Some Summer crafts

    Time to post! I have made a few things this summer to share..


         I got nostalgic this big birthday year and upgraded my baby book. The black pages were fraying, so I cut out all the photos and put them on new black pages in a new book. I moved quickly with scissors and Aleen's original Tacky Glue. I preserved Mother's white ink and just LOVE it. Some of the photos were so small that I enlarged them to add toward the end. I will fix Joe's next!

          Summer is a time of trips and crafts, so I got out my old books with essays about Winston Churchill's taking up painting.  I even tried to paint David (not easy) with my alkyds (oils with a fast drying resin). I only spent a couple of hours, a few evenings, and there is more to go. "If you don't use a talent, you lose it" I am finding is true. But I will keep trying. So glad to paint again. In that spirit, I mailed to traveling Trilla, A Traveler's Guide to Painting in Watercolors since it is fun to sketch or paint to remember more. Connie says she sketches stick figures rather than takes photos because it makes indelible the moments. I agree. For me, a .05 permanent black marker, water soluble colored pencils and a watercolor brush with a water holder in the handle fill the bill. I scribble and color while Joe drives.

         The girls were playing with gimp but never braiding the old fashioned lanyards I made at camp. Rather than explain, I got more hooks and gimp spools at Ben Franklin. I found I could secure the strings of gimp under the top of a clipboard, keep it in my lap at first and as the lanyard got longer, move the board to a drawer. It was not easy, since the specific long lanyard pattern was not on-line, but I made one and attached a flashlight to it. I improved immensely on Erika's pink and white one...but no photo! There are patterns for gimp keychains, square and diamond patterns on line. Patience is required: a two hour job, I think.

     

           One more thought: Before going to the beach the next time, check out all the tricks for clever and detailed sand sculpture on line at YouTube. I love YouTube and Google! So much to learn, so little time.

Framing mini-quilts: an easy task

     People always wonder what I will do with my numerous 8" x 8" and 12" x 12" journal quilts. I stack them in little suitcases of similar size. Framing and big quilting suggestions abound. I just enjoy "leafing" through my portable exhibition to show friends; but Donna Jean's suggestion of sewing them to a pre-stretched inexpensive canvas caught my attention. I wanted to try it. Here is what I did:

     I bought the pre-stretched canvas on sale at Michael's. I selected a compatible fabric for attaching the quilt with a running stitch.  And I cut the fabric about two inches wider on all sides. I next centered the quilt on the frame cover, turned it over  and stitched a simple little running stitch all around. I want to be able to easily remove the quilt from the frame, yet make the piece secure enough to hang. 

     I set the canvas upside down onto the running stitches that I had just sewn. 

     Making sure all was centered carefully, I spread Aleene's Original Tacky glue all around to each EDGE of the canvas and over the stapled area, one side at a time. This glue dries relatively quickly and holds beautifully. It can be a messy task with fingers so I used a big wooden knitting needle. I smoothed all the edges, giving special attention to smart corners.

      My regret was that I cut the landscape quilts to fit the frame. Landscapes should not be cramped. I also forgot to finish embellishing them with hand stitching before framing. It can still happen, but I was too interested in the framing to slow down. If you click the photos to enlarge, you can almost see the frame supports for the quilts which can now hang easily with a little more importance and respect :*)  !

This is what I did during Boston's 2013 snowstorm, along with reading The Snow Child, a novel by Eowyn Ivey!

Self Portrait as Crab: another quilting technique

    The Quilters' Connection has free winter workshops. I signed up to take Gladys' impressionistic quilting based on Susan Carlson's book, Serendipity Quilts. I own the book, but had never tried quilting by drawing a picture, gluing tiny bits of my fabric scraps to fill in the subject and free motion quilting atop. I didn't get far...just the crab. I cut it out and quilted it to a sandy looking fabric. Actually, I added a piece of tulle to the top to blend the colors and give extra hold to the teeny fabric pieces. I am still embellishing it, trying to save! This was all fun to do even though I made a zillion mistakes.

    I drew the object, freehand from a photo, onto 14" x 14" muslin using a Sharpie Rub a Dub marker. I grabbed groups of fabric scraps from the drawer where I keep them and gathered them in piles, rainbow pattern. I used Aleene's Tacky glue and a wooden pointed stick to apply the glue to the center of the scraps. Other people like glue sticks in order for ease in shifting the fabric pieces.

     As a present for the teachers, I turned little tins found at Michael's into mini portable hand sewing kits for carrying handwork around the house...magnets in the top for needles and pins, batting in the bottom so beads won't roll away.  The teachers had to add their own small scissors and a bobbin of thread for sewing to my present. Click to enlarge photos. Visit Susan's book at Amazon to read about the technique in more detail.