Pincushion-y Goodness

Once I started...

I couldn't stop...

until all the superfluous containers were filled with pincushion-y goodness.

I Know Better Now

Why?  Why are there velvet track suits for grown ups?  I'll never understand.

I do like their jewel tone colors, though.  

If I could just separate that from the fact that some people think they should be worn.

I had a plan for these that also found a use for some of my neglected ceramic collection.

Tada!  Pincushion!

  It was just an experiment and I'm very happy with the outcome.  

I used to wonder why anyone would ever need more than one pincushion.  

I know better now.  And no one is ever going to wear that track suit again,

Big News + shiny stuff

I've been pretty busy making stuff for our craft show on May 11th. (pssst..check out the links above this post) I haven't done a craft show in years and I'm super excited about this one because it's sort of the kick off event for my friend, Jennifer, and I.  

Drumroll please......

We are starting a business.  Woohoo!!!  

We will sell crafts, craft making materials (including some of the obscure, vintage-y, remake-y stuff we both love so much) teach crafts and help people get in touch with their creative sides.  We do some of this already though the Fearless Crafter workshops that we teach at Monona Library and we want to take our act on the road!  We'll slowly be rolling stuff out through the summer and into the fall.

We're calling ourselves Rusted Thread. 

I'm very excited and will have more detail coming up!

Back to now; I want to share some of the jewelry pieces I made over the weekend:

Those are hex washers up there with fresh water pearls and garnets.

I usually try to include some beads in everything but I just wasn't feeling it.  These are O-rings and little screw, eye things.

Big washers, some sort of gasket-y deal and lugs.

I don't know what these are made of but they're shiny!

Bracelet made out of lugs with sleeves.

And finally, a necklace made out of washers, beads and a tee-shirt!  I haven't made jewelry for a while but I really enjoy it.   I also wanted to practice my mad photographing skillz using my phone's camera to help me figure out if the pictures are good enough for Etsy... I can't decide.  I'll have to have a look around there and see what I can see.  

Hold me! I'm Scared!

Just a quickie.  This is my Grandfather's sweater.  It has holes.  I've been wearing it since the early 80's but less lately because I'm afraid of making them worse.

 Also, I haven't washed it in forever and a day.  A coupe of years ago I sewed the holes up with thread but I didn't like it.

My kids take pictures of themselves all the time like this. 

I used wool sock yarn and really highlighted the holey-ness of it all and now I love it even more.  

Next step:  Clean it.  Hold me!  I'm scared!  

Crazy

How do you like the new layout? 
I've added Rusted Thread to the blog name because (drum roll please) it's the name of my new, soon to be business! More detail to come!

Since I've just finished one quilt and haven't started anything else yet, I  thought I 'd show you this awesome crazy quilt my friends gave me.

It has a whole lotta staining and fabric wear.

But it's very cool.  It belonged to the mother of one of them who wasn't a quilter.

No one knows who made it.

It's hard to age, too.  Not all of the fabric looks old so it might be new but made with some older fabrics.

It's in my "So Cool But I Have No Plans For This" pile.  

Any thoughts?

Labyrinth

Totally and completely finished!

I kept in a couple of pockets but cut them up for fun. 

I made sure the stitching was just on the outside of the pockets so they're still somewhat usable.  I went over the back side of the quilt with running stitch so it wouldn't have a blank space. 

Here's some gratuitous closeups.  Note the red wheels in the back ground.  That's my tree trunk table, pushed off to the side.

And yes, before you even ask, I did walk the labyrinth.  Several times.  It's a short trip.

When I turned it over I realized that the backing is upside down.  D'oh.

Nothing to do about it now except call it quirky.

I added a sleeve for a hanging rod at one end but I don't think it'll get use much.  Why would someone take up a giant hunk o' wall with this when it could be keeping you warm and toasty on your couch?

Also, check it out:

Someone else's picture of my OCD quilt up at Absolutely Art for the Habitat for Humanity ReStore benefit.  ...tee hee...

Queen of Corners

I'm soooooo close.  I attached the binding last night.  I had to stop though because of the corners.

I am not the Queen of Corners.

