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The winner of the Southern Fabric giveaway is #183, Marcia! Congratulations. Also wanted to mention that I did another holiday tutorial round-up for Sew, Mama, Sew last week including this felt mistletoe ball (pictured above) by Amanda Carestio for Heart Felt Holidays. Remember my little elves for that book? A stuffed version of my wooden elf skittles from a few years back.
Today I’m excited to be part of the Ruby Star Wrap-Along to celebrate the new book Ruby Star Wrapping from the sweet and talented duo of Melody Miller and Allison Tannery. Melody made the projects and Allison wrote the text, then Melody’s husband took the photos and Allison’s husband did the layout. Those are some seriously talented couples! The book features simple and creative ideas for gift packaging, many projects using re-purposed materials or items you may have on-hand. With 30 project ideas plus variations, this book will inspire you to put that extra time into making a gift look special. I chose to do the felt ball theme, because I haven’t done any felting in a while, and I wanted to try it again. Now, it’s much easier to buy felt balls. I recently bought some nice ones from this Etsy seller and plan to turn them into garland. But you can also make them! This is a very good video that will guide you through the wet felting process, but truthfully, it took me about 10 minutes to make each ball and unless you enjoy pruning up your hands in hot soapy water, you might prefer to just buy them! I do think wet felting is a fun project for a craft night or a project to do with kids (wearing rubber gloves). You just need wool roving, hot soapy water and elbow grease. You can see my first couple of attempts over on A Happy Stitch, where I wrote a post for Melissa’s Fail Friday about craft failures, or as I call them — experiments. Anyway, I don’t know how my friend Laura has the patience for felting.
So…now you’ve made (or bought) the felt balls. What to do with them? Melody has some great ideas for garland and gift packaging. I had some medium gauge wire on hand, so I tried the lollipop bouquet (pictured in the two photos from Melody’s book below).
Once I’d made a little grouping of three, I walked around the house looking for something to attach them to and found our wreath. They would look really sweet as “berries” tucked into a wreath.
But then I saw that they looked a bit like balloons too and my older daughter is crazy about doll stuff, so I sneaked a Calico Critter out of her room and took this photo. I tucked the wire under and wrapped tape around it so the ends wouldn’t be sharp. Oh, I wish I could just make miniature doll things all day long.
Be sure to post your own projects from Ruby Star Wrapping in the flickr pool here and if you don’t have the book, go get it! Here’s the full wrap-along tour schedule: 11.7.12 – Anna of noodlehead 11.9.12 Amanda of A Crafty Fox 11.12.12 – Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! 11.14.12 – Brooke of Pitter Putter Stitch 11.16.12 – Erin of Two More Seconds 11.19.12 - Jennifer of BettyCrockerAss 11.21.12 – Rochelle of Lucky Lucille 11.23.12 – Sukie of Sukie – don’t you know who I am? 11.26.12 – Elizabeth of Don’t Call Me Betsy 11.28.12 – Gina and crew of Bolt Neighborhood 11.30.12 – Ellen of the Long Thread 12.3.12 – Katie of Swim, Bike Quilt 12.5.12 Faith of Fresh Lemon Quilts 12.7.12 Lee of Freshly Pieced 12.10.12 Maureen of Maureen Cracknell Handmade 12.12.12 Sara of Sew Sweetness 12.14.12 Colleen of The Busy Bean 12.17.12 Amy of Diary of a Quilter 12.19.12 Monica of Happy Zombie
What’s more exciting than seeing your book in print? Seeing it printed in Swedish! For those of you in Sweden, I think it will be in stores soon, with mönster medföljer! I think that means “patterns included”. For those in the U.S., you can get the English version at amazon!
I’m tying up loose ends this morning. I made this bag over the weekend, using the new Nani Iro brushed twill from Miss Matatabi. Soft and beautiful fabric! This fabric has a bit of shimmer to it on the pink flowers and the band lining brown fabric has super bright neon polka dots, which my camera refused to adequately capture here. I also used my scalloped gray fabric for the interior lining. I’m making some scarves and cowls with this fabric for the Indie Craft Experience, and may make a couple of these bags with a reversible option. I talked to the Atlanta Modern Quilt Guild over the weekend and was excited to see so many quilting enthusiasts all together! I’m planning to head to QuiltCon in February and am really looking forward to it.
And this Wednesday begins a fun Wrap-Along for the new book, Ruby Star Wrapping by Melody Miller and Allison Tannery, organized by Amy (Sukie) of Sukie Don’t Ya Know. So, grab a copy of the book, make some things and link to your projects! There will be weekly prizes and different bloggers posting every few days. See the full schedule here. I’ll be making a project later in the month. Also, wanted to let you know that I have uploaded images of my Stamped collection for you to use for your online shop or on your blog. Feel free to pull images and share the fabric!
Right now I’m working on a project using vintage sheets, like these Vera Neumann sheets pictured above, so I had vintage fabric on my mind over the weekend. And I’ve been reading some of my childhood books and remembering how much I love them! I thought I’d share a few things.
Pictured above is a snowball quilt that I bought on ebay for not much at all. The fabrics are amazing and the entire quilt top is hand pieced. When I got it in the mail, it reeked of smoke and was yellowed. So I soaked it in the tub (which resulted in nicotine-colored water) and it’s back to white again with no odor. It’s on my someday list of projects to make it into a quilt. Love this snowball design.
Also, I ordered some things from this Etsy shop, and the owner sent me a few extra vintage goodies. Like these patchwork stars, pictured above. Perhaps the best part about them is the paper backing, which appears to be some type of farm newspaper. It’s nice to see this snapshot of someone’s life and time. Maybe my half-finished projects will be passed along one day to someone who can make something from them! They are certainly stacking up. I’ve also been reading one of my favorite childhood books to my kids, The Fourteen Bears in Summer and Winter by Evelyn Scott (still available used, but expensive). I loved this book as a child, which you can tell from the crayon marks and torn pages. It’s the story of a bear family during the seasons. As my daughter pointed out, the bears are all girls (except for the father and the baby) and each girl bear has her own tree house with its own style of decor. I loved looking at the houses and thinking about which house I loved the most. I loved the whimsical painted furniture of the Dutch-style house, the clean lines of the modern house, and the cozy draped beds of the fancy houses. Looking at it now, I realize that I’ve never been able to settle on just one style! I always fight with myself about the materialistic nature of loving design, but I still do love pretty things. I’ll blame this book.
And another book that I had as a child and recently ordered used is the book pictured below, Tony the Magic Pony, written by C. Parma and illustrated by J. Sengler. Not only is the main character’s name Ellen, but the book has unique and charming illustrations. The little girl lives on a small island, but wishes for a magical pony, who helps her rope another island and make more space. I loved everything about this book.
I really do think the illustrations in our children’s books are important to helping our kids appreciate art. I had no idea how much I was connected to my childhood books until I had children of my own and started reading the books of my childhood. Like these here and here that I’ve blogged about in the past. |
 
 
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