Paintbrushes Quilt

The paintbrushes quilt is done!

You can just see a little bit of the purple dot fabric that I used for the very narrow binding on the top and two sides of the quilt.  I appliqued several paintbrushes on top of the quilt when I had finished it and they overlap the gray fabric that separates the blocks.  There is an oversized gray polka dot fabric on the back of the quilt.  I stitched around every paintbrush on the fabric to quilt it and I really like the look of the finished project. It is really lap-sized although I could use it as a throw on a day bed.

I think if you click on the picture of the quilt you can get an enlarged view.

I'll be taking it with me everywhere to show it off for awhile.  I learned a lot in making it.  I know I need to use those special gloves that free motion quilters use on the next quilt I make.  I also know that I need to learn how to do binding correctly.  I'm still making things up as I go and probably breaking all of the quilting rules, too!

Soul Collage Cards

I started making Soul Collage Cards sometime last year.  I read about it online and took a class from Diane Warner, a certified instructor, in Brunswick.  After a couple of sessions with Diane, I took off on my own.  I ordered Seena Frost's book and supplies through Amazon.com.  Seena Frost developed this system for creating cards in four suits--Committee, Community, Companions, and Council.  My friend Alan and I were talking about this today because I was making a Community card to honor Polly DeRaps who died recently.  I'll post her card and a few others to give you an idea of what I'm making.  The images I use come from recycling magazines and greeting cards primarily.  I use 5X8 mat board and various adhesives and seal the finished card in a clear cellophane envelope.

Here is a sampling of the many cards I've made.

Polly's card

Strength

The Fool

Fox

Crow Magic

Friendship Quilt

Spa Days...This was the image I carried to my chemotherapy appointments, my spa days,
 as a way to bring my friends with me.

Weathering the Storm

 These next cards are ones I've made this month:

Winter Moon

Not all of the cards have titles yet or have been sorted into one of the four suits.  I keep library cards tucked in the back of the envelopes with a title, the date or approximate date I created the card, and any observations I want to make about the card.  It is interesting to pull them out from time to time and reflect upon the images.  Often I'll pull a card for the day or the week as a focus image for journaling.  There are so many different ways that I can work with the cards I make.  Plus it's a great way to use the enormous clippings collection I've amassed!

Blog Blitz starts today on Outside the Box

 This is a copy of my post today.  There will be two posts every day this week, Monday through Friday, and commenting on the posts could mean that you will win a prize!  Check it out at http://davebrethauer.typepad.com/outsidethebox/.

WELCOME TO DAY ONE OF THE  OUTSIDE THE BOX BLOG BLITZ!  Be sure to come back this afternoon for a post from Pam and check back in each day this week (Monday through Friday) for both morning and afternoon postings!  It is sure to be an exciting week with lots of great inspiration as we celebrate the 2015 Collection, the newest release from Memory Box!  Remember, too, to leave us comments in order to be eligible to win prizes!

To make my set of valentines for today, I combined two of the NEW Memory Box dies:  

• Cross Stitched Love 99128
• Heart Ribbon 99085

I began by die cutting a number of the Heart Ribbons from a variety of papers--white  cardstock, a Holly Berry card, and Bubblegum Gingham Patterned Paper.  Then I mixed and matched the pieces onto Holly Berry and white notecards (I used a glue pen) before running the completed cards through the die cutting machine again with the larger Cross Stitched Love die.

I used my favorite technique for the card on the lower right.  First I die cut the Heart Ribbon into the card front.

Then I took a piece of white cardstock cut a little bit smaller than the card front, covered it with adhesive and placed it inside the card front under the die cut opening.  I took a Heart Ribbon I had cut from white cardstock, punched out all of the tiny pieces and set the white outline into the opening and onto the adhesive.

I filled in the empty glue-y spaces with the tiny pieces from the Heart Ribbon that I cut from the Bubblegum Gingham paper.

I love how this inset die cut gives the card dimension without adding bulk.Everything lies flush with the card front.

It's not too early to start making your valentines and there are so many lovely new products on the Memory Box website which should aready be making their way to your local stamp store or on-line shopping place.  

I'll look forward to reading your comments!   You just might win a prize!  You have until Sunday, January 18th at 11:59pm EST to comment.  Winners will be posted on the Outside The Box blog Monday, January 19th.  

Happy Crafting!

More Sewing

Here's a photo of the table runner I made for Andrew and Jamie:

And here's the quilt top that I finished this afternoon:

A close-up of one corner shows in more detail the five fabrics I used:  Paint Brushes, Paint Swatches, gray dots, black and white sketchy lines, and vertical black and white stripe (shown on the far right side) for the final border all the way around.

