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

New Year, Old Projects

I'm still trying to get back to the projects I was working on before Christmas. This week I finally got all the Christmas decorations taken down, packed up and put away. At the beginning of every year I go through a process of writing a personal summary of the previous year and setting goals and milestones for the coming year. This often takes several days. I have been a journalist for decades.  I started journaling late in my 20's and each year since, I have strengthened that habit with more frequent and detailed writings, so at this point I am keeping a daily and several specific topic personal journals. As a result, a year end summary is not as simple as writing a couple sentences. It takes longer. 

So I still haven't done any crafts in the past two weeks to speak of. I did sit and free crochet this little pouch for a mini journal while watching tv. It's a prototype and I need to adjust the pattern some. The little flap is sort of wonky. But I added a bone button and its works the way I wanted it to. 

Thanks for reading. 

Aileen 

Post Christmas Regroup

Whew, the rush to get too many things done before Christmas is over. Now it's time to access the damage to my craft room and what is still on 'The List' to finish or forget. But my fingers have been very busy and this is what I've done in the past two weeks. 

These are what I call mini memento journals. They are the same size and design as the other mini journals I've been making recently but they have some preprinted pages inside with vintage family photos. 

I carefully formatted a file with these little photos in a grid based on the cut page size for these journals . That was the hard part. Printing out the pages and putting together the journal was easy after that. These were all bound with a cross-stitch pattern and the paper was tea stained and torn to give it a soft aged look.

I also made a couple more mini journals and some little journals that are not as tiny as the mini's.

These Mini's (above) are 2" x 2" but the Little's (below) are 3.5" x 3".  These were all bound with a simple long-stitch because they have more than 3 signatures each.

After finishing the journals I made a couple more earth power bead strands. There are 36 different gemstone beads in each strand with pyrite, quartz and amazonite anchoring the ends. I also put the beads on in alphabetical order beginning with Aventurine and ending with Unakite.

There are still a couple unfinished projects on the work table that I do plan to finish over the holidays. Then I have to back up to whatever I was into back in September before the "holidays" started directing my efforts.  

Thanks for reading. Have a Happy New Year!
Aileen

Beaded Snowflake Ornaments and Mini Gifts

Thanksgiving is over, the house is decorated for Christmas, most of the Christmas shopping is done, even some cookies have been made. That means it must be time to make some new ornaments and gifts. Nothing like getting motivated at the last minute to do projects I'd been planning for 12 months. 

I bought the wire snowflake forms these ornaments were made with last year! I did make one of the ornaments last year AFTER Christmas then moved on to do other things the rest of the year. This project has been waiting for me to get back to it for 12 months. These ornaments are a combination of 1950's vintage blown glass beads and new glass beads. 

And I'm still working on mini leather journals. This is the 5th one I've made and I went with fat and chunky and a simple long stitch binding this time. It also has tea stained hand torn pages of drawing paper. I learn something every time I make one of these.