Moving.....

Please visit me at Gigi's Crafts  Thanks!

Holiday greetings blocks

I like the idea but not my execution of this project.

My husband cut the blocks for me. Each block face is 1.5 inches wide. The outer, tallest blocks are 5" tall, the next tallest ones are 4" and the middle blocks, both vertical and horizontal are 3 inches.

I left the edges bare so that paint didn't meet paint, thinking a somewhat rustic look would work. I wasn't happy with this and added a distressing ink along those edges in a color called tea. I don't have that look photographed. It didn't noticeably improve or detract from what you see here.

I like using blocks to spell our greetings throughout the year. These phrases were on shelves in our main bathroom for a while.

It is probably my lettering that I dislike most on the blocks that I painted. I will repaint them at some point and try this again.

Countdown to Christmas Tree

This began as a plain white structure, bought on a clearance table post holiday early this spring. The miracle isn't that I completed it, but that I didn't store it away so safely that I forgot about it or couldn't find it.

The faces of the drawers are 1.5 inch squares. Most of the blue background images came from a single sheet of scrapbook paper. The others are miscellaneous bits I had on hand. The back and sides of the tree were painted red. I used a silver pen on the open edges of the structure.

Numbers were done with the same pen on black circles punched from scraps.

Ruby Bear

Need a quick, simple to knit bear pattern? Here is Ruby Bear by Premier yarns. I used James C. Brett Chunky Marble, available colors shown here. I believe I used MC28 but I no longer have the label.

 

I would make this bear again, but rather than using a needle size to obtain the suggested gauge, I would knit it on smaller needles to make a denser fabric so that the batting isn't visible through the knitting. 

 

Mmmmm....Pumpkin Cookies!

One word:  Yum!

The recipe is here.

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry...er....knitting bones!

The Prince of Sweetness, aka my grandson, is going to be Batman for Halloween so this sweater has nothing to do with that specific evening. I hope he will enjoy it while playing outside regardless of the date.

The pattern was once a free download from Bernat but doesn't appear to be available now. If you are interested in it, please contact me (leave a comment) and I will get back to you if you provide an email address.

The sweater pattern is for sizes 2, 4, 6 or 8.  I used inexpensive acrylic yarn as I don't intend for this to be an heirloom garment. My grandson is warm much of the time anyway (unlike me!) so I don't know how much wear this will get before he outgrows it.

Smocked Bishop dress and a card

A wonderful young woman with a love of old fashioned needle arts is in my knitting group. She recently gave birth to a daughter and while pregnant, commented on her love of smocked garments which aren't prevalent in this area, in this era.

Once upon a time I would have bought Imperial Batiste and gathered the fabric on my own smocking pleater.

Quality fabric is important when running it through a pleater. Joann's is fine for many things, but this level of quality isn't found in their yard goods. I suspect my long unused pleater may need new needles before tackling another project and they would need to be ordered. The needles are fine and if you run roughshod through the process of turning the pleater wheel, they will crunch and break. Not good, not good at all.

Thank goodness I discovered Meredith's Closet, an Etsy shop of ready to smock items. I order a 12 month size dress in a color called Butter. I pulled out my stash of long unused smocking designs which are called 'plates' rather than patterns. This is not the design I used, but is a sample of what a plate looks like.

Before I could begin to smock, the center of all those pleats had to be found. Each pin represents 10 pleats. The threads you see are gathering threads, usually quilting weight threads that are tied off on either side of the area to be smocked.

Here you see the pleats both scrunched up and spread out. The pleats should slide easily on the gathering threads. Smocking is worked from the left side of the garment to the right, but the needle enters the top of the pleat from right to left.

Reading the plate came easily to me when I learned to smock because I was accustomed to counted cross stitch and knitting charts.

The color is a bit off (too strong) in this photo, but shows the completed dress with a deep hem which is traditional in these dresses.

Here is a close up of the smocking itself. I was pleased with how it turned out, and more importantly, the mommy who received this dress was very happy.

The that I made to accompany this gift was another tri-shutter card. I seem to be stuck on them lately but they have been turning out well and use a variety of cute scraps and embellishments.