{work in progress} : alphabet embroidery sampler

So I'm a really competent knitter, a pretty competent spinner, and a fairly competent sewer ... but one thing I haven't done much is embroidery.  I've done a handful of small projects but never a big one ... and recently, while immersing myself in Seasons 1 & 2 of Downton Abbey, I felt the inexplicable urge to take on a big embroidery project.  (It must have been Levinia sitting and stitching away ...)

When I came across the Daisy Chain Alphabet Sampler, created by the amazing Posie gets Cozy. 

I've already learned tons through this project, like how to organize my floss :

How to make perfect little French knots :

How to improve my satin stitch :

How to make cute little daisy stitches with a tiny straight stitch in the middle for accent :

Though I have a number of other projects that have deadlines, I can't help but to find a few minutes in the day to finish just one more letter ... it's been a lot of fun so far!  Can't wait to finish ...

{zakka style sew along} week 3 : fraternal twin pincushions

On to week 3 of the zakka sew-along ... a cute pincushion which, to be completely honest, is about the last thing I need!  I have about five pincushions that I made a while ago on a pincushion kick that I use regularly.  So, I decided to make twin pincushions for two friends on my block who are also quilters.  They've been helping my cause of collecting selvages, because (unlike me) they see no use in hanging on to umpteen selvages from projects past.   So -- I set off to make them a pair of twin pincushions using selvage, as a "thank you" for their sharing their selvages with me. 

I decided to put a little phrase on the stamped patch, as I couldn't find a suitable stamp in my pitiful stamp collection and didn't feel like hunting down one at the local craft store.  I have one of those little tiny alphabet stamp sets, and I have to say that it's about the most useful stamp I've ever owned.  I use them all the time, both on paper and fabric!  For the words, I settled on "Ouch" and "Poke me" ... and each of the phrases then influenced the style of the pincushion ...

For my friend Jeanne's pincushion I added a button that I made years ago (like the fimo button on my recent house pouch), just for fun.

For my friend Lori's pincushion I added a button left over from this sweater that I knit ... (ahem) about six years ago.   I can't believe that this button has been in my stash since then!

For the backs ... the fraternal twins are actually identical!

I forgot to take a picture of the wool that I used as stuffing ... being a spinner, I actually have more wool than polyfiber filling in my house.  It seems to make a nice, stuffed feeling.  I like it!

I already can't wait for the next zakka project ...

finished quilt :: "sugar skull-eating-pirates"

I finally finished the crazy wacky baby quilt that I blogged about earlier.  Again, this was a quilt made for a young lady who is my substitute teacher extraordinaire, and even returned to sub in my middle school classroom only 5 weeks after giving birth to her second child ... wow!  That's impressive, in my book.  The whole "pirates eating calaveras" theme came from the fact that we are the pirates at my school, and that she is a Spanish speaker, and thus who subs in my Spanish classes.  When I first thought of this idea, it seemed like a really good one.  In the end, the quilt is just a little crazy, I admit ... as I said before, she'll either love it ... or hide it.

Here's a close-up of my quilting, which was a pseudo-loopy stitch ("pseudo" meaning that it didn't always turn out quite like I wanted it to).  Given my general inexperience at free motion quilting, I'm really okay with how it turned out:

The backing of the quilt is the allover pirate fabric, with one extra strip of red + scraps, because I needed the extra width.

And for the "signing" of the quilt, I decided to do a tag like one that I saw on someone's blog (and immediately pinned).  For this tag, I first embroidered two things, one on each side of a fold ...

... which turned into a tag:

... and then I inserted the tag into the binding. 

The back has my name and year on it.  (My embroidery skills leave a bit to be desired ... more on that later.)  I have no idea what this will hold up as, in terms of tags and baby hands grabbing at it, but I thought it might be a nice idea to at least try out.  We'll see !

Yay for a finished baby quilt!