Something Sunday 8: Mactavish Quilt

Finally, I have another quilt to post! I have been slacking so much in my quilting projects, and I'm happy to finally have another one finished!

I was able to work on this one a little bit during my break between semester in December/January. I had everything but the binding done for almost two weeks, and I finally got it all bound last weekend, and finished!

I always take a lot of in progress shots of my quilts, it's fun to be able to look back and see the fabric changing into a quilt... below is where I am basting the quilt.

This quilt was made for my Aunt and Uncle and my two cousin's who live in Winnipeg. I lived with them over the summer and wanted to give them a special Christmas gift. I know that it is almost mid-February, but I'm still calling this a Christmas gift despite how late it might be! I sent it in the mail early last week, so  hopefully it gets there soon!

The binding on this quilt is definitely my favorite part! The fabric is just so pretty, I posted about it right when I bought it because I was so excited.

Now I can get started on my long lists of quilts to make/finish... its going to be a good year for quilts!

Something Sunday 7: Valentine's Day

If you haven't picked up on it yet, Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday! I love all the hearts, and pink and all the goodness. (The commercials are definitely annoying, but I don't have cable, so I get to escape all the hallmark crap!)

I always try and make my roomies a gift for this special day. Its fun to have an excuse to sew some heart covered projects.

This year, I made two of my rommates reverse-applique heart bags and the third one I made a 'mug rug'. For those that don't know a mug rug is like a lager coaster, to use for snacks or whatever. (I have already given one of my roommates two zipped bags, so I thought something different would be nice.)

Side note: I have a bit of a mug collection, and this one is one of my personal favorites. I also have one from my trip to Washington DC last year that is quite amazing, I'll have to share my collection some time.

If you click on the images below to enlarge them you can get a better sense of the reverse applique. It is a  cool technique that I had been wanting to try for a while. For a first try, I'm happy with how they both came out!

 

I do my best to avoid buying any of the wasteful stuff they sell during February and thankfully I did well this year. (normally I cave and end up buying a few useless gifts). This year the chocolates were the only things I bought! I already had the kiss bags on hand from last valentine's day and the rest of the gifts were home-made. I'm definitely happy to be giving more hand-made gifts!

I also made a bunch of cards for the day! I have been trying my hand at scrapbooking a bit more lately and I'm having a lot of fun with it!

I didn't get the best pictures of the cards below, but they are clear enough you can get the idea. I was happy to find some adorable Valentine's Day paper to be able to make homemade cards too.

Hope you all had a lovely Valentine's Day 2012 :)

Something Sunday 6: Wall Art

I have to admit this post is a bit of a cheat! The point of this Something Sunday series is to try and make one thing a week. The fact that I blog about it is a way to keep me on track and ensuring I actually do make something every week. This week I wasn't sure if I would have time, so I wrote this post early using something I made last week.

I feel like this is okay though because: a) I make the rules for my goals, so it doesn't really matter, b) I made a lot last week, and that should count for something! c) school has to come first during my busy weeks... even though I still day dream about crafting!

Anyway, on to the "something" that I made.

I sewed this piece of art for an Art Show that took place at my University last week. It is definitely the most thought out piece of wall art I have ever made, and was a challenge to finish.

Inspired by some of Karen Thiessen's work, I decided to make a piece reflective of how I was feeling in December. Throughout the month I recorded at least three times a day how I was feeling. The rules I made for the project were that I could only use one word to describe how I was feeling, and that I couldn't go back and look at the words I had used in the past to describe my feelings. This way, whatever I was feeling would be represented by the word that I felt most suited me in that moment.

Each fabric in the piece represents an emotion and the blank white squares are where I didn't write down any emotions. The beginning four blank squares are not in the month of December, however the other blank squares are just because I began to get tired of recording how I felt so often.

Here are some of the 'in progress' pictures. I started out sewing the calendar grid onto the plain white fabric.

Next I pinned all the emotion fabrics down and safety pinned the whole thing to a piece of batting to add dimension. I sewed all the pieces of fabric down and then sewed a line through each to add some more detail. 

I first tried to finish it off by attaching to a canvas that I had painted purple because it was the most occuring fabric colour (purple represented feeling happy!). 

Once I had it all done, I really didn't like the purple, so I took off the sewn part and re-covered the canvas with black fabric. I like the final product with the black far more then the purple. If you click on the image below you can read what I wrote on my artist card too. 

Art Show

Last week on Thursday, my friend and I held an Art Show at the University of Guelph. It was a lot of fun, and thankfully, a success!

I am in Engineering, and often don't have a way to show or share my creativity at school. Last semester my friend and I decided to change that, and to hold an art show for the science and engineering students. We ended up getting submissions from Biological, Environmental, and Water Resource Engineering students, as well as from math and stats, biology, zoology, and environmental science students. There was a great diversity of both students and art pieces.

The show took place in the new Engineering Building's Atrium, and with a few table clothes, ended up looking pretty nice!

My friend and I who organised it!

We let people enter multiple entries into the show and ended up with around 40 pieces (not counting each individual photograph in the two series that were submitted) and around 18 artists! Below are the three pieces I entered into the show. 

Figuring it Out

December

This piece is the Something Sunday this week! (Sorry for the spoiler, but there will be more details and pics on Sunday!)

Birch Bark

I blogged about the tree art last week here. It was nice to have it ready in time for the show!

Below are more pictures of the art and set up... and I have to admit, I'm still really excited about how it all came together.

Left: Rebecca Swabey, Center: Mine, Right: 

by: Sean Chilibeck 

A flower cake, and yes, all of those flowers are edible! By Laura Doyle

A wire knit bracelet with resistors and beads. By Emma Rogers

Foundation Pieced Bag. By: Emily Malcome

I was so excited to see another sewing submission! It was fun to find out that there are others on campus who like quilting too.

Hosting my first art show was a success!

Something Sunday 5: Crocheted Ear-Warmer/Headband

I hosted a craft night last Sunday, (which was tons of fun by the way) and a few of the girls were crocheting ear warmers. I was working away on a 2 year old project that was going to be something like a market bag.... needless to say, at 2 years in this thing was never going to get done. I really needed to let it go.

So I unraveled the silly bag, and joined in the ear warmer trend!

Yes, I do realize I am indoors with an ear warmer on and that these are mirror pictures, but I wanted to take pictures of it right away... I really think I'm going to have to start taking up my room-mates offer to take pictures for me. 

My sister bought this yarn for me while she lived in Germany so its extra special. And the colour of blinding pink is so awesome!

I'm trying to capture the true shade of overwhelming pink in the picture below. I think it is actually pretty close.

I'm pretty excited to start wearing it. I'll have to wait for it to get cold enough again though. We had about a week of cold and blistery snow, but apparently it is supposed to rain this week. It's too bad for me because I actually quite like winter! 

The Lorax

The Lorax is an amazing Dr. Seuss book. If you have never read it here is a little piece from the book:

"I am the Lorax! I speak for the trees,
Which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please;
But I also speak for the brown Barbaloots,
Who frolicked and played in their Barbaloot suits,
Happily eating Truffula fruits.
Now, since you've chopped the trees to the ground
There's not enough Truffula fruit to go 'round!
And my poor Barbaloots are all feeling the crummies
Because they have gas, and no food, in their tummies."

I have a soft spot for Dr. Seuss in general, but for this book especially, so I was pretty excited when I found out that there is a line of fabric for this book!

Yup, a whole line of fabric dedicated to The Lorax, not just once piece. I will definitely be making something with this fabric. I for sure want that "I am the Lorax I speak for the trees" panel, it looks so cool!