Ornaments!

Hello there! Who's ready for Thanksgiving (if you're in the U.S. and celebrating, of course)?!

The boys are out of school for the week and the hubby is off work starting tomorrow. With record rainfall around here, I'm looking forward to some cozy time at home with the family, and some opportunities to get my crafty on!

I have ornaments on the brain and thought I would do a little round-up of all the ornament tutorials and free downloads we have available here on Stumbles & Stitches.


Tutorial: Scrappy Stocking Christmas Ornament




Tutorial: Felt Beehive Ornament




Tutorial: Knotty Christmas Tree Ornaments





Layer Play Ornament




Little Birds Ornament and Garland




Felt Flora and Merry Little Ornament






And if you want even more inspiration for Christmas projects, here are a couple of extra downloads courtesy of Lark Crafts:


Milk and Cookie Mats: Free Download





Read Between the Lines Pillow: Free Download



What are you guys working on over the Thanksgiving break? Please be sure and check back tomorrow for some aweesome deals from our sponsors! Happy Thanksgiving!!

When in doubt, sew straight lines

Jenny, I am in love with the table runners! I bought a ton of Bella fabric on sale last week, and that warm grey dot was in my cart. I think I bought all they had left! I'm turning mine into curtains, but will hopefully have enough left for a table runner or a few pillows.



Speaking of curtains: I have finished four so far! I was thrilled that Lee said "yes" when his sister asked if we could host Thanksgiving this year, not only does it give me something helpful and generous to focus my energy on, it gives me motivation to finish up some projects I've had on my mind for months.

 

This also reminds me of my new motto: "When in doubt, sew straight lines." Next time I'm feeling overwhelmed or frazzled or just need to clear my mind, I'm going to sit down with a pile of scraps and just start sewing straight lines and see what happens. Maybe I should have some quilt squares cut ahead of time, for piecing? Hmmm.

I think that may be why I am stuck on the project I mentioned last week, it's making my brain hurt! Since the whole thing was conceived starting at 4:30 am, I wasn't thinking that far ahead, and I am unsure how to finish these little drawings so that they are preserved.

Won't it make the cutest table runner for Thanksgiving? I have another batch of curtains to make for the living room (straight lines!) and maybe that will clear out the cobwebs long enough to come up with a brilliant idea.......

U.S. readers, what are you planning for Thanksgiving? And everyone: what should I do with Ian's drawings? Help!

A Few Table Runners

Hello!!!

I'm coming up for air to check in. I can't believe it's been 10 days since my last post. November is always my crazy busy month, prepping for the holidays, and now that I have a little business, it is even nuttier.

I've been prepping for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I also signed up for an art sale here in Seattle (December 8, 12:30-6:30PM at Red Square Yoga, come see me!) and getting ready for it is taking away every ounce of free time I might have had left. Fun stuff, though! I have so many things prepped and cut, and now need to SEW SEW SEW!!!




I have started listing some things from my Fall-Winter collection in the shop, mostly table runners (see above). A couple of months ago, I came up with a design for my own home (see below) and liked it so much, I made this bunch to sell on Etsy. You can see photos here on my biz blog and of course, in the Table Runners section of my shop.

Below is what I made for my house. I love the Bella collection by Lotta Jansdotter so much, I wanted to make a center piece for our dining room table with it. Grey is currently my favorite color (and the color of our dining room chair cushions!), so I decided to showcase that simple dotted print and bind it in natural linen. I added a layer of batting and quilted the runner with a large zigzag and it turned out great!








If you'd like one of these for yourself, there is one in my shop! It is slightly more rectangular to fit most tables.




While I was on a roll with table runners, I decided to make one for our window shelf / nature table. That spot drives me crazy. It hosts the kids' collections of shells, rocks, pinecones and acorns (depending on the season) along with small seasonal crafts and small plants. This shelf is a scratched up wood board, painted white, and I've wanted to cover it for ages.




While my natural linen and the batting were out, I cut pieces to size and quilted the layers with wavy lines. I then bound the whole thing with a small print from Rashida Coleman-Hale's Washi collection.








I love how simple and crisp it is. Perfect for showcasing the kids' treasures!

All right, on this note, I've got to get back to the sewing machine while Henry is still at preschool! I hope to check in soon with more updates.

What are you guys up to lately? How are you getting ready for the upcoming holidays? I'd love to hear from you in the comments, and if you'd like, please share links to your crafty projects!

More stitching, to settle the mind

So, when the kids both woke up at what I thought was 5:30 am on Sunday (bad enough) and then I realized it was really 4:30 am because of the time change, I muttered some choice cuss words under my breath and crawled out of bed. As you know, Lee's dad passed last week,  and Lee has been under so much stress he needs to sleep in every chance he can get. So I was glad to let him sleep, but very grumpy at the prospect of entertaining a 3 year old and a 7 year old in a quiet manner (small house, as you know) for how many ever hours.

TV, a relatively quiet and easy fall back, was not an option that early. We don't have cable, and PBS here does not start showing kid programming until 6 or 7 am. Our "AirPort" is also on the fritz, which means no purchased TV or rerouted stuff from the computer. Did I mention there's no DVD player hooked up, either? It's practically medieval in this house (ha ha).  I got everyone settled with some cereal and warm tea (extra strength coffee for me) and sat down at the table with my go-to project these days: the Winterwoods Sampler from Posie: Rosy Little Things . My hope was that I would be inspired (and settled) by stitching for a few minutes so I could engage the kids in a non-disruptive, creative way.

Have you seen this sweet sampler? It's cross-stitch, and manages to feel antique and modern all at once, thanks to the sophisticated materials that come with the kit and the fresh motifs. Gorgeous linen, hand dyed cotton thread and very clear, concise instructions are all included, and the fact that cross stitch is so incredibly easy to put down and pick up really appeals to me. 

