Skippin' Billies

I finished a couple of things yesterday, and I will post pictures in a couple days after they have been gifted.  'Tis the season for stealth sewing, you know.

These brass deer were passed along to us from my in-laws many years ago.  Nothing fancy or expensive, but they're one of my favorite things to put out at Christmas.  They remind me of happy times with my husband's family as we enjoyed the holidays together.

They've still got a "vintage" Walmart sticker on their bellies.  This was long before there was a Walmart in every other city.  In fact, the first Walmart in Wisconsin opened right here in our little farm town in 1987, taking over a space in the local mall that was once the Woolco store.  My mother-in-law loved to shop, and I imagine she bought these shortly after the store opened.

While I was rummaging around in the sewing room yesterday, I came upon my mom's old embroidery transfers from the 1950s and '60s.  There were the typical things you might see embroidered on pillowcases, dish towels, and dresser scarves.  Cute animals posing in the days of the week, animated fruits and vegetables, cowboys, etc.

But I didn't remember having seen this sheet before.  What a hoot!  Make that a hootenanny!

Or is it a hoedown?  Either way, it made me smile.

Brought back memories of Ma and Pa Kettle, Willy the Hillbilly (old Mountain Dew mascot), even shades of the Smurfs, Popeye and Olive Oyl (Ma's skinny legs and clodhoppers), and Jed and Granny Clampett of The Beverly Hillbillies. 

The transfer sheet says it was by Artex.  Artex was the "liquid embroidery" of the 1960s.  Does anyone remember using it?  Artex made liquid rolling paint in tubes with specialized tips that you rolled onto your fabric, outlining and filling in a design.  Kind of like coloring.

We had a big can of Artex paints, like the one pictured above.  I don't remember, was it sold like Tupperware, at home parties?  Something makes me think maybe so.  I was pretty young to know the details at the time, but I sure remember using those Artex paints.  I made pillowcases and also painted these big scenes that came printed on a weird fused material, which kind of felt like heavy interfacing.  Not my favorite material to work with.  I preferred cotton muslin.  It was like paint-by-number on fabric, and I passed many a cold winter day fiddling around with Artex.

In fact, I still have a drawstring bag I made way back when, which I decorated with Artex. Wait, let me go find that...  

Okay, here it is.

I'm guessing I was probably 11 when I made it, maybe 12?  Sometime during my experiments in Gothic lettering phase, which probably came straight out of the Lutheran catechism.

Now I had to think twice to read the words in blue.  What is "TDY"?  Oh, JOY!  

And when I looked at the back, "Gad?"  Oh, right.  I remembered being frustrated with myself for misspelling "Glad" on the first attempt, but then giving it another go. Because that's what you do when you're learning; you keep going.  Beginner's Mind, and all.

Besides, there was no erasing or un-stitching with those Artex pens.  

But what a great reminder from my younger self:  Carry on and make something anyway!

Oh Brooklyn Brooklyn Take Me In

I missed yesterday in the 31 Day Blog Writing Challenge.  It was a busy day, work-wise, and besides that, my thoughts were preoccupied by other things.

My daughter's cat had major surgery yesterday on his ears to treat a bad infection, and I was anxious to hear how it went.  In the late evening, I finally got word.

The surgery itself seemed to go well, but he developed breathing problems afterwards and actually coded.  He was resuscitated with CPR and whatnot, but in order to breathe, because of postsurgical complications, he needed an emergency tracheostomy.  Hopefully, this will allow the complications to resolve in a week or so.  Meanwhile, he's got drains on either side of his neck from his ear surgery, as well as the trach, and everything has to be kept clear. 

My daughter says he's been sleeping a lot today and will have to spend another night in kitty hospital.  I hope he's got one of my kennel quilts under him.

His name is Brooklyn, but we've always called him Keaky.  I have no idea why.

