Merry Christmas from Quincy

merry christmas, my crafty ladies. i made these quilted beauties for my mom for christmas. the wreath i acutally made last year but i needed to add a sleeve on the back for hanging it. the cat christmas panel was bought in EA after last christmas. i hope you all have a wonderful day tomorrow. may santa bring you many crafty surprises.

Merry Christmas!

And a Happy, Crafty New Year to my craft-acular pals! Many thanks to you for inspiration, ideas and general good times. I'm looking forward to seeing what 2007 brings our way.

Love,

Erica

Finished!

The throw is finished! Although not a hard project, it was alot of sewing and thinking.

The back is black polar fleece.

Patti

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful to have such creative, funny & caring friends and daughters in my life!

With love to all~Patti

As Requested

These are the decoupaged plates. I am pretty happy with them but I would do a few things a bit different if I do more. The inspiration plates were $58 mine are about $4 each, if that! I am going to put the plate in a square basket, standing upright with a loaf of pumpkin chocolate chip bread for my sister-in law for Thanksgiving. I would like to make some Christmas plates for hostess gift giving .

As we speak, I am putting the binding on the throw. Tomorrrow I will add a stamped patch or two and it will be done! I will post then.~Patti

Birthday gift!

We went up to PA this weekend and I wanted to show off my birthday gift from my friend, Deb. She got me a bunch of fabric samples, you know, from those sample books that we covet. An absolutely fabulous gift!



We made the observation that there aren't many people who would get so excited over this type of thing.

Yarn & Fabric

Here are some projects I am going to tackle.

The first is a throw to help tie the colors of the living room together. The fabric on the far left covers the seats on the dining room chairs. It is very busy so picking fabrics is not very easy. I went to the sewing center in EA and was mildly surprised at the cost per yard of these beauties-$9. Is that alot or am I out of touch? I really need some more prints I think. Three just isn't going to cut it. The striped fabric is green, even though it appears dark in the picture. I'm thinking, black of some sort for certain. Tell me what you think..all suggestions welcome.



The second project is a for a baby blanket. Amy picked out the pattern last weekend and I went to Wooly Lamb and picked out this yarn. It is so soft. It is knit in strips so it should be pretty quick. I can't wait to start it!


That's it from here!~Patti

While we're on the subject of Halloween...

...here's a quilt I made for my favorite 1 year old, Kayla.

Costumes and pumpkins!

Look at the Halloween costume I made my favorite 2 year old! it will probably fit him next year, so the plan is to find lots more cool patches for him in the meantime. And isn't it cool that they do Mr. Potatohead pieces for pumpkins?

halloween crafty post

Here is my one halloween crafty creation this year. It was a kit. It's one big panel with 2 borders. Very easy and fun to make. The beagle bagel for halloween did not work out. I'll try harder next year. -amy

Don't get too excited...

...it's just a couple of websites.

The first is stitchlounge.com. VERY cool, though not particularly close to any of us.

The second is reprodepotfabrics.com. Alot of great fabric, trim, buttons, etc.

My current project seems to be the house--espotts.blogspot.com. We picked paint colors on Saturday and I did a bit of purging and packing on Sunday. So you may not be seeing much from me in the way of output for a bit. But I think I'm going to Stitches on Saturday, so I'll file a report next week.

CowBOO Hat

Working outside your normal is some times scary......





Let me explain. Usually my sister has a Halloween party so this year I decided to be prepared. My mother, father, sisters and nephews expect me to be weird and I did not wish to disappoint them. All of this stuff, except the netting came from the dollar store, even the hat. So yesterday with my trusty glue gun in hand I got to work. Bats, snakes, roaches, spiders, rats, etc., adorn the brim. The netting is black with orange sparkles. I think it will look stunning with a black skirt, black jacket and black cowboy boots. I also have a string of BIG orange beads to wear which were also from the $store. I wanted to be subtle, yet edgy. Did I succeed?

I hope the crafters challenge didn't spell the end of our blog..it's been pretty quiet! I know what Amy and Kristen have been up to, but where are your priorities? Remember our motto? "Blog first and take care of other things after".