I think I got about twenty stitches in before Silas started begging me to try it, and Ian started asking when he could learn how to sew. A month ago, or even a few weeks ago, I might have gotten really overwhelmed (and irritated, if I'm honest) at the thought of starting this process at 5 am. But instead, I took a deep breath and snuck back into the bedroom to find a small hoop and some open weave burlap fabric just perfect for a 3 year old.

This is what Silas ended up with! A few things I do to help along the process: use thick, sturdy yarn with a large eyed, blunt tipped metal needle (tapestry needles work great). I use a relatively open weave burlap type fabric with kids as small as Silas, and I put it into a wooden hoop very tightly so that there is no "give" to make it feel wobbly. Last, I tie the yarn to the needle at the very top to keep it from slipping off, and I make sure the yarn is no longer than about 18 inches to 24 inches. It means more yarn changes, but anything longer is super hard to pull through each time.

Ian was intrigued by the individual motifs of the sampler, and decided to draw his own "autumn" sampler on paper. He told me, "No guys with guns mom, or ninjas like normal. Just stuff like pumpkins and guys with hats." When I saw how cool his drawings were, I grabbed a bag of cross stitch fabric scraps and saw a long, slender strip. I taped it down to the kid table and had him sketch a few of the images big enough to fill the space.

We used fabric markers to trace over the pencil sketch, he needed a tiny bit of help tracing a few of the finer details but overall he did it by himself! I love these so much, he is constantly drawing and it is so great to see him branching out a bit in the subject matter. He is quite the artist these days!

I started working on a project with his drawings today, I hope to have it ready to show you next week! Just in time for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Stay tuned. I am looking forward to spending lots of time with my family (both immediate and extended) this holiday season, how about you?

Readers, thank you so much for your kind words from my last post. Lee's father passed away peacefully at home last week, he will be missed terribly by all of us.

Halloween Costume: Peregrine Falcon

Hi Angel!

I hope you're enjoying the weekend. The Daylight Savings time switch is once again kicking our butts over here, with Henry up at 4 a.m. instead of his usual 5 a.m. Yawn... It is also gross and rainy outside, so we're looking at a Sunday at home, and I need to fish something out of my bag of crafty tricks. Maybe we'll do some collage or painting, or maybe bake some cookies! That actually sounds pretty good! How about you?

I wanted to show you Ben's finished Halloween costume. I got it done on Tuesday evening, and while it was slightly last minute, it came together pretty well. Ben wore it to school on Wednesday morning for the school Halloween party and was so proud of himself!

Here's my Peregrine Falcon and his little bro Dinosaur (an old costume, made by my mom) on Halloween morning:




I changed my plans a bit after my original sketches. I ended up creating more of a poncho for the wings and body of the falcon, rather than a shell and separate wings attached to the arms. We also skipped painting spots on the front of the body.







With the thick layers of felt feathers, the poncho at first made Ben look like a big fluffy chicken. So I sewed the wing layers together with horizontal lines under the feathers, from the tip/edge to where the torso would be. This made the wings flat aside from a "tunnel" for each arm to slide through. That fixed the issue!






For the "helmet", I copied the shape and size of a winter hat, then added a few pin-tucks (is that the correct term?) until the fit was as good as it was going to get. The beak is filled with a little polyfill and painted with grey and white fabric paint. There's elastic under the chin to keep it in place. Next time, I would line the inside with a soft cotton -- Ben was a trooper and kept his helmet on the entire day but complained of itchiness.






The claws were quite tricky to make. I copied some firefighter boots from an old homemade costume, enlarged them and cut out claws that I top-stitched down the middle and at the end to give them a 3-dimensional quality. I painted the "nails" with black fabric paint. From far away, I think they actually looked like claws, but from up close, eek.










Overall I am pretty pleased with how it turned out! I have definitely learned some aspects of apparel and costume construction since last year, and am proud of how this costume turned out. It is always such fun to deliver a successful execution of your kid's vision. Ben was thrilled!

* * *
For those of you interested in the construction of this costume (I hear there's a lot of kiddos obsessed with peregrine falcons thanks to Wild Kratts!), you can see my process and progress in these two previous posts:

Part 1 - Halloween Prep: Peregrine Falcon
Part 2 - Who's Ready for Halloween?

I hope that helps! Don't hesitate to leave me a comment with questions.

Who's Ready For Halloween?

Not me!

I am knee deep in falcon feathers as we speak. Here's a little update on the progress of Ben's costume before I get back to it.

To facilitate a correct sizing and tailoring of the costume, I traced the outline of Ben's body on kraft paper, then drew out my idea of the costume over it. This gave me a great idea of what size each part of the costume should be. It's also a great reference for measurements -- from neck to finger tips, shoulder to waist, etc.






I cut a muslin in the shape of a half moon poncho and will be sewing my feather layers onto it. I cut all the "feathers" from eco-felt yesterday and I'm ready to roll with stitching the layers today. I told Ben at school drop-off this morning I was hoping to have his costume finished by the time I picked him up. Challenge on!








Wish me luck! Ben has a Halloween party at school on Wednesday so the costume needs to be completely finished by end of day tomorrow. I will post about the finished costume later this week. I can't wait to see it myself! How are your kiddos' costumes coming along?

Meanwhile, we've been keeping busy with various Halloween fun and prep -- carving pumpkins, eating jack-o-lantern cookies, decorating the house with fake spiders, etc. Fun stuff.














While the excitement of Halloween is certainly front and center at the moment, my thoughts are with Lee and your family, Angel. I wish we were closer so I could give you guys a big hug in person. My thoughts are with our friends on the East Coast as well. May Hurricane Sandy be gentler than expected and may you all stay safe!