Quilts? Yes, quilts.

 First, I had to drop everything I was doing and knit a hat for my son, who lost his last hat I made him at school. So I did that.

 Look at this lovely quilt top that is languishing in a bag. I found it when I got out my sewing machine to noodle around with it. I'm not a very good machine knitter, but I think I might give it a whirl again some time.

 I also found these blocks I made. I remember giving the squares to my son to play with when he was a baby. He's nine now. Maybe I should take his Nintendo DS away from him and give him these blocks back. I'll tell him how much fun they are. I wonder how he'd like that. Who knows, maybe he'll finish it for me.

There are also these strippy blocks Matthew and I made together when he was very interested in how my sewing machine works. They would look nice pieced together into a little quilt, but I need border strips, batting, backing material and bias binding. For everything! That is the sad part about living far away from fabric shops. When I finally get to one, I won't remember what I wanted, or have anything measured properly.

Rabbit Embroidery

I finished my lovely little rabbit pillow and listed it on etsy. But if you blinked you missed it! This little lovely has already sold and has gone to live with my other lovely little fox pillow that was bought by the same collector! I will be making more animal themed pillows, but there will never be any exactly like these. I like to keep each item unique and one of a kind. On an unrelated note: I can't believe that today is the first day of school! My oldest is going to third grade and my little one is starting kindergarten. Where did summer go?

Anatomists Embroidery

Returning to a theme I like, I decided to embroider a little scene of three anatomists at work. Approximately 9" x 12" canvas embroidered with cotton floss.

Fox

Here is some progress on a new embroidery. A fox in a stylized forest. I'm trying to keep the colors to a minimum, but I do have four shades of green, two golden browns, an ocher and a blue for the foliage. Now I'm starting to wonder what my background filling color will be? I need some contrast. Maybe a pale goldeny-orange? I don't know. I will take the embroidery with me to the craft store and hold a bunch of different threads up against it until I find the right one.

Sofa Cheat

Some of you might remember when I reupholstered my sofa- over a year ago! What I didn't tell anyone until now is that I totally cheated there, at the end. I made the cushion covers, but didn't put the zippers in them. I just safety pinned them shut and put them on the sofa that way. So here I am, coming clean, and finally putting my zippers on. It's still not entirely done. I want to put extra fabric around the bottom back of the sofa, with cording through it for a little extra designer touch. But since the sofa is against the wall, I will probably not do it any time soon. Maybe next year!

Skeleton Embroidery in Progress

A close up on the random loopiness of it. It reminds me of those crinkled, melted together plastic holiday decorations that used to be displayed on the windows and doors of my elementary school. Did that stuff have a name?

Vintage Sofa Getting a New Lease on Life

The sofa is all repaired and reinforced. Here are the four big components: the back, seat, and arms, in place. And a close up of the fabric, red chenille flowers on a background of gold and turquoise threads. I kinda love it.

Fixing a Vintage Sofa

I'm not going to show every tiny little step, since you already saw a lot when I did my chair. Also, I got my husband to help me pull staples, so disrobing the sofa went a lot faster. Here you can see the board across the bottom front is in sore need of repair. That side of the sofa was a little droopy and now we know why. Dave, the wonder husband, is going to put it all back together and reinforce it with steel brackets. I'm going to start with the new upholstery. I just looked at my fabric again. I'm still very much in love with it.

Have a Seat

Two views of my chair- all done! It's already been adorned with pepperoni slices and has had juice spilled on it. Welcome to the family, new chair!

Sooooo Close!

Seeing how the cushion will look. The zipper isn't in place on the cushion cover yet.



For the back, I stretched a piece of a vintage bed sheet that I used to like on my bed when I was little. There was not too much of it left. I think strips were torn off to tie up tomato plants or something. I'm a little sorry that it won't show, but I'm glad I was able to save it and use it. Maybe my grandkids will get the reupholstering bug someday, and they will see it!

Prest-o, change-o!

Cowboy Embroidery

Here is an update of my cowboy embroidery. The horse it mostly done except for the tail and mane. I'm probably going to add some decoration to the blanket under the saddle. Justin picked out the orange color, now I'm not so sure about it. It was hard to tell him "no". He's pretty bossy. I guess I'll have to make it work. I think if I put some blue stitching on it and that will be a nice complement.

Ride 'em, Cowboy. part one

I have some faux suede upholstery fabric. I've been trying to think of a project that would fit with its unique properties. I settled on a cowboy themed embroidery. It might look cute in a little boy's room or amongst other western style accoutrements. I started with the sketch at the top. I did not get too far yet, but at least I have started to thread the needle!

Mermaid Embroidery

Not too much to say about it. Here it is again.