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? 

Treasured Quilt for a Treasured Friend

I like to experiment with using different fabrics in my sewing and quilting.  While I was out on a quilt shop tour, I spotted some unique fabric in vibrant colors that I don't normally use. I brought them home and mixed them up with some of my other fabrics in my stash and this is the quilt that I came up with. 

I used 5" squares to make this quilt, so you could make a quilt like this using charm squares and adding a few from your stash to add variety.  I thought it had a simple, yet stunning look to it.

I gave to a dear friend of mine from high school for her birthday.  We have had quite a colorful friendship, doing many different things together over the years.  I thought the vibrant colors in this quilt reminded me of our treasured times together.

I cropped the photo so that you could see some of the fabric up close.  (Believe it or not, there is actually Christmas fabric used in this quilt, too!  Can you spot it in the close-up photo?)

What different combinations colors have you experimented with? How did they turn out?

Quilts for the Nieces

This past year I have been working on throw quilts for my nieces that live in Virginia.  Here is one that I finished for my oldest niece.  I also made her a little tote bag and a table topper mini quilt to match.

I try to stick to simple patterns so that I can actually finish my projects!  Ha ha!  This pink and teal fabric has cute girlie designs on it.  I used a basic block design with a sashing.  I added the black squares for contrast.  Once I put the top of the quilt together, I thought that it was too plain, so I added some 9-patch blocks in the borer and some assorted squares in the top border to add some interest. 

Here's a close-up photo:

This is the quilt that I made for my next older niece:

It was my one of my first attempts at appliqueing pieces onto a square.  Sewing all of those flower petals on took me a LOT longer than I thought it would!  (A lot longer!)  The nice thing with the applique is that I could bring the squares with me and work on them while I was waiting during my appointment times.

I had a lot of fun working with the different bright pink fabrics and definitely ended up with may too much fabric when I was done! (I could make 10 more pink quilts with all of the fabrics that I ended up buying! But, shh- don't tell anyone!)  At the end I added some lime green in the center of the flowers and in the sashing rows to add some contrasting color.

I am still working on one more quilt for my next younger niece.  Hopefully I can finish it soon before she outgrows the fabric designs!

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!