What to do with...

Cat in the Hat Sheets!

I found these at a local thrift store, and couldn't resist. But I don't know what to do with them. I have both the top and fitted sheet, but no pillowcases. They are a bit on the thin side, that's why you can see some phantom images on the photo above. But they are otherwise in good shape.

Getting up to date...necklaces

Here are a few of the necklaces I've been working on.

More Mother of Pearl

A wire heart shaped pendant

Even more Mother of Pearl

Gold colored wire wheel

Bronze pendant with turquoise

I'm back...And holiday gifts

As far as my crafting skills are concerned, I think I've come a long way in the past few months. To celebrate, I'm going to keep up with my blog.

First things first, I've starting machine sewing. And I think my items are good enough to sell. And lucky enough, other people agree. I even started a etsy site at www.brooklynbelinda.etsy.com. I make a bunch of totes and bags, recycling and reusing material whenever I can. I find that placemats and non-terry kitchen towels make awesome bags. The colors and graphics are great too.

I've also started getting in to jewelry making. I've been on the lookout for recycle/reuse material that I can remake in to jewelry too.

As I feel pretty comfortable sewing, I was able to make my mom a

purse as a holiday gift. She wanted something out of this brown corduroy fabric. That's the only guidance I had. The rest was a surprise. I think it came out really nice, and almost wish I kept this one for myself...

I appliqued the flowers onto the corduroy, and used buttons as the center of the flowers.

Here are a few more shots:

Closeup of a flower on the outside.

Inside of the bag...I used a magnetic closure and there is an internal pocket.

And speaking of gifts, I made this necklace for another family member.

It's layered Mother of Pearl on a simple silver chain.

Work in Progress

After a couple really exhausting weeks at work, I've finally have had the time to start another project. Well, actually continue a project I started a few weeks ago. 

This was a cute design I found in the Sublime Stitching Craft Pad. I guess I unknowingly have a thing for birds. It's a work in progress. The hardest part for me, besides actually finding the time to do the embroidery work, is choosing colors. I'm bad. I can never figure out what colors "go" together. This problem also partly explains why it takes me FOREVER to get dressed for work in the morning. 

Today I stitched the orange, brown and pink parts. I'm going to tackle the birds next. In blue.

Cat's Meow

Five Minutes!

That's all is took for my newly made kitty toy to end up soaked in the dog's water bowl...

I saw a cute basic mouse shaped cat toy on Craft Stylish and decided to give it a try. Though I did try to make it my own, adding a few whiskers. This baby was loaded with catnip, so I really thought Molly would enjoy it.

She did. 

And all of five minutes later I found it floating in the dog's water bowl. This mouse absorbed the water like a sponge, and the wet cat nip left green stains on the mouse's ribbon tail. 

Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

Organization

Bonus Project - Wallet

On many a blog I've come across instructions for various wallets. I had bought some felt and and thought I could do one with the felt.

And the inside...

The ladybugs are not yet attached (not sure I really want to use them, even though I made them), and I need something to cover up my sewing of the snap on the front. The inside of the wallet is lined with some scrap fabric. I attached the two layers with fabric glue, however, I have since discovered iron-on fusing. Next time I will know. The fusing would have made a smoother finished product. 

Project #2 - T-Shirt

Over the past couple weeks, I've been buying tons of supplies. TONS. Everywhere I go I see something I could use for my new hobby. And internet shopping makes it (too) easy to buy whatever I want. 

Anyway. 

I wanted to try embroidery on a t-shirt. There is a discount store in my neighborhood and I picked up three shirts for $5. I didn't want to invest too much money in this until I'm more comfortable with the thread and needle. That price was right. The shirt was perfectly plain. All in needed was a bit of colorful thread.

From my research I knew that stitching on t-shirt material was going to require a little something more. I bought a small amount of iron-on/tear-off stabilizer. This stuff made it real easy to work on the shirt. Though next time I know I need more than one layer of stabilizer. I'm learning!

I liked a embroidery pattern I saw on LollyChops, and decided to use it for my shirt. After carefully transferring the pattern from paper to my shirt using a iron-on transfer pen, I was ready to go. 

I don't have any in-progress shots, but I'm pretty happy with the final outcome. I even used a bit of fabric for the bird wing. I'm getting advanced with my "mixed-medium" techniques.

Yes, I do need to add a wing to the little bird, and I will. I ended-up also using a transfer pen to make some of my lines a little darker, and I need to "erase" those lines with a bit of water before I iron on the wing, otherwise it will be permanent. 

My first project

Here's photos of my very first embroidery project. I bought one of the kits from Sublime Stitching, and got to work on one of the tea towel.

And a close-up....

Not too bad for a first project. I finished it in time for Valentine's Day and sent it to my mom.

Hi there

Hello there. 

I'm just starting to pick up embroidery (and other types of creative sewing), and thought this would be a good way to share my progress.