I made these t-shirts for the last local craft swap of the year.  I used a kit from EZScreenprint that Amy recommends in her newest book, Bend the Rules with Fabric.  (Fantastic book, by the way!)  I wanted to make embellished t-shirts, similar to the ones I have seen from J. Crew.  I doodled a bit and came up with a design.  I burned my screen in the sunlight (really!  so easy!) and then used it to print on t-shirts.  After the t-shirts were dry, they sat around my house for a few weeks until the day of the swap when I got busy embellishing. 

My vision was an all over beaded design like the one above.  That didn't happen because this one shirt took me 2 hours to bead.  2 hours x 6 shirts = way more time than I had.  I changed course and ended up embellishing the centers of the flowers/stars/snowflakes (really, whatever you want them to be).  They still turned out cute - no picture, though.  It was dark when I finished.

I have one shirt left to embellish - it's for me.  I'm looking forward to sitting in front of a movie, with needle and thread, and beading.  I was surprised to find that I really enjoyed hand sewing and beading together.  Who knew it would be so relaxing?  Once I get the shirt done, it may be time to make one of these.  I think I have everything I need on hand.  Perfect for a day when you don't want to leave the house.  And it fits in well with one of my goals this year:  sew more clothing for me.

My local craft swap was last night.  I made my little scrappy blocks into potholders.  They were all sashed in muslin with muslin on the back as well.  Inside is one layer of cotton batting and one layer of insul-bright.  The fabric for the loops also came out of the scrap bags.  This batch was crosshatch quilted with a zig zag using a walking foot.  I made six other ones last week that I quilted with a straight stitch and concentric squares.  Those turned out great, too.  I wish I could show you a photo - I gave them away to a wonderful group of ladies I met last Friday while stopping over in Minneapolis/St. Paul on my way to a family wedding.  Yes, another wedding.

A couple things I am excited about:

- Betz White's Felt and Stitch online workshop.  I've already signed up.

- Denyse Schmidt is offering a free downloadable tote pattern and a great deal on the patchwork promenade to make them.  Easy and cute holiday gift idea right there.

- STC Craft posted some free downloadable patterns from their books.  All are great for holiday gift giving.  Sorry I didn't post this before the giveaway....I meant to, but time got away from me.  Still, check out the patterns.  There are some good ones there.

Off to do laundry.  Back soon.

The girls' artist trading cards are out the door and in the mail.  We missed the mailing deadline after I realized that the post office does indeed close at noon on Saturday.  Oops.  They went in the mail yesterday and Jane had two arrive in our mailbox for her!

While doing this project, I found my children have such different approaches to their art.  Jane is detailed and meticulous.  She sat down for long periods of time and drew.  She chose creatures from the Spiderwick Chronicles as her subject matter and used pencil and colored pencil on each one.  She drew 11 cards and from those, chose the best 9 to send (she was in two groups).  There was one that I really liked, but she didn't.  No amount of discussing could convince her to send it so now it's mine.

Kate, on the other hand, had quick bursts of energy.  She drew what she saw, the flowers sitting around the house:  an orchid, a hyacinth, some daisies, forsythia and alstroemeria.  She finished three cards right away and then for days, she wouldn't even attempt to do the other two.  In the end, she sat down and did them together - right before the deadline.  I cringe to think that she is a procrastinator like her mother.  But then I remember, that sometimes it takes a long time for all those ideas to brew.  Or in Kate's case, maybe she was waiting to see what other flowers I brought home.

I loved this exercise for my kids.  Blair has said that the small size of the canvas gave her kids confidence in a way that a large piece of paper cannot.  I found the same to be true for my girls.  The smaller they had to draw, the more time they took, the more detailed they were.  If you take a look at the flickr pool, I think you could say the same for these young artists.  I sure hope that those of you who joined the swap, enjoyed it just as much as we did.

I think I need more yellow in my life.  It's just so cheery.  Maybe a yellow week to break up the February gloom?  Would anyone be interested in that?

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The groups for the Kids ATC swap are slowly going out.  Because we have over 900 children participating, it is going to take some time to send all those emails.  If you signed up and you don't hear from us right away, don't fret.  You will.

There is a Flickr group for the swap, too.  Please add photos of yourchildren's creations so we all can see what creative kids we have!

Blair and I never imagined such a huge response.  By the number of emails we received after the cut off, I know some people were upset that we couldn't accomodate any more swappers.  I hate to disappoint anyone.  Believe me when I say that I truly appreciate those of you that took the news gracefully.

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I threw my back out on Friday and ended up spending the day on the couch.  I feel so much better now, but am a smidge behind on my quilt binding.  The auction is this Saturday night so I best get stitching.  I promise photos soon.

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Next week I am going to make something for myself.  I cannot wait for some selfish crafting!

I finished quilting both of the auction quilts yesterday. Actually, the second quilt pieced was the first one quilted and that has been sitting around waiting for a binding for a couple weeks. Yesterday, I finished quilting the other one, so now it, too, waits for a binding. Guess what I am doing today? Yes, indeed-y, you are right.

 

Blair and I are completely overjoyed and overwhelmed at the incredible response to the Kids ATC swap.  I knew it would strike a cord with lots of you, but I think we completely underestimated your enthusiasm!  As  of right now, there are over 560 kids signed up and there are still over 200 emails that haven't been opened. You have until 12:00 noon EST (New York City time) today to sign up.  You need to email you child's name, address and age to atckidswap@gmail.com to be signed up. We plan on making the groups this weekend and hope to let you know on Monday.  Please be patient with us if it is Tuesday or Wednesday - we have a lot of work to do.

