Apron Patterns

Pot holders in bottom of apron with a "secret pocket" to hold an MP# player...

Could adapt design with a full apron pattern is what I'm thinking.

Tree Bird Blog Hop - MY DAY!

A bird house found at our Guild's Holiday auction in December that I couldn't resist.
Perfect segue! 

I was able to get several items made to share for this terrific Tree Bird Blog Hop.  Lana our cheerleader from It Seams to be Sew  is doing a stand up job keeping all of us bloggers on tract for this hop with Madamme Samm out of commission while she tends to some serious personal business.  My prayers and thoughts are with you and yours Samm.


First, everyone who knows me knows I collect scissors.
Check out this sweet scissor fob for my Owl scissors.

{Love}!

Went shopping this am with DH so I could make some more lanyards for beaded scissor fobs with some little bird beads I purchased on Saturday but am too late to pull that off with the grand children being here until 6 pm this evening.



Had wanted to get a couple more fobs made but I ran out of time.




Was able to sew this Chickadee apron which is made from a panel of A Colorful Season designed by Nancy Mink.  This will be perfect to wear in autumn and my dear DIL happily modeled it for me this afternoon but with the request of not showing her face.  Don't know why, she's quite beautiful and the Mother of two of my beautiful grandsons.    Just saying.
I lined the apron panel with a medium mottled green, the same tone as the printed rope.   Sewed around the perimeter, turned it inside out as in a pillowcase method, then top stitched around all the edges.  It happens to be my preferred method of constructing aprons and it will wash like a dream.  It came with two printed pocket segments but I choose to only sew one on.  The print matches perfectly with the apron base.

When I purchased this I also purchased some yardage of a matching border print of the same line 

to make a 60 degree table runner but again, I ran out of time. 

Harrumph!   

Seems to be the theme around here!

 Now for the piece de resistance,..........

a Charlie Harper stylized cardinal tea cozy.  

Too CUTE!
Love those angry beady eyes (no pun intended - NOT!) popping out of his head.  lol 

I am quite proud of my Cardinal Cozy.  All of this was made without a pattern. [Patting myself on the back for this one, with both it's concept and it's finish.]  Each morning now while I have my cuppa, I will smile and know anything is possible.


See the coaster on the left - themed with the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, only befitting since he's known for quoting:
"Oh Dear!  Oh Dear!  I shall be too late!"

Which sums up how my monkey mind works at times.   I seem to run around like that quite often, usually finishing things up just before the deadline. Friends say I do it to myself, and they are right.  But it's my way of life and how I get to do all I do and help out where I can and want to, while always pushing the envelope to get to more things that I want to do, see or be....  That's My Life.

Anyhow I digress, the coaster was the tool I used to make the cardinal.  After drafting it I realized it was way too big for my little tea pot so reduced it by 60% so it could fit proportionately.   (The next cozy I make I'll be adding to both the height and width since I have a few larger tea pots and these do help keep the tea a perfect temperature to finish the pot.)   I used the same pussy willow fabric for the exterior and the lining fabric, a polyester batting and a Teflon quilted and lined fabric so the finish is quite thick.  Will see how well it insulates my little pot this am!  ;-)

Last year I did purchase the themed fabric Beautiful Birds by Tracy Lizotte for Elizabeth's Studio but couldn't find it and didn't want to waste anymore time looking.  Also I wanted to get some of these other bird themed projects I found done and the ones I had remembered that I wanted to do too done as well.   We love and feed the birds here.  So some time in the near future, you will be seeing more bird projects done.   Like the bird house wall hanging shared in this post.   The quilt in this post because of a bird fabric, or this one started Little Miss Shabby,  a few birds or even more birds here on Counted cross stitch,  another quilt here, and the first quilt with chopped up birds called Autumn Song.    Yep, we love birds around here.  Who knows when I'll find that bird panel fabric or where I put it.  One good thing though, I did find the soft aqua and off white striped fabric I bought at the same time to go with it so hopefully it should surface soon and not a decade later before it surfaces.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my crafts and hopefully you can make some time to check out these other bloggers during this hop to see their creations.  Of course if you leave a comment, I'd appreciate it.  Enjoy your day.

Today's Schedule is:

Tomorrow's Treasures Today
Childlike Facination
Pig Tales and Quilts
Ella and Nesta's Little Room
Thimblemouse and Spouse
Gracie Oliver Arts

It's amazing how creative and different all the projects are.  Thanks Lana, it's been fun!

