Three Kitchen Fairies

Pure Joy

I'm happy and done with this project. It's my embroidery for the Hand Stitched Embroidery Swap. I enjoyed do much making this pattern, choosing the right embroidery hoop (I'm that kind of picky,) and stitching from a couple of hours at my heart's content.

The making of the pattern brought some other observations along such as my need to get in touch with my drawing skills. And needless to say (but I say it anyway,) I fell in love with it again!!!  I hope my secret partner likes it as much as I do. This piece is going to be especially hard to let go. The good thing is that this is a pattern available now.

Yes! So if you want to give it a try my Embroidery Pattern 1: "Joy" is available at my Etsy store. It's in the form of a PDF file for easy delivery thanks to Jose (Mr. TKF). I hope you love it as much as I do.

 

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.

When you wake up to a dark rainy day, and still you have to go out with three little girls in rain boots, it feels like is not going to be an easy day. I dropped off my girls at their three different destinations and started with my list of errands. First stop the post office. There I was, the wind blew my umbrella's inside out and I'm getting wet. But to my surprise I got a little something in the mail that has totally made my day.

My teeny tiny quilt made by Hanies arrived from Berlin!! Isn't beautiful?? I thought it will take much longer for it to arrive. It took only one week. Thank you so much Tacha!! I love it. It's about 6X6 inches, really teeny tiny. Look at the back:

Incredible cute, and beautifully design. It's like two quilties in one. I love these little robots doing the head shoulders, knees, and toes routine. Tacha also included some cute hippo fabric in the envelope. I saw this fabric before but I never found it at my local fabric stores, I love it.

Now, I have to go back to my day. In my "to do" list:

 Some embroidery for the "Hand Stitched" Embroidery Swap, and then "Reading Workshop" at my daughter's first grade classroom.

Enjoy your weekend!!
 

Quilting, thrifting, and swaping.

The bears paws blocks are coming nicely along. I'm working on them during any tiny spare time that I can find. Although I know that I'm entitle to some sort of recreation or just a break during the day, I feel terribly guilty to sew the afternoon away while the girls are doing something else around the house. Then they go to bed, and I feel exhausted...I guess I'll have to work a bit more on my this issue and enjoy myself a bit more. I made these blocks like one or two per day. A total of nine blocks will be perfect for a throw size quilt, with a nice sashing added, and then the border. So far it's looking very fall-ish and very traditional for my taste. This is the first time that a quilt turns out so serious but I guess that's OK as long as it doesn't become the rule.

In the "findings" category today: not one or two but seven, seven yards of this quilters cotton fabric. I got it at the thrift store for $7. There is plenty for quilt backing, lounge pants for me, and even some for swaping if you're interested...

In the swap category: Yes! I made it in time for this swap organized by Ariel. I got my secret partner and I got to make my mosaic with my favorite pictures from flickr. I'm really excited about this one!! I'm planning on making my own embroidery pattern, and I also want to use a couple of pretty fabrics for this one. I also signed up for the Teeny Tiny Mini Swap organized by the famous quiltinkimmie. I got to swap with Hanies in Germany!! She has a lovely photostream, doesn't she?? I guess I just busied myself in terms of sewing.

I'll soon be back with a sneak peek for my swap partners, and more craftiness. Now, I'm going to get the girls from the bus stop and get started with dinner. Happy sewing everyone!!

 

Quilt Around the World

Happy Saturday!! I'm just browsing around flickr, looking at all your lovely quilts and quilt blocks, looking at all the wonderful quilting bees and block swaps that are going on at the moment.