Adoption Day 2006

My daughter adopted him from the local humane society in 2006.  He has such a friendly personality.  I've always thought him more like a dog than a cat, as far as liking people.  He runs up to greet you when you come in the door and then does this thing where he paws at your shoes, as if to say, "Take them off and stay a while, please, so you can pet me."

For some strange reason, he never riled up my usually severe cat allergy.  In fact, when I noticed that I didn't sneeze and break out in an itchy rash around him, I had myself allergy tested to see if maybe I didn't have a cat allergy anymore.  Because then I would get myself a cat!

Unfortunately, testing showed I'm still quite allergic to cats, dang it.

We are hoping for a complete recovery for Keaky and a resolution of his complications.  The next few days will be critical.

*If you're wondering about the post title, it's from the song "I and Love and You," by The Avett Brothers.

Media, Music, and Movies

Read any good books lately?

Dad reading to great-granddaughter Cali on Thanksgiving Day.

I enjoy a good story, but I'm a multitasker, so I tend to listen to a book while I'm sewing, walking, or doing dishes.  

I caught up on a few of the classics this past summer via the collection of free audiobooks available on Loyal Books and Librivox.  These are read by volunteers, and some of the readers are very good, others not so much.  As I discovered a particularly good narrator, I'd see what other books he or she had read and listen to those as well.

Recently, I resubscribed to Audible in a special 99 cents a month, "we want you back" deal.  It was an offer I couldn't refuse.  Especially since I wanted to pick up the audio versions of a couple of the Outlander series books I didn't have yet.  Davina Porter narrates the Outlander audiobooks, and she is a delight, voicing all of the characters in such an authentic, credible way.  With the series on TV, I've started relistening to the first couple of books again.  I've found myself wondering, as I watched the Starz TV series, did it really happen that way in the books?  Some things no, or not exactly, but they are getting the essence of it right and it's been extremely well done so far.

I've also really gotten into podcasts the past couple years.  Some favorites are Serial, Startup, Reply All, Mystery Show, and Surprisingly Awesome (the last four can all be found on gimletmedia.com).  

I could name about a half dozen more  that I regularly listen to, but if I could recommend just one today, it would be Serial.  The second season is in the works and should be starting soon (I hope).  What is Serial about?  From their website: 

Serial is a podcast from the creators of This American Life, and is hosted by Sarah Koenig. Serial tells one story - a true story - over the course of an entire season. Each season, we'll follow a plot and characters wherever they take us. And we won’t know what happens at the end until we get there, not long before you get there with us. Each week we bring you the next chapter in the story, so it's important to listen to the episodes in order, starting with Episode 1.

I'm not usually a huge mystery or crime drama fan, but the story in Season 1 was so compelling, I was hooked after the first episode.  Apparently, I wasn't the only one to feel that way.  The podcast was so successful, it's going to become a TV series.  If you haven't checked it out already, you can catch up on past episodes online or on iTunes.

In movies, I watched a little-known gem this past week called A Little Chaos.  It's a period piece, or costume drama, about the building of one of the gardens at Versailles.  

Ultimately, it's a romance starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts (yum) as landscape architect Andre Le Notre.  The latter actor is the main reason I rented the movie.  He captured my attention in Far From the Madding Crowd, and I'm catching up his body of work to date.  To my surprise and delight, though, I found out in the first scene that the movie also stars Alan Rickman as King Louis XIV.  Be still my heart!  Alan Rickman could read me the phone book.  Stanley Tucci also has a fun role that gives the film some levity.  I really enjoyed the movie and watched it twice, in fact.

As for music, I heard a new song on the radio yesterday that I really liked.  It's by Tor Miller, called "Carter and Cash."  There's kind of a subtle '80s vibe to it that is pretty cool.  See what you think.
 

String Ring Table Mat Finish

The string ring table mat is finished and in place under the Christmas tree.  I had it all pretty much done last night, except for just enough quilting to hold the layers together, which I did this morning. 

