Celestial Journals

You may well ask where I get my supplies, and I would say: that's a good question! A lot of my stuff I have had for years (in some cases since I was a kid, even) and other things I just come across and snap up for a rainy day. But sometimes I need a particular item right now, so I have to go out and get it. I have been known to hit up Home Depot, Michael's and JoAnn's, among others. If they all fail me, or its a more esoteric item, I must search on-line. In those cases I check out etsy vendors, ebay and sometimes even Amazon. So far, I have almost always successful.

So, recently I purchased a collection of National Geographic maps for my various paper projects and when it arrived I was pleasantly surprised to see that one of the maps was not a world map but a map of the heavens. The journals that I covered earlier in the week turned out so nicely, I wanted to create celestial composition note books too.

Above, you can see the full size notebooks; one with the southern hemisphere sky and one with the northern hemisphere heavens.

Below are a couple of mini notebooks featuring particular constellations.

I think I will never have to buy another "special" notebook for journaling again!

Felted sweater flowers

So.... what did I make with that glorious felted sweater flower bit stash that I created??

Well you might ask, my friends! I made a bunch of flowers, of course. And then made them into various items. Here's the low down on one of these babies!

 Here's a finished flower using the Kool-Aid dyed petals (the very bottom whorl), the natural shade of heathered blue of the sweater (next whorl up) and then 2 whorls of yellow and then gold for the sexual parts (the stamens and the carpels). [OK, now you're saying: huh? and I have to admit that my grown-up job is teaching biology and botany at the university level. So the terminology just happens. Sorry. Can't help it]

Here's the flower from the back. You can see that I have sewn a pin on the back. Thus, this flower is a pin/broach. A big, exuberant flower pin.

 And a little bit of a close up so you can see the details. While it isn't 100% botanically accurate, I think it still has the flavor of a real flower center.













I have this ongoing goal of stepping up and developing my brand. That includes developing my logo, which you saw a few posts ago. Currently, I'm integrating that logo into business cards, invoices and product packaging in an effort to really look professional and add perceived value to my items.

So here you see the card stock mount that the pin is mounted on.

I'm really pleased with how it looks. And when you see a whole group of these together, it really looks great.

I made some other stuff, too! More flower items as well as some related items using different materials. So stay tuned!

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Kool-Aid Fun

 I know its been a long while--sorry, my friends!

Its been a busy time lately and I have actually been working on a lot of crafts. One of the things that I have been doing is working on a lot of felted sweater bits.  In have finally amassed a good stash of sweaters to use but the color palette left a lot to be desired. So I decided that I would just make my own colors by dyeing what I needed with....Kool-Aid. Lots of advantages with the stuff--no nasty chemicals involved so I can use my cooking pots. Its readily available (well, more or less).  Its already pre-measured. And its cheap!

 So check out this gorgeous peacock blue in my first pic. Isn't it lovely? And here's my pile of already cut up and felted wool bits ready to go. Some is already blue, but its a rather dull blue so I wanted to see if I could beef it up a little with some Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade flavor Kool-Aid. OK, yeah, yeah, basically, its blue. That's all you need to know.

 Here is a close-up of my "before" wool.  As you can see I have blue, pink and some off-white.

At this point I have boiled the Kool-Aid and wool for about 5 minutes and then let it sit for about an hour. Note how the water is now clear again--all of the dye has been taken up by the wool. Cool, huh? The citric acid in the Kool-Aid acts as the mordant so the dye is permanent.

After drying in a hot dryer (which further promotes the felting) I have a beautiful pile of various shades of blue felt bits. Much more to my liking!


Now I just have about 9 more different colors to try!

Underwater under construction

Hello all! I'm finally back in the swing of things so I have several things to post about. Yay!

After many moons, I have picked up my under water quilt once again and decided to just get a move on. I had been strop piecing the background with various shades of royal and navy blue, but had gotten bogged down (=bored) with endless blue, blue, blue strips, strips strips. I had made 6 strips and sewed them together but they were not wide enough for the dimensions I envisioned. Bleah!

As I was browsing the internet this one evening last weekend, I came across Sherri Lynn Wood's awesome tutorial on how to sew curved seams and something just clicked! I cut my long 6 strip wide panel in half, sewed it to itself to make a 12 strip wide piece and then cut it up into gentle curves.


Those got inserted between swatches of some of the same solid fabrics I used in the strips. et Voila! A lovely, shimmery underwater background in the size I wanted. Sherri is hosting a Mod Mood quilt archive for folks that have used her technique and are making a Mod Mood quilt--check it out!