Artisania

Just a few things to report this morning…

Mister Gnome has finally made his debut in my Etsy store. If you have any questions about the pattern please feel free to contact me. It’s a 3 page PDF File which I’ll email to you once you’ve purchased the pattern.

After a few weeks of throwing ideas around, our family has finally settled on the Halloween theme this year. Pirates! Arrrgh! Yeah, it’s become tradition that we gather family and friends, and go all out at Halloween trick or treating around my dad’s neighbourhood. He lives in a sleepy little townhouse community which really makes an insanely excellent effort of elaborate decorations complete with sound effects and ghostly dry ice. (I’ll try to get some pictures this year)

Last year, the theme was Harry Potter:

complete with handmade light up wands, school ties, scarves and crests,

a ratty little friend,

Handmade broomsticks:

a dazed Professor Trelawny doing her best to hand out candies and fortunes to the kiddos.

and a host of jack-o-lanterns to light the walkway:

The year before, we were The Incredibles:

There was also the year of the crossdressing Popeye crew, which I can’t seem to find a picture of just now. I’ll poke around some more and see if I can dig it up, it was a riot!

So this year it’s pirates of all sorts. We’ll be seeing Captain Jack Sparrow, a couple of Elizabeth Swanns, Calypso the sea goddess, and possibly a mini Will Turner or mini Captain Feathersword, depending upon the whim of the little monkey, and whether or not he’ll sport facial hair.

I’m so glad I have more than 3 days to whip these costumes into shape. As much as I love sewing and crafting, 3 day all out sewing like a madwoman marathons really aren’t so fun.

and Mister Gnome is already off on a whirlwind adventure!

Thanks so much for the amazing ideas you posted to his original thread! It was ridiculously hard to only choose 6 so I chose 7!  I’m floored at the great suggestions and I can easily foresee several more designs to come in the future….

Until then, Mister Gnome’s itinerary  (as planned out by his daughters Gnomeling and Gnomlette )

First stop – The tropical rainforest to hang with the monkeys.

Next, Yellowstone National Park to stomp around with the buffalo.

Then it’s off to Europe, to see Stonehenge and maybe pick up some souvenirs for the family.

Gnomlette secretly hopes that he’ll be bought by an astronaut and hitch a ride to the moon.

But maybe they’ll drop him out the window as they’re floating back to earth and Mister Gnome finds himself swimming with the penguins in Antartica.

Gnomeling thinks that suddenly a mermaid will steal him away and takes him to the long lost city of Atlantis!

How is he ever going to get home?

Congratulations to the winners of this little contest, who will receive all 7 Mister Gnome Goes on Vacation patterns AND the original Mister Gnome pattern for free!

Thanks to:

Heide – The tropical Rain Forest / monkey idea

Audrey – The Yellowstone / buffalo idea

Ubermensch – The moon idea

Ducky – The Stonehenge idea

Bethie – The London gift shop idea

John – For Antartica and Atlantis

Guess I better get designing!

The end of my lap quilt block swap is fast approaching, and now I only have 2 left to do.

This is the block for Carodiynamite:

the backside…

and the front…

It’s 4 of the Storm at Sea blocks from The Quilter’s Cache shrunken to 12.5″

Lesson Of the Day: Don’t use crayon to color code your pattern pieces. That is all.

There’s still a bit of a chill behind the breeze. The trees in the neighbourhood are showing hints of yellow, orange and red, and I’m suddenly craving the need to knit.

Yum. Look at this Shedir beauty by Eunny Jang:

That was my obsession last year. I’d never used itty bitty double pointed needles before, but look at those cables! How could I resist?

I chose to twist the stitches to make the pattern pop on a rather dark maroon silk, merino, cashmir blend. What can I say, I splurged!

Some advice for those inspired to do this one, Shedir, by knitty
a) Don’t let your children loose your stitch marker – that is crucial and then don’t be lazy, make a new one and use it!
b)count, count count those stitches!
c) ah heck just don’t knit something like this around your kids.

My biggest problem was not the fact that I had to flub the pattern to match my wonky counting, it was that right in one of the last few rounds I somehow purled my knit strands and if this was more like actual knitting and not like some sort of medieval needle torture I would have ripped back to fix it.

