What's on my desk today

:)

I finished the Sweet Dreams doll quilt!

It took me awhile but I finally finished the Sweet Dreams 

doll quilt.

Yeah!

These next photos are sneak peeks at what

I am working on now.

and in my spare time I'm still working on Josh's 

Christmas stocking. 

:)

Pink Sweet Dreams doll quilt

Decided to finish hand quilting this today.

Now I'm putting on the binding and should be done by the 

end of the week.

Work really cuts into my crafting time!

:)

Poinsettia dies

Christmas is still on my mind,

or I am just starting to play with 

my Christmas present that I gave to myself.

I love the poinsettia die I picked up, and

I am looking forward to making some cute cards

for Christmas next year.

One of the advantage of dies is that they 

can cut felt as well as paper. 

I picked up some pressed felt with silver sprinkles embedded

in it to make the poinsettia "flower". It worked

like a dream! It cut perfectly! It even left the 

embossed veins in the felt.

I love it.

I found an inspiration idea and went with that layout.

I decided to make a card rather than a tag, though the

idea of stamping snowflakes in white may also be

used when I do the inside of this card.

I don't have anything to put in place of the stars,

so I will have to leave that blank for now.

I did however add a sentiment at the bottom

of my card, embossed in black. 

Quick and easy and it looks so much better 

than just plain ink.

I used one of mom's old  (or vintage) buttons,

they look so much better than new ones. Added some 

twine and glued it to the flower. I did stitch

the layers together, then used sticky tape to attach it to the 

card. I wasn't sure that just plain Aleene's glue would hold

such a heavy flower.

I'm still trying to think of what I can use at the top of the card,

any ideas?

Christmas pillows

I found a photo a few months ago of an embroidered cityscape 

on a pillow.

 I figured that the boys would love to have

similar pillows for their homes. 

 So I got to work making the pillows in time to give to 

them for Christmas.

First I had to find a drawing of Chicago and Cleveland that would work.

I didn't want too much detail so I simplified the drawings 

a little so I would have a easier time embroidering the outlines.

I then enlarged the patterns to fit the pillow forms I had using photoshop.

I used my light box to trace the patterns onto black linen

fabric. Then I just did a straight stitch with gray DMC thread.

It went together very quickly, and I'm pleased with the results.

Anthony's pillow

Daniel's pillow

( Anthony takes better photos than I do,

guess which one is his photo!)

Wonder if there is a vector drawing of Wickliffe I could use

to make a pillow for myself!!!!!! LOL!!!!!

:)

I've been working on Josh's stocking.

I think I may end up blind by the time I'm done though.

I'm working on the ship in a bottle which entails stitching

one thread over one thread. 

That is tiny!

Check out the regular stitched next to the tiny ones and

you'll see what I mean! Tiny!

Anyway, I'm still having loads of fun doing this and can't wait to

start the next one.

Later! 

:)