See, I got her to wear the hat.....

and I finally finished the mermaid costume.  It's a miracle.

Happy Halloween you guys.  

How to construct a gnome hat in 12 easy steps.

 HOW TO MAKE A GNOME HAT:

1.  Buy one of these at ye local Dollar Tree

Begin with enthusiasm and optimism.

 2.  Unceremoniously rip off the fluffy stuff.  As best you can.  Those little shreds won't matter.

 3.  Find some red fabric.  Whatever you've got will do.  

Grab some double stick tape.   Tape it on the hat, hoping it will do some of the work for you.

Curse it when it doesn't.  Stupid double stick tape.

 4.  Using a combination of double stick tape and sheer force of will, roll hat around until coated in red fabric.

Cut off excess.

 5.  Trim the bottom.  Leave an inch or so past hat.

 6.  Remember to plug in glue gun at this point.  Make an extra trip through the house for extra glue sticks. 

While waiting for glue gun, work on gnome hair.

7.  Thread some sort of skinny thing like ribbon, fabric, yarn or dental floss between... well whatever you can find.  These coffee cups worked fine.  Your skinny thing is what you'll tie yard around for gnome hair.  Make sure it's as long as halfway around the gnome hat.

8.  Attach yarn to ribbon.

9.  Continue tying yarn.  At some point, get frustrated and put 8 lengths of yarn together at a time.  It won't matter anyway and it gets the job done faster.  

9.  Tie knots on the ends so your gnome hair doesn't escape.

10.  Use hot glue that is now heated up to secure fabric to hat.  Forget to take picture.  Burn fingers several times.

11. Attach gnome hair to inside back of hat using excessive amounts of hot glue.  

Burn fingers again.

12.  Admire your handiwork.  Pray child will actually wear hat.

Happy Halloween and lots of love to all of you!!

Quilts in the shop

 So my goal was to list quilts in my etsy shop as well as hair clips and other odds and ends....

love this one

because I ADORE this backing.  And it's quilted in stars!

and this one?  well, how can you go wrong with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

and I'm kind of a sucker for lime green .... well, anything!

This one was a happy experiment.

love the bird!

If you want to see more pictures, go check out my shop!

and if you feel like sharing my links with anyone else, I'd be ever-so-grateful for your support of my dream!

Blogger's Quilt festival

Hi Friends!

I'm so thrilled to be participating in Amy's Blogger's Quilt Festival today.  What a fun grouping of some amazing work.  Be sure to click through and check out all the awesome quilts on there!

I'm sharing this quilt today: 

I worked on it for months and months... because it kept getting put aside for other projects.

I made it for my bed.  It's an oversized queen, measuring 84" by 94"

I came up with the block on my own, and there are about a zillion and a half HST's in there. 

See?

This is by far the most organized quilt I've ever made.  Most have more of a wonky/improv feel to them.

But I enjoyed making it.

Here's the back.  I put a piano key border on the top, so when the bed is made and the top is folded nicely over you see that.

I LOVE this large scale print on the back!

And then I pieced some leftovers into a corner just for fun.  And because I ran out of the floral and naptime was almost over......

edited to add:  Here's the fabrics used so no one has to squint:

The letters are Michael Miller's Word Search.
The dark newspapery one I have no idea, but if you know, please tell me.  I'd love to have a bolt of it.
The lighter one is Moda Authentic which I added when I ran out of the newspapery one.
The music notes, I'm not sure.
Also the one with the shredded paper doesn't show well in pics, but it's fabulous in person!
The binding is Moda's Attitude Girls.
And the dark is a Moda dot (brown on black).

Then with some more leftovers I made these:

All of it was machine pieced on this:

Here it is, all set up together.

Thanks so much for stopping by the Wendy City!

hey wendy! huh??

Hee hee......  

You know, I love getting to see pictures of the people whose blogs I follow.  

It just brings me great joy!

And yet, I didn't feel like I could bring myself to post a self-portrait other than the cryptic one you see on the right.  I'm rather shy, you see.

