quilt blocks. like actual blocks.

Literal Quilt Blocks for my big sister Leigh for her birthday! I have had the idea for this gift (and also the supplies) for at least two years. Sorry, Leigh. Sometimes it takes a while for me to get to things. Your birthday rolled around again and it finally lit the fire under me. (But still too late for your actual day. Doh!)

I sent this block set to her along with the HST card I made and a handy chart with block layout suggestions:

The 4x4 set of painted blocks is just meant to be a fun, quilty coffee table display or to stand upright on a bookshelf. Leigh's a very talented quilter so I thought she'd have fun switching the designs of the blocks around to suit her mood.

I spent a very looooong time playing with this set. It's fun! See:

You get the idea! So many possible combos. You can make each design in only one color, two colors, or use all three. And if you are methodical when you paint the blocks and do each one the exact same way, each time you build a design on the front there's a different symmetrical design on the flip side.

I bought the precut 1.5 inch wood blocks on Etsy. Six sides to each block = three solid colors and three HSTs in the same colors. Any sides with unusually dark or flawed woodgrains got covered with a solid. I was pretty happy with the nice quality of the unfinished blocks. (Tip: Make sure your blocks are all nice and square before you paint.)

I debated greatly on the best way to get the color on the blocks. I thought about cut paper and Mod Podge first, but scrapped that idea (haha, quilt pun) and decided to paint them by hand with acrylic artist paint. Important: Use a good quality flat brush and a careful stroke to paint on the color if you don't want to drive yourself crazy getting paint over the edges. Mine aren't perfect but I decided that lends them handmade charm.

I used a spray clear sealant to finish the blocks. As a project bonus, the fumes gave me visions of heffalumps and woozles. Strong stuff. Definitely use it outside and don't bring the blocks in until they are dry.

And yes, the overspray got on my glass table^. Didn't realize that until I took away the cardboard and noticed it had a nice frosted glass effect around the edges. Soap, water and steel wool took care of the problem. Rookie mistake.

These blocks were a fun project! I'm planning to make at least one more set.

hst card for Leigh

Handmade happy birthday card for my sister Leigh! It's made of half square triangles because
1) she's a fantastic quilter
2) my gift to her is also quilt themed
3) this just seemed like a fun thing to try in paper, right?

But I found it is totally not fun to make a card like this unless you go buy one of these:

Having a square paper punch makes this card a cinch. I picked this up at Michaels. Don't be fooled by the 1 1/2 inch label there. It punches squares slightly over an inch in size, but the size noted on the punch is measured on the diagonal from corner to corner. Weird. Maybe that's standard but it seems goofy to me. I measure squares along the sides.
So the finished card is 5 x 5 inches.

I planned my colors and then assembled the squares like this: whole square on bottom topped by a triangle, which I cut from the punched squares with scissors, just eyeballing it. Then the assembled HSTs were all glued together on a piece of paper by just lining them up end to end.

I used a Tacky Glue pen for the assembly and it was perfect to put just the right tiny amount of glue on the triangles.

Here's the card with the wrapped gift. It's winging its way to her now so I'll wait a few days to post what's inside the wrapping.

In a completely unrelated K-Drama note, guess what's now streaming on Netflix?

Yaaaaaaaaaay! In the middle of it now!

giving my first talk

Putting together a display board for my Twelve Days series of ornaments. It's a good thing I'm only up to number 7 or I'd have to make another board. I'm thinking when the series is complete I'll need an actual white Christmas tree especially for them (instead of foam core).

The display (and these bags of samples) are for a talk I'm giving at the Madison Station Quilt Guild meeting next week and I don't mind telling you I'm a little (VERY) nervous about it. Talking. Out loud. About my stuff. In front of actual people. My sister is currently serving as guild president so she'll be there for moral support or perhaps to heckle me from the front row.

curated color collection/felt & floss color guides for Goose a-Laying

Photo courtesy of Benzie Design

Tada! It's the official Goose a-Laying color collection featuring Benzie Design's lovely wool felt! If you'd like to make ornaments like mine shown above, Benzie makes it easy by providing this bundle for you. Sorry sorry sorry this took so long for me to put together! Better late than never, right? See below for the specific colors and floss numbers.

Benzie felt colors in this collection are:
Aqua
Icicle
Blue
Cyan
Periwinkle
Coral
Fuchsia
Cotton Candy
Copper
Orange

You can also add matching floss to your felt bundle when you purchase, via the drop down menu. Matching floss comes in very handy when you sew the ornament pieces together.

