Non-Quilting Crafting

I can't believe it has been 4 weeks already. Wow, time really does go faster the older you get. Tatianna is getting married in less than a week and moving away. Okay, it is only 2 hours away, but that is too far for my quilting buddy to go. Out of five daughters, only one, Tatianna, likes to quilt.  I think it is because she is very precise in how she does things and that is an advantage when quilting. Also she loves putting together puzzles and quilting is kinda of like putting together a fabric puzzle. Tatianna has always encouraged me in all my crafting and she pushes me in my quilting journey.  It will be hard having her not be right here.

I have done nothing when it comes to quilting or sewing in the past 4 weeks. I have been crafting though. I have been using some of my other skills to make things for the wedding.  First, it was the bridesmaids jewelry.  The bridesmaids are wearing blue dresses and red accessories.  So red jewelry. I did not have an abundance of red beads therefore I needed to buy some.  I found 3 sizes of the same bead online at Wish.com. The price was right and the delivery was faster than I expected. I already had silver bead caps, stringing materials, earring wires, and clasps. Bonus points for using from my stash. I came up with a simple pattern and made three sets over the course of a week.  I am pleased with the results.

Then I did the bride's jewelry.  These had to be white for the temple wedding. Tatianna being an old soul wanted a real cameo. I was able to find a white carved shell cameo at Fire Mountain Gems. I set it in a sterling silver bezel. I then strung white fresh water pearls inserting a crystal rondell every four pearls. I placed the cameo in the center of the necklace.  I made pearl earrings to match. They will pair nicely with the silver chain maille/veil her father made.


With the jewelry done it was onto the flowers.  We decided that the bridesmaids would have a ball of flowers that hangs from their wrists instead of bouquets. I have made corsages and boutonnieres before. I have done some arrangements but truthfully not any bouquets or flower balls.  Of course these are going to be silk flowers since I need to do them ahead of time. I bought ten red rose bush arrangements and cut them up. I took some Styrofoam balls covered them in Spanish Moss and started stabbing red roses into them.  The balls turned out a little bigger than I planned but I think they are cute. A red ribbon inserted into the ball lets them hang from the girls' wrists.

The bouquet was a little harder.  At Hobby Lobby, I found two different bouquet forms. The one would use could be combined with a frilled cone to bouquet a finished edge.  It would have been a traditional bouquet with a rounded top and a handle the went straight down.  Tatianna liked the other form. It was angled so the top of the bouquet pointed away from the bride that way. that way it was more visible. Plus she wanted all the wedding colors in her bouquet.

I chose white roses but was having a hard time finding small red and blue flowers for the accent flowers.  I knew I should have bought them before memorial day. But No! I had to wait until after the Fourth of July to buy them.  I ended up with some small red carnation looking flowers and blue hydrangea looking flowers.  I had to dismantle the hydrangea flowers to get small enough blooms. I took the white accent from the flower bushes and cut them in half to get the right size of filler flowers. I went with a simple ribbon bow. The end results speak for themselves.  Hopefully I will be able to add a couple of pictures in tiny frames on chain to finish it off.

That left corsages and boutonnieres.  I managed to get the boutonnieres done as well. They are simple roses with a little white accent and leaves.  The corsages will be more of a challenge.  I will be using the same flowers as I used in the bouquets and they aren't quite what I am used to working with.  But I will make it happen.

My granddaughter Aurora (age 4) reminded me last night that she needs flowers and jewelry because she's going to be the flower girl. Also that Emerson (her brother, age 2) needs a boutonniere and a tie. I am going to have to make Emerson a bow tie since we can't find a little tie. The ones I bought are too big.  So Five days left to get all of that done. I need a nap just thinking about it.

I am ready to get back to quilting.  In fact I recently watched the Quilt Path videos on You Tube and am anxious to practice what I learned. But I need to get through this wedding and reception first. The reception will be the following Saturday and I need to decorate a cake and cook for that. Which means I will probably watch the videos again over the next couple weeks. Because It will be that long before I get a quilt ready to go on Millie. At least I have an idea of how I can improve what I am doing.

Well I better close and get back to work on wedding stuff.  What have you been up too?

Stopping Places and Starting Points

This past week went by way too fast. I swear it was just June 24th yesterday and here it is July 1st.  While work could have been better, Home went fairly well.  I did manage to keep busy after work doing some cleaning, sewing some blocks and a very little bit of Swedish weaving. 

I manged to sew 100 more blocks so I now have 250 of them done. I have about 80 more that I can do. I am using 4 inch squares I bought online 15 years ago. When I finish up these particular squares, I will sew them into whatever size quilt I can.

This project I am doing a little differently that previous projects and it is really helping to keep me enthused.  I am sewing the blocks in groups.  Basically, I am chain piecing 50 at a time. When I have those 50 chain pieced, I am trimming the corners and pressing all 50 blocks.  Then instead of putting them aside, like I usually do, I am squaring them up.  I find this gives me a nice stopping place.  I find I like having a logical stopping place for things.

I am one of those people who has a hard time putting a book down. If I am not going to finish it in that reading I have to end on a chapter.  My husband, however, can set the book down with a paragraph left to read. That is just wrong. Finish already! There is something not right about setting a book aside when you can finish it in less than 10 minutes. If I only have 1 chapter left to read I need to go on and finish it. A logical stopping place, it turns out, is pretty essential to my frame of mind.

That being said, I had to be out of the house for several hours on Saturday. Knowing that I wanted to have a productive day, I made some plans. I had a project to do out in the rock shop, but that wasn't going to keep me busy for 4 hours so I took the Swedish weaving out with me. 

First I had to pickle the chain mail veil that my husband is making for Tatianna's wedding. It is going to be so awesome. That took all of an hour from set up to clean up. 

Then I read for a little bit. My friend introduced me to a great author, Andy Andrews.  He writes self help books that don't read like self help books.  When you get done reading them you feel pretty good about yourself and encouraged and empowered to do better. I am actually feeling brave enough to get some quilts ready to sell on Etsy.

After reading to a stopping point where I needed to ponder what I read, I settled in to do some Swedish weaving. I do enjoy Swedish weaving but it is a time consuming endeavor. I managed to get 6 lines done before having to take my son to the ER. He is fine but his ankle is messed up. He hyper flexed it on both sides and bruised some cartilage. He is going to be on crutches for the week at least.  It was time to clean up and put things away by the time we got home from the ER. But I couldn't let that Swedish weaving alone. You see the pattern is in 3 sections, each section being about 9 lines.  I only had part of a section done. Apparently I need to finish a section or it will weigh on my mind until I finish it.  Who knew? Well, apparently my husband did because when I mentioned it to him, he just nodded and said yeah that was something I did.

I also realized that I not only have to have a logical stopping point, but if the project is not finished I have to get things set-up to start again.  So the for the quilt blocks, I have to have the next group ready to go and the machine threaded and maybe a spare bobbin ready.  For the Swedish weaving I have to have the bodkin threaded with the next strand and tucked into the starting point. For reading, I have to have the place marked and it set by my bed (or in my purse, if traveling). 

I occasionally joke about being slightly OCD because I like things done a certain way and in a certain order. I have to have my studio set up in a fashion that makes sense to me.  Dishes are done in a certain order.  Projects are stored neatly in bins and stacked on a shelf. Clutter does make me crazy in my work space. But I didn't realize how much I am a creature of habits until recently. These little quirks affect my happiness so I might as well indulge them. Who needs to be stressed out over the little things.

What are some of the quirks you have when creating?