January's Bead Journal Project

Today I finished January's project. My decision was to make an outfit with some type of beading on it each month for my American Girl Doll and then write a short story about it. This is Samantha and she's a thirty year old career girl who lives and works in Washington, D.C. She was invited to a Chinese New Year's party at her boss's home and decided that this outfit would be the perfect choice. The fabric for the top is brocade trimmed in silk charmuese and the wide legged pants are made from the same silk fabric. The belt was beaded with Swarovski crystals and #11 sead beads.

Bead Journal Project

Yesterday I really started working on my January project, an Asian inspired outfit for Samantha, an 18" American Girl Doll. I plan to embellish an outfit and write a little story each month to go with the outfit.
Today I'm going to continue the construction and begin the embellishment process. I've already gathered the beads and sewn part of the top together.

Finished quilt top

Today I finished the house quilt top and I'm thrilled that it's up to this point. Since my blocks didn't turn out the size that that kit said they would, I had lots of recutting and resewing to do. Somehow, I think that all of my seams line up for which I'm thrilled. As soon as I get out to buy the backing and batting, I'll take it to be machine quilted.
Also finished a cozy polar fleece blanket for Adina. I bought wooly nylon thread and edged a piece of polar fleece. My old serger did a magical job. Since I was on a roll, I cut a piece of polar fleece and made a scarf for Adina.
Tomorrow I'm going to start my bead journal project.

More on the House Quilt

After a good amount of sewing and lots of taking out, I have the next row done on the quilt. Some of my blocks were too small and others had to be recut. The center block had to be made smaller also. Now I have to take the next row a part and cut it to fit the previous row. After recutting and stretching in some places, I think that it fits together. Hopefully in the end, it will all work out. Tomorrow I might go out for the day, if not, it's back to work on this quilt. I even got up very early because it was on my mind. Hopefully this won't keep me from staying up to watch Project Runway tonight.

The Central Motif

I just finished the central motif for a quilt that I started at the end of October at quilt camp. The quilt blocks were sold as block of the month packages from JoAnn's several year ago and were in my stock. Over that weekend, I completed all of the geometric blocks and this week finished the last block, an applique one. This is the first time that I used the freezer method to applique and I must say that I really liked the results. Tomorrow I plan to sew the rest of the blocks together so that I can have the top machine quilted in the very near future. Then it's on to my bead journal project.

Quilting

Yesterday and today I've been working on the central block of a quilt. The center is an applique of a house with bushes in the front and the surrounding blocks are pieced by machine. These blocks are all finshed and waiting for the center block to be completed so that the entire top can be sewn together and quilted.
Until that quilt is ready to be photographed, I thought that I'd share a UFO that I finished and gave to my daughter at her bridal shower. I started this quilt about thirty years ago and every once in a while I'd take it out and work on it. When I retired from teaching, I decided to finish the quilt as a gift. I love this pattern and am already collecting scraps to make another one. This one will have to be completed in less than thirty years.

Thread Catcher

After working on this thread catcher for three days, I'm finally finished. The most difficult part of the jobs was to attach the center which contains river rocks for weight. It was supposed to be round but some how turned out to be the shape you see. If I remember to put my threads in the pouch, it will be worth the effort.

Some Knitting

I've been working on a thread catcher for the last two days and should finish it up tomorrow. Hopefully this will teach me to put my cut off threads in one place so they don't end up on the floor. When I finish this project, I'll post a picture.
Recently I finished this baby sweater and hat as a gift for my daughter's friend who is having her first baby in a few weeks. The pattern is called "Baby Surpise Jacket" by Elizabeth Zinnerman. It wasn't difficult to make but you had to keep track of all of the rows in order to increase or decrease stitches in the correct places. I'm going to make this sweater again but with heavier yarn so that it comes out a little bigger. To take these pictures, I put the sweater and hat on an 18" doll.

A hoodie made from my stash

While putting away the excess fabric from the pocketbooks, I came across a small piece of fabric with Elmo on it. Adina loves Elmo so I thought that I'd try to get a hoodie out of the scraps. As you can see, I made it. All of the material, the zipper and thread came from my stash for which I'm thrilled.

Adina in her jumper with Ben

Happpy New Year to all. Adina wore her jumper on the Sunday after Christmas to her other grandmother's house for a celebration with us. As you can see, she looked adorable. I think that the next one that I make for her, I'll put a tie belt in the back. I thought about it this time but thought that the corduroy might be too heavy for a tie.