Ahhhh, bliss....

It's a lovely picnic-y day here in San Pedro. The perfect day for a
Busy Bee sandwich and a picnic at Averil Park. The perfect day for my
mother to walk the children down to the duck pond so I can admire the
rubber trees and get a little bit of stitching done.

My shirt..

Cause I'm a selfish seamstress at heart. I used the rose stencil in
the Alabama Stitch Book as inspiration, enlarging/drawing it freehand,
and then painting it in. LOVE IT!

Alabama Chanin knock-offs

I'm working on bday pressies for my sister. Her birthday is in April.
Depending on the website I refer to, her birth flower is either the
daisy or the sweet pea. So, I decided to do 1 of each. I found an old
daisy papercut stencil from Martha Stewart living (at least 5 years
ago), and copied the idea, though I drew and then painted freehand, to
make a colar for the peachy-pink shirt. I'll use powder blue knit for
the appliqué ala Alabama Chanin.
I looked at some pics of sweet peas online, particularly this one, and
then painted freehand on the blue shirt. I'll appliqué the flowers,
ala Chanin, and just outline stitch some of the leaf/vine details.
I'm excited. I think Im gonna paint a shirt for myself too.... My son
has an ear operation tomorrow, I'll have 4-5 hours of sitting and
waiting, and I have ADD, so I need lots to keep myself busy. I'm gonna
take a shirt, a skirt, a book, and some crochet. That way I have
options.

Embroidery hoop picture frame!

I think I'm BRILLIANT!!!

OK, so a few months ago, I saw someone doing something like this in their workroom. awesome, right?

So when I found this sewing fabric at the Urban Craft Center, I had to get a little, so I could do this

my sewing room entrance has a little turn, so you enter and see a bit of wall/the side of the closet... my loving husband put some nails up for me, and now I have this lovely entrance!

the lowest print is of pins, the big one is spools of thread, and the top is safety pins.

anyway, doing this made me think that I could maybe put some pictures on them...

so I made this:

I took some plastic (cut from the wrapping on D's new car booster seat, but it's just regular clear plastic, like sheets come in, or... well, lots of things, I know I'm always throwing stuff like this away, so I decided to use it this time...), and some scrap fabric that was big enough for the hoop... I ironed some interfacing on the fabric to give it a little more body...

I cut the pieces to be about 3/4" bigger than the pictures, so i'd have 1/4" seam allowance on 3 sides, plus a little wiggle room. I zigzagged the pieces down on 3 sides, slipped in the pictures, and then sat back.

hmm.

underwhelming.

not nearly as cool as I had imagined.

clearly, it needed MORE!

well, it IS an embroidery hoop, after all:

some lazy daisies (REALLY LAZY!), some stem stitch, some buttons, and about 2 hours of my time later:

isn't it AWESOME!?!?!?!?

it makes me happy every time I see it hanging in the hallway.

and I can switch in different pictures whenever I want!

I'm working on another one right now, but I don't have another big frame...

trying to resist driving 40 miles to where I bought this one... probably better to just go to Joanns tomorrow.