Little Man Tate

Eric, Michele, Isaac and Jenna got a puppy. He's only the size of a cat, so far.
Isn't he cute?

Outer Space wallhanging for Isaac

This is a cheater panel that I couldn't resist getting for my nephew Isaac. His bedroom is orange with a blue stripe and Star Wars stuff on the walls. When I bought this I didn't know he moved his room down to the basement...reminding me of when I was his age and I did the same thing. (Moving into the basement).

I added the yellow to orange gradation narrow border and blue border. I just finished sewing on the hanging sleeve. In daylight the sun in the lower left corner plays tricks on the eye, like it's really glowing; but there's glow-in-the-dark stuff on all the stars so it's even cool in the dark!

The tree has slowed down sucking up water and needles are starting to fall, but the sprouts are still growing out.
The sprouts are bigger on the sunny window side of the tree.

From Picture to Quilt - Part 1

I really like the picture of the Christmas Tree Sprouts so I decided to start the process of turning it into a quilted wallhanging.
I start out trying to identify the particular shading of the pine branch, and this particular picture I am using two different lightness/darkness to identify shape and shadow. The darker one I can see the definition of the sprouts, and on the lighter version I can better see the pine needle definition. You can click on the pictures to see a large version of the photo.

Apparently some women (young latina gang-bangers) use Sharpies to draw on their eyebrows...this I saw on the George Lopez show. I don't use my Sharpies for that. Using a fine sharpie I outline the pine sprouts shapes and shading on one drawing and the pine needles on the other drawing.

I cut out the pine sprouts.

From Picture to Quilt - Part 2

I used a glue stick to apply the pine sprouts to the lighter drawing of the needles.

I don't know why this photo turned sideways, blogspot did that all on it's own. I photocopied the picture with the glue-sticked-pine-sprouts so I don't have to worry about making mistakes.

On my photocopy I start to outline the shading of the pine needles.

I use a numbering system to determine shading. Absolute white is 1 and black is 10. I start to try to identify what I think the shading should be. This will probably be altered after I start pulling it all together. In this photo my choice for 1 looks sorta grey, but it's really white.

I went to Kinkos and had the drawing enlarged 300%. and printed with 36" wide paper. That black bar you see on the top is from the machine thinking the drawing was dark and then correcting itself. It's fine that it did this, I only need the outline. Enlarging the drawing 300% means my lines are 300% thicker too. The next step I will take is tracing this larger drawing so I have normal width lines, and smoothing the lines out. I'll post about it again in a few days.

On the 14th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

...bigger sprouts than yesterda-a-ay. Clicking on my pictures will give you the full screen version.

I like the photos that Licorice is in, but all of them have blurry sprouts. (not using flash for any of them, this is the light coming in from the window)

black and white maybe I can do something interesting with this...

On the 12th Day of Christmas my true love gave to me....

...new sprouts growing on the Christmas Tree.

Wool Rug Braiding - Starting to collect the tools.

I haven't posted a picture of all the goodies I got for Christmas - almost everything I need to start braiding wool rugs! The last thing is the lacing, and that didn't arrive yet.
I've been checking out a few videos on youtube and found an interesting one:

This is a Braided Rug Manufacturer called Thorndike Mills. It's interesting to see how they are mass produced on machinery.

Warm slippers in the frosty weather.

I think it will be above Zero degrees today (that's -17 Centigrade). The picture above is a closeup of the frost on the storm-window of my sewing room. After this cold snap, when it gets back up to the teens and twenties it will feel like a heat wave so people will be walking around without caps, mittens or zipping up their coats.

The start on another pair of slippers. I'm still trying to make them ambidextrous so it wouldn't matter which foot they went on, but I think the next pair I make will be specific for the wearer.
Ambidextrous - I'm just using that word because I don't know what you call a shoe that isn't specifically made for the left foot or the right foot.
I am definitely having a problem on my machine with the thickness of the wool; two layers is holding up the presser foot enough that the thread tension is not engaged and altho' I don't have loops of thread, the seam is not durable for the long term. On this specific pair of slippers it won't matter since I'll still be hand sewing the leather sole on, but it is an issue that has to be solved to continue. My next attempt for a remedy will be to pull out an old sewing machine. My fancy-worthless-expensive Bernina just can't do much.

Dishtowel for Heike...

I embroidered this dishtowel for Heike. Mom made one for her too. We both did a "cappuccino" theme, because Heike loved to have her Cappuccino every day. I do a mouse theme because when Heike and Levke came to the U.S. her husband Jörg said something about his two little mice going to the big city. Moms towel has a cup of cappuccino and a cookie on a plate.

Continuation of the Sexy Librarian Embroidered Dish Towels

These are the last of the dish towels I made for Annie; the first one is at this blog post:
http://debrasvedberg.blogspot.com/2009/05/sexy-librarian-dishtowel.html
My Mom had a conversation with someone at work who said no one under 50 knows what a dishtowel is. Apparently nobody dries dishes anymore.
My quilt group buddies from Cave Women said the towel with the Library of Congress Classification number looks like something from a concentration camp!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Slipper design problems...

I've been working on fine tuning the design of making slippers with felted wool sweaters. I haven't gotten to the finish line yet.
Below are the slippers for Eric. Mostly done, but I need him to put them on to figure out what I can do to make them fit him. This particular design isn't working because it's too open over the top of the foot and the back of the ankle leans in too much (isn't 90º to the floor).
The positive point on this design is the pattern shape of the fabric it takes that is conducive to cutting it from a felted sweater. I have blue suede leather on the souls, hand stitched.
Now I've been proto-typing a different cut. A very simple cut using a long strip, which is not easy to find in a felted sweater and would need to be pieced in most cases. In the attempt below I am not using wool, but a 'quilted' style of upholstery fabric.

The strip gets the ends rounded off:

Cave Women Christmas Party

Sharon, she's always stuffing her bra... LOLOL! Can you guess what she's doing?
Below Edith waves hello...this was before she put her reindeer antlers on.

Above is Theresa, Sarah and Kathy, below is Peg, Wendy and Sam.

Below is Sharon B modeling her scarf she made with a recycled sweater and some sexy cowboy fabric! Modeling is such serious business.

We also had Wanda and Vivien, but I didn't take very complimentary pictures of them...hee hee hee hee.

Cave Women Christmas Party

Two Sisters and a Grandma having fun.