just can't keep it simple

 

sometimes. When it was time to decide what to do with all my lovely Umbrella Print trimmings, I got a bit obsessed the last weeks by piecing an elephant and experimenting with different techniques on a small scale. That is something I have meant to do for a long time and never get around to it. So the bittersweet journey to this pillow cover began. Playing around with ideas, auditioning, reconsidering, sewing, appliquing, ripping apart and starting all over. Sometimes it felt like being in elemntary school when trying to remember embroidery stitches like the daisy stitch.

 

The elephant and the mouse were paper pieced whereas the coati was appliqued (needleturn) using some softer trimmings. This little guy is just 2" high. Now, Let's talk about tiny. Somebody should stop me next time. The ruffled grass gives the needed perspective.

The words floating from the upper right corner tell the wondrous tale of the elephant meeting a coati. Therefore the wordstrips were quilted in lines that yould easily be seen as Chinese calligraphy. At the end I added some trees and a little feather to complete the scenery and a few handstitches. It was time to practise free motion quilting again.

 

The panel finished at about 10" and got framed with the rest of my trimming package (the darker blue belonged to it as well). All that is left is dust and some tiny pieces. Not sure if they will get anything in the near future. Taking pictures was a bit different with the rainy days here and my little helpers. But nevertheless, it is finished and sits now in the reading nook of the munchkins where it belongs.

Here is a closer look on my trimming package I have used and let me tell you get quite a lot out of it.

save my scraps

 

There ain't many scraps in my scrap box. All the time I need some small piece of fabric, I dive into this box before I cut in any yardage. It was fun to use every tiny bit for just the right project. But at the moment, I am kind of saturated. Although those scraps are still lovely and everything, the idea of using them up doesn't inspire me at all. There are small, not so small and bigger pieces of quilting cotton fabric, selvages, some organic cottons, bits of flannel and some home dec weights deeply burried in the dark. Really, anyone should save them.

 

Spring is here, so I do need to redecorate and maybe paint a bit. I already have some color swatches hanging in the living room and in my sewing corner. Can't decide yet what color it should be. There is teal, pink and purple hanging over my sewing machine. furniture is mainly white or beech  and the decoration not that colorful at the moment. They would be a fit still I am not sold (read: need way more color swatches or somebody helping to get a decision).

 

On the brigther side. The kitchen is done since about a year and I am still pretty happy with it. I painted it a pale green right after moving in and added a tree and a bit of fitting wall decoration to get a bit of a coffee shop feeling. A cozy on, of course.

 

Big J painted some hedgehogs with me. He did the ones on the right side with only little help with noses and eyes. Currently, he is more into cars and airplanes. But there is still some place left if creativity strikes again.

magician and dragon

I did it, I made nearly the whole costumes for the munchkins this year.

The pants (patterns: Ottobre) were a bit embellished to fit to the costumes: The ribbons on the pockets have little dragons/dinosaurs on it and of course the pants had to be green and blue like the rest. Which is pretty cool as I used up a cordury leftover, laying around for more than two years and I finally made the urgently needed new pants. Why do those munchkins always have to grow that fast. Memo to myself: Stop feeding them!

 

The dragon shirt (pattern: Ottobre) was actually already made last year. The dragon hat and tail was a nice little scrap buster project - not that it would make the slightest dent in my non patchworky pile of scraps. But, oh well. The cape is a blue jersey knit with some stars and moons and the hat was store bought long long loooooong time ago and only sewn a bit smaller.

Best thing: The munchkins love to dress up at home so we will need a little corner for all the costumes that might come some times.

gone shopping ...

with my new market tote. In Germany, you normally have fabric totes or fabric baskets. So do we. Only that the normal tote is plein beige. I wanted something more pretty and did some stash shopping for it. The apple canvas was just big enough and certainly as sturdy as needed. The brown binding and the tangerine piping was quickly added. The hedgehog is a raw edge applique using up the few brown scraps I had. (My scrap bag is rather tiny.)

 

Didn't take too long to make and makes me smile everytime I go to the grocery store :)