Dahlia Felt Embroidery

I'm so excited, this dahlia turned out so cute! :)

The blue dashed lines around the outside are there because this was intended to be a round pillow. It would be cute as that, too, but I'll have to get a round mat to frame it with and cover up the blue.



I worked quite a bit on the blue embroidery last night, too. Three of the big flowers are done, 5 more to go!
~Jessica

Vintage Felt Embroidery

I really liked this piece of embroidery that I bought at an antique store quite a few years ago, but I wasn't really sure what to do with it until I came across some felt embroidery kits online. I love how simple they are... the pieces are all precut for you and they're cut out of nice wool felt.

I'm working on this rather large piece right now. The white flowers will all get more layers in the middle.



I work on them a little bit each evening after the kids are in bed. It's great to do something productive while the tv is on.

This one with the pink background gets a really large layered pink and hot pink flower in the center. I have to iron the petals first, as they have been crammed in a package for a long time.

And this little one is all ready for framing.  The colors of the felt in the kits happen to be really nice, too. I especially like one with the blue background and the white flowers. The small one above (with the mustard color background) really stands out to me as being obviously from the 70's, but I like it anyway. :)

So, I'll keep working and posting about the progress on these. I have a couple of other kits that will be added to the grouping, too. When they are finished, I'm planning on framing them and then hanging them all together. I'd really like them to be framed with glass, but they are quite a dimensional piece of artwork, so I'll have to figure that one out when the time comes. It would just help to spare them of little fingers and dust. :)
~Jessica

Catching Up

Hello!! It's been a few weeks since I've been around here, but I have managed to work on a few things. :) I finished up a couple sets of these valences for a client and sent them off yesterday. These pictures are of one of them hung up on my curtain rods, but my client has some pretty blue walls that she is going to hang them on. That should really bring out the colors in the flowers! Hopefully I'll be able to show you a picture of them at her house.

I like the ball fringe along the bottom.

I also sent off this pillow to my swap partner as part of the Pillow Talk {Swap} on flickr. It's been a fun swap group and there is some great insirational photos in the group. My pillow was made with a mix of vintage sheets and quilting cottons. I used a cream colored chenille on the back to make it nice and soft.

It seems like November flew by! My daughter turned 10 years old yesterday; I really can't believe she is that old already. It really wasn't that long ago that she was a baby, was it?! We also had her Girl Scout Troop over yesterday to do a sewing project. My mom and I introduced the girls to sewing and they each made their own pillowcase with some adorable Girl Scout fabric (the blue has GS cookies all over it)!

We had 7 girls, 3 sewing machines, 2 teachers and in 2 hours each girl completed their own pillowcase. It turned out to be a great first sewing project and I had a lot of fun helping them.

In the next few weeks I need to work on sewing Christmas gifts! I'm going to get started on pillows and maybe some bags. Jennifer and I also have a quilt that we are working on together, so we have a quite a few projects to wrap up before too long. Let's see how much we can actually get done!

~Jessica

Crepe paper flowers

Lately I've been working on a few crafts other than sewing.... and made these flowers from kits I purchased at my local Big Lots store.  You might want to check out yours (if you have one around) and see if they have any of these flower making kits (made out of crepe paper) left as they are just $2.00 per kit and of Martha Stewart fame (I found these kits as well as a few felt flower kits in the scrapbooking section at the store).  One daisy kit made the bunch pictured above and two kits of the roses made the boquet above.  Although they take plenty of time and patience to make, I just think they are beautiful.  Thought I'd share them with you today as they brighten up my day and thought they would yours as well-  Have a great one! - Jennifer

Ginger Blossom Quilt

This quilt is for a person who contacted Jessica and I online!  Over the past few months we have taken on a few different projects for people we have met or have contacted us online.  It has been such a great experience and is so neat to connect with people who have a similar love for fabric, quilts or hand-making different things.

This quilt is made from the Posh quilt pattern by Moda - you can find the link to the free pattern here.  I added a few rows to the quilt than what the pattern calls for to make it a bit wider and longer.  The fabric is by Sandi Henderson and is called Ginger Blossom - I used two packages of fat quarters that featured all of the fabrics in the line.  If you are familiar with the Ginger Blossom fabric, I did omit the "tile" type design fabrics because they just didn't quite look right when cut and pieced together - the pattern on the fabric ended up being off-center and didn't look very good...

Anyway, I cannot wait for my client to receive her quilt - I think she is going to love it! - Jennifer

Flea Market Fancy!

I finished up my quilt this weekend and hung it up yesterday! It's always so thrilling to have a project completed and even better when I love the way it looks and how it fits into my room.

Here it is on the wall by our kitchen and dining area. My husband says he doesn't care for quilts hanging on the wall, but I think it will grown on him! :)

I had started quilting with some diagonal lines, but I really didn't like it with the odd stripes of the quilt pieces. So, I took all that quilting out and started stippling it... much better than straight lines.

I hope everyone had fun and safe Halloween!
~Jessica

Apron in an hour

Hi everyone! I made an apron this weekend using Jona's tutorial for her "Apron in an hour". I really only took an hour and probably would have taken less if I didn't have to change thread colors so often!

I'm thinking that these might be some great Christmas gifts for my kids school teachers.  I think I better get started on that now... it is November already!
~Jessica
Fabrics: Charm by Amy Butler and Mezzanine by Patty Young