This color collection is the final one in the series of six different wool felt color collections for my Twelve Days series of ornaments, curated by me and put together for you by Benzie Design! Six color collections means two ornament patterns per color collection:

1) Partridge & Pear + Swan a-Swimming

2) Turtle Dove + Maid a-Milking

3) French Hen + Drummer Drumming

4) Colly Bird + Piper Piping

5) Gold Ring + Lady Dancing

6) Goose a-Laying + Lord a-Leaping

You can go to my Twelve Days resource page if you'd like to see and read more. Now for the color guides:

Benzie Felt Color and DMC Floss Color Guide for Goose a-Laying CORAL/PINK sample:

Goose: 

Wing and body back: Cotton Candy

Body front: Coral

Beak, wing inset and nest: Copper

Neck band: Fuchsia

Straw: Orange

Flower and tail feathers: Periwinkle

Egg:

Front: Cotton Candy

Front inset: Copper

Back: Coral

DMC floss colors for the decorative embroidery: 

Goose:

DMC white

DMC black (eye)

DMC 154 very dark plum

DMC 156 periwinkle

DMC 718 fuchsia

DMC 818 very light pink

DMC 892 coral 

DMC 919 copper

Egg:

DMC 818 very light pink

DMC 154 very dark plum

DMC 947 orange

DMC 156 periwinkle

DMC 718 fuchsia

And then of course you'll need the matching flosses to sew the ornament parts together.

Benzie Felt Color and DMC Floss Color Guide for Goose a-Laying AQUA/BLUE sample:

Goose:

Wing: Icicle

Body front and back: Aqua

Beak, flower, and straw: Periwinkle

Neck band and tail feathers: Cyan

Wing inset and nest: Blue

Egg:

Front: Periwinkle

Front inset: Blue

Back: Aqua

DMC floss colors for the decorative embroidery: 

Goose:

DMC black (eye)

DMC 823 very dark blue

DMC 793 periwinkle

DMC 919 copper

DMC 946 orange

DMC 783 golden yellow

DMC 3846 light turquoise

DMC 3844 turquoise

DMC 3807 dark periwinkle

Egg:

DMC white

DMC 3846 light turquoise

DMC 946 orange

DMC 783 golden yellow

DMC 3844 turquoise (number on back)

DMC 823 very dark blue (word on back)

And then of course you'll need the matching flosses to sew the ornament parts together.

Spongebob softies by Thing 2

Summer making has been in full swing recently for my youngest daughter. She's 12. I'm in awe of her creative drive. Once she gets an idea in her head she powers forward and it's amazing how fast she designs and makes these softies.

This is the first Plankton she made. He is now MIA. I suspect the vacuum cleaner might know something.

She hand sewed them from felt, fleece, embroidery floss, and pipe cleaners. She just makes up her own patterns.

I despair of her craft organization skills though. She never keeps her patterns or supplies in any kind of order and the OCD portion of my brain goes into a tailspin as I'm constantly finding tiny pattern pieces on the carpet, her seam ripper in the couch cushions, her needles laying on the kitchen counter and fretting to myself 'this is an important piece, she is going to lose it'.

(Look at Mr Krab's nose!)

It doesn't seem to bother her at all to lose pattern pieces or parts. At least not enough to mend her ways. She just whips out another one. She's kind of like a crafting version of Pigpen. Only instead of a cloud of dirt around her it's a tangle of floss ends and bits of stuffing and tiny scraps of felt. She literally leaves a trail through the house.

(In fairness I have to add this is exactly why I was banned from the house as a preteen by my long suffering mother. She finally got smart and set up a crafting studio for me in our garage to save our living room carpet. So right now she's probably nodding and saying something like 'yes, it's exasperating, isn't it, dearest?' followed by the lighthearted chuckle of someone who no longer lives with Pigpen Sr.)

And lastly, some accessories to go with the softies: a spatula for Spongebob, a ray gun for Plankton (slightly angrier version 2.0 seen here), and of course Patrick's secret box that contains a picture of Spongebob at the office Christmas party.

A portrait of the artist with her big sister in the background there. I was looking at her earlier versions of Spongebob softies and she's come pretty far in three years.

I hope you are having some summer crafting fun! We are cherishing the days. How can it be almost August?

the black swan color guide

Hey, I've had some requests about the black/grey Swan a-Swimming sample I made so I thought I'd put this color guide together for you. This one actually combines felts from Benzie Design and Felt On The Fly.

