sewtakeahike

pink red and white

 

Good morning!  It's a fine winter's day here at about 1 degree.  I'm so thankful our furnace is in working order!

 

Are any of you cross stitchers?  I had always thought I didn't like cross stitch.  Maybe because of the overabundance of really icky designs out there?  But then I started seeing the sweetest designs on IG by the frosted pumpkin stitchery and then came along this book:

 

 

The cover got me.  Sweet and simple designs.  (I ordered it here from the sweet Nobuko)

 

 

The very day I received the book, I did the wellie.  And this morning I did the strawberry (from a different book).

I'm seriously hooked.  But, it's really made me realize how bad my eyes are.  I have to pull my glasses down to the end of my nose so I can see what I'm doing.  Maybe a magnifier is in order?  But it would have to be one that clipped to my glasses because I need both hands free.  Anyone have any tips on where to find such a thing?

 

 

 

 

 

This is Leila's Ringo Pie block.  She asked for something that speaks of ourself and this block nails me to a board.  The pink linen was thrifted from a vintage tablecloth, the pitcher fabric was given to me by a dear friend, and the retro "kitchenalia" design is so me. 

It really feels good to get a tardy bee block done.

Happy Monday to you all!

xo,

Penny

vintage embroidery: the saral paper way

It's no secret I love Saral paper.  I've used several times, including these two projects. 

This time, I wanted to do a little embroidery.

 

 

This project completely took me by surprise.  I had intended on embroidering one towel. But after finishing the first flour sack towel, I felt compelled to do another, and then another!  So now I'm thinking I'll go ahead and do my last two dish towels as well. 

For the embroidery patterns, I wanted to do something a little different.  So I found some images of vintage signs to trace.  You can find loads of vintage sign images here.  I also came across doe-c-doe's website (I ad libbed one of her patterns for the salt and pepper shakers), she has so many cute patterns!   

So today, I'd like to walk you through a brief "how-to make an embroidery pattern" from an image you love. 

What you will need:

• embroidery thread (I used Lecien Cosmo samples that they sent to me a while back.  It's amazingly silky and has a wonderful sheen to it!)
• embroidery hoop
• image you love
• tracing stylus
• saral paper
• fabric to embroider image onto

 

 (Bob's cafe photo found here)

 

To make your pattern, layer your fabric right side up (once again, I used flour sack towels that I dry dishes with), saral paper right side down, and the image you're tracing right side up.  Then use the stylus to trace around the parts of the image you'd like to embroider.

 

 

 

Now place your hoop around the image, and embroider. 

It's that simple!

 

 

 

If you decide to use this technique on an image that's special to you, I'd love to see it!  Please add it to my flickr group here!

Happy Monday to you!

xo,

Penny

my favorite things

 

This weekend, I've been doing a bit of settling into my new sewing room. One problem I had at our old home was a cat that wanted to play with everything I own that is cute, and not enough room to safely display my adorable things. I don't know why it has to be this way, but seriously, anything I think is too cute for words, our Fozzy wants to have for his own.

I still have this problem, but got smart about it. My dad made this shelf for me a few years back out of an old window, so I decided to put all those precious little things in there so I can see and use them, all the while protecting them from my savage little cat.

As you can see, it is chock full of ribbons, tapes, pincushions, buttons, and felted animals. One of my grandmother's canning measuring cups is in there, as well as a tiny little glass milk jug my dad gave me. And do you see all those little wooden spools? My dad used to send those to me all the time from estate sales or garage sales or whereever. He was my biggest crafty enabler.

So today, in honor of my dad (and to say thank you to all of you for the warm, heartfelt emails and comments), I'd like to have a little giveaway for a few of the wooden spools he sent to me, as well as some aurifil thread and an aurifil cotton thread color card from Alex at Aurifil.

 

Just leave a comment telling me your favorite memory of time spent with your dad. I'll choose a winner tomorrow night, Monday the 12th of December.

~Penny

THE GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Process photos

 

A few months ago, I bought this old pencil sharpener on ebay for a few bucks.  It looked pretty tattered, so today I transformed it.

These are my process photos:

 

 

 

 

Maybe the excitement of having a new home in the near future spurred me on to beautify it?  Or maybe I was just tired of looking at the poor little sad thing sitting on my desk.  Either way, I'm glad I did it. 

Do you have any little projects laying around that really wouldn't take that long to complete that could possibly bring a little joy into your day if you just went ahead and did it?

Please do tell and then by all means get crackin'!

Happy Friday to the lot of you!

~Penny

fun, fun and lucky ducky

 

First of all, thank-you, thank-you everyone for playing along with my silly "down the road a'piece" game for the giveaway.  I giggled over and over again, and had such a good time reading all your comments.  So fun!  Thank-you for the smiles!!

 

Wendy in "Don't mess with mama"

And just to share a little bit about our weekend, we had an absolute blast camping and kayaking with some friends!  At one point, we were all making dinner and I turned around to find Wendy standing by the dinner area holding a spatula and a pistol.  I grabbed my vintage apron that Tara gave me and took the opportunity for a photo-shoot (pun intended).   She totally rocks this look, wouldn't you say?

Next, I must apologize!  I made a mistake on what Amy is giving away today.  I posted that she is giving a tea towel, but she is actually giving away a piece of her screenprinted fabric,  not a towel, so you can make whatever you like with it (I bought a piece of this from her and it's the exact image that's on the towel, but without the fabric border like the tea towel has and can hardly wait to use it.  It'll take a special project though!) 

So without any further delay, the lucky ducky winner of the screenprinted fabric and teapot paper piecing pattern from Amy is #27, Debra, who said, "When I lived in Georgia that was standard directions. Go over yonder and down the road a'piece. I bought a map!" 

Go ahead and get your info down the road a'piece to me, Debra!  Your color preference for the fabric and your address, and I'll send it over to Amy!

Happy Monday everyone!!

~Penny