Anyway, I could go on about how, as I was just weaving in my ends with a big sigh of relief, I rather non-chalantly snipped into my hat. But it’s done and I love it!

It now belongs to my Great Auntie Gisa as it seems to fit her head better than mine.

But please don’t mention my urge to knit to my hubby. You see I have the attention span of a gnat. If a project lingers on past the 2 week mark I start to lose interest. I need short term, instant gratification projects. Probably why this darn baby quilt is taking forever.

Which brings me back to my darling man.  When we first were married he asked me for a handknit sweater like this one Tom Welling wears in The Fog:

Nice right? Should be easy enough, no cables to frill it up too much and detract from it’s manliness.

Argh. I still haven’t even bought the yarn for it and we were married 9 years ago. Yep. He’s been waiting for his sweater for 9 years! Although while searching for pictures of Tom’s sweater for this post I found this site. And look what she made!

And guess what? She’s even posted a free pattern for it! *gasp*

I should sit down. Think I can knit this sucker up by Christmas?

Because I don’t want water rings on my new desk.

It was Maya’s first time at the sewing machine as well. She made these 3.

I really need to stock up on some more Amy Butler fabrics.

For a long while now I’ve been coveting feathered stars. . .

Is that not absolutely gorgeous? This quilt, entitled “Buckskin”, was made by Marla Yeager of Ava, Missouri. It was featured on the cover of the September 2007 issue of Quilters Newsletter, and is deservedly prizewinning. You can see the whole quilt here.

And just look at these beauties, made by the author of Moonstitches.

The mexican pinwheel.

… and the radiant star.

Even though I didn’t have the means to procure the pattern before the end of the week, I decided to give the radiant star a try with the fabrics for JQ in the Craftster Lap quilt swap I’m participating in.

The requisite shot of the backside:

I’m actually quite pleased with how it turned out:

I’m even able to overlook the crooked centre piece since most of the seams actually lined up!

I hope he likes it!

I’m just grinning ear to ear over here! Check out my new sewing nook!

There’s no need for a sewing box…

I think this will also hold that nice big bin of scraps that I obsessively hoard for my paper piecing projects..

Here she is all closed up:

Oh sewing machine how I love thee…

. . . designing some pretty sweet fabrics, home decor items and writing a nifty new book.

O.M.G. I can’t believe I haven’t come across her website or blog before. She’s Anna Maria Horner, mother to 5 and fabulous new fabric designer. Wait . . .  did I just say mother to 5? 5?!?! So, on top of making lunches, driving kids to school, grocery shopping, and running the household, she still finds time to design, create, and market her stuff.

I’m in awe. No wait, I’m in envy. No, I’m in shock! I LOVE her stuff!!

Holy toledo I need to order some of these fabrics! I mean LOOK at this!

Can you say “hot damn that’s fun stuff!!” ?

And I am definitely making some of these:

I found the link to the free pattern. You do need to become a member, but at least that part’s free.

I came across this charming interview by Boutique Cafe at the International Quilt Market in Portland where Anna Maria Horner had her seriously vibrant booth set up.

Excuse me while I drool all over my keyboard, and pass this Christmas gift idea onto my hubby.

Yup. No matter how long I look at this block, and the teeny pieces of scrap still usable, I can’t help but think I could do better. It’s the inside of an intense snowflake block I found. The original block comes out to something around the size of 26″ x 26″ so even though I reduced the pattern by 50% it would still be too big for the 12″ finished block size required for the swap. But I really don’t like how it looks like this. I just might have to finish off the snowflake and let her decide how much of it she wants to use in the seam allowance. I hope I can find some white that matches in my stash.

The centre looks great though:

And I’m really glad I haven’t ripped the paper off yet:

Back to the sewing machine..

I’ve suddenly realized that the deadline for this quilt block swap I’ve joined is in 3 weeks *gasp* and I’ve still got 6 5 more to go! Not to mention a baby quilt that’s now a week overdue..

Here’s the block I whipped up today: I’m not happy about the very bottom border piece not matching the rest of the blue border pieces, but what are you gonna do when you’re out of fabric and out of time?

I used a handful of these cute free patterns from one of my favorite quilt pattern sites. I think the reason I relate to this designer so much is that she’s a working mom who designs and sews on her dining room table, just like me!

Although I’ve had my eye on this for awhile now.

Quite tempting I must say.