Darkharvest Loot

I managed to squeak through another finish off my list tonight. The water bottle carrier for the Darkharvest prize (our annual Halloween party) is now complete. 

It is made of black linen, lined with two types of fleece for insulation, with a draw string closure and an adjustable strap. This is the second water bottle carrier that I have made and I still have some issues to work out with the pattern, so I imagine I'll be making a few more before I attempt to post a tutorial. This version has a circular base instead of a boxed base and I think it looks a little more polished than my previous one.

I have a very long day planned tomorrow, with a court appearance for a ticket, then working late to make up my hours, and finally Akron's Halloween party. If I have any energy on Saturday, I will *crosses fingers* finish Baby Matt's quilt which is about 90% done with the quilting and then it will only need the label and binding attached.

The Castle Update

Okay, well I finally rotated out The Castle. Here it is in full, as it was when I put it away a couple nights ago. 

Approximately 50% complete

As far as my to do list is concerned, I managed to finish the last two dragon quilt blocks and have made progress on the baby quilt and embroidered a label for it. I may have a finish to post soon ;)

Looking Forward to a Quiet Weekend

I had a fabulous and busy last weekend and spent a lot of social time with my family and friends, but this weekend I'm looking forward to some quiet time.

Today I made a list of things I would like to finish this October. Yes, I know that October only has about a week left but here it is any way. And I feel better having a plan.

1. Baby Matt's Quilt - still needs about 50% of the quilting done.

2. Bat Bag - which will be similar to my Dragon bag, only in Halloween colors.

3. Water Bottle Carrier - for the Dark Harvest Party prize pool.

4. Confessor's Dress - A Halloween costume that has been two years in the making so far.

5. Two more embroidered dragon panels for the mini baby quilt.

Wish me luck! :)

Slow Stiching Sunday and a Harry Potter Weekend

Astrid just recently finished ALL the Harry Potter books and is completely engaged in the HP universe. So it was no surprise that when she came over to spend the weekend, we watched Harry Potter movies.

I thought it would be appropriate to work on my castle and dragon cross stitch project while we watched castles and dragons and I made some decent progress on the lower right quadrant yesterday.

Before

As of 10/17/15

I would like to fill in the rest of the right wing and get some back stitching done before I rotate this one out. 

It wouldn't be a Harry Potter weekend without a Harry Potter craft of some sort and since Astrid likes to draw fantastical creatures, we made a Monster Book of Monsters to keep her drawings safe.

We used felt for the eyes and teeth, and embroidered the title. The fur is attached to a large binder, so she can store her drawings and has room for many more future works of art.

Linking up to Slow Sunday Stitching @ Kathy's Quilts.

Slow Stitching Sunday

 Its been one of those lousy feeling weekends but I've been putting it to good use, stitching away on Mini Innocence.

Mini Innocence by Nene Thomas (HAED - Retired)

Before

As of 10/11/15

I estimate that I'm about 5000 stitches into this project, or about 3/5 of a page. I'm not stitching column by column to avoid lines so its a little hard to gauge completion. I have a ways to go before I get to anything that isn't sky and I'm getting a little anxious to see the rest of it start to develop. I'm considering jumping down a few rows to get to the wings!

Linking up to Slow Stitching Sunday @ Kathy's Quilts! Drop in a see all the other beautiful hand stitching that my fellow crafters are rocking out this weekend.

Turtle Trot is Back!

Turtle Trot is back! Our fearless leader took a long vacation to sort out some real life stuff but I'm happy to say that things are better and the linky party is up and running again.

Here is an updated list of my original Turtle Trot selections. It turns out that some of these were bad choices because I really haven't been motivated to work on them at all and some were fabulous choices because I work on them constantly.

I have to date finished two of my turtle trot projects!!

1. World Travel Bookshelf by Aimee Stewart (HAED) - New Start - about 20 stitches done

2. Penguin Family - Finished on 01/31/2015

3. The Castle by Teresa Wentzler - A little bit further along! The blended colors are killing me though.

On 3/10/2015

4. Affairs of the Heart Quilt by Aie Rossman (New Start) - Completed five blocks.

5. Jack's Medieval Medallion Quilt by Me! (New Start) - Not yet started

6. Butterfly Profusion by Dimensions - Finished! 

On 01/01/15

Finished! 

8. The Mighty Samurai by Dimensions- No Progress to date

9. Fall Fairy by Dimensions- Good Progress

On 01/01/2015

On 10/10/15

10. Magnificent Wizard by Dimensions - Good Progress

On 01/01/2015

On 03/10/2015

11. Library Kittens - "Curiosity" by Janlynn - Replacing Penguin Family, New Start. 

On 9/26/15

Not a Lot of Crafty Going On

Having only one car means not a lot of hobby time. I've also been cooking at home more the last few weeks.

I had some puff pastry in the freezer, so I attempted to make the apple roses found here.

They looked okay but the puff pastry didn't quite cook through. I used cherry preserves instead of apricot because I had cherry on hand. They tasted pretty decent and I'll probably give them another go at some point.

The other sheet of the puff pastry I used to make a mixed berry fruit pizza.

This one came out WAY better and was completely delicious. It has been suggested by Jack that I keep puff pastry in the freezer at all time. ;)

I simply cooked the pastry until done and allowed it to cool. The "icing" was 8 oz of cream cheese softened and mixed with a couple tablespoons of sugar to take away the sharpness of the cream cheese, and some milk to thin it out and make it spreadable. Spread the icing on the cooled pastry, load up with your favorite fruit, and ready to go. Leftovers do keep in the fridge well overnight. We let the leftovers warm up a little to room-ish temp before eating and they were just as good today.

We'll be making arrows and surcoats on Saturday with our Dagorhir group but I'm hoping that I'll have some crafty time on Sunday. Cheers!

Handy Zipper Pouch

I've been looking for a way to carry some essential oils with me to work, instead of just tossing them in my purse. After much searching and many lunch breaks, I finally found this tutorial: Handy Zipper Pouch Tutorial by Jill  and I thought it looked just about perfect.

I will not repost the tutorial here, but I did borrow that image from Jill's website to make sure she gets credit for the pattern. You can click on it to find the instruction. She has also published them in downloadable PDF format.

I started with some fabric I've had for a while, that was actually some curtains I bought ages ago (and still love). I added a FSL butterfly embellishment.

These colors are a little closer to the correct ones. 

The pictures came out on the brown side, which was sad because the fabric is really a gorgeous wine red.

I also altered the lining to create the pockets that I wanted. I was hoping to have it hold a couple 15 mL bottles and a couple roller bottles.

You can see it is just a little too small to meet that goal.

But it does hold a 5 mL, a chapstick, and two 15 mL bottles quite nicely. And since I'm not crazy enough to travel anywhere without a chapstick, this works out rather well for me. No more diving into the bottom of my purse to find one of the eight chapsticks I know are in there somewhere.

A couple other changes I made were using fusible interfacing on the lining fabric and fusible fleece on the exterior fabric to give it a little poof and a little cushioning.

So there it is, my first official zipper pouch. I imagine I'll be making several more zipper pouches of various shapes and sizes in the future. I would especially like to make a larger version of this one that can hold a little bit more.

Towards that end, I have a machine and bead embroidered panel that I was working on this week. I finished it last night.

I don't have a zipper large enough yet but when I get to Joann's I'll pick up a green or black one and make a larger version of the red one.