making fabric baskets

I decided to purchase Lisa Cox's new book, "A Spoonful of Sugar" and, boy!  it has some awesome projects!  She's doing a little sew-along with prizes right now.  We're actually on Round 2, but here's what I made for the first round:

A couple fabric baskets made from Penny Rose Fabric's Milk Sugar Flower line of fabrics and a basic pink and white dot.  I'm really loving little florals and dots and tiny trim so I added a little white lace and delicate pompom to them.  Then I embroidered a few little flowers to match the inside of the second one for the applique.  I'm still working on the art of hand embroidery, but this was a really fun project to make!

Go check out her book, it's full of fun projects you'll love.  Happy sewing!

Lil' Red quilt

I started this adorable little quilt a few weeks ago, but once the top was finished with alternating squares and 9 patches and white sashing, I had to wait on batting.  We live WAY out away from places that would sell it and Amazon didn't have a good price, so I opted to wait for the next time I was "in town".  SO...I finally got to town, bought batting, and got to finish working on it.  Yay!

Backed with a soft, pink minky and quilted simply by me on my little machine.  I'm really happy with how all my points turned out, but still perfecting my quilting skills.

spring & summer wreath

So, I try to keep things simple around here.  My front door needed a little oomph.  It has a big beautiful window in it, like 2/3 the door size big.  Living out in the country hasn't made me regret having a window in my front door, like it would in the suburbs, but I thought it would be nice to make a wreath for it.

I grabbed the grapevine wreath, flowers and ribbon from Taipan Trading, got a hot glue gun and got to work.  In order to be sure they'd stay on real tight I used A LOT of glue (we get winds that blow trampolines out into fields around here!)  And voila!  I have a wreath I can use in both spring and summer and would look really cute if I change out the ribbon or add some colored flowers throughout the seasons.  (But we'll see if I get to that...)

(Bonus points if you see my baby gate by the front door and the little escapee himself peeking out!)

hello summer!

On my last trip to visit family all the gals got together to work on a wood project from the Wood Connection.  This little lovely was supposed to say "hello" on the pendants, but since I always seem to do things differently, I changed it up a bit.

I added some burlap and butterfly lace to the pendants.  And I'm so happy with how it turned out!  Now we just need summer to actually GET here, lol!

And on a side note, this mantel was something that wasn't really how I pictured it, but turned out great in the end.  Last year as we were finishing up the house and needed a mantel I told my brother in law (our builder) that I wanted a rustic barn wood fireplace.  He called us not too much longer with this beauty!  There is an old bridge in front of my husband's house that is falling apart, the wooden full of lichen and old beauty.  He went over and got some and whipped this up in no time!  And now we have a little bit of history in our family room.  Awesome!

a tiny fairy for my girls

I got this idea a while ago to make a tiny doll.  I've made large ones for my girls before and even made some for nieces, too.  They're a lot of fun.  And addicting.  And just so adorable.  So, I thought, what if I could make a tiny one?  Why haven't I ever seen someone make one???

Well, there's a reason.  Those teeny tiny little limbs are so small they're difficult to turn, once sewn.  I tried it.  IMPOSSIBLE!  Maybe someone with tinier fingers than I could do it, but I just couldn't do it.

Then I thought maybe I could just use felt for the arms and legs.  Tried it.  And they seemed to work, but I accidentally had made the head too big for the felt to fit back through the neck when I flipped it to the right side.

SOOO, I finally got it right (well, a LOT closer) and ended up with her:

 I just love her face!  And the little bun.  But she's just the prototype.  (Not very perfect.)  But, shh!  Don't tell her that.

She likes to play in the flowers and bushes outside our house.

I'm hoping she will keep my girls busy outside this summer.  And maybe I'll try to make a few more.