My Oh My! What a week it was!!!

crafts from quincy

so i guess we're not doing the anonymous thing...here are my crafty driftwood creations. sorry i'm a little late.

Driftwood Challenge

You know how much I love the beach and you know how muc I love driftwood so I crafted this life sized model of my favorite animal ----Not!!














This is a shrine which I titled "Bird's Eye View".
The small people on park benches were found at an antique mall out West and I never knew what to do with them, until now. The legs are brass bolts from the hardware store and the bird is from a garage sale. The back and sides are plastered with "birdy" sayings.
The most fun was trying to get everything to stay glued.
I gave this piece of driftwood several coats of clear spray and then split a chunk off-oh darn!#%&*!!-when I tried to put a hole in it thus the 2 gold beads at the bottom in an attempt to cover up the mistake. The chain is an extra long old watch chain, the amber pendant both flea market finds.

So I boiled down the driftwood...

...to create cellulose pulp, which I then spun into fiber and wove some ribbon, to which I afixed some chalcedony beads to create this necklace.


OK, maybe not.

Instead I made this ocean-themed scarf of silk and velvet. I'm not sure the photos turned out as well as I'd like--there is an image of a seahorse and a nautilus, along with part of an ee cummings poem, "for whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it's always ourselves that we find at the sea."

The driftwood serves as part of the toggle closure.

driftwood challenge

So I made an anti-teasing crown! Sticks and stones may break my bones ....

Thank goodness mom gave me a skeleton on my Halloween gift -- it was just the perfect piece to add in! Elements you may not be able to pick up in the picture include brown lace, doilies, copper findings, feathers, torn paper, old trim, DRIFTWOOD, and even (yes, I know its crazy!) some religious medals ...

I'm going to try to get the shoe polish out from underneath my fingernails. I'm thinking I'll put this into a box and send it around for an in person viewing -- kinda like what they do with the Stanley cup. Who wants it first?

Happy Birthday!

Nothing says "you're my dearest friend" than posting an unflattering picture from past adventures! I'm sure you attacked the driftwood challenge with the same intensity you're showing contemplating whatever it is you're contemplating on these Swedish steps.

Have a great day E -- and many more years of crafting bantering. I need someone to finish my sentences!

2 Days and Counting!!

A centerpiece for your next dinner party?

3......

More Inspiration!!

Four Days Left!

We are fast approaching October 14th. Are you ready? Here's some inspiration!


Patti 10/10/06 12:00pm

Crafty Bastards and more!

Happy First Day of October! Now can someone tell me exactly where September went????

Unlike Fiber Fest (Patti, your description made me smell wet wool), today was the perfect day for Crafy Bastards--75 and sunny.And it was packed! I'm glad I went early. There were about 100 vendors, about 10-15 of which were really high quality, though many ideas to be had all around. Oddly, there were two booths that were inspired by squid (one was really cute: cleodee.etsy.com). A lot of buttons (like campaign buttons, not clothing buttons), which I hadn't realized were quite so big. Very cool bags with funky construction by pistol (www.pistolstitched.com--love the name!). My big purchase was a bag:

It's all handsewn, fabric and leather. The flap tucks into the black horizontal strap. I'm not sure you can see, but the circly patterns are my color blue. I think this artist was on Daily Candy (www.miyasol.com). I also got a little shirt for Kayla from www.1girl1boy.com:

So I'll go again next year, knowing that there's lots of stuff to be sifted through.

I've made some jewellery the past couple weeks. Here's a necklace I made for my mom's birthday, of tiger's eye, alabaster & silver, with a 3d silver flower pendant.

This one is for my friend Deb's birthday (red tiger's eye, olive & bronze pearls, brown goldstone, silver & a pearl clasp). Let's just talk about how hard it is to scale things down for someone smaller!
I had worked on this one in Santa Fe but was never quite happy with it, so I redid it and made a bracelet to match.
Now here's the one that I want advice on. It's square pearls, silver beads, and jade-like rose things dangling from it. I'm not sure this is the right clasp for this idea, though. The clasp has garnets in it. Thoughts?
Now I'm going to go rip out what I did yesterday on the Challenge. I'm having trouble with the translation from head to product.

