Finishing Things!

I am on a roll - two projects finished this week! Never mind how long it has taken me to do them, or when they were promised.  At least they are DONE.  I have too much fun doing this stuff - I love embroidery/crazy quilting, gardening, sewing, crocheting, etc. There is just never enough time!!  (maybe I try to do to much?!?  nah!!)  But I digress.

First, we have the Snowball Swap at Crazy Quilting International.  These are just compact disc-sized crazy quilted circles that we exchange with friends. We call it throwing snowballs. Anyway, Annamaria (Manya, my dear Hungarian ‘cousin’) and I agreed to throw snowballs in April. Manya got hers done on time, but I was a month late.

Here is Manya’s snowball for me, which I LOVE, love, love. I requested bright (Kaffe Fasset) colors.

I am going to put my snowballs in embroidery hoops and hang them on my white studio walls around my bright thread storage.    

And below is my snowball for Annamaria, done in her colors. The “snail” is a vintage bead, and there is an itsy bitsy spider handing from the climbing roses. I hope you like it, dear Manya!!

Here is the close-up of the spider. I didn’t notice until I took this picture and enlarged it that the spider’s head is not attached to his body (she really is very tiny and my eyes are not the best!).  Pretend you don’t notice.  :-)

My older son Ryan is engaged to the most wonderful woman, Kim. They have been together over 5 years, and her daughter Lauren (and son Easton) are like grandkids to us, and have been since the day we first met them. Anyway, Lauren is going to spend one day (or half day depending on her busy schedule) with me every week during the summer because she wants to learn to sew (and bake, and other home-y things). She is 8. Anyway, when they visited earlier in May, I had her pick out some fabric for a dress from my stash and together we picked out a pattern (also from my stash - I have literally hundreds). This is what I made for her:

It does look much cuter on her, of course.  It can be worn either as a sundress, or unbuttoned below the waist and worn with shorts. I made her shorts (not pictured) in the pink contrast fabric.  I had some really cute bright golden yellow buttons that I wanted her to pick for the front, but she was adamant about the pink buttons, so that’s what she got.  :-)

I have been purchasing fabric like mad to make quilts for all the grandkids for Christmas. Will show it to you with some of my ideas soon.