Blues making me happy and January's summation.

Blues are making me very happy this month.  The RBSC has been a great incentive to work through some of my blue scraps. Those 2 additional projects I mentioned several weeks ago that were a brain glimmer are now done.  Yippee!

Another snap bag, this time to hold those electronic adapters in the den near the computer.
For this I used the selvages of the fabric as the pull tabs to open the bag with.  
Ahhh,  gotta love a Free spirit fabric and especially since it has Nap Sack written there for all to see.  lol

The other blue remnant that was used was an apron panel thrown into the scrap basket.
So I rummaged through my stash for a different blue suitable for the lining and voila.
Another languishing pig is DONE!  That's 6 pigs done this month!
I think this PIG may very have been at least 12-15 years old if not older.   Sad isn't it that it took so long.

The directions says Winter Wonderland Apron, but I think it more Christmas themed.  

The only weird thing is that it has two Santa-s with sleds directionally heading right for each other.  

The fabric looks black here but trust me, it's dark navy.

The pin dot is what was used for the lining.  Any leftover navy pin dot will be used to make some more HST units for another community quilt project.   I'm on a new kick with making those HST units. For the apron it seemed easiest to sew right sides together then flip it inside out to finish with a top stitch.

Since it's finished, I'll pack it away for Christmas 2015.    Happy !

So the tally made for January is:
 1 circle ear bud zippered pouch,
4 snap bags,
1 apron,
10 quilt blocks for the RBSC and
more blues are ironed and cut so they're ready for a quick use  at a later time,



Made some hats with the grand children for the kitchen island's illuminated Birch tree.


 It's so cute!   There are 6 hats hanging on it now and I thought some ice skates or mittens out of felt could be made next year to continue the winter  theme .


Also finished reading the book: The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, a nice read.  (Pulled me in quickly but I didn't care for the ending,  Just saying.)


AND the Quilting is so close to being done on another community quilt for my guild that I'm calling it done!



Not too shabby.



Hopefully I can keep this momentum going for February since the color for the month is PINK.

Another project I recently started is this wool table mat.  This will serve as my portable one which will be easy to take to basketball games, hockey  practice/games when the fan area is warm enough to stitch that is and then speech at the local college for the youngest grand child which also will be re-starting soon, so that will make another hour I could stitch after chaffeuring him to that.     ; )

The only thing wrong with this kit is one of those wools is shredding terribly without any abuse.  I'll be trading  that one out as I have some  red remnants left over from the valentine wool wall hanging I did last year and they didn't seem to fray at all.  4 hearts stitched so far with 4 more to go then the vine embroidery to stitch.  It mentions buttons but I'm thinking beads will be used on mine instead.  Making me  happy,  happy!

For my bigger quilting project for January with the Q-1 and a ALYOF I am almost done quilting it.

Yippee!

We celebrated our 41st anniversary this evening so I know I won't get to it tonight, but will finish it when I get up in the am which is close enough for a January finish in my book.

A different quilt design was stitched and I will share this finish at the beginning of next week.    Promise!  I have the binding all made so it'll be a relatively quick finish.  lol


As for the counted cross stitch project, that has progressed  nicely this month too.

My February endeavors and dreams are:  

Catch up with my BOMs is top on my list,
RBSC- PINK HST units in sets of 4.
Start working on some of the bird projects in my PIG pile,
Quilt the brown sashing areas of the Tweet Camping Quilt,
then if enough time quilt the bird themed  fabric squares too!
make the pink Rose pillow (that's a PIG),
A March themed wall hanging or two? (both of these are more PIGs),
make another doll blanket,
then make another table mat/runner or progress/finish the wool heart table mat shared on this post,
Get the snow scene finished on the bottom left section of counted cross stitch Lizzie Kate Winter's alphabet.
And Finish reading The Round House, by Louise Erdrich. It's really good so far. I'm up to page 100.

Goodbye January 2015, it's been quick but a good one.

Jane

60 shades finished and stash report #12 of 2013

DH is turning 60 next month and with all the hoopla of 50 shades of Grey from last year (which BTW - I'm still trying to finish for finishing's sake! I'm on the third book now, read 10 pages and I'm snoozing, how boring is this story line!!)  Anyways, since DH cooks so well and enjoys doing his creations, I thought a BBQ apron was in order.  SO I ordered 1 yard of a beer mugs fabric and then shopped my stash until I found a coordinating match and it was  a fabric with shades of grey that went well enough with those mugs of beer. 

