Faux Rock Painting

Two weeks ago I started a project to paint a basement wall. It's basically a 6' by 6' space that will be used as a desk alcove. One wall will be covered with panelling and the concrete block walls are to be painted. I've had this idea to paint rocks on a wall but never had a wall to test my idea. Idea meet perfect opportunity.

The basement alcove.

The faux rock wall painting steps.

The floor painting steps.

The Before and After photos.

A little GIF of the project can be seen here https://youtu.be/MCBza48n0nk.

Thanks for Reading.

Aileen

St. Patrick's Day Placemats

The St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric placemats are coming along nicely. I drew up several design options but initially settled on a couple clover patchwork designs. I searched my design encyclopedias and found nothing that looked like a clover so I sketched out an idea for a very simple to construct clover block.

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I found some heart patchwork patterns and realized they could be adapted to a clover layout and made this simple but larger clover block. 

After making several of the smaller clover blocks I began sketching different layout options and I decided on this simple plan for a 14" x 20" placemat. 

The larger clover block is also set in a 14" x 20" layout with side checkerboard blocks. 

I have two more placemats to piece and at this point I think I may try to scale the larger clover block pattern down in size and make a third clover block pattern. I also have some ideas for Celtic ribbon patterns that I am may piece last. These are a little trickier to piece and look best with a directional fabric.

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen 

Cat Tested Heart Patchwork Placemats

I finished the Valentine's Day placements yesterday and they are currently undergoing intense cat testing for sleepworthyness. I'd say they were doing a good job. Too bad that bright light is an issue for the kitty. 

The completed quilts before washing:

And after washing:

I love the crinkled softness of the quilted pieces after they are washed.  

My next project: St. Patrick's day placemats with this awesome St. Paddy's Stonehenge 2 fabric. I'm thinking of some sort of celtic knot design but haven't graphed it yet.

Thanks for reading.  

Aileen

Patchwork Hearts and Cookies

Well, Valentine's Day is over and I didn't do much for it but I did make heart shaped cookies. 

And I continued working on the heart patchwork project. As usual, these new placemats won't be done on time for this year but I'll have them for next year. I have two more of these heart patchworks to piece, then some quick machine quilting and the binding. That's actually still several hours of work spread over a few more days. That's a lot more satisfying than spending several weeks or months on a project. 

Problem is I have more than enough cut pieces to make four placemats. Do I put the leftovers back into storage for some future project or just sew them all together in some random way an see what happens? Around my house every surface has some size quilt thing on it. I change them out throughout the year and have some made specifically for holidays. I suppose a couple more pink table quilts could be used someplace. But I suspect I'll be itching to move on to something else by the time I finish the heart placemats.

And I finished the bead project I was working on. I ended up choosing pyrite, amazonite, serpentine, turquoise, a copper penny token, and a bone arrowhead for the charms. I added in some jade, goldstone, marble, rhodonite and agate, as well as for interest and more good energy.

This has been a good week. Thanks for reading. 

Aileen

Faux Rocks and Valentines

I haven't had much energy or motivation this past week. The only explanation is it's February. But I did play around with a few things. 

I dabble in polymer clay from time to time. I am by no means any more than a beginner in this medium. I've learned enough to do a few little fun things. One of those fun things is making faux rocks and little hearts. The rocks I'm using as makeshift wall hooks for jewelry and small decorations. The hearts I just like to make and keep in a jar. 

Faux rocks. 

Jar of hearts. 

Valentine's Day will be here and gone probably before I do something for it. But something about holidays makes me think "Oh, Valentine's is coming, I should do something." But what? Maybe heart shape cookies?, a heart shape cake? some sort of decoration, or new placemats? I don't know. It's just a distraction. So I dug through my fabric stash and leftover cut fabric pieces and came up with a pile of pink pieces. Problem is some if this fabric is from the 'pinkish/mauvish' decorating period (1980's) and is just not appealing to me anymore. So I think this is a perfect opportunity for me to try out some fabric paint I have to see if I can 'fix' some of these colors. 

Odds and ends of fabrics in pink shades. Some of these are decades old. Does that make them 'vintage'? I realized looking through this fabric that some of it is very close in color to the 2015 color of the year, Marsala. Maybe that's why I don't like this year's color. Been there, done that.

Red and yellow fabric paint. 

But I got bored with that fabric painting process pretty quick and the painted fabric didn't look that much different than the unpainted fabric. Plus there were too many pieces to do. Instead I decided to cut some new brighter pink squares to mix in with the old colors to even out the overall effect once they are all sewn together. At least that's what I hope will happen. And I organized my stacks while pondering design options. I'll start with a simple heart placemat pattern. 

Neat stacks of squares and triangles, because I don't feel like sewing yet, and a simple square and triangle patchwork pattern.

I also have been washing some scrap of old wool fabric to see how well they full (felt). Again, with Valentine's in my head I'm pondering ideas using the felted wool in something. But I just keep cutting hearts trying to decide what to use them for. 

Red plaid, greys and black washed wool. 

Felted wool hearts.

There is a lot of indecision happening right now and not much crafting. So I decided to finish something I started in December and did complete another earth power bead strand. I just have to decide what gemstone charms to add on the end rings. Decisions, decisions. 

My options for charms - pyrite point, bone arrowhead, amazonite, serpentine, turquoise, Rhodonite, and assorted bone beads and copper charms. 

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen 

A Couple More Medicine Bags

It's like making pancakes. The first one out of the pan never comes out perfect and the last ones are usually just right. I worked through some design and construction details when making my first two medicine bags, so this one went together very easily. It has few embellishments because the intended recipient wanted it simple. Just some fringe, but not too much, and a couple beads.

This one was also a gift for someone who wanted it simple. There are no beads at all, just the arrowhead, but I did not spare on the fringe. Call it artist prerogative.  How can you have a medicine bag without a generous amount of fringe?!

The next medicine bag I make will be for myself. It will have beads, lots of them, and a generous amount of fringe, and most likely some other semi-precious gemstone embellishment.

Thanks for reading.
Aileen

A Medicine Bag and Other Little Things

I feel better now that I straightened up my craft room from the pre-Christmas crafting frenzy and can now move freely between the various stations I have set up in my hobby room. 

But I still have a couple leather projects sitting on my sewing table. This is the first of a couple of medicine bags I plan to make. I had never worked with leather before a couple months ago so this has been very much a trial-and-error exercise. Even the fringe I reattached four different ways because I didn't like how it was hanging. This wasn't the final version. After I took this photo I thought of another way to make the knots lie flat and in the same direction so I took all the fringe out and did it again.

This is another small leather journal but with a boo-boo. I cut a perfect cover for this little journal and it was laying on my work table when I accidentally clipped it with a scissors while cutting string. Yikes! Stupid me. I decided to use it anyway but with the added character of the extra repair stitches.

And another, improved crochet pouch for a mini leather journal. I love this yarn, it's a variegated cotton with wonderful colors. The pouch is all a tight single crochet except for some half-double and double stitches to form the curve on the flap.

 

And I did get the beads off my painting table so I have some collage work to get back to. I do have an area where I do bead and wire work but sometimes the thing I am currently working on temporarily encroaches into other areas. And once I get the leather projects off my sewing table I have some quilt projects I plan to work on. I guess my fantasy dream craft/hobby room is at least twice as big as the current one and has windows.

Thanks for reading.

Aileen