The Fabric of Friendship is Stitched with Love

I love mixing different crafting mediums in my projects.  This project showcases my love for sewing and rubber stamping all in one!  I made this vintage sewing shadow box (say that 5 times really fast) for my quilting friend, Carol for her birthday.  Truly our friendship is like a fabric, stitched with love. 

For this project, I used some rubber stamps with a sewing theme, stamped the image onto some designer paper and cut them out.  I stamped the "pattern" stamp onto vellum and sponged it with some crumb cake ink to give it the look of sewing pattern tissue.  I used some antique buttons that I had bought at a garage sale and found the little sewing machine in the doll house section of the craft store!

I also added fabric yo yo's (my favorites!) and some pieces of cardboard wrapped with fabric to resemble bolts of fabric.  The spools of thread are a rubber stamp image wrapped with DMC floss.  The tape measure is also a rubber stamp that I colored in and cut out.  I glued it on using sticky strip, allowing for gathers in the paper to look like a tape measure. 

Do you ever mix your sewing and stamping crafts together? 

Applique Kitty Going to a Round Robin

I've been wanting to make an applique and embroidery project for a while, so here is my first attempt!  I love how the little applique kitty came out!   I have to admit, the embroidery isn't that great.  And the applique needs a LOT of work! I hope my friend Carol, who is an applique professional does not look too closely! Maybe she can give me a few tips the next time I see her!

This really cute pattern is from Lynette Anderson. It's a block-of-the-month that I bought last year. It has cats in some of the blocks and dogs in others.  I hope now that I've tried one block that I will attempt to make a few more (and get better at my technique!) 

Next time I make this block I will use a lighter fabric for the appliqued kitty.  Because the fabric is dark, you can't really see his face very well.

These little kitties are going to be part of a Round Robin challenge in my quilt group.  Each person submits a quilt square and every month a different person takes it home to add borders and more to it.  I can't wait to see what it will look like in June when I get it back!

Wintry Day

I woke up to this sight of snow today!  I'm glad we didn't get the one to two feet of snow that was predicted! 

I like the calm hush when it snows.  There's a strange silence to the snow almost as if it is telling you a secret. 

I wanted to share one of my favorite quilts with you today.  It's a wall hanging that I made from a Debbie Mumm pattern.  I sewed one-inch strips of fabrics in rows, then cut them out into flower shapes.  I had to put some stabilizer on the strips to keep them from falling apart while I sewed them onto the squares. I finished it up by adding some yo-yo's with buttons.  I just love these fabrics!