Monday, January 27, 2014

Dark Fairytales

I'm a tad bit spoiled as a crafter. My mom does everything crafty so I have access to all sorts of crafty supplies and machines. My biggest advantage has to be the embroidery machine she purchased a few years ago. I love it. Most of the things I have embroidered have been for costumes and other small crafty endeavors but when I saw the Dark Fairytales design pack on Urban Threads I knew I would have to use them to make a quilt.


I loved the color on the examples and wanted mine to be stitched out similar to them. I opted to stitch them out on black cotton instead of dark grey, mainly because I had a large supply of black cotton on hand. I used silver for all the outlining because metallic thread stands out so nice on dark material.

When I first embroidered the designs I didn't have a pattern for the quilt in mind yet but eventually I came up with something...and then I tweaked it a bit.



Once I finish sewing all the black and red strips onto the pieces with the embroidery they will end up looking like this.

Then all that is left to do is sew them together. Likely it will be then put into storage for a few years before I get to quilting it. 

Monday, January 20, 2014

Let's try this again...

So… it has been awhile… if you consider three years awhile. I literally laughed out loud when I read the part where I mused that writing a blog might keep me motivated to finish a craft that I’ve started. May I present...

Exhibit A.

That is the quilt I mentioned in my first post. It has been rolled up and sitting in that chest for about a year now. That’s not to say I haven't worked on it at all since my last post, in fact, I finished the top and have actually started quilting it. It’s a miracle I've gotten that much done considering how large of a quilt it turned into. I started out hoping to make it large enough for a queen size bed. Somehow it ballooned out to a size larger than California king. I will finish it someday but I can only sew so many straight lines at a time.

Please don't mind the clutter in the background. Its so large my basement was the only room with enough open floor space to roll it out.

I did make both the Magic: the Gathering etched glasses and the Mario mushroom cookies. Both came out just as I had hoped and were well loved by their recipients.




Since then I have made many, many dresses, both for myself and friends. One of my best friends got married and asked me to help her make both junior bridesmaids and flower girl dresses. I can't say no to any of my friends so I committed to helping her make four (4!) dresses in total. Of course, seeing how she was the bride, she had way too many things on her plate already and about 75% of the work fell to me. Despite the fact that they were not completely done until 3 days before the wedding they came out perfect and the little girls looked adorable.

I have since also started another quilt. I know, I know, “Bad Courtney! You should finish what you start!” Maybe someday I’ll be that type of person. More on the new quilt next week.