Hung With Care

Nothing like a bit of hand sewing to get the holiday spirit buzzing. Have to admit to loving the build-up to Christmas, though I am way behind on handmade gifts this year and am going to have to steal some time in the coming weeks to get it all done. Despite all that, I sat down to make the baby's stocking during a bit of *still* time. Just plain old felt for these.
You Tube, and the baby monitor were my only companions. And, I discovered this--Odetta on The Johnny Cash Show. No idea how I got this far without knowing about Odetta but I'm an instant fan.

How 'bout that new banner? I will have to go into more detail about the font later...it's big!

Feeling Scrappy.

My fabric scraps seem to get awfully friendly when I'm not around because it always seems like they have multiplied! In an effort to pare down them down and simultaneously feel good about myself for being so utilitarian as to use scraps for a real project, I decided to make two things from the Seams to Me book by Anna Maria Horner. The first is her tea towel. I cheated a bit and did machine, rather than hand, applique on the leaves but did my own embrodiery and hand sewed the flower tops (fabric yo-yos). It was actually really fun and allowed me to bring some sewing out of the basement and join my husband as we devoured episodes of Mad Men on netflix. (SOOOO good!)

The second project is this scrappy ball. It's exclusively fabric scraps and was actually easier than I expected it to be. Stuffing it with polyfiberfill took a long time but like I said, Mad Men. It's just plain consuming.
And, the boys are both really fond of it.