ones at least 14"-15".  I really like the patter and texture of the fabric and may have enough to make one more.  I will be setting aside the scraps of this fancy fabric for doing crazy quilting.  I may have to share the bounty!!  Therese

Birthday card featuring runners on a fun tag, a distressed background and ribbon

A birthday card for one of my grandson's with a birthday in February.  We have not seen them in a few years and we are looking forward to seeing them this summer.  The runners is a digital image from FLYCLIPART.  I designed the tag in Corel Draw and added the runner and the greeting then laser printed it.  After trimming I chose a fun distressed background for my large blue card.  I embossed a strip (CB) of brown cardstock with torn edges added a yellow ribbon and added it to my card using double sided tape.  The tag was quite stark in comparison to my background so I decided to distress it.  I cut a mask for the runners and then sanded the surrounding are.  I added yellow watercolour and let it dry.  Then, I stamped the area with a homemade stamp cut from scrap rubber which gave it a nice distressed look.  I removed the mask and smudged on some gray, green and blue watercolour to finish off the background.  I used black watercolour to add a shadow and surface below the runners.  Worked out really well!!  I punched a hole in the tag.  To add it to my card I ran a short piece of the same yellow ribbon behind the one on the tag and pulled both ends to the front of my tag.  Worked so well!!!  I trimmed the ends of the ribbon and then added 3D foacm tape behind the tag to keep it where I wanted it.  So happy with how it turned out!! Therese

Christmas cards with Christmas trees doodled onto bright watercolour paper

I made 8 little doodled trees with my strip of green & blue watercoloured paper.  I decided to frame my little doodled trees with wonky black paper which I cut with my wavy cutter.  I adhered my trees to the black layers with double sided tape.  I found this sheet of scrapbook paper that was pretty much the colour I needed to highlight the art I had created.  I got six pieces from the sheet and still needed two more so I watercoloured two turquoise paper backgrounds with yellow to bring about the colour scheme I needed.  They have less contrast than the others but I think they still work quite well.  I layered my backgrounds onto black card fronts and added my little doodled trees to them using 3D foam tape.  

Pretty happy with how they turned out.  Therese

 

Bright watercolour and some Christmas tree doodling

I have been wanting to join my sister's Watercolour Christmas cards challenge and had a bit of time this week to see what I could do.  I found these strips of watercolour paper from a previous project and thought I would start with those and see what I could get done.  I used acrylic inks to water colour the five strips.  I added plastic wrap and bubble wrap over the wet surfaces to create a bit of texture.  I decided to make Christmas cards with the green and blue strip so I cut it up into 3.5" pieces and then researched doodled Christmas trees to see what I could create on these little canvases!!  I found quite a few tutorials and also some stock images of doodled trees which were quite cute.  I decided to use a variety of what I found as inspiration and did up the following with a black fine tip marker.  I am most happy with the tree filled with swirls, the one made of circles and the one with lines and dots on the ends.  My bent over tree is the one I like the least because it does not quite look like I wanted - a little too thick at the top. I will be trying that one again because I really like the concept.  I did get a chance to turn these into cards yesterday afternoon.  You can check my next post to see what they turned out like!!!         Therese

 

Heart card with beautiful paper and a layered heart accent over beautiful ribbon

I made this card for DH for Valentine's!  We are cooking at home - chicken picatta and lemon spaghetti with salad and steamed asparagus!!! It will be great and we have chocolate lava cakes for dessert.  

I have had this piece of paper for quite a while.  I have been saving it for a project worthy of its beauty.  I decided the time had finally come!!  I created a large yellow green card to fit in an envelope in my stash.  I added a length of this beautiful soft ribbon to the paper before adhering it to my card front.  It is very shimmery in very deep luscious colours.  For my heart embellishement I started with the collaged heart - colourful tissue paper hearts collaged with sparkly white glue onto white tissue paper which I made up when I was doing up my tribute to front line workers last year.  I cut it out by hand using the same pattern I used for my book of colours for my youngest grand daughter.  I layered it onto some gold cardstock and trimmed it with scallop decorative scissors.  It was feeling a little naked so I checked my little stash of hearts and found this red and gold one that worked perfectly to fix that little problem.  To finish off my card I tied a short length of the same ribbon to the length on my card to simulate and bow and add my heart with 3D foam tape.   We need to celebrate all the loves in our lives!!!!!   Therese 
 

All occasion cards with a punched frame and silk flower embellishements

 I had a few extra card kits the other day when I was making these for my friend.  I decided to just make them up and add them to my stash of cards.  They have a punched frame which is embellished with layered silk flowers.  It was really interesting to make the punched frames which I have not done in quite a long time and my selection of punches has grown since.  I did have to play a bit with the size of the squares to get them to have space on the corners but generally 2.75" works well.  Some of my punches do not have a gap  - they punch right on the edge of the paper - so they did not work with this technique.  I embossed a strip of cardstock and slid into the punched slots which made the frame positionable which was kind of fun.  Therese

Joyful Hearts book of colours

I have been playing with fabric in order to create a little book of hearts for my youngest grand daughter.  It was created to help her learn her colours.  I created two rectangles using neutral colours - black, grey, brown and white.  I cut four rectangles about 11" x 5.5" - one of each colour.  That configuration gave me eight pages to work with so I went with the basic rainbow of colours - blue, green, yellow, orange, red and purple.  I created a little colourful patchwork for the front.  I cut a template from paper and traced it on the back and cut it out.  I chose fabrics from my stash for all the other colours as well and cut hearts from them as well.  I laid out the pages and then added the hearts in order of  the rainbow which also reflects colour theory in that blue and yellow make green, etc.  I used coordinating thread and a zigzag stitch to attach the hearts to the pages.  Next, I stitched the pages fronts together - black to gray and brown to white leaving a gap to turn them inside out.  Once pressed I used coordinating thread to add a double row of stitching to the edges.  Next, I did some all over stitching to more firmly attach the fabric to each other which stiffened the pages a bit.  