I made this mosaic with some of the blocks I already made for Summer Sadie's Quilt Around the World . The group is already half way through!! Thanks to the encouragement and organization from her lovely host, the quilts in this group are looking amazing. I receive a package of blocks almost every week to work with it for a few days. I'm having so much fun planning what to make for each participant and looking at all the wonderful creations other participants have done. The down side of this quilting bee is that it will be done sooner or later...I was thinking that maybe I can participate in another quilting bee. But they're in such high demand that it seem impossible to be in time for signing up. Who knows when I'll catch a train like this again. I already check the list of "up coming" (or already gone) quilting bees, and the sign ups are already closed. So dear Summer Sadie: I'm hopeful that some day you want this group re-united to go for a second round

PS. If you have any information on up coming quilting bees, let me know, ok?? Who knows maybe someday I come up with my own quilting bee.

While I'm sewing. Part 2.

I wish I had more time to sew last week but taking care of these girls really takes most of my time. So far we're enjoying our Summer time, lazy time, playing time, a few lessons, and of course a few fights here and there. Last week my sewing was only two blocks for the Around the world quilting bee.

 

 

The little house is for Nann (aka Tunamarie) we are making 7.5 in by 7.5 in blocks for her. The Wagon wheel or dresden plate is for Lorena.

Since this is such a short post, I decided to add another installment of my list. Remember I said that  I usually introspect while I'm sewing? The first part was "things I miss." This part is "the things I can't live without."

- Mi girls giggles.

- The smell of their little heads (do you smell your kids head? or am I the only one?)

- White Christmas-es.

- Jose by my side.

- Pizza party on Fridays.

- Children's books.

- Fairy tales.

- Fairy doors.

- Starbucks.

- Swearing (not infront of the kids!! I try my best)

- Birthday cake.

- your blogs, my blog.

- Flickr.

- Shel Silverstein poems.

- Love letter and love songs.

- Good night sleep.

- Craftiness and quilts.

- Pencil and paper.

- His divine presence in my life.

- Saying "I love you." I truly learned this one at adulthood.

- ...and of course chocolate.

What about you? Is there something you can live without?

Communitarian table runner.

Another swap related quilty. This time at “My favorite quilters,”another one of quiltinkimmie flickr groups. The assignment was five 4-patch blocks delivered by the end of March to another five quilters (previously organized in groups) who signed up for this swap. So I got to send to five people, and five people sent me 5 blocks each. There were some people that sent me more than five, plus one that I made I ended up with 30 blocks. I made this table runner with them. First I thought I will have them all around a embroidery work I was planning, but when I spread them all out I realized I had enough to make my table runner. I love it, I love to think it was made by six different people. Amazing quilters all of them; all with different taste for fabric and different style too. We all fitting in this crafty world.

Isn’t this an amazing world??

Japanese Mini

Last month I was invited to a Flickr group called STUD. No ladies, it’s not an “X” rated group. STUD stands for Swap til you drop, creative isn’t it??

I signed up for this month swap and the theme was Japanese quilts. What do I know about Japanese quilts?? Pretty much nothing. What else, I started brainstorming…I got my books from the library on Japanese designs, Japanese food, Japanese culture…I went to the fabric store looking for inspiration. Browsing, browsing, browsing I finally found this and they became my inspiration.

This is my Japanese Mini Quilt for Vicki, the girl behind Accio fabric.

Every geta was appliqué by hand. As you can see I was very timid with regard to the quilting, I was afraid to mess up!! I enjoy this mini a lot, this challenge was really fun and educational. There were many ideas going on like bento boxes, and sushi, kimonos, and many more, which I think would be fun to make some day…

A Royal Mail.

 

Last December I signed up for a swap, my first swap. Today I got this beautiful brooch from Michala. Isn't it pretty?  You can take at look at Michala's work here. Not only I like her finished works but also her drawings and paintings. She is an amazing artist. I have hardly seen artists that can translate their drawings and sketches into their artwork with such closeness.

I was so excited when I got it...I love the stamp on the envelope that reads "A Royal Mail," so special like in a fairy-tale...Michala sent it all the way from England. It crossed the Atlantic Ocean to land in my hands. It's still surreal to me to be living in such a technological era in which we can be read on the other side of the planet, and moreover exchange little touching gifts.

Thank you Michala!! I love it!!

P.