Sewing

Stitched Art Journal

~ Patty Radish ~ 12 Comments

The other night I was feeling creative, but wasn’t in the mood to get out paper, small bits, and glue. I wanted to do some stitching, but that quilted runner in the corner just wasn’t speaking to me. So…

…I got out my stitchery journal suitcase. It’s been a looooong time since this has seen the light of day!

WARNING!  This is a pretty long (but hopefully fun) blog post, so grab a snack…or a pillow!

 A page I finished quite a while ago, but didn’t share here. I made a lot of copies of old photos onto fabric I’m happy to say, because I’m not sure my new printer will cooperate with fabric. Snippits of worn out stitched thrifty finds are perfect for these fabric journals.

This project is humming right along because I have so many embellishments from other projects I’m repurposing. I do that with my paper art journals too, I love having a stash of ready made decorating bits. The bird is clearly impressed!

Using up an orange lace flower from another project. I’m not sure what I’ll do when I run out of leftover embellishments! (actually, yes I do.)

This little Raggedy Anne has been looking for the right home for years. This is definitely her new forever home.

Are you still hanging in there?

Haven’t lost you yet I hope!

A piece of painted canvas fabric and a hand made fabric button. I’m slightly addicted to making fabric buttons. I even have a Wilhold button making kit now, I’ll share more about in another post.

I have a lot of those travel thread pieces left from my mom’s sewing stash. this is a perfect project to use those up in.

You never know what you’ll find floating around in that old suitcase of mine!

At last, the final photo. Thought I would show you a bit of the planning stage of my next page spread.

Truth be told, I wanted to share about this journal because I know that there are a lot of people that love shopping the sewing and crafting sections of thrift stores as much as I do, and we all need a little inspiration for some fun ways to use them up.

Also, I’ve been thinking about putting some “sewing notion” ephemera packs into my shoppe some day and thought I’d throw out some feelers.

If you made it to the end of this post without needing a nap, I thank you.

Please let me know in comments if you would like to see more posts of my stitchery journals, your feedback is always appreciated!

As always,

Thanks for stopping in,

Have a wonderful weekend,

~Patty

Sewing My Little Heart Out

~ Patty Radish ~ 6 Comments

This year is all about getting our house in order. I had the same intention last year, and I was really quite successful, but there is still so much to be done!

I love having handwork to do in the evening in front of T.V. or listening to an audio book (and ticking WIP’s off my list, win!) so hand quilting small projects is perfect.

img_6144Here are my latest creations. The two at the top were put together and quilted before the Holidays, but needed binding. The runner on the bottom was pinned, but needed the fabric pieces stitched on, then bound.

img_6147

You may be wondering why I need so many runners…

Full Disclosure:

I really dislike dusting! Every once in a while, I will take a few runners and throw them in the wash. Or, if they are in a hard to remove kind of place, under a T.V. and such, I will just use a vacuum attachment on them. I don’t know, they just seem to make the furniture look cosy, and I love making them.

img_6151I had originally made this one for my bedroom, but I really, really disliked it there. So now I have one less runner to make for my sewing room. 🙂

img_6152Just so you know, this and the previous runner, were made out of blocks from quilts I had started many moons ago, and had never finished. It’s such a huge relief to use things up and move on!  This one is going into my sewing room too. I have about 8 runners to make for my sewing room alone, but I definitely have all the fabric I need.

Yay for using up supplies!

img_6146

This runner is for our dining room table. It’s made by stitching fabric pieces onto linen with vintage wool thread. I wanted to use thick colored thread on this because I wanted the option of flipping it to give my table a more neutral look.

img_6170

Here is the wool thread I used. I found several spools of this gorgeousness at the thrift store a few years ago, Love! You can find some on Etsy and Ebay too.

img_6154

One of the reasons why I’ve made getting our house in order this year, and last, is because we will be selling this house in a few years, and I want to be ready to de-personalize and neutralize our decor. As you well know by now, I love color, so this is an easy fix!

img_6167

This is what it looks like on our table, just the pop of color it needed. I’ll be starting the placemats this week, I’ve chosen a leafy, vintage-y fabric for them, and muslin for the backside. I’m not sure If I will be doing any hand stitching on them yet, we’ll have to see.

In between stitching my heart out, I have been busy with working in my faith devotionals from last year, planning out my year with Lara Casey’s “Goal Setting Planner“, and I signed up for Ali Edwards “One Little Word“, mine is “GRACE”. I will be talking a little more about those things as soon as I’m a bit more organized. I fell off the “No spend” wagon, but hope to jump back on asap! 🙂

So, until next time,

Thank you so much for stopping by,

~Patty

Something Olde, Something New…

~ Patty Radish ~ 2 Comments

Last night I got an itch to finally turn some of the small notebooks I have been holding onto for years…and years… into mini art journals. I got out my glue stick and went to town glueing the pages together for strength.

IMG_1163

Once that was done, I thought it was time to try a project I’ve been stewing over for the past few months…

IMG_1146

…making a kind of Fauxdori cover to hold them in!!

 And because I’ll be embellishing the cover, I machine quilted it. Love!

IMG_1154

This took about an hour to make, and the notebooks fit in it beautifully!

IMG_1144

I will be more than happy to share how I made these in another post, I’ll need one for my Moleskines.

IMG_1148

There’s  nothing like mooching around your own stash of supplies to making something special for yourself. Well, back to my Christmas gift makings.

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Have a great day,

~Patty