Old Crows

I just put some old crows in my Etsy shop.

Well, no...they're not really crows. I'm not sure what these black and white herringbone tweed birds are, but we'll call them crows anyways.

They're made from an upcycled tweed wool jacket with appliqued wings and glass seed beads eyes. The wings are also upcycled material, a polyester moleskin. I've gotten to where I prefer to use all natural materials in my work, but the moleskin is great for appliques and I'll use it up before throwing it away. And as usual, the birds are stuffed with leftover scraps of felted wool.

April Showers Quilt Top

Quilt in progress...

Crazy at Work, Part 2

I recently got Ally a Disney Princess book on being polite and using good manners. A devious maneuver on my part, as Ally's a sucker for anything Disney Princess. But truthfully, she's more likely to listen to Ariel telling her to not interrupt a conversation than Mom and Dad telling her the same thing.

So I'm reading the book to Ally and we get to this page with Snow White.

"Snow White always cleans up after herself."

Hey, I'm all for that! Ally's got toys all over the house and they rarely make it back to their home at the end of the day.

Then we look at the next page with Cinderella.

"Cinderella always puts away the materials for one project before she starts something new."

Uh oh. 'Cause Mommy sure doesn't do that. Mommy's got stuff stashed all over the house.

The dining room table.

Spare chairs.

At least Oscar doesn't mind the piles on the floor.

(I know, I know. I'm working on it.)

Crazy at Work

Steve found this on the stovetop last Sunday and wondered what the heck I was cooking. He posted a picture of this to Facebook, and a mutual friend of ours asked if I had gone crazy.

No crazier than usual. I was coffee staining some quilted ornaments. Mom had found me three panels at a garage sale that were apparently leftover from a quilting project that had gone awry. The piecing wasn't bad, but the quilting itself was a little crude. The colors in the panels were peach, natural, and a blue and peach patterned material very reminiscent of the 1980s and too bright for my liking. So I cut a Pennsylvania Dutch heart shape from the panels and soaked them in warm strong coffee for a while. You can see the difference in color between the dyed and undyed hearts in the picture below.

After the hearts dried, I finished the edges with a cranberry red embroidery floss in a blanket stitch. I added a simple hanging loop made with the same embroidery floss.

Now they look a little more 1880s instead of 1980s.

The coffee stain highlights the stitching on the backside of the hearts.

And yep, they smell like coffee. So much that I find myself wanting a cup and a cookie when I smell them. It's driving me crazy.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

New River Quilt Works opened on Etsy last Friday. Opening a shop online is very exciting and a little scary as it's an entirely new venture for me. I want to thank everyone for their kind compliments and words of encouragement. I am humbled by the show of support my family, friends, and absolute strangers have given me.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart, and now I'm off to the post office to ship my first sale!

-Tree