Aspiration

I want to be very clear that I did not make this quilt. It was made by my husband's grandmother and I love it.


She makes such beautiful quilts and has done some really lovely ones for the kids, but this is the first quilt she made for me. She offered me a couple of different ones, but I chose this one for this one panel right here:

I have always had a thing for houses -- I love to look at them in person, I love to look through floorplan books and watch HGTV. I used to draw houses all the time. So this little house in the middle of the quilt is the thing that I looked at felt that this was my quilt.

So I wanted to put pictures of it on my sewing blog because although I didn't design it, make it, or have anything to do with it other than sleeping under it, I consider it an inspiration piece.

Because I had to name my sewing goal, it would be this: To be able to make quilts as nicely as Nana with such unique personal details.

My First Scarf

My first finished crochet project!

I owe a big thanks to Karen, at Needle Arts of Georgetown. She helped me select a great high quality yarn and then walked me through single and double crochet techniques.

The next day, she helped me out when my scarf was mysteriously shrinking... turns out you really do have to count those stitches to keep from losing one every row.

The next day, she helped me untangle a massive knot.

Then, just a few days later, she showed me how to finish the scarf and hide those dangling yarns.

Thanks, Karen! I couldn't have done it without you.

Pockets, Pockets, Pockets

In my forays into painting and crocheting, I don't want anyone to worry that I've given up on sewing.... crocheting is just easier to do with a toddler on your lap and painting is quieter in the evenings after babies have gone to bed.

But I was looking around for some inspiration for my next sewing project and wandered back to LiEr's blog and found....

Pockets.

Lots and lots of pockets.

As in, more pockets than I ever even knew existed.


She has tutorials for all of them, though my favorite is the one pictured, the inset pocket with frame because she's right. Small children think hidden pockets are like magic.

On her blog, you can see her pocket quilt and she talks about how she used it as an Advent calendar and is now giving away the second one. (Fingers crossed. Pick me. Pick me.) But it does inspire me to make my own Advent calendar. How fun would that be?

And if I start before the New Year, I have a hope of finishing it before Thanksgiving.

I'll keep you posted.

A Basket of Yarn

When I was a little girl, I had a dollhouse and a bear family lived in it. Mama Bear always had a basket next to her chair that was filled with little tiny balls of yarn that I rolled up for her.

How nice is it to become Mama Bear?

The Other New Hobby

This is Strawberry Shortcake. She is sporting a brand new CROCHETED scarf-like thing.


The point is, I guess, I am having a very merry Christmas and my amazing mother-in-law gave me hand-me-down crochet things and Hobby Lobby money and my fabulous mother gave me a gift card that is going to turn into some one-on-one crochet lessons here pretty soon.

The New Hobby

I had the honor of having many very special grandmothers and great grandmothers. One of them, Mama Robbie, learned Spanish, took trips to exotic places, went back to college for a philosophy degree and learned to paint all after she retired.

I always knew I wanted to be like Mama Robbie when I was older, but it recently occurred to me that being like Robbie could be really hard work and I should start now.

So I took up painting.

My first painting was an acrylic because twenty minutes of looking at painting books taught me that you need special stuff to clean up oil paint and I still have a toddler.

I bought myself a "how to" kit that walked me through paint mixing and techniques like gridding to copy a design. I picked this one of an old mill because it was for my sister and her married name is Miller, so you know, it's funny.

The Millers by RC

Overall, I was really pleased for a first attempt at a landscape and my first painting done in a medium other than poster paint. I mean, you can totally tell it's a mill and the water actually sort of looks like it's cascading down the rocks. The leaves lack detail, but I think that's a style some people do on purpose, so I'm happy with it.

How to Make Chrismons

But first of all: What is a Chrismon?

Developed in 1957 at the Ascension Lutheran Church, a chrismon is a white and gold ornament made in the shape of a symbol of Christ's name or nature. A lot of churches use them to decorate the main tree in the sanctuary during Advent.

This year, I wanted to make an Advent tree in our home, so I found this site with excellent patterns and ideas for chrismons. I think the only patterns I didn't get from that site was the crown which I found here and I honestly don't know where I found the pattern for the shepherd's crook, but I can tell you that it was really a candy cane coloring page.


Having found my patterns, I copied them into a word document so I could play around with the sizes since I was decorating a small four foot tree at home, not a giant church-sized tree. Then I printed them out on paper and cut each symbol out.

From there, I used my amazing disappearing ink to trace each pattern onto some white felt that I kid you not, showed up on my front porch one day as a surprise offering from a former girl scout leader who was cleaning out closets.

Then I cut out the ornaments.

I used two pieces to make one ornament. Using embroidery thread, I stitched the details, like the "jewels" on the crown or the eye on the dove on the top piece and then sewed the two pieces together, going around the outside.

I then used another piece of the embroidery thread to make a tie to hang the ornaments on the tree.

Right now I only have a dozen ornaments, but I decided the tree would be more fun if I added to the ornaments each year, so I'm leaving it a little bare this year with room to grow.