Hope you enjoy a relaxing and productive weekend.  You'll find me on the couch, under a quilt, stitching away.  See you here next week.

Hello!  It's good to be back.  Thanks for all your well wishes last week.  The electricity is humming along and the house is warm.  We were well taken care of, though.  A big thanks to our good friends!

Sometime after the holidays, I stumbled upon Blair's post about Emma's artist trading cards.  I was immediately enamored with Emma's work and knew that my girls would love to create miniature works of art, as well.  I asked Blair if she would be interested in hosting a swap just for kids and she said yes!

So now, you might be wondering exactly what constitutes an artist trading card.  No worries!  Click on this link, to find out more specifics about these small works of art.  The artist trading card pool on flickr might also be a great source of inspiration for your budding young artist.  I found that once I gave my kids the small papers and we pulled out the watercolors and pastels, they didn't need any direction from me.  They just got busy creating!  It was so fun to watch how differently they approached it - Jane immediately thought of the art she has studied in school and did her own interpretation of it whereas Kate looked around the room and drew what she saw and later pulled out the Ed Emberley books and started painting again.

My girls were really excited at the idea that they could send their drawings and paintings to other children and then would receive some in return.  I think the idea of mail, addressed to them, certainly added to their excitement.  So Blair and I have put our heads together and have created a swap, just for kids, to share artist trading cards with one another.  Each child will be part of a small group and will create mini masterpieces (2.5" by 3.5" small!) of their own to send to similarly aged children all over the United States, and hopefully, around the world.  If your child would like to participate, here are the guidelines:

- Please send a message to atckidswap@gmail.com by this Friday, 2/6. Let us know your address, your child's name and age. International swappers are welcome!

-This is exclusively a project for children and for thatreason, we are specifying that participating children be ages 4 and up.  No adult ATC's, please.

- We will divide the children into groups of 6, meaning your child will make 5 cards to mail out.  You will receive your group from us on Monday, 2/9.

-Artist trading cards are all the same size: 2.5" by 3.5".  Because ATC's are so small, they will fit into a standardenvelope.  To keep it simple, the participants are not obligatedbeyond mailing the actual card out to its recipient (plus anyinformation about the card they'd like to add). Anything extra is up tothe sender and is not expected or required.

- Finished cards should be mailed out to their recipients no later than 2/28.

I hope you will join us.  A big thanks to Blair, and to her sister-in-law Jenny, who inspired the whole thing.  Jenny even created a kids atc button for us to use.  Feel free to put it on your blog and link back to this post, or Blair's post, for details on the swap.  I think it is going to be so much fun!

It's Christmas Eve and I think I am mostly ready.  Mostly means I have a hat to finish knitting and gifts to wrap and groceries to buy....all very doable in the 8 hours I have until we go to church late this afternoon.  My fingers and toes are crossed that my parents and uncle can get here from the land of snow.  No snow here, just rain.  But my new gutters were installed yesterday so I'm okay with the rain.  Don't get me wrong - I would rather have snow.  But I have gutters and that is an improvement from yesterday.

I beaded and sequined these little ornaments for an ornament swap that Linda invited me to join.  Heather, I have so much respect for you and your hearts.  Wowzers.  That is some fussy sewing.  Once I got in to a rhythm, I rather liked that fussy stuff, just to be clear.  I sent off 6 little Joy pillows and kept one for myself.

My paperwhites started blooming Monday.  That made me smile.

Many of you asked about the big spool of red and white twine.  Every time I post a photo with twine in it, the emails start coming.  I should have known better so here is the info a little late.  It came from Tilda's  which Laurie pointed me to a long long time ago.  You can get it in blue and white, too.  I wish they had green, but no such luck.  And the brown paper?  I got that at Target - in the gift wrap section.  I also use just packaging paper which can be found by the heavy duty tape and boxes.

I think that just about covers everything.   I hope you enjoy your holiday, whatever that might be. 

Happy Always and Merry Everything!

A few of you guessed what I was up to.  Some of you knew.  So, yeah, I made a quilt for the craft swap.  And I really, really love this quilt.

It's throw size - I forgot to measure it.  I think it ended up around 50" x 60".  I made the six colored blocks on Monday night.  I was in a piss poor mood and playing with fabric changed my frame of mind completely.  I used the same paper bag method that I learned at Denyse Schmidt's studio in November.  I loaded the bags with 5 solids and 6 prints.  I can't tell you who made the solids, but all the prints are Amy Butler's Midwest Modern that I had in my stash.

I pieced the blocks in about an hour and a half.  I made myself move fast so I wouldn't overthink.  I knew that it would be cohesive because I had loaded the bags with the fabric myself.  I kept going until I got tired.  On Tuesday morning, I got up, looked at them all and started adding the dark green around them to make a rectangle.  I then used large strips of green to make the quilt top bigger.

For the back, I made a small horizontal patchwork strip and sewed it between the orange and darker pink solids.  I couldn't resist putting a piece of this cute little house print in.  It's Japanese and came from Purl.

I quilted it with a green thread that matched the lime solid.  I chalked lines 4" apart and free-motioned loops below each line.  I bound it in the lime solid, using a zig zag stitch.

This block is my favorite.  Something about it just speaks to me.

So there you go.  The craft swap quilt.  I really do love it.  So much.  In the end, though, it went home with someone else.  And I let it go willingly.

If you want to see the rest of the goodies that were swapped, and the very cool piece I ended up with, go visit Caroline's blog.  Everything was fabulous - I would have taken any of it willingly.  Caroline tells the story so so well - play by play, actually.  Plus, she took photos and I didn't.

Have a great weekend.  I think I have one or maybe two more posts in me before I disappear for the holidays.  See you soon.