Stockings!

My niece has gotten involved in 4H recently...which involves lots of community service, apparently. One of their recent projects is to put together a lot of stockings using donated cloth and stuff. And guess who got tapped to help out!

I can't help it when they ask so nicely...

So here's the end of my most recent project.

For starters, they were all pre-cut into the stocking shape by the 4H leader, so that saved a lot of time/effort. I forgot to take a picture, but my first step was to fold the top of each half of the stockings and sewed a thin hem.

Next, I pulled out the *dun-dun-dunnnnnn*... Bias tape machine! That thing is awesome, I swear.

After cutting some 2" strips of red cloth, I fed it to the bias tape machine, folded the resulting tape in half, and then stitched the longer length into one long bias tape.

Finally, I cut the tape into 4" strips - that should be plenty of tape to form the hanging loop.




 Next - piecing them together. After pairing them together, inside out, I folded over the bias tape so that it formed roughly a 2" loop. I lined it up with the outer seam in between the layers of the stocking, at the rear upper corner. With the sewing machine, I sewed the halves together with roughly a 1/2" to 1" seam depending on the size of the cloth pieces and how the sewing machine was cooperating.





As you can see, here's the finished result.  As with a lot of my recent stuff (I'm still in the learning process after all), they're a little rough, but I think they'll do!

There was a rather...interesting variety of cloth patterns, but hey - I doubt they were going to turn down donations. Hopefully they do the trick and bring some smiles to their recipients!

My first Stitch-A-Long!

So...I'm going to try my first ever Stitch-A-Long - thankfully, there's no time limit...

HAP = Huge A** Project, and that'll be the subject of the SAL. Minimum dimensions required are 300W for the smallest dimension, per the organizer: http://crossedstitches.blogspot.com/2014/11/new-year-sal.html

I have a brand new pattern I hope to try out, so I'll post that once I get a chance to get pictures and all that fun stuff organized!

• Ride the Wind (HAED, by Michele Sayetta, Artwork by Jody Begsma): 350W by 469H for a total of 164150 stitches. In the words of the mighty George Takei...Oh, My!

Goal completed for the weekend.

No picture tonight, but after a week and a half of dealing with hubby's broken leg and the extra chores that come along with it, I finally got some time to sit down and cross stitch some more. Didn't get much done, unfortunately, but progress is progress, even if it's only 62 stitches.

Progress...even if a little.

Made a little bit of progress on my pillow. Not a huge amount, but it's better than nothing...

Goal achieved!

I went into the weekend telling myself that I was going to at least get ONE set of potholders done. Well, here they are. Hope my sister likes them!

Another button flower...

So I've been playing around with some more button flowers, and found an alternative way to do them via YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwK4hxUd07s

As you can see, this one only allowed for four petals, so I'll have to go back and rewatch the video. I did however play around with the chains and the same stitch, and made the petals larger than the original made. I'm liking the results so far - I think I'll play around with this a bit more!

Button flowers!

This is a new project that I found on Facebook. Its a great way to re-purposed buttons as well as use up some extra crochet thread.

The original post is located here: http://www.craftandfun.com/2014/09/riciclo-creativo-bottoni-idee-decorazioni-uncinetto.html#more

It's in Spanish, but there is a link to a tutorial at the bottom of the photos in the tutorial.

They're a little rough, but I'm happy-ish with them. Practice makes perfect after all.