This is really barely a craft. But after I saw this beautiful doily table runner, it reminded me of two linen tea towels I had sitting in our linen closet. First of all, who uses a white linen tea towel with a pretty and simple embroidered bouquet of flowers on it? No one in our house, that’s for sure. And that’s why they were sitting all folded up in box in the linen closet. But, that is really not good feng shui, as it’s better to use things you love rather than keep them for special occasions, or indefinitely in a box in the closet, where you forgot about them for oh, 4 years or so.
I sewed the matching tea towels together and made this:
You can’t see it in this photo, but on the other end of the runner is the same embroidered pattern.
I put the blue pistachio pot on top. Easy, simple and quick. And it brightens up the table.
Next up, I want to make a great big pillow for the living room. I was thinking about turning our old futon mattress into some kind of beanbag pillow just like this t-shirt pillow.
and all I got was this mediocre table runner.
Clearly, I am not a quilting designer. I found a very simple cat face pattern on the internets – which turned out to be too simple, I think. The pattern is half of a traditional quilting star pattern. I pieced that together so I could make myself a terrific quilt sandwich. I just love doing the free-style stitching of the quilt sandwiches. What I wanted to do was stitch the faces of the kitties in the fabric. Here’s how that turned out close up:
[click to continue…]
Due to the world’s slowest cold, I stayed home today and punched butterflies out of some flyers that came in the Burnaby Now – one of those newspapers that arrive on the doorstep every few days. Mike loves to read the flyers for some reason. I’m not sure what I’ll do with all those butterflies. I’ll figure that out later.
The tea party was a big success. It’s not often you get good company, great treats and a fun project all at once. Our project today? Fancy photo frames. We painted, modge podged, glittered and adhered decorative pieces on those plain old boring wooden picture frames you get from Ikea. There were babies and pets and toddlers, too. All and all, a good time. While I was there, I got some sewing advice for those little birds I was trying to make last week. Cynthia and Bea (the sewing geniuses) showed me how to do it. They also showed me how to read a pattern – as in, fabric 2 means, the second piece of fabric, not cut two pieces of this fabric. The reason why I couldn’t figure out the pattern was because I had cut out 3 pieces instead of 2 pieces. Yes. I was stymied on a pattern with 2 pieces. Good one.
A big thank you to Cynthia for the party and to Cynthia and Bea (from Texas) for the sewing hints. Here’s one – when you sew in a curve, it’s best to clip the fabric on the seam allowance side so it gives when you sew it.
But, as you can see, I followed their directions and got the bird together. It’s not quite perfect (there’s kind of a lump on the top of the head I don’t like) but other than that, I think I can whip together a bunch of them. Oscar and/or Donner seemed to have enjoyed the bird, too. Mysteriously, I found the bird on the opposite side of the room a couple of hours after I finished making him.
PSST…I think it was Donner.
After my crafty, busy day, we settled down to watch the Canucks (thankfully) beat the Kings, which means they will move on to round two of the Stanley Cup. Hallelujah. The third period was terrific and then Luongo‘s interview immediately after the game was pretty sweet – especially this quote:
“That’s how I play. I only play when it matters.”
Oh Luongo. I really like you when you win. I really do.