Benzie Design wool felt colors:

Body and flower center: Black
Wings: Graphite
Neck band: Moss

Felt On the Fly wool felt colors:

Beak and inner flower petals: Shrimp
Outer flower petals: Orange Red
Water: Sea Green

DMC contrast decorative floss colors:

DMC white
DMC 606 orange red
DMC 943 teal
DMC 3851 lighter teal (neck band)
DMC 581 olive green (on the wing)
DMC 580 olive green (on the body)

And of course you'll also need matching thread or floss to sew the felt parts together.
Have fun sewing!

curated felt color collection/felt & floss guides for Swan a-Swimming

See below for the official color guides to make these ornaments!

(Are you looking for a color guide to the black swan? Click here.)

Palette photos courtesy of Benzie Design

Time for the official color guide for the Swan a-Swimming sample ornaments! If you are new to my Twelve Days ornament series you may not know that Benzie Design offers lovely bundles of felt and floss that coordinate perfectly with my Twelve Days ornament samples! On this palette I did sub in one new color for a color that was unused before. I took Carmine out and put in Peacock! Isn't it a pretty palette?

Benzie felt colors in the felt bundle:
1) Swan
2) Moss
3) Fern
4) Mustard
5) Ochre
6) Orange
7) Cotton Candy
8) Magenta
9) Burgundy
10) Peacock

You can add matching floss to your bundle when you purchase via the drop down menu, which comes in very handy to sew the ornaments together and will save you some time and squinting. (Or am I the only one who squints when I'm color matching?)

There are a total of SIX different curated color palettes to choose from at Benzie's Etsy shop. That means that starting with this Swan a-Swimming ornament I'll be repeating the color palettes:

1/7) Partridge & Pear + Swan a-Swimming
2/8) Turtle Dove + Maid a-Milking
3/9) French Hen + Drummer Drumming
4/10) Colly Bird + Piper Piping
5/11) Gold Ring + Lady Dancing
6/12) Goose a-Laying + Lord a-Leaping

BENZIE FELT COLOR AND DMC FLOSS GUIDE FOR THE PINK SWAN A-SWIMMING:

Cotton Candy: Body front and back

Magenta: Wings
Swan: Water, Flower Outer Ring
Orange: Beak
Burgundy: Neck Band, Flower Center
Peacock: Flower Inner Ring

Decorative embroidery floss colors for the pink one:
DMC black (eye)
DMC white (water ripple)
DMC 3609 very light pink
DMC 3845 turquoise
DMC 154 very dark plum
DMC 947 orange
DMC 3804 magenta
DMC 741 school bus orange

(NOTE: You'll also need matching floss colors, available as an add-on to the Benzie felt bundle)

BENZIE FELT COLOR AND DMC FLOSS GUIDE FOR THE YELLOW SWAN A-SWIMMING:

Ochre: Body front and back
Mustard: Wings
Peacock: Water
Moss: Beak, Flower Outer Ring
Swan: Neck Band
Fern: Flower Inner Ring
Orange: Flower Center

Decorative embroidery floss colors for the yellow one:
DMC black (eye)
DMC white
DMC 934 very dark olive
DMC 3845 turquoise
DMC 947 orange
DMC 937 olive

(NOTE: You'll also need matching floss colors, available as an add-on to the Benzie felt bundle)

And there you have it! Check my shop if you'd like to purchase the Swan a-Swimming pattern. A big thank you to Renae at Benzie Design for putting those handy felt and matching floss bundles together!

Swan a-Swimming pattern now available!

On the seventh day of Christmas

My true love gave to meeeee...

Seven swans a-swimming!

Nothing says love like seven swans. All just a-swimming. You don't have to make seven though. One would be nice! And now you can! Because the ornament sewing pattern is available for download in my Etsy shop and also my Craftsy Shop.

These ornaments are much easier to make than they look! It's all because of a magical printable stabilizer called Sulky Printable Stick 'n Stitch (formerly known as Sticky Fabri-Solvy) that adheres directly to the felt. If you can cut with precision and sew basic hand stitches like a whip stitch, running stitch, backstitch and French knots, then you can make this ornament and make it well. There is no embroidery transferring! You stitch right over the marks and cut on the outlines.

You can read more about the whole series and how the Sulky stabilizer works in the Twelve Days section of my blog.

Swan a-Swimming is the seventh in my original series of hand sewn wool felt Christmas ornaments based on the Twelve Days of Christmas song. Stay tuned for more ornament patterns releasing this year.

All the ornament patterns are available in both my shops:
Mmmcrafts on Etsy
or
Mmmcrafts on Craftsy