But I liked this one, since it's an (obviously) unposed action shot.

So here's me.  And my workspace.  

and a quilt I finished up last week. 2, actually. they are both in my shop.

And the shorts on my obnoxiously bright green chair (which  I love)?  

Trying to make a pattern off them but have not yet been successful.

The quilt on the machine?  Didn't turn out.  Yep, that happens to me too.  Good idea, didn't work.

love to you all today!

Making progress....

Friends, I told you last week I was working toward a goal of posting items on etsy.

I'm getting there.... one click at a time!

Gerber daisy feather clips

white flower clips

maroon hair clip

sunflower hair clips

pink hair clips

All are listed in my shop.  

Go check it out!

I've also posted some quilts, but I'll update you on that another day.....

My super-fancy sewing kit

My older daughter takes ballet. 

And during her class, I sit downstairs and hand-sew binding on whatever quilt I'm currently working on.

And I get to talk to a sweet friend, whose daughter is also in ballet class.

While she crochets.

And yes, people stare at us.

But I don't care.

It's lovely.

But I decided that I needed a good way to keep my hand-sewing things together.  

Not only do they go to ballet with me, I've started taking my things when I know I'm going to have to wait.

SO.....

I made this.  The fabric was a gift from my sister in law.  Don't you love it?

And when you open it, it looks like this.  

I love the thread-keeper.

It has a handy little built-in pincushion.

And a nifty pocket for my scissors and seam ripper and thimble.

I've really enjoyed this--it's come in handy for me.  I was thinking about writing a tutorial.  

Is there any interest on that one?

Wendy sets a goal

Friends, I'm setting a goal.  You see, I'd like to sell crafty things.
And I know that reaching a goal.... well, it depends first on setting it.
And then taking a zillion small steps to reach it.

And sometimes some of us need to publicly state a goal in order to feel accountable to making those small steps.

So here goes.
I'm going to do my best to post 5 items on etsy each week.  That's one for every weekday.  And some weeks I'll post all 5 at once.

So here's the item for today:

 love the backing!

 love the bird!

you know I love me some striped binding.....
it's a child's lap quilt.  Could be a crib quilt.  Could theoretically be a wall hanging. and it's right here.

I'm a guest poster! Someone pinch me! EEEKK!

Friends, I'm guest posting today over at Stash Manicure!

Have you been there?  Because it's fabulous.  And I've always wanted to be a guest poster.

So it's a big day for me...

So please jump over there and check out Stash Manicure.  

Be a follower.  

Leave a comment on my post so I feel loved?  

It's a lovely read every morning as you drink your coffee!

I posted about this quilt.

so thrilled....

now, my post over there talks about scraps I sent away.  

I'm not sending them away now.  

That was back in March.  

But stay tuned, I'll probably have more sometime soon!

Dollar store flowers to hair clips, part 3

Today we're working with sunflowers.  These are readily available at the dollar tree, in a variety of colors.

I like the way these look, and we're not going to change them much to make clips.

Here's what you will need:

sunflowers from the dollar store.  there are several on a bunch, so $1 worth of flowers will make 5-6 clips.

some green scrap felt

spring hair clips

hot glue gun + glue

Let's get started!

First, pull the leaf part off the stem.  Remove all the center plastic stuff so that the tri-leaf thing lays flat.

Next, remove the flower from the stem.

You're going to want to peel off the green backing part.

When you do, the post part will stick out.

Trim it off flat.

Allright.  Almost done.  Can you believe it?

Get your hot glue out.  Put glue between the layers of the flower and also between the flower and the fuzzy center part.  As always, try not to burn your fingers!

Glue the leaf part to a piece of felt that is slightly larger than your hair clip.

Glue together.

Once the glue dries, flip them over and glue the hair clips on. 

So this is the end of my "Hair Clips from Dollar Tree Flowers" series.  

What do you think?  

Anyone out there motivated to destroy some cheap flowers to make hair ornaments?