It Makes Me Happy!

As a crafter I often fall into the pitfall of running out of time to make all the projects I have on my list.

Occasionally a gift or two gets put to the side and I (gasp!) buy a gift from the store.

Last year when my niece got married I made a quilt for her and her husband.  I also made small lap quilts for my two new great nieces!

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite complete the detail work on one of the quilts.  I took it home with me to finish up and ship back.

Fast forward 3 months and my parents came to visit.  I intended to send the quilt back with them but we had just moved and I couldn’t find the box.

So when we visited over the holidays I had to make sure that I hand delivered the precious cargo.

She was so thrilled!  She just kept hugging the quilt and from what her mommy tells me will not sleep with any other blanket.

And that is why I make handmade gifts.  The look on their faces make me happy!

Her baby brother got one of my sock monkeys too, but we couldn’t quite catch him hugging it on camera.

Hello Kitty

My 9 year old loves all things Hello Kitty so when I walked into my LQS as they were packing up for the Smoky Mountain Quiltfest I could not resist the new stock.  

They had this adorable panel that my little girl just fell in love with.

Her birthday was just a couple weeks later so I had to get busy.

I squared the edges of the panel and added a simple double border with cornerstones.

The cornerstones are a square in square design.

I had to try my hand at another pieced back and came up with this belt buckle design.  I love how it mimics the cornerstones on the front.

I quilted it with a simple diagonal strip about 2.5 inches apart.

The look on my daughter's face was priceless.  I was flying pretty high until when we started taking pictures for this post.  Then my 12 year old decided she was going to steal the coordinating pillowcase I made.

We recovered it, broke up arguments and now are back to the enjoyment of a successfully crafted gift.

Have any of you crafted the perfect gift for a loved one?  Share in the comments.  I would love to hear your stories.

Sock Monkeys

Ever since the addition of our new bundle of joy the Daddy of our household has been going monkey crazy.  Little Bit is Daddy's little monkey so he has been finding monkey toys and clothes every single time we go shopping.

Here she is playing with her monkey pull toy attached to her car seat.  (Notice the monkey on her little sweater.) I've also been scoping out the monkey fabrics at all my LQS's.  I might as well jump on the bandwagon, right?

Then last week I was browsing around on Pinterest and I stumbled upon lots and lots of awesome pictures of sock monkeys.  I was bit by the bug.  After playing with several different patterns and altering them to my own liking this was my result.

Meet the newest additions to our family: Cheetah, Skittles, and Pinkie

They really like the tree in our front yard.  I think they are missing home.

Now you too can give a home to a homesick sock monkey.  Trees not a requirement.

Check out our Facebook page for details on purchasing or email me.

You can also find us over on Pinterest.

Happy Crafting!

It looks like I've been busy!

It's been a little while since I posted on this blog.  Thanks to the pitiful service from my satellite internet provider (I live in the mountains and it's the only option) I have been very limited in my internet participation for  the past couple weeks.  But I finally had a beautiful sunny day to take some pics.   So I finally can show off some of those FOs.

Back in November I posted about my frustration at trying to finish a sweater for my son.  I did complete it, even if it was a day late.  And today he posed for me.

This pattern can be found here.

I also was busy before Christmas sewing up messenger bags and cases for the portable DVD players that the kids got.

For the DVD player cases I adapted the laptop case found at Sew Mama Sew.   This pattern was developed by Elizabeth at Oh! Fransson.

For the messenger bags I used the tutorial found here.

As you can tell I love to find the freebies and tutorials out there on the internet.   Through these I've been able to learn many sewing techniques that I would never have thought of on my own.

While I have a ton more pics taken today, most were to update my project page over on ravelry.  If you hope over check them out.  My user name there is applestitcher.

Now that my knitting is almost caught up I should have time to turn my focus back to finishing up some quilts that I have planned.

My goal is to have at least one finished quilting project to show you next time.

Happy Crafting!!!!

Christmas Crafting

If you're anything like me this time of year becomes a blur of Christmas crafting around all the seasonal events.   Last Saturday, the family was invited to a casual Christmas get together.  We were all asked to bring a finger food so I of course got busy baking.  Well, baking and candymaking.

I put together a tin of some of my favorite sweets to share.

These are Oreo truffles, peanut butter chocolate chip balls, and a copycat recipe of Christie Cookies famous oatmeal raisin cookies.

YUM!!!!!

But of course I couldn't just leave it at that.  I just had to have a hostess gift too.  So did I run out to W---- in order to pick up a random gift.  Of course not!   That's not what a over ambitious crafter does for a gift, now is it?

Instead I dug into my stash of cotton yarn and knit a couple of my new favorite quick knits.  

The dishcloth is vortex.   It looks so intricate.  When I finished and showed it to a friend, her response was, "It looks like a knitted quilt!!!!!"  I couldn't agree more.

The scrubbies are tribbles.   Such an easy knit and instant gratification too.  I'm working on more of these for gifts throughout the Christmas season.

I also included a loaf of my cranberry nut bread and a jar of cranberry relish.

I took all these homemade treasures and placed them in a basket that I had picked up at the dollar store.

I was pleased with the results.

Now after this time of procrastination by blogging I must return to my regularly scheduled Christmas crafting bonanza.

But before I leave I feel the need to give you a glimpse at my oldest daughter's reaction to a Christmas gift from a friend.

Have a very Merry Christmas!  And remember to take time to enjoy the little things this Christmas season!

Focus, focus, focus

This time of year easily becomes chaos for my life.   It is research paper time, which for a graduate student usually means it is focus on grades time.   It is the end of fall sports (and thankfully this year no winter sports).   It is the beginning of the holiday season both at church and with family.   For a crafter that also means it is crunch time on finishing all those gifts that I intended to start back in January.  To add to that my oldest has a birthday this Friday.  My middle child has a birthday 2 weeks after Christmas.   So.......

I have decided that the only way to work through this is to focus on one thing at a time.   I can't ignore any of these areas but I need to give full attention to each thing when I am working on it.

So far this morning, I have completed a project for my seminar class and contacted a few people concerning the church-wide Thanksgiving meal.

On the craft front I have chosen to focus this week on knitting.   My oldest asked for a sweater last year.  He chose the pattern, the yarn,and we bought all the supplies.   I even knitted about 50 % of it.   Monday he asked me if he could at least get it by his birthday.   Wow!  Now that one hit home.  So I am working towards completion.  I am working on the Wonderful Wallaby.   He chose a blue Red Heart yarn.   Now I'm a bit of a yarn snob so working with Red Heart SuperSaver is probably why this project is taking so long.   But keep tuned.   I have the body and 1.5 sleeved finished.   All that remains is .5 sleeve, the placket, and the hood.   I think I can, I think I can.

Oh did I say his birthday is Friday?