I Swear...

I swear I made this before I looked at the pictures of the other ribbon necklaces. I will admit that I was inspired by another necklace I saw on the web which was intriquingly referred to as 'the whip'. The problem is, it's very hard to find beads that the ribbon will fit thru so I ended up hand sewing most of the beads to the ribbon. Tedious, at best! Is it very dorky looking?

So, are we all good with the 14th as a final finish date for our 1st Crafters Challenge?

Posted by Patti

An Exciting New Contest!

In an effort to keep us all busy-or crazy-I am offering a crafters challenge. Shortly you will receive in the mail a small piece of drift wood that I found while walking along the shore of Lake Erie on a beautiful day!

Let your imaginations soar and see what you can make with this. There are no rules for the contest so you can do anything you want to the wood. We can set a date for showing of our completed projects. Let me know how long you need. 2 weeks? 3 weeks? and then we can post pictures. If you think this is just to crazy and that I've gone over the edge, you're right!

Here are pictures of the necklace I finished. They are both made from old stuff I found at flea makets. The gold one is a shoe buckle and the pewter one is from Renningers (the last time we went together). It was a necklace. I am really liking putting together odd combinations. Are they to odd?

Posted by Patti

An Exciting New Contest!

In an effort to keep us all busy-or crazy-I am offering a crafters challenge. Shortly you will receive in the mail a small piece of drift wood that I found while walking along the shore of Lake Erie on a beautiful day!

Let your imaginations soar and see what you can make with this. There are no rules for the contest so you can do anything you want to the wood. We can set a date for showing of our completed projects. Let me know how long you need. 2 weeks? 3 weeks? and then we can post pictures. If you think this is just to crazy and that I've gone over the edge, you're right!

Here are pictures of the necklace I finished. They are both made from old stuff I found at flea makets. The gold one is a shoe buckle and the pewter one is from Renningers (the last time we went together). It was a necklace. I am really liking putting together odd combinations. Are they to odd?

Posted by Patti

Playing catch-up

I thought I'd catch you all up on what I've been doing lately. I got tired of not being able to find long skirts and took matters into my own hands. The black and melon ones are linen. The green one is from silk that Rob brought back from China. And, K, you were with me when I bought the bamboo stuff to make a dress, again years ago. Hmmm...perhaps there's hope of using up my stash after all.

I started the turquoise necklace in Santa Fe, but I though it needed something else so I added another strand. The silver necklace and bracelet were inspired by some I saw in Sundance.

I also spent this morning at the Sully Quilt Festival in Chantilly, Va.


It was really quite nice--fabric, some crafts, quilts for sale. I got some nice fabric and a ton of ideas. You should think about coming for it next year. And K, you'll get a double header, as it's at the home of Robert E. Lee's uncle, Richard Bland Lee.

Rain, rain go away!!

I thought some new pictures might lift our spirits! What an absolutely dismal way to end the summer.

Anyhow, the red necklace is ruby jade and very sparkly. The clasp is cool because it's a teardrop shaped loop with a bird toggle. I only explain that because the picture doesn't show it up very well.


The other necklace is all glass beads. I thought it looked very Fallish but I am not sure It will go with anything since the colors are a little weird. It weighs a ton!














The bag was fun to make. It's four pieces made seperately. The pieces are lined and have pockets and then the 4 pieces are hand sewn together. It's alot of Hand sewing and then you have to make 8 tiny buttonholes. Truth is, I like the origami just as well and it is far less intense.















Well, that's all I've got for now. Keep dry and be thinking about that show we want to do and our next weekend together. There is a show in EA at the end of Sept. called the FiberFest. Last year was it's 1st year. A friend who did the show last year and is doing it again this year said it was a pretty good show(juried) and the entrance fee is not to high. I will check it out for sure. Only problem ~it is an outdoor show which could be tricky in late Sept.

I have 3 new magazines so I am off to read them and hopefully not fall asleep before I get inspired.

Keep dry! Patti