I made this one a little differently than my tutorial.  As I mentioned in the last post, I changed the size of the Dresden wedges.  And instead of fusing the center circle in place, I used a different technique.  I sewed a piece of lightweight, non-fusible interfacing to my circle, trimmed the seam to 1/8 inch, slit the interfacing and turned the circle through the opening.

It gives you get a nice smooth circle that, after pressing, is ready to applique onto the center, which I did by machine with a decorative stitch.  Hard to see in the picture because the red Auriful thread matched my fabric so perfectly.  

I also used a piece of muslin this time as a lining (there's no batting) to give it a little bit of stability and weight.  It's sewn together pillowcase style, leaving an opening for turning.  You layer your sheet of muslin, then the string ring right side up on top of that,then the backing right side down on top of the ring.

As you can see, I fussy-cut my circle from a snowflake print fabric.  This was Plan B, believe it or not.  Plan A was a green plaid center circle, which I accidentally cut too small (forgot to add the seam allowance since I wasn't going to fuse it).  I only had the small scrap of green, not enough to cut another, bigger circle, so I had to rummage through the scraps for an alternative.  When I exhausted my bin of green scraps and nothing seemed quite right, I opened a bin of reds, and bingo!

The back is a pretty Vintage Holiday Wreath fabric from Spoonflower that I was a lucky winner of in Lara's giveaway last year at BuzzinBumble.  It fit the circle perfectly, and makes the whole thing reversible!

We found this little wrought iron table at an antique store quite a few years ago.  The table itself isn't an antique, but the parts are. 

I'm not sure where the round part came from for the top, but the feet are from an old sewing machine.

I didn't see the need for a rickrack edge on this topper because the edge of the wrought iron table kind of does the job of embellishment. 

Our tabletop tree is small but can't be beat for the ease of setting it up.  Especially since I leave the ornaments on it year round and just throw a cover on it in storage.  ;)  If you had any question about my level of laziness when it comes to Christmas decorating, there's your answer! 

It may seems a little stark at the moment, but it always looks better with some presents underneath it.  Better start wrapping!



Linking to Can I Get a Whoop-Whoop at Confessions of a Fabric Addict.

String Rings and a Ring-Necked

The bindings are ready for the three small projects I mentioned yesterday.  I'm hoping to get them all quilted in the next few days.

Do you like working on small stuff, or do you prefer larger quilts?  I like both, but small things have a special appeal to me, creatively.  I like working with scraps and experimenting with putting different fabrics together in a fun way, but not necessarily in a bed-sized quilt. 

I don't usually save selvages, but as I work with some recently thrifted Christmas fabrics (more on that below), I thought I'd save a few selvages to use in another fun small project in the future.

The pheasant—who needs a name; let's call him Phrank—seemed to be a good temporary parking spot for selvage number one.

I won't burden him with too many more, though.  He's kind of a delicate old thing, poor Phrank.

We set up our little four-foot Christmas tree on a wrought iron pedestal table last weekend, but it seemed like it needed something underneath it.  Not exactly a tree skirt but something for the potted base of the tree to sit on.  (Okay, so maybe that IS a tree skirt.)  Since the table is circular, I thought I might make a string ring table mat in Christmas fabrics, following my tutorial for it HERE.

It needs to be a little larger than the ones I've made before, so I'm cutting 7.5-inch Dresden wedges instead.

I've given away all the string ring mats I made back then, so it's fun to be making another one again. 

My string strata is 7.5 x 13 inches or so.  I cut five wedges from each strata.  I try to make each strata with different fabrics, and I usually make four different strata sets.  The more variety in fabrics, the more interesting the final ring looks, I think.  

Here I started to put just two different strata's worth of wedges together. 

With the third batch of wedges added, you can see it developing a little more with the variety.

This is where it stands as of now, below.  The lighting in the sewing room makes the colors read darker and flatter than they actually are.  There are a couple metallic prints that make it sparkle a bit, too.

I may move a couple of wedges around before I sew it together, but I don't want to overthink it too much.