good reads continue

Last year, I decided to keep track of what books I read for the entire year.  This was for no real reason other than to see what types of books I typically read.  I included only novels/"book" books.  I read a number of guides, cookbooks, travel things, etc over the year, but did not include them in my count.  Overall, I made out at 32.  I had no idea what number to expect to read, but I think this is a pretty level number.

I've decided to try the same thing for 2012.  I'm already at 3 (in the second week!), mainly because I really liked these books and read them rather fast.

1-Lessons From the Mountain: What I Learned From Eric Walton - Mary McDonough

2- Start Something That Matters - Blake Mycoskie

3- Flunking Sainthood: A Year of Breaking the Sabbath, Forgetting to Pray, and Still Loving My Neighbor- Jana Riess

I'll be listing them as I read them under the "book" tab.

new fabrics and Christmas

Now that all the holiday rush is over, I thought I'd share some of the things I got for Christmas.  Kinsey gave me this wonderful fox necklace from boygirlparty.

I've loved this store for quite some time and have various prints and cards from her.  I've been wearing this necklace everyday it seems.

He also gave me fabric.  Lots of fabric, which I love.  A few are from illustrator,  Julia Rothman, whose work we both admire much.  I can't wait to start using some of these!  The green hill one on the far right, I'm planning a octopus or squid plush with it.  I can see it now.

So great!

Also, on the subject of Julia Rothman, he got me this wonderfully illustrated book she did.  

We saw a review on designsponge a while ago, but I completely forgot about the book.  The illustrations inside are beautiful!

You may be wondering what I got Kinsey since he got me all these and more awesome things? 

Here's one more thing he can cross off his list for his new business.... an iMac!  (I must admit though, I've been using this a little bit and LOVE it.  It's so much easier to use for photo editing and updating than our rather old laptop.)

In addition to my Christmas fabrics, I stopped by our local fabric outlet and picked up some great finds.  First, this rocket ship fabric.

It caught my eye across the room and I fell in love.  Not completely sure what I'll do with it, but it DID inspire a new plush design.  Any ideas?  (Coming soon!)

On the $1.98 a yard table, I found this crazy circus fabric.  Once again, I have no idea what my plan for it is, but I couldn't resist getting half a yard.  

And finally, from the .99 cents table:

I've actually seen this before there, but for some reason never purchased any.  It's a pretty thin cotton, but such a lovely print.  

Obviously, I'll be keeping busy!

the campfire...in felt!

You may remember me gushing about this book on this post.

After completing two additional african violets, I finally made my way to the campfire.  Who doesn't love a good campfire?  They really go hand in hand with the summer season.  Here is the finished result:

First, I sewed the three logs.  Each log has hand embroidered "knots" for a more realistic appearance.




Surprisingly, these went pretty fast.  I enjoyed free embroidering the bark lines and was surprised by how much they resembled logs after being sewn up and stuffed.  Quite frankly, I could've stopped there.   (I do have plans in my head of doing an original tree stump in the near future!)

Here's the three finished logs all sewn and stuffed.

Next, came the final piece, the flame.  I opted for standard fire colors of bright yellow, orange, and red.  The flame is actually three separate pieces with three different colors per piece.  

Here's a close up of the flame.  Each felt piece is blanket stitched around the edges and together.  I used red thread for all the colors instead of matching the felt for a little added detail.  Crazy, I know.

Here's a shot from above, showing the three sections sewn together.  The directions have you gluing the three complete flame sections together and then sewing the edges together.  I found the glue to be rather messy and well, my fabric glue was rock hard.  So I skipped this step for the most part.  Instead of gluing, I just used some trusty sewing pins and pinned the three finished flame pieces together and stitched the edges to join everything.  I found this to work great.  

Another view of the three sides.

Overall, I really love this project.  It's easy (I found it a lot easier and faster to finish then the african violets...although, I did make 3 of the violets in a fairly short amount of time, so I may have just really liked the change!)

All that's missing is the s'mores! (Which actually there is a project for them in the book too!)  This would be fun to put in a fireplace you don't use or in a corner of a room.  Maybe even outside for a little non working fire pit for a summer gathering.

My new favorite craftbook

About a month ago, I was reading a few different craft blogs and kept seeing the same book everywhere- Big Little Felt Universe.   The cover instantly caught my attention.  There's just something about apples and felt that makes me get really excited.  So I decided to look into this book.  

One of the first project pages I saw was the camping set.  Yes, that's a campfire and a lantern and a s'more made from felt.  Clearly, this was my kind of book!  

(above book photos courtesy of this great blog)

Then I laid my excited eyes on this photo.  Bamboo, african violets, and a cactus.  Really, who wouldn't want these lined along their windows?  No watering needed!  So I placed my order and waited for my book to arrive.  It took a week and then the package arrived.  The only downside was I was about a week and a half away from Spring Bada Bing. 

I really needed to focus on that show so I had to put my new favorite craft book aside.

Luckily, this past weekend, I was able to try my first felt project from the book.  I knew it would be a plant, I just couldn't decide which one.  In the end I went with the African Violet.

All the projects in the book are hand sewn, so you can really work on them everywhere.  Which is exactly what I did.  I took the leaves to work to sew during lunch, worked a little on the flowers outside, and constructed the pot in the wee morning hours in my craft room.

Oh, and did I mention that you can take the plant out of the pot?  This kills me.  How cool is that? 

Here's my newest plant soaking in a little sun in the bedroom.  

Up next, I'm leaning towards the cactus.  But first I'm planning on making two more of these for two lucky people for gifts.  I really loved sewing three dimensionally with the felt.  I usually do flat work, (with the exception of my owls) and liked the feeling of building something you could use or give to someone to play with or just feel. 

There's over 70 projects in the book and I doubt I'll make all of them, but it's definitely inspiring!