Finished Projects

I am famous for seeing something I want to make and immediately beginning the hunt to see if I have the materials I need to make it.  I love digging through my stash of craft goodies to see if I have scraps that will work, buttons I can use and then putting everything I need into a neat little pile.  I take the pile and lovingly place it in a little project basket and begin.  Before you know it, I am half finished and then......I see something ELSE I want to make.  I immediately begin the hunt to see if I have the materials I need to make THIS interesting little project by digging through my stash of craft goodies and after collecting everything I need, I once again place them lovingly into another little project basket and begin the process all over again.  Before you know it, I have about 5 little projects lovingly placed in project baskets and 5 unfinished projects.

This past weekend with the snow flying, I finished a couple projects, my rabbit pillow and my circle pillow.  The rabbit is made of brown wool felt which I appliqued onto some hemp-like fabric.  I like hand-sewing so much better than machine sewing.  The rabbit looked like he lacked something so I made him a little collar of wool felt flowers and put a pearl in the center of each.  Every rabbit needs a floral collar.

The circle pillow was made after I visited Malka Dubrawsky's beautiful blog http://www.stitchindye.blogspot.com/ .  She is an artist who mixes her quilting skills with a special dying process and makes the most beautiful fabric.  I hesitate to even mention my pillow in the same sentence as hers, because I just used scraps of fabric I had, used heat n' bond to adhere the circles to my squares then did some hand quilting on the circles and the finished pillow.  It too looked lacking so I added some seed beads for good measure...It's not Malka, but I am pleased.  She also has a book out called Color Your Cloth, and though I don't yet have it, I have seen it and it is great.

One of the things I like best about crafting is that you can see something that may be far beyond your reach, but be inspired to try something similar that you can enjoy and be happy with.  Generally people are very happy to answer questions and offer help, so you can morph something you've seen into something you make and love that is original to you.  I would encourage you to take some time to look at people's art and see what it inspires in you...then do a bit of digging through your craft goody stash...you never know what you might come up with!

Oh!  Almost forgot COFFEE FILTER TIP # 6:  Use Coffee Filters to wrap ornaments (sorry, a little late) or other fragile things when packing them away.