Kleas

somewhere....

My partner received my pincushion for the swap in the mail yesterday...whew... it arrived safely.  I was a little worried because this was truly a labor of love, and should it get lost, I would never be able to replace it. 

Some of you guessed it!  Anna, Tam.me and Tai were right on with the yellow brick road.

 
The Wizard of Oz is Ruth's favorite movie and I saw she had another Oz themed pincushion in her collection, so I thought I'd try a different interpretation.

 
I built up Emerald City out of eight individual felt cones, and added an "emerald" bead to the top of each one. Next I stitched "there's no place like home" around the sides in red (Ruby like) sparkle floss...very tricky stuff to work with.

 

 

From there the rainbow...it took me four tries, but I finally got it to work.
 
I like to make themed pins for my pincushions (like in some of these), that way the pincushion can be some what interactive.

 
These characters can make their way down the yellow brick road.

 
This is one monster sized pincushion...good thing Ruthie is a quilter.

 
My pincushion from Julia arrived yesterday too.  I just can't get over how adorable and clever her hamburger is...it looks good enough to eat!! (And that's exactly what my boys pretended to do all afternoon).

 
Happy Friday everyone!!  xx

pincushion swap

I have Dorie to blame thank for my getting involved in another swap I had no business signing up for.  But I truly do love making pincushions and it has been a while...so, this time I made one for the Scrappy Pincushion Swap on Flickr (check out all the beautiful creations that have been posted there).

I went with a design I used to make a while back (three years ago already?!!), using felt flower shapes I punch from wool with a sizzix paddle punch. 

 
My idea was to make an English garden by covering a bed of leaves with flowers...as you can see, this is one big pincushion.

It looks pretty boring with just the leaves showing.

 
But once you add the flower pins, the garden really comes to life.

 
Here's a side view so you can see all the flowers are pins.

 
If it's not used as a pincushion, it would be a nice thing for idle hands to play around with.  There are so many different possibilities of how to design the garden.

 
I received my pincushion in the mail last week from Solidia.  She is a master sewer, and I couldn't be more thrilled with this beautiful pincushion she made for me.  I just love the fabrics she chose, the colors and of course adding that sparkly brooch to the center gives this piece a bit of glamour too. 

 
 

Yet ANOTHER Pincushion Post

I'm trying desperately to keep my mind off Tuesday and there is no better way to do that than to direct my attention to busy hand work.  So, I've been stitching up some new pincushions.

The January/February Pincushion Challenge is Try Something New.  While I thought this would be a great opportunity to try and figure out how that sewing machine of mine works...the idea of it stressed me out too much.  So I switched gears and ended up trying hand stitching with new materials instead.  If you are familiar with my pincushions, you already know I tend to primarily work with felt.  (My pincushion Flickr set).  And I'm sure this will always be my favorite medium.  So here is my Try Something New Pincushion. 

Using a luxurious velvet I found in the remnants bin at Joann Fabrics, I slip-stitched the edge of a round piece of the fabric, stuffed it and tied it off.  Then I covered a button in matching fabric and stitched it in the center (now I get why so many of you love working with these...quick and easy with great results!)  The whole pincushion was then tucked easily into the thrifted chicken dish I picked up a few weeks ago.  And as I have a fondness for creating theme pins to go with the pincushion, I thought the plumes were appropriate. 

Check out more pincushions for the challenge at the Flickr pool.

I also finished my sweetheart pincushions I mentioned here.

 

Keeping very Valentine in theme, I decided to make the pins into Conversation Hearts.  They can be moved about (sort of like the refrigerator poetry magnets) to express your personal sentiment.  Like this...

 

...and this.

 

Now I'm off to try and get that other WIP, the baby blanket, finished.  What a perfect project for Super Bowl Sunday!

Red and White all over

Dorie hosted a Redwork Swap earlier this year and I finally, FINALLY have sent my package off to the very patient Rachael.  I had no trouble doing the redwork itself...it was just what to make out of it that was the challenging part.  Rachael said she had trouble with that part also, but made me the most beautiful pillow...check it out here, and see all the other wonderful surprises she sent me.

I went with stitching the redwork on wool. 

And since I decided to go with making a pillow, I did another design on the other side.

Both of the patterns for the embroidery came from here.  I love how it turned out with the little red ball trim around the edge.  I'm going to have to try that again sometime. 

While I had my DMC #321 thread out I decided to do this little cross stitch that I had my eye on for some time.

Girls' Choir, pattern by Gerda Bengtsson.  A fun little mindless project to work on when I wasn't feeling well. 

More red and white are these pincushions I stitched up for some friends.

And in the holiday decor department I made some little felt wreath ornaments for a swap.

My other ornaments for the swap can be seen here and here.

