Scrappy Trees

Happy MONDAY!
Being snowed in has had it's good points and it's bad points....
on the good side is plenty of time to stitch...
on the bad side...a bit of cabin fever.

I am in the middle of a ton of quilt projects for my newest books, and this weekend I was stitching some fun -- wonderful colors -- of fabric. Once the top was done I had a pile of scraps that screamed stitch me into something for Christmas...

so, inspired by a fabric tree given to me many years ago by my friend Joanell I started stitching those scraps together. A bit of improvisational stitching... then pressing... then cutting & stitching... cutting & stitching, and finally some cutting my newly stitched fabrics into as many triangles as I could.

So, with any luck I will be able to get out today and pick up some pillow stuffing and dowels to finish these up.... 'til then, here's some pictures I took along the way.

Turned Fabric Raven Embellishment - Tutorial

Happiest of Mondays to you all!
Here, the sun is out and it's time to get the day going.
After spending time last week building a whole bunch of garden totems I can report that they are now installed in their new home. That means more time for fabric and stitching opportunities.

There are two quilts that I have been stitching on since last summer. I had them all ready for stitching on the cross-country road trip we took for our move to Kentucky, but I discovered early on that I don't like to stitch in the car. I'm more of a look out the window and take it all in passenger.

It feels pretty good to pick these up again. The one in hand is a raven-pattern I blogged about ages ago, and I thought I would share how to make the raven itself.

CLICK HERE -- visit the blog posting
for the voting for the favorite raven

I like to stitch my background quilt and add the raven separately - as an embellishment and this is how I make them.

You need the pattern...top fabric, bottom fabric, and thin batting for the middle.
Here we go!

copy the pattern onto freezer paper

press the freezer paper pattern on to the back of the bottom fabric
then stack it with the top fabric-right-sides-together
stack these on top of batting & pin stack together

stitch along the outside edge of the paper-pattern

pull off pattern, trim to about 1/16th of inch & clip curves
then put slit in the top fabric & turn right-side out

press - embellish & when ready pin in place;
then hand applique 

Hope your week includes so stitch opportunities!

Stitching On,

~Rose

Color - What color says healthy?

I tried to tempt you with a couple of TRY it# ideas yesterday;
a mission to pay close attention to color.

I thought I was headed to the grocery store, but ended up taking full advantage of an amazingly sunny day and headed to Giant City State Park in IL. Got a call from family wanted to know if meeting up there was a possibility -- and happily it was.

It was a great day to pay attention once again to green...so I did.
BUT, shopping was still on the to-do list, so off I went this morning.

What color do you think of when I say 'healthy'?

This came to mind as I picked up a bit of yellow, orange, red and a bit of red-violet from the produce department -- green, too of course -- several shades; then in the dairy aisle there were a considerable array of shades of yellow-orange to orange found amongst the cheese.

After the produce section though most of the color is found in the packaging.

As I picked up my soy milk -- wrapped in blue & white.
Greek Yoghurt in green & white...
Crackers in brown & white.
A brief glance down the soda & candy aisle one will find lots of color happening - enticing.....

Colors have an impact on human moods,thoughts, emotions and even buying choices it seems.

More on that later this week.
But again, what color would you call healthy?

Purple - Colorbook Tales or Monday Musing

Good morning everyone!
The birds are waking everyone and I was catching up on Sunday Facebook postings where someone asked me if after putting my own colorbook together, I now liked PURPLE?
Rather than just a big resounding YES, I thought I would share a bit of where my discovery and enjoyment now of purple has shown up in my quilts.

The very first quilt below is one that I show when I give my lecture on color -- I tell them this was my first attempt at using purple. They laugh, saying where's the purple...but you got to start somewhere.

 

There are loads more out on my website gallery --
and, don't forget to look for RED, too... for it also was not a favored color before I started exploring color.

I'll be stitching today -- think I'll pull some PURPLE.

STITCH ON
~Rose

Rusting Fabric-The Gathering A Monday Artify Opp

Oh, this is going to be a fun week.
Though there is tons for me to catch up on, there is still enough time to gather up the supplies needed to create a bit of rusty fabric and maybe even some paper.

I hope you'll join in.
You'll need some basic supplies -
fabric (old t-shirts are good for this), an empty spray bottle, white vinegar, plastic bags or drop cloths

Then you'll want to start looking about and gathering metal things that we'll RUST!
These may include...

washers - nuts & bolts

nails - screws

keys of all sorts and shapes

old yard art works incredibly well, too!

I'll be gathering my stuff and sharing with you the how-to's on Wed!
Until then I would love to hear what you find to rust with...

Life Out of Hand

I love Mondays -- always a great opportunity for a new start... on what?
On whatever your heart desires. In my case as I sat with my morning coffee contemplating my day I was really feeling a bit tortured. Things here in the new house are really coming together and I am really pleased and grateful... so what's up?

Well, so much of my focus has been new house and new community related that 'life' has kinda of taken the back burner. Life for me is all about creating and finding new stuff -- admittedly mostly fabric stuff, but I had put so many ideas down in my master plan book back in July and it's time to crack it open and start sharing it.

I still have house things to deal with -- Since some of the big remaining ones involve storing my quilts and getting the studio workable this week I will share some things I'm doing to clear the decks for fun, creative playtime to come!

On the list for Monday was---
the quilt - closet!
This closet is dedicated to store my quilts, and it is much bigger than it looks in this picture. Lots of room, but
truly in need of additional shelving.

So as much as I wanted to get back to 'life', the measuring and shopping occupied most of Monday -- but, the week is still young and hopefully this large stack of quilts will soon have a space to spread out, be counted and be happy.

Anybody having torture problems this week?