Primitive Ginger Bowl Fillers

Hello there, 😃

Do you remember these from my digital stamp days? 

I thought I would turn them into ornaments, or bowl fillers. 

The first time I make most things, I always seem to do something wrong, but that’s part of the process. After sizing and printing these off, the second stage is cutting them out for a pattern and then (3) cutting them out of felt. The fourth stage is adding all the eyes and the yummy little extras. I decided not to use buttons on these because I didn’t have any small enough and these are my test patterns anyway (Maybe sometime in the future). Finally comes the stitching and lastly the stuffing. 

These are intentionally lightly stuffed. I may keep future ones without the stuffing, I don’t know yet.  They’d be great as a garland with felt balls or round felt cookies in between them. 

I showed these two to my husband, who said “their heads are a little small aren’t they?” Remember these are primitive gingers, not your typical gingerbread men. 

Well, that was fun. Hope you enjoyed them.

Have a great day,

Blessings,

Little Projects for Kids

Hello friends,

September is here and I’m starting to feel like sewing again. I know I’ve been quilting all year in the midst of card making, but I love me some small projects. Especially cute little things for kids. I love making these super cute felt dolls.

What I find so adorable about these little dolls is the removeable hats. 

Absolutely darling!

You can find these at Gingermelon on Etsy.

Another project I made was this little tiger pouch. 

This is another project I love too. I’ve made this one before, then altered it to make 

a unicorn pouch and a lamb pouch. I haven’t made the lamb pouch yet. Maybe soon. 

This one is from Stubbornly Crafty on Etsy. 

Next on my list is a Smart Sofa Station. It is made to drape over the arm of a couch. Everything you may need is handy, depending on what craft you’re doing. They have needle covers, pouches for patterns, scissors, thread or anything else you may want to keep with you. If you’re a crocheter, they can be made to hold crochet hooks. There’s also a magnetic pin holder and a little thread basket, if you want one. It’s an extremely versatile pattern from ArabesqueScissors on Etsy. 

But, you never know what I’ll do next. I’m eyeing up a few ideas. 

Hope you all have a wonderful week! 

Blessings,

Carmen

Tweet as Honey Completed

Good day!

I mentioned in one of my last posts that my youngest son got married recently. We decided that in addition to money, we would gift them one of the quilts I was working on. It was near completion and took a year. Mostly because the patterns came out one per month. I had made most of the blocks but had to put the backing on and free motion quilt it. They’re applique quilts and I’ve realized I love applique, so these were fun to do. 

I’ve already shared a few of the blocks on this blog,  so I’ll just link them here. 

Tweet as Honey

Tweet as Honey 2

Tweet as Honey 3

I never did post the last set and side panels, but you’ll see them all here.

This is them laid out on the floor before stitching them together, and before the binding, backing and quilting. 

These were the side panels. All I had done here was cut them out and pressed them onto the panels. Yes, there are three irons in that picture. Yes, I need them all! 😉😉

Here’s my super adorable little iron close up. Isn’t it cute? It’s great for small pieces. I intend on trying some collage work soon so this will really come in handy. 

In addition to applique, this quilt also had quite a bit of embroidery work. I love doing embroidery and took up Brazilian embroidery some years ago which certainly gave me an advantage. I’ve included a few samples below. 

Finally,  here is the finished quilt with the backing, binding, and free motion quilting. You may have to zoom in for the quilting. 

To finish it off I added some information on the back of the quilt. It actually can be machine washed, but since it’s raw-edge applique, I thought hand washing would be better. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Blessings, 

Carmen

Insta Inspiration

Good morning,

Today I have some fabric projects I made. There’s so much inspiration on Instagram, so I decided to try something in the style of Karolina.bcraft. I love her makes, which are mostly postcard size pieces of fabric which are sewn and quilted, and then embroidered on. Do check her out if you’re on Instagram. 

This picture turned out a bit wonky because I put it on a card with carpenters tape. I hoped I had a better photo, but I’m afraid this is it. 

Then I saw another make by raspberry.stitches. Same kind of idea except she does little scenes with beads in them. She’s recently expanded to 3D projects which are also very nice. 

This is what I made in my first attempt. I’m hoping to do more like this but in rectangular frames.

I like to try everything at least once and then see where I can go from there. 

These were fun little projects to do. Check these girls out if you get a chance. I love the inspiration!

PS: I go by Carmengamble3066 on Instagram

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Carmen

Tweet as Honey 2

Hi,

I’m popping in today to show you the progress on my Suzy’s Sitcom quilt “Tweet as Honey.”The first post is here if you’d like to see the first 3 blocks.

Suzy always seems to have a few quilts available as a sew along - free on a monthly basis. If you miss a month, the block pattern is available to purchase at a minimal cost. If you prefer you can buy her quilt patterns outright and work at your own pace. I’ve participated in two of her quilt sew alongs and absolutely am loving it. 

Here are the last three blocks I made. I’m doing raw edge applique. There is lots of embroidery work on this one too, which I enjoy. 