Unfortunately, I failed to properly position all of my hearts back to back on my pages so when I did my all over quilting I ended up stitching over some of my hearts.  A bit of a bummer but I had not anticipated the problem so I did not plan for it.  I will do better next time.  Fortunately, it was on only two of the hearts - the blue and the orange and I was able to camouflage the error with a Sharpie markers in the right colours.  Youc can see below how I coloured the light thread with  blue where it ran over the edge of the heart.  The back page has a pink heart.   I laid my two pages over each other and ran a row of zig zag stitches down the middle to create the spine.  The hearts seemed a bit flat so I handstitched a heart on all the colour pages with coordinating embroider floss.  I had to be careful not to stitch too deep which was not too difficult.  

I am really happy with how it worked out and I hope she will enjoy playing with it.  She is a year old and taking her first steps!!  Therese 

 

Cars quilt with a strip of red plaid down the middle

 

My sister donated this cars fabric to me so I have been pondering how I could use it to make a quilt.  It was a long shallow piece of yardage so I cut it in half and added a strip of red plaid between the two pieces!!  I did create a pieced strip to go in between them but it was "too heavy" to go with the cool little cars - the red plaid is so much better.   I am sure that the strip will end up in a different quilt in the near future.  I added a piece cotton for batting and a warm green cotton backing which has a bit of a flannel feel which will make this a lightweight cozy blanket.  I used the inside out method and added two rows of stitching in brown thread around the edge.  Also added two rows of wavy stitching to each cars panel in brown and two in the red strip using red thread.  Minimal quilting but it is only 36.5" x 45" so that will do quite well.  I am really happy with how well it worked out and I managed to get it all done today!!!  Therese

  

All occasion card featuring a butterfly punchie, a punched accent and an embossed paper strip

This is the third card sample for the kits I made up for my friend and again she will be having a variety of colours and coordinating accents in her kits.  She will have some fun!!

I started with a blue card and added a layer of colour printed hexagon decorative paper (SU digital).  I cut a 3" x 3" piece of white cardstock and used the eyelet punch (SU) to add a centered opening on each side of the square.  I embossed a strip of yellow with my score tool and inserted it in the bottom slot of this element and brought it back out of the top slot.  I glued the ends of my strip to my card using double sided tape which leaves the middle area without glue allowing the square element to be adjusted up/down and side to side.  I added a butterfly punchie (1.75"- SU) in the middle of the square to finish off my card.  

Therese
 

All occasion cards with a wavy row of flowers and cute little butterfly

 This is the second card sample for the card kits I made for my friend.  I used a white card and added a piece of decorative paper I trimmed with a wavy line.  I added some flowers to the wavy line - these are by Paula Dean.  The butterfly was stamped and punched (SU) and then I tied a little piece of silver cord around it to simulate a body and its antenae.  I added it to my card using 3D foam tape.  Again, the card kits I made up for her have a variety of card colours with coordinating papers and embellishments.  These could be made up portrait or landscape.  Therese

All occasion cards with a little vellum envelope filled with a heart

 A friend requested card kits for Valentine's and spring!!!  I was happy to oblige as she is a keen card maker.  This is the sample for the first card kits I made.  I cut the little envelope (SX) from vellum, folded the three flaps and tied them together with a little bit of white fiber.  I added a little cardstock backer and then a sparkly blue die cut heart (SX) to which I added a little bit of ribbon to add texture and serves as a bit of a handle to remove the heart.  I used a kraft card and added a coordinating blue patterned paper background.  I applied double sided tape to the back of the envelope and positioned it on the card front.  

The kits feature a variety of colours with coordinating elements so she will have some fun and unique cards.   These could be made up landscape or portrait which adds to their versatility. 

Therese

Christmas cards kits all made up into cards

 I have invested a bit of time in the last while making up the card kits that I created last year for sale.  I have 84 Christmas card made for this year.  It is more than I need and I am inclined to donate them somewhere but if not I am ready for Christmas!!!!  Therese

Al occasion card featuring a photo of a peony bud and a collaged background

This card features a collage background which I created using scraps of my hand decorated papers!!  I tore the scraps into strips and glued them to a scrap of bond paper.  I trimmed it to size for this large card and layered it onto a pink card.   I chose this great photo of a peony bud ( my sister's great photography) which was trimmed from a 4" x 6" calendar page.  I added paper piercing with my pattern tracing wheel and layered it onto a piece of textured pink cardstock.  I punched both ends with an eyelet punch (SU), added two scored lines with my Score tool and then a green ribbon across the middle.  I added the photo with double sided tape and then mounted it to my card using 3D foam tape.   Therese
 

All occasion cards with hexagons and paper flowers

 I have been playing with hexagons inspired by so many cards on Split Coast Stampers.   I am using a Sizzix hexagon die to cut the shapes from a variety of papers.  For this session I used mostly scraps from my little stash of blue scraps.  You can layer your papers and it cuts seven at a time so a little stack of hexies did not take long.  For these two cards I started with a navy strip about 2" wide and 5.5" long.  I played with the hexies in my little stack until I was happy with the layout and then I glued them into place trimming them to the edge.  I added navy strips to the sides which I had trimmed with decorative scissors (scallop and deckle) and then added paper piercing before adhering them to the back of my strips with double sided tape.  I layered decorative paper on my card fronts (gray and navy) and then added my decorative strips.  To echo the bit of yellow I created paper flower embellishments at my focal elements.  I adhered them with 3D foam tape to my cards after I added a length of yellow satin ribbon to the backs of them.   I am sending them off to my card exchange partners for February.  Therese