Gearing Up for Valentines Day--Outside the Box Post for 1/10/15

I'm in the mood for making valentines this week, and there are soooo many great NEW dies from Memory Box for this purpose.  I decided to create something a little unexpected by combining these two dies:

Beloved Hearts 99102
Steampunk Corner 99084

The Steampunk Corner is a great addition to my collection of Memory Box gear dies.  I like to keep a bunch of them cut out in metallic gold and silver papers, especially for when I need a clean and simple card for a guy.   

Steampunk Corner 99084
Gearworks Border 98849
Deluxe Gear Set 98962
Antique Gear Set 98966
Gear Assembly 98964
Mini Gears 98847

You can see that I added a few extra gears from my stash to each of the cards.  Clean and simple steampunk--who'd have ever thought to hear those words together!   

Happy Crafting!

"Moose Head" MiniQuilt Done!

I finished the "Moose Head" miniquilt today:

This is my variation on the Northwoods Moose Window Pane Quilt #760 from Happy Hollow Designs.  You'll notice that I did not include the window panes.  I also made my own trees since I didn't like theirs.  I did my background differently, too, using materials other than those recommended.  Since it was one of my first applique projects, I also didn't know about using Wonder Under or some other kind of double-faced fusible bonding agent to iron on the shapes so everything was cut out and pinned in place and then sewn on.  This gave me an opportunity to figure out some of the kinds of stitches that I can do on my sewing machine.  I made up my own ideas for how to machine quilt this, too.  The only other thing I may still do is add a darker stitching line for its mouth which doesn't show up well in the photograph.  I sewed a sleeve onto the back and inserted a dowel kind of hanger for it.  This will be a gift for Sam for the camp at Moosehead Lake.  :-)

And this is the next project begun today--a lap quilt, I think, for use in my craft room--

To make the quilt top, I bought a yard of the paintbrush fabric the other day at On Board Fabrics in Edgecomb along with two fat quarters, one of the paint swatches and a gray and white dotted fabric.  I fussy cut 8" squares from the paintbrush fabric and 2" wide strips from the other two fabrics.  I still need to add another border around the whole piece, maybe two borders--will look for another coordinating fabric this weekend.  And I have a great purple with pale gray dots fabric that I'll use for the backing and the binding.

BEE MINE...my post today on Outside the Box

Bee Mine

Yahoo!!!  The newest Memory Box stencils and dies from both the Memory Box and Open Studio collections are here!!!

I chose an item from each of the new collections to use in some valentines:

• from Open Studio dies:  BUSY AS A BEE 30031, 6 steel craft dies mounted on a magnetic sheet
• from Memory Box dies:  SURELY STITCHED CIRCLE 99074
• from Memory Box stencils:  HEART CONFETTI 88588

Using a white notecard and the HEART CONFETTI stencil, I applied MementoLuxe Love Letter (red) Ink with a fingertip dauber (both from Imagine Crafts) to place hearts on the card front leaving a space for the SURELY STITCHED CIRCLE which I added on the right.  A glue pen worked perfectly on the narrow lines of this die cut.  The adorable little bee is from the BUSY AS A BEE set of dies.  I wrote "bee mine" with my medium black Pitt Pen.

Then I made this one, using fewer hearts and adding the perforated flight path of the bee from the BUSY AS A BEE set, cut into the card front after everything else was done:

And for this one I added some red and white baker's twine, changed the bee's wings to black, and used some Memory Box Cranberry Moroccan patterned paper for the circle:

Keep checking this blog over the next few weeks to see all of the neat ideas from the Design Team for using many of the newest products.  I'm sure that you will be inspired to create some amazing projects of your own!  And don't forget to leave us some comments.  We'd love to hear your reactions to these fabulous new collections!

Happy Crafting!

More Sewing Projects

This is the latest mini-quilt I made this week:  "Two Fish" or "Swimming Upstream":

This "Iris" miniquilt I made as a way to learn what kinds of stitches my machine can do:

This is a lap quilt.  The inspiration was a wallhanging class I took where I was supposed to use Christmas fabrics and place 5 triangle trees on a background and then quilt it.  I had all the great greens and browns and wanted to make something I could use all year round so I made this instead.  At the class I only got five trees cut out and fused to the background.  The rest of this I did at home on my own...adding more trees, die-cutting shapes to applique, sewing on buttons, etc.

This is a project I started yesterday, again working from an idea and changing it up to fit the fabric I had on hand.  I think this will eventually go to the camp at Moosehead: