Out of chaos, order... and a hoop bag!

 

Aviary, Embellished

Being partial to birdies, I was quite excited when Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 fabric line came out. I snatched some up, but wasn't sure at first what I wanted to do with it.

Inspired by images of people simply hanging pretty fabric in hoops, I thought I could do something quick like that to make a nice display. But I couldn't leave well enough alone and just put the fabric in the painted hoops, I had to embellish it!

Just did some simple embroidery to enhance those lovely birdies. I tried to make the stitches look like real bird feathers/markings. It didn't take that long, and I'm pleased with the results.

I added these two little guys to my other birdie embroidery for a nice little display on my wall! I like how it looks now, but I also like that I can add to it and move stuff around as I do more needlework.

Snew

Did you ever do that obnoxious joke where you start talking about "snew" just so you can get someone to ask: "What's snew?" and you can be silly and say back "Nothing, what's snew with you?" ;-)

Here's what's snew with me: My birdie embroidery was a runner up in the Fat Quarterly "WIN IT TO BE IN IT" Reader's Competition! There were some amazing projects featured, so I was very pleased to place. (If you're wondering what Fat Quarterly is, by the way, it's a neat e-magazine filled with patterns and interviews and lots of inspiring projects. Good stuff!)

There's some other little finished projects I've been meaning to post about... Firstly, I made another ereader cover. This one was a gift and I made it scrappy to match the receiver's interests. The French sheep were a big hit, as part of what my friend is doing with her nook is listening to French .mp3s while reading French files to learn the language better. Neat, huh?

Also completed a little outfit for my LPS Blythe. And decided on a name for her, which took almost as long as it takes some people to name their children! This is Cecily. Part of why I wanted an LPS Blythe was that when I see everyone's big Blythes I love all the custom clothes that get made for them. I wanted to test it out on a smaller (in size and investment) Blythe to see if I would like it. But honestly, I think it would be easier to sew for the regular size dolls. I did manage to make a tiny tunic and denim skirt, and I crocheted this little hat. I had meant to make boots, but it's ridiculously challenging creating clothes this small and I gave up! (This may be Cecily's first and last custom outfit.)

Finally, here's my incredibly easy fix to a sewing problem: I've been meaning to make a scrap bag or bucket for when I sew. But the thing is, I have a place where I store scraps, I really just needed a little container of some sort for clipped threads and corners and bent needles and the like. The solution? This nifty tray! It was about the easiest thing ever to make, as it's basically a square with the corners sewed up. So simple and so useful.

So, that's what's snew with me, what's snew with you?

Free as a bird

I love birds. And free stuff. And crafting. So you can imagine how happy I was to find these free crafty birdie patterns!

The embroidery pattern is from Gennine's Art Blog (you can find it in her sidebar). I've long admired her style and have been wanting to buy some of her art. But until I can afford that, I've made my own art based on her design.

I used white on blue fabric since I love Gennine's style of using light lines on a dark background. I haven't decided yet if I will keep this in the hoop or if I will sew it into some other project. But it makes me happy just looking at it. AND it rekindled my interest in embroidery (and cross-stitching, which I used to do a lot of, but haven't in a while).

The other free pattern I found was for these little bird stuffies! It's from Spool (again, pattern in sidebear) and apparently many people used the pattern to make bird mobiles for babies. Would it be weird to make an adult mobile just for me?

I love playing with the fabric combos and the sweet contrasting bellies. I've tried these both with hand and machine sewing and either way works. Machine is faster, of course, but the hand sewing is kinda relaxing.

AND you know what's neat? The bird pattern was just the right size to cut out of some of my new favorite Innocent Crush fabric. How cool is that?

Let me know if you find any other free birdie patterns out there!