Bird in Tree Towel

So my friend Matt Doubek is this awesome artist that I knew from high school. I recently got back in touch with him & his lovely wife, when Shawnna was in town this summer. I talked to her about Matt's awesome paintings & I decided to use one as an embroidery pattern.
I actually took things that stood out to me in 2 different paintings and combined them. I found out that some things are easier to transfer to thread than others.

I used 2 different colored threads on the outer orange part of the tree to match the shading idea in the painting and also in the brown threads for the trunk.

I just LOVE these trees, I think these would look great embroidered on a long skinny piece of fabric, framed and hung up on my wall.

They actually took a really long time to embroider because they are open tree trunks and not just one skinny line as I typically do.

This is the painting where I got the Birdie from, I just love that little spinner hat.

This is the print that I got the trees from. I thought about doing the umbrella, but the dingle balls just said "French Knots" to me & mine never turn out too well, so I decided against it and added the sweet bird instead.

I sent this one to him because I just enjoy having different patterns and ideas to try to embroider and hoped he could enjoy my interpretation of it.

You can find Matthew's work

Charming Wall

Matt's myspace

joyengine

Fall Towel

I thought it was about time to take down the 4th of July towel I had hanging on the stove and switch to a fall one. I did a search for fall clip art online and found a pattern that I liked. I then enlarged it on the copier to the size I wanted and traced it onto my towel.

I ended up filling in the moon because I thought it would look really cool, like it was "glowing". I debated filling in the Bat and the leaves but decided I like it the way it is.

This is my first real try at filling in a space, I know there are other stitches that you can use, so I may try those down the line. I decided to add the stars for added effect.

Sketch Challenge

I had some time to work on a card the other day & I finally finished it. It is based off of a sketch by Jen over at iheart2stamp. She does awesome stuff and has new layouts all of the time. I think this one was from July.
The cardstock is some brown stuff from Archiver's, the cream is slightly textured cardstock I had in my stash, the blue was a scrap, the ribbon is velvet from a swap I did. The funky blue & green paper is by We R Memory Keepers. The coffee stamp is by Heart Art Studios, Inc. and the "Seriously" stamp is by BC Dzyns.

Because I seriously need coffee!

Here is the sketch that I went off of. It is a pretty literal version of it, but I was just happy to find time to make a card again.

New Boring Shelf

This is how the shelf looked when I bought it at the thrift store. I really thought it was unique with the clip board clips on it and thought it could be more attractive with a little spray paint.

I removed the clip things, then spray painted the whole thing in a black matte paint that I had in the basement. After it dried I took some sand paper to all of the edges and rubbed until I could see some of the natural wood show through the paint. I rubbed until it looked as "aged" as I thought looked good. I wiped off the dust and then sprayed on some matte clear coat to finish it off.

As you can see in the photo on the right it looks shiny. I had a can of shiny clear coat that I was going to use and it ran out after about 3 squirts. So I had to buy a new can, which I just sprayed over the shiny stuff & I think it still looks great. It is hard to mess this up.

Now I just have to find the perfect place to hang it. In the craft room? To display my favorite projects, or maybe the things that are inspiring me. Maybe in my daughter's room to display the latest master pieces from school. I will post photos after I figure it out.

Final Product

I have been busy working on real work & haven't had as much time to "play" as I would like to have. This is the photo after I finished this groovy & CHEAP shelf from the thrift store. I think I paid less than $1 and Now it looks like a Pottery Barn shelf.

I will post the before photos and the steps I took to create it when I can find the media card that they are on :)

Nature Walk

My daughter and I took a cool nature walk last week, she was leading the way. There are some groomed trails located near our house, but she decided to follow the deer trails instead.

We found a Milkweed
Some crazy looking berries

Sumac changing color

Here is a look other than a poised smile, it's a smirk I guess

This is her leading the way...

Update on Sigg bottles

I do not own a Sigg bottle but I know a lot of other people do. I found this update/alternative bottle on someone's crafty blog and thought that I would pass it on to others. You can view her report at The paper Seed

Plus on the Sigg website they are having a contest find it : here

In Progress...

I feel like I have too much to do and can't finish anything lately, so I have nothing to post most days. Sorry. I have STARTED a new project for my upcoming craft sale, will post when I finish...

This is another one of the towels I have been working on for my Dad's aunt who was recently in town visiting my folks. It is almost done so I will post the finished project when I can.

How to hem Jeans

I have not tried this yet, but it looked like it could be great help & I thought someone might be able to use it. It is a tutorial on how to hem jeans in 3 easy steps. Who couldn't use those skills?

This comes with a warning - This is mainly for short people- You can find it here: How to hem jeans

Cafe Latte take II

Does this towel look familiar? This was the first pattern that I had ever embroidered & now I have been commissioned to do some more coffee towels for my Dad's Aunt. This is one of them.
I think it looks much better on my second try. The first towel I did is on the left and I used 6 strands of thread for the whole thing. I also used a Chain Stitch because that is what I learned to do first.

Here is a close up of both of them. The one on the right I used 3 strands on the whole thing and used a Back Stitch for the whole pattern. Depending on the stitch, it really gives it a totally different look.

Toasting Marshmellows

I finished another towel using a pattern from the Camp Out set by Sublime Stitching. I am liking how these are turning out & I am going to have a hard time giving them all away as presents when I am done :).

Coming Soon

I found this awesome pillow at a thrift store the other day. My friend Karen used to make one just like this. I found some cool fabric and I am going to try to make my own version of it. I dug out a home sewing machine in the basement that needs a tune up so once that's done I can start sewing on lighter weight fabrics.

My daughter has been wanting her own "crazy pants" because I told her I would make her a pair a while ago. We found this awesome Yoda fabric and made a pillow for my husband as a surprise one day. Now she wants her crazy pants out of the remaining fabric, so hopefully that will be coming soon too.

Yucky Spider

The past two days there has been this big nasty spider hanging out on my plant. It was hard to get a good photo of it, but look at the size of the web it's spinning. Yuk!

Labor Day Camping

We went for one last long camping weekend for the season and had a great weekend! The weather was great, almost no bugs and good company. Our fancy swimming lessons have finally paid off and we swam a ton this weekend. We went to a campground where we have the option of swimming indoors or out depending on the weather and we did both.

The boys even helped with the dishes.

Deer Towel

This is the towel I embroidered for my sister. She has a really cool Deer tattoo on her lower back that reminded me of this one. I will have to get a pic of the one on her back.

I told her it was sewers choice as to what pattern I was going to do for her, but as soon as I saw this one I new I had to do it for her. She has gone deer hunting for as long as I can remember. She can kill em' clean em' and cook em' like no one else I know!

This is one of the bigger projects that I thought I would try to do back stitching on. When I first started embroidering I always used the chain stitch and then I tried the stem stitch. I did all three of them on this project, but the deer head is all done in the back stitch. I made the eye a little too bulky to be seen clearly, but I really like how it stands out against the rest of it. I have seen other projects done where the shadowy parts are in a darker color and maybe I would try that next time. I still stink at French Knots, maybe one day I will get it.

This pattern is by Sublime Stitching of course and I think it's from the Forest Friends pack. Find them Here

First day of Kindergarten

Somehow she survived the first day of Kindergarten. I wouldn't have guessed it when I dropped her off this morning. More like, when they pried her off of me. I knew she would be fine and love it once she was there, but obviously she didn't think so. The is what she looked like when I came to pick her up at lunch time. Happy to be going home or to McDonald's because that was the first day of school deal we made.

Hopefully tomorrow will be easier and the next day and the next day until she is happy to go on her own one day :)