Be Still my Heart..

My husband worked from home today which meant I didn't have access to my the computer until this evening and I just saw that I was featured on two separate blogs!  How much fun is that! :)
Here: (Jocelyn don't look!)

And  Here!

I spent the whole day sewing a project for school/work which felt good but took forever.  I will post about it tomorrow.  And I took my mid-term and think I did really well!   They are calling for snow here tomorrow which is crazy.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings,

Some Font Fun...

I know I am a nerd but I'm ok with that.  I do like fonts.  When I was teaching kindergarten I used them a lot more than I do now but I still like them!  Here is a neat game/activity to test your font knowledge.  Go here Kerntype!

Have a great day!

Blessings,

Crayon Painting: A Haiku Mug Rug

Last week I blogged about painting fabric with crayons.  Here is the finished product! This is the mug rug I made for the Haiku Mug Rug Swap on flickr. My partner Marjory aka PecksPieces is a very talented quilter who happens to love frogs. I am happy to report that she really liked it! Marjory blogged about it here. What was also really neat is that I sent a picture of the finished mug rug to Suzy at Suzy's Artsy Craftsy Sitcom and she blogged about it too! 

 This is a picture of how it looked in progress.   

I made the mug rug reversible. I did a log cabin on the back with a cute frog in the center.

Here is my haiku:

A hoppy green frog

Sits dreaming of her next snack

Unsuspecting fly...

Not much sewing going on over here right now.  I am stressing about my mid-term next week.  At 51 my brain just doesn't remember things the way it used to! :)

Blessings friends,

Some Sunshine for You!

Isn't it pretty!  These arrived in my mailbox and with all the rain we've had here lately I thought a rainbow of a different kind would be nice!

I participated in a Rainbow Charm Swap over at Ellison Lane Quilts along with 55 others.  Jennifer assigned everyone a color.  Mine was purple! (Go Ravens!) Whoops, sorry about that.  We had to purchase one yard of two different pieces of fabric in our color.   We had to cut each yard into 5 inch charm squares which amounted to 56 of each.  Then we mailed them all off to Jennifer who sorted all the fabrics and sent them back to us in self addressed stamped envelopes.  I have no idea what I am going to do with them yet but just looking at them makes me happy.

Here's hoping you are dry and enjoying this fall weather!

Blessings,

Painting with Crayons: A Tutorial

Hey friends!  Hope you are all enjoying this beautiful fall weather.  I have been spending most of my time reading, taking quizzes, writing video responses, and pretty much freaking out about the mid-term coming up instead of crafting and sewing as I should be.  Especially with Christmas fast approaching in 73 days! 

Alright, onto painting with crayons!   I spotted a tutorial about painting with crayons here and thought the technique would work well for a project I was working on.  I actually emailed Suzy some questions and she got right back to me.  I wanted to make my fabric look like a swamp for a mug rug I was making.  

SUPPLIES:

• Crayons.
• A divided dish.  You could use a muffin tin or an egg plate as long as it can go in the oven.
• Cheap paint brushes.
• 100% cotton fabric to paint on.
• Cardboard. 
• Newspapers and paper towels.
• Iron.

DIRECTIONS:

    1.  Tape your fabric to a piece of cardboard to protect your work space and to stabilize the fabric.

    2.  Take the paper off the crayon and place in your container.  To make clean up easier you could use tin foil to line each but the melted crayon washed out just fine with the glass.

    3.  Set your oven to 275.  Place dish in oven and check at 5 minute intervals to make sure the crayons are melted.

     4.  Paint away! :)  Before I started painting I lightly traced my design.  I also used the crayon as a crayon and 'colored' the background a light blue.  The melted crayons do cool off and you will have to keep putting it back in the oven to remelt.  Maybe sitting it on the base of a crockpot or some kind of warming blanket might work. Your paint brush will also begin to clump up as the crayon cools.  I just ran the brush under hot water and used soap as needed the brushes were fine.

   5.  When you are all finished lay your fabric on newspapers and cover it with newspaper or paper towels and using your iron press over the crayon to absorb all the excess wax.


I will blog about the finished project soon!


Blessings,

A Gift from my Daughter

Back in May my daughter sent me a text about a treadle machine she found on Craig's list in Pittsburgh.  After that we didn't talk about it again but I remembered that one of the ladies I work with also sells antiques.  I called my co-worker and asked her if she ever finds treadle machines and she told me she had a beautiful one in working condition and told me I could stop over to see it.  Then Jocelyn came home for a weekend.  She got in late and my husband told her to come wake me up.  She jumped into bed and proceeded to tell me she bought me the treadle machine!  I could not believe it she did that! I was just blown away and so excited until I remembered the one my co-worker had..... what to do, what to do.  

The one Jocelyn bought me didn't work and was missing the front plate.  I showed my friend at work a picture of it and she told me they call them 'Plain Janes'.  She also told me she would be willing to trade it in for the other machine for an additional $50.00.  I talked to Joc to see how she felt about it and she was fine with trading it.  And so we did.   My hope is that one day when Jocelyn has her own boutique she can have it in her shop!  Here it is.

 
 
This one actually has a chain hinge that automatically lifts the machine up from the cabinet.  It's in beautiful shape.  Now I just have to figure out how to use it.  Hopefully the next time the power goes out I'll still be able to sew!


Blessings friends,