It's this double binding thing that I did for the first time on my last quilt.  I never looked into a better way to make corners - which I totally have down on the other way to make binding.  So, today my royal responsibility is to figure it out. 

I hope to have a finished quilt to show you tomorrow.  

Finally!

I'm done with the quilting!  

That's really all I have to report.

Second picture because the lighting isn't great.  But it'll be days before we get actual sunshine.  

By then, it should be all done.  

Lucky Happy Perfect Quilt

This quilt is actually the full catastrophe.  Remind me next time I name a quilt to go with something like Happy Days or Lucky Me.

I've never added on to a quilt that is already a sandwich.  It's a real pain.  

I had to unpin the edges, add the denim on and hand sew some batting on.  Luckily, the backing was big enough, I didn't have to add any of that.  I don't think that would have looked right.

I know people machine quilt with machines like this and are used to it but I found it to be a pain.  The quilt is so heavy and bulky.  

But enough complaining, I like the way it's turning out.  I added a strip to the top (just to be safe) and then the edging on the left.  I decided not to just add the path part, I like that strip on the left too much to cut it up more.  

Happy...Unhappy

I bought all 12 skeins of the ecru embroidery thread at Wisconsin Craft Market.

They sold it to me - with a smile - in a cute little paper bag that reminded me of the bags I would get when buying penny candy as a kid.  Happy.

It's full body sewing.  I often need pliers to get the needle through all the layers.  I think it's because I'm using the whole 6 ply thread - I usually split it in half and use three plies.  Many plies = pliers.  Hmm.

At this point, I caught my fatal flaw.  Unhappy.

You saw me lay out the yarn template, right?  That was supposed to save me from myself.

http://labyrinthsociety.org/

Remember this?

It's hard to describe and harder to get a decent picture of but I have two ends left to connect which would make two more paths...

And only room for one more path.  Sooooo...  I f-ed it up.  

I'm not one to beat myself up at any length, though.  That's boring.

  I had a choice to make and it was actually really easy to make it.  I could either make the last path continue off the edge of the quilt so that you would have to imagine it there or widen the quilt.  

Imma widen the quilt.  The imaginary path off the edge really defeats the purpose of the labyrinth.  I was halfway tempted to only add that part of the quilt that will have a path on it... actually, I still am tempted to do that.  It might be too complicated for someone who couldn't fit a labyrinth on a quilt even using a template.   Only one way to find out.

I did have a place for the path there at one point but took it out thinking it was extra.  

Enough typing..time to do some improvising!

Hooh Ah

After futzing about a bit, I picked my stitch for the labyrinth quilt:

Chain Stitch.  

Every time I think of it I get the song "Chain Gang" in my head.  

It looks solid on the denim side.  

If you clicked play, you are now enjoying this post with musical accompaniment and this will make sense:

Hooh ah

It's like a close running stitch on the Bark Cloth side.  The chains are kinda large but with the fabric being so thick I feel like it works.  

Hooh Ah

Now the decision is made I'm moving pretty quickly.  I ran out of thread already, I'm not used to using so much, running stitch takes very little thread.  

Hooh Ah.

It's pretty primitive looking at this point.  I'm hoping I still like it when it's done because at that point, it'll be done, ya know.  I'm so short on time, they'll be no revisions.  

Hooh Ah.

Dang!

I know the answer to this but who's job is it to keep me from doing stupid things?

And if it's mine I'm screwed!

So, quilting a labyrinth.  Great idea for someone who isn't afraid to do the math.  Getting the labyrinth to fit took some figgerin'. I measure and divided and T-pinned where I thought the different parts would go. 

Then I stood there scratching my head.

For a while.

 Finally I gave up and cheated, just like I used to do in 9th grade algebra.

I laid out some yarn to see where it should go and just fudged the placement a bit till it fit.

There was a lot of empty space at the bottom here so I just shifted the pins down and I'm hoping for the best.

I didn't start this as a place to practice stitches but it's worked out that way.

I'm still figgerin' on how to quilt it.  I need a more solid line for the labyrinth to really show so I tried back stitch instead of running stitch.  It worked on the front.

But not really on the back.  

More figgerin' for me.