Instagram Roundup

Here's a little peek at what I've been working on lately. Sewing, knitting, hand carved stamps and even melty beads!

The photos are from Instagram (yes, I joined that bandwagon. Who knew low-res images could be so fun?) and put together with another app called Frametastic. While my Instagram account is private I am sharing the crafty pics on twitter, flickr, and now here.

Hopefully I'll have some bigger finished stuff to share soon!

Summer Crafting

Summer's a fun time for crafting. This summer I found myself working on lots of little things as I had time. I picked up this great storage case at IKEA and filled it with craft supplies for an on-the-go crafting kit! It worked great, especially for doing little projects away from home, like with my niece and nephew.

We made friendship bracelets and shrinky dinks! (BTW, all you pin-it-wherever bracelet makers: TRY A CLIPBOARD! It's so much nicer for making friendship bracelets.)

AND I got into something new: hand carved stamps. I was inspired especially by the tutorials here and here to try it out. It's a bit challenging but quite fun. Just remember to do your letters backwards so they stamp correctly! (You'll be so mad if you forget.)

I'm keeping my kit loaded for more crafting on the fly with friends, but I'm ready to tackle some larger, more long term projects, too. Farewell summer. It's been fun.

Cross Stitch is Cool!

Years ago I used to cross stitch. I made several projects for wedding presents, you know, with the couple's names and wedding date in some pretty pattern. But for some reason I got out of the habit of cross-stitching for a while.

Now, I think cross stitch is cooler than ever! This is helped in great part by all the fun patterns I've been discovering lately. One shop that has tons of cute patterns is The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. I made this Toast BFFs project from one of their patterns.

Another fun cross stitch project I made is this super cute and geeky one of the Star Trek TNG characters. The pattern was not made specifically for cross-stitching, but is one of iotacon's  pixel designs. The simplified and squared off characters work great for translating onto aida cloth.

 
I really love all the geeky patterns out there for cross-stitch. Here's a free one for Doctor Who's David Tennant. And another one I want to make from Day of the Tentacle. There's lots of Etsy shops with great patterns, too. I love the pixel people of weelittlestitches (new Star Wars ones available!) as well as the nerdy stitch options of bombastitch (like this TRON one).

Ah, the simple pleasure of stitching tiny Xs that turn into fabulously cute and geeky things. Don't you think cross stitch is cool?

Doctor Who Crafting

For a while now, I've been wanting to put together a little crafty care package for the dear friend who introduced me to Doctor Who. Her favorite "character" is the TARDIS. I had the idea to piece together a TARDIS quilt, and this was the result:

In the space that usually says Police Box, I used fabric selvages. (My friend's name is Heather.)

I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to quilt it, but I took a cue from the background (crazily pieced Goodnight Monkey fabric) and did a bunch of stars in three different thread colors.

Here's a look at the stars from the back: (Plaid, since my friend also has a love for Scottish things. Like men in kilts.)

But wait, that's not all! I also made a little felt Adipose baby, complete with snaggletooth and all. "The fat just walks away!"

Actually, it flies away in a box to its destination. Along with another Tardishcloth (the third I've made, and btw I like it better in this Peaches & Creme yarn vs. the Sugar 'n Cream I used for the first two). Also included a couple buttons I found in an Etsy shop.

 Hope she loves it!

Circuits and Spaceships and Robots, oh my!

It was love at first sight for me and Cogsmo. Who wouldn't fall for this cute Cosmo Cricket fabric, complete with robots and little Jetson-like spaceships and circuit boards for pity's sake!

There was only one thing for it. I had to have some. And I made it into a quilt.

It's a simple baby quilt made of squares of the fabric in front, circuits in back, and fun stripey binding. It measures about 36" square. It's been straight line quilted and the batting is 50-50 Bamboo and Cotton.

Wouldn't this be perfect for a little baby boy? Since I don't have one to give it to, I'm offering this one for sale. It would make a great baby shower gift for some hard-to-buy-for little boy! Let me know if you're interested. You'll make some future robotocist or spaceship driver or IT guy very happy.

UPDATE: This quilt has now been listed in the shop!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Turned out my sister-in-law was expecting a little boy. So this quilt went to him. Nice to see it getting used and loved. :-)

Projects, Finished and Un-

You know what I'm really good at? Starting projects. You know what I'm really bad at? Finishing them. I keep picking up more stuff to do when I have many things undone. This is not always a bad thing, as I tend to do small projects in between bigger ones, maybe to prove to myself that I can finish the big ones. Here's a few of my current projects, finished and not:

Just learned some amigurumi thanks to the super cute book Amigurumi World.

(Nowhere near as fancy as this guy does, but really fast and fun to do.)

Dishcloths are another fast project. Here's a geeky one I call the Tardishcloth (Time and Relative Dimensions in Suds).

Got the pattern on Ravelry.

Here's two more projects I'm determined to finish. My entrelac scarf with Noro yarn, started in the fall, hopefully done to wear sometime this winter! (I'm on my last skein, anyway.)

And a super-secret mystery project inspired by the hexes I was making. (No, it's not for the flower garden quilt that I am still working on. It's something else.)

Any guesses what it will turn out to be?