 

 

I used a leftover panel from last years chili pepper apron then added 2 additional pockets to help him

carry his favorite  beverage of choice,  Budweiser!

Next a little hair band loops were added to keep the meat thermometer from falling too deeply into the pocket.

Close up detail:

For the beer mug side, it's rather simple and plain.   

But it does have another hair band loop for the meat thermometer on the upper right part. 

This reversible apron was made without a pattern and I used  an apron gifted to me from the Doctor I worked for many years ago as a guide.    Simple quilted vertical and diagonal stitches  with a leftover piece of fleece used  for the batting. 

Wonderful to say that 3 yards of fabric were used.  Finally my stash report moved.   Happy too that my February New FO is completely done.   (Yes, I gave it to him early since that is him modeling it.)

 

 

Initially I had imagined on the 6o Shades of Grey side to have embroidered phrases on 2 pockets saying something like:

Whip It,   Beat it!!!   

Eat It!   Love IT!!! 

But immediately knew my imp  was carrying too far away from my mused comfort side. 

But the little imp in me kept imagine other sayings. 

Kill It, Grill It!!

Since he used to hunt, fish and the other outdoor sports he loved to do before his health problems. 

 

Saturday we enjoyed another presentation of the Adirondack Skating Clubs, SNOW WHITE.   PGD#1 posed with Snow White who was wonderful as well as a friend's daughter who skated as one of the seven dwarves.  She was great with her newly skill double or it could have been a triple axel.  It was a wonderful show and one I enjoy every year.  PGS#3 wouldn't pose.

 

Off this afternoon to see Anything Goes for there afternoon showing.  Chazy Music Theatre always does a bang up job of producing musicals and this is another event I enjoy annually.  I'll get tomorrow to post the photos. 

 

PS:  This weeks stash report #12 of 2013 al least shows some usage! 

Stash In: 0 Yards 

Stash Out: 3 Yards
YTD In: 38.75 Yards

YTD Used/Out the Door: 20.5 yards

That's a Net gain of 18.25 more yards into stash for this year.  Feeling better now that it's under 20!  LOL

 

Enjoy your 1st weekend of Spring.

Jane

 

(came back to edit and add the photos on the 28th.)

 

2013 New FO Challenge

 

 

Barb from Cat Patches has hosted the New FO challenges for a couple of years and I've watched some very talented quilters whip out some beautiful creations each month with envy.  It's been an inspiration and so I've decided to jump on that band wagon too instead of solely  focusing on the many phlethoras of UFO's  I have on hand.  Now I still need to be mindful of those and will continue working on with them by using Judy's Laquidera's challenge of getting it done to progress  but will feed my muse nuture my ADD's by these new FOs too making new UFO's .   Since you don't have to have them finished by the end of the month,  I just know I'll be able to comply easily with these challenges.    I can't wait to jump in! 


Here they are, all 12! 

DONE!  1.  In Your Own Words Project, Shhhh!  It's a secret to be revealed on the 14th of January! 
                                                   Started in January and had this completely done by this post dated February 17th.



       













2.  Patchabilities Cardinals



 

3.  Baby Quilt for some friends' grand daughter,  Lily.

 

4. Quilt for the Camper's the Master Bedroom

5. July Wall Quilt Simply Stars

6. Patchabilities - Purple Coneflowers

7.  Tote made out of  this and perhaps some  linen?

DONE!  8. Apron for DH and ?perhaps son too.           
                                                                                               




















Finished this March 23rd. I posted about it on  this post.  

 

9. Laminated Project of some sort, I just love those lime green bicycles!

10. Camper quilt for the grandchildren or guests.
 

11.  Queen size quilt for master bedroom from many of these fabrics.

 

 

 DONE!  12.  Mystery project of what ever my muse wants me to do.  I'm using my artist's license for this.  lol  Here's the post showing my Shake Your Pom Pom Hop pillow sham for PGD#1.  Started this for my April New FO and finshed it by the 29th of April!    YEAH!!!!        :-)

For the stash QAL for 2013 thinking about using the Obtuse Star 12" for the Scrap  Happy Saturdays
 or it may be as simple as HST units.