You’ll notice I haven’t quilted the backgrounds yet. There’s definitely some puckering from the embroidery, but that won’t be a problem once I get the quilting in place. There will be sashing in between each block. Then I’ll have to figure out how I’m joining them. 

There’s also some edging included…one on each side every three blocks. 

I hope this one turns out as good as the first one did. 

Anyway, thanks for stopping by,

Blessings,

C~

Fabric Postcards 2.0 (freebie)

Good morning,

Some new postcards sprung up out of my sewing machine recently. This first one is a combination of applique with ribbon embellishment and homemade fabric word phrases. I made up the postcard backs myself and printed them off. The fabric word phrases and how they’re made are discussed in THIS post. 

The backs are finished off by turning the fabric to the back (used some light heat n bond as a temporary fixture), ironing it in place and then a simple stitch all the way round. The postcard backing was attached with an iron, but I added some glossy accents to the perimeter of the card so it’ll hold well on the edges. 

These next ones were fun to make. As you can see they’re finished off with binding, but I again turned the fabric to the back, ironed it in place then ironed the postcard back on top glueing the edges with a thin strip of glossy accents. 

When I made up my own postcard backs I didn’t want anything fancy but fairly simple and so made up the ones in the photo directly above. 

Here is a copy of them if you'd like to print them off to use on your project. Just click on the image below and it'll take you to another page, you can print them off from there. These are made for 4"X 6" postcards.

I also made two cards with some fabric art on them. I used Karolina b craft as inspiration for these two. I like to make them as she’s done them, then I’ll branch out from there with my own designs. I did add some word inspiration. 

These were each fastened to an off white card backing. (One was taken in darker surroundings but it’s the same card set). I used a tip from my friend Diane at The Beaded Lime (check out her gorgeous art work). She used carpet tape to fasten these on to her cards. Cheap, and believe me when I tell you it will NOT come off. Lol.

Well thank you for dropping by, tell your friends about the freebie.

Blessings,

Carmen

Framed Fabric Art

Hello,

Playing around with these seascapes has been really enjoyable. They remind me of Vancouver Island, one of my favorite places. I was lucky to find some fabric locally with clouds on it . It works perfectly for this seascape. I added some mountains, some embroidered grasses and then I glued seashells onto the fabric with glossy accents. 

Here’s another seascape using slightly darker colors but with the same cloud background. Each strip of fabric on both of these seascapes is sewn into place with some stitch lines added for texture. I’ve added seashells and starfish here as well, and stitched on some merino wool by hand. 

This one is more of a simple landscape. I embroidered on some flowers and added appliqued tree branches and leaves. The butterfly is 3D (with glitter glue for a bit of shine). Then I appliqued on a sweater, which was stitched in place before I added the embroidered hair. 

Last but not least are two flower appliqués. For these I took bits of fabric and ironed ultra hold heat n bond on the back. Then I cut the flower petals and ironed them in place. Stitching came next, not only on the petals but also in between for this random look. 

I got these Matt’s with backboard off of Amazon.ca. They come with crystal clear bags to seal them into.

Hope you enjoyed these. Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Blessings,

Carmen

Cat and Mouse Fabric Cards

As you are probably aware by now, I love to try all kinds of crafts, especially when it comes to anything paper or sewing related to mention a couple of things. One of my biggest flaws is that though I have a blog, Instagram and Pinterest —- I often forget to make a post. 

I’m not so bad with Instagram, not too great with the blog, but Pinterest? Now that’s a sad story. So I went and posted a few more cards on Pinterest tonight. As I was doing that I came across a bunch of fabric cards I hadn’t posted on the blog yet. So I’ll share those tonight. 

I’m truly enjoying the sewing process. These cards are more expensive to make because they take a bit longer to make, but the square window cards and envelopes are purchased and are a bit pricey. I like the final product enough to keep making them anyway. 

These are the little mice I made. 

These are similar to the dragonflies in that they’re quilted, appliqued, embroidered and embellished. 

I also did some cats. 

After these were done I made some larger ones to put in an enclosed matt. These are sneak peeks as they’re not quite done yet.

I think I’ll stop there. 

Hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Blessings,

Carmen

Mixed Fabric Works

Good morning, 

I’m enjoying the process of working on some of my mixed fabric projects, but took some time to make this fun little Tea Wallet. I saw this idea on Instagram, but honestly can’t remember where. It seemed like a pretty simple project so I just winged it. 

I decided to use canvas for the outside of the wallet to make it sturdy, but I’m not sure if I like the outcome or not. Maybe next time I’ll use fabric stabilized with a stiff interfacing. 

The teabag was backed with heat n bond, then stitched in place. 

There are 4 pockets…

For 4 teabags. 

The process was super simple, but I don’t have it written out. If you’d like a pattern, let me know and I’ll put it together for you in a different post. 

Meanwhile, here are a few bits of what I’m working on. These will be in a follow up post once they’re done!

Hope you’re all having a wonderful week!

Blessings!

Carmen