The Treehouse

Cara's Birthday

This year it was my turn to buy for Cara's birthday which was last month. I decided to get her some threads for some of the charts on her to be stitched list. While new thread is lovely, I thought a little something handmade would be nice too. I settled on making a needle book with a few different types of needles inside. The construction is based on this one by Amy of the Nana Company blog.

The cover has a machine embroidered monogram -

I've used this monogram a few times now and it stitches up really nicely - I stitched it at 20% less than full size.

A  few pics from inside - I dusted off some alphabet stamps and some fabric ink and did a little stamping...it's been a while!

     

Then, I dusted off my card blanks and made a birthday card. I happened upon a cd of Joan Elliott oriental designs one day in my Amazon perusings so as both Cara and I are fans I thought it would be great to make a card using one of the designs. 

It took quite a while for it to stitch out but it turned out absolutely beautifully - I'll definitely be playing with the designs on that cd some more!

 

 

UR Priceless Blog Hop - My turn!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog on the UR Priceless blog hop, organised by the wonderful Mdm Samm of Sew We Quilt and chief cheerleader and super helpful Katherine of Sew Me Something Good. This is my first venture into actually taking part in a hop - I am usually quite happy hopping about and leaving comments but I decided to dive in and have a go this time (and next time too for Holiday Lane!). 

The pattern was gifted to hop participants by Mdm Samm who designed it especially for the occasion. If you would like to have a go at making your own then the pattern is available here.

Sew - for my first purse I decided to use some precious Fig Tree fabrics - I love these fabrics. All went well - curve sewing...tick, frame attaching...tick, cute result...tick!

Here's a pic of the inside...some more Fig Tree

Next, I made one for my daughter - she chose her own fabrics in her favourite colours. As none of them were particularly patterned I thought some sort of embellishment for the front panel would be good and decided to machine embroider a monogram for her...

and a pic of the inside using that gorgeous purple...

These were sew much fun to make, I really enjoyed it - and so quick too. I've a few more in mind to make for Christmas gifts. 

Thanks again for stopping by...don't forget to pay a call on the rest of today's purse makers - the links are below and you can find the entire schedule over at Katherine's blog. I'll be enjoying hopping around to all the other blogs with my morning coffee to see all the lovely creativity.

 

The Crafter's Apprentice

Jane's Fabric and Quilts

Rosemary B on That Other Blogg

Why Knot Kwilt

Random Thoughts Do or Di

Mary T on That Other Blogg

SuperMom No Cape

Lilypad Quilting

.Quiltscapes

Stitch Stitch Stitch

Rose Creations

The Treehouse  <------- that's me, UR here!

Gracie Oliver Arts

Quilting Prolifically

Stekje

Grammie Q's

Happy Halloween

I managed to finish my little Halloween quilt just in time. It was a really quick and fun to make, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here it is below with a little cushion that I made last year - the embroidery was done on my embroidery machine. Also starring in the photo is Bob the Spider - he insisted and a recent painting of me dressed in my Halloween finery!!!

The Halloween quilt was from a pattern in Fons and Porter's Autumn Celebrations magazine - there are several more things in there that I intend to make at some point and I'll definitely be on the look out for more of their magazines in the future. Bob the Spider is on loan from my daughter at his insistence and the embroidery design for the cushion was from Embroidery Designs.com

Owl Scissor Fob

I was having a little surf around my favourite sites this morning while enjoying a cup of coffee when I happened upon a new embroidery design at Embroider Shoppe. I wasn't going to buy it but I was in a mood to play with Felix (my embroidery machine!) and I was also in a mood to avoid (once again) doing some quilting on a poor quilt that's been in the queue since around last March! This is the first design that I've purchased from this shop but let me tell you - I will be buying more in the future! The instructions were excellent and the entire thing was made on Felix, in the hoop - so clever. There are four designs in the download - an owl, an ice cream, roses and a ladybird. I know I'll be making some of the others very soon. Of course, I chose the owl to make first of all and I think he turned out very well...

and here he is wearing his 'glasses' 

I've several pairs of pretty scissors but these remain my firm favourite and hopefully, now that they've got a safe place to live I won't be worrying that they've poked a hole in the sofa!