And lastly, another redwork on felt.

The image comes from one of my favorite children book illustrators, Lois Lenski. 

Here is a photo of it over on Flickr.

Pincushion Challenge-Summer & Fall

Still catching up from my summer hiatus so with the Autumn Pincushion Challenge soon coming to an end, I thought I'd better post the summer theme pincushions as well as the fall one. 

The summer theme was a perfect opportunity to FINALLY finish a WIP from over a year ago.

Since I couldn't stick to just one pincushion, I also made this starfish.

And for the Autumn theme, I've been crazy for needle felting again and just had to make a pumpkin.

Flowering Pincushions

Surprisingly, I did make some progress on Wednesday's WIP.  These tools really make for quick cutting.  It was Mimi's idea.  This is the post where she introduces her amazing technique.  I used to painstakingly cut out each individual little flower as seen here.  It's much more fun to decorate a pincushion now that I have fancy cutters.  This is the first one I made using the new method.  And I made these using a similar design.

 

Does anyone have any brillant new ways to use a pincushion?  I'd love to hear some ideas.  I have quite a collection growing but really don't have a need to store that many pins.  Using it as a paperweight comes to mind.  It might also come in handy as a woodland fairy's tuffet.

For anyone who is interested in cutting felt using a paper punch, Moonstitches has a great tutorial showing just how to do this.

End of January challenges

Another late night post, but wanted to squeak in my December/January pincushion for the Winter Wonderland challenge.   A bit goofy, but here it is.   

Somehow I imagined it was going to be something more special.  Like this one I just love. 

So anyone else busy getting your craft on?  If you haven't heard of if, read this post for more details.  January theme was BAG.  So I made a little bag to hold some valentine goodies.

Forgive the bad hotel room lighting...this little bag is actually pretty cute. 

San Francisco has been wonderful!!  Thanks for all the lovely emails from those of you who live in the area...I hope for another opportunity to come back here and really PLAN to meet you all.  For now I'm looking forward to heading home tomorrow.  Just miss that little Peanut of mine. 

My Pincushion Challenge

swap mate has safely received her package so I feel free to post it here.  How fun for me to get the Hostess herself as my partner.  It is because of Julie I started making pincushions.  This is the first one I ever made, and I have loved making them ever since.  For Julie's I started with three different designs before I finally settled on this one, a style using felt, which is most familiar to me.  Here's the side view:   

Completed pincushion:

Handmade pins:

Pincushions, pincushions, pincushions

The August/September Pincushion Challenge theme is RECYCLE.  The three R's, that's what I'm all about.  How could I possibly refuse this one?  The rice we buy comes in these fun burlap bags, so I decided to make my pincushion using one of them...here's the bag:

     and the pincushion:

    See more of the pincushions in the challenge here in a few days when the new ones are added.  I just LOVE these adorable little tomato pincushions placed into recycled tomato paste cans.

Here are two pincushions I recently received in a swap.

   This darling flower style one is from Jessica.  It's beautifully made and so soft!

    And this adorable turtle pincushion is so unique.  I just LOVE it!!  The "shell" of the turtle is the actual pincushion, it comes off the body and has a ribbon attached to it that you can tie it around your wrist while using it.  This one came from Sarah-she makes incredible things out of felt!  She was so sweet to include this little felt frog for Peanut.   Thank you both so much, I just love the pincushions!

Finally, here are some more that I made. 

      I seem to be stuck in this one style, guess it's time to try something new.  Like maybe this one that I love.  Or I could always wait for Jackie's pattern and try to make one of these beautiful pincushions.

On a completely different note, I returned from San Diego last night.  While in California I was fortunate enough to have another get-together with Jen.  We laughed and talked and just enjoyed the company of one-another, it was really great to see her again.  Thank you dear friend for making the drive, I cherish the time we have together. 

(My apologies to those of you with bloglines, I can't seem to save the text where I want to without making the photos HUGE!!  And I keep trying and saving the post again with no luck.  One of these days I may figure it out.)

end of blue june

There is no lack of inspiration in the craft blogging community to get me motivated on a project.  So when I learned about Project Spectrum...why not?  Here are my completed blue projects for June:

This is also my entry for Boogaj's June/July Pincushion Challenge.  It was another first for me, and a lot of fun to make.  I love anything I can stitch by hand.

And I was motivated to knit a little pillow for Peanut for story-time.  A sweet soft place for him to rest while we read together.  And now Itty likes to join in too.

And just in case I had nothing else blue going on I signed up for the postcard swap.

One of these is on it's way to Boston, the other to New Zealand.

And finally, a photograph of blue salvia from my garden, that perhaps looks like it belongs in next months project spectrum.  See more project spectrum photos here.