Unique Knitted Animals

These cute, cute, cute creatures are the one-of-a-kind creations from Ana Castellanos. She made these for me and my daughter. These are just a small sampling of what she can create with just a couple of knitting needles. She is currently teaching Spanish classes at Harper College and prior to that she taught at Northern Illinois University.

If you think these are cute, you can catch her display of all her special animals and dolls at the Schaumburg Township Library in Schaumburg, IL. There are 2 display cases in the main lobby but that's not all. She had so many they also filled 2 display cases in the fiction book room. She has a love of specialty yarns that help to create the unique look and also help create their furry appearance. Size of the animals and dolls range from the tiny to larger cuddly creatures. Many are the same pattern but the size changes just by changing the size of the needles. You can catch the display at the library now through the end of June 2008.

Here are close ups of the bear and the little elephant.

Clover Mini Iron

New Craft Critique article on the Mini Iron from Clover is out today. I hope all you quilters and crafters who use it or another portable crafting iron go over there and tell us what you think about this or if you have another one you like better. We always like to know what else is out there.

Ribbon Roses on the Jane Austen Centre Magazine

I'm so excited. Last summer I did an article for Craft Critique on wire-edge ribbon and how to make a rose. The Jane Austen Centre in England asked to post the directions to the ribbon rose with my photos on their online magazine. It is in the Hands on Regency section where you can find a variety of crafts from soap to clothing. The rose instructions are part of an article to help adorn a simple pair of shoes into a 19th century inspired fashion. You can find the magazine article here. You can check out the critique on wire-edge ribbon in the original one at Craft Critique.

Now, I feel inspired to go read Emma. I have it on my bookshelf. I received it as a gift from my mother-in-law soon after my daughter, Emma, was born. It has been so long since I've sat down and read Jane Austen's books and I've never read this one.

Book Review: Bead & Button, Ribbon & Felt Jewelry

I started working on a new article for Craft Critique tonight when I realized I didn't mention my last article I did. It is for the book Bead & Button, Ribbon & Felt Jewelry by Deborah Schneebeli-Morrell. I love it for its easy to create ideas. Check it out when you get a chance. I'm working on a review of the Clover Mini-Iron so hopefully I will remember to put a link to it when its published.

International Quilt Festival/Chicago 2008

Well, almost a month ago I went to the International Quilt Festival/Chicago that was held at the convention center in Rosemont, IL. This was my second year except I didn't take any classes this year. Instead, I went one day with my friend Susie and one day with my daughter (who loved the shopping part the best - see picture) and I still didn't get around to seeing everything. There were many, many quilts that were just beyond superb. Quilting just keeps getting better and better. I can't even imagine getting close to the level of many of the artists out there today.


There were just too many pieces at the show to even begin to give details of even just some of the works I admired. I love collecting pictures of techniques I would like to try. Here are some of those details:

This first picture is a close up from one of the Journal Quilts 2007 - Journal Quilt Project. These were small quilts that meant to be pages of a journal. This one is titled Forgotten Flowers by Francis Holliday Alford. I love all the dimension in this and the wonderful use of beads.

This detail is from a large quilt by Carol Taylor called Tiptoe Through the Tulips. The base is squares and rectangles and then it's embellished with multiple threads and stitching. I love the swirls.

Here is just a small portion of a very large quilt with a technique of string piecing. It is called Prairie Dawn by Ann Brauer. This gives me an idea of how to use up the loads of fabric I inherited from my mom.


Now, unfortunately, I cannot find my notes on this next quilt but this detail photo is a very small area of the piece. I was amazed at the wave of buttons - all stars - that spread out through the middle of this quilt. Can you imagine sewing on each of the hundreds of buttons?



Here is an example of another technique that I would love to try - bleach discharging. This quilt named Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire! by Cynthia St. Charles shows the technique, I think, at its best. I also like the beads that have been added to enhance the starburst design.


This is a huge dahlia design and I've lost my notes on this one as well. It was just an amazing piece of an even more amazing quilt. If anyone knows who did this I would love to know. If I'm lucky I will be able to come across this one again and fully credit it. This also is one piece I cannot really tell what the technique was but it seems so geometrically perfect I just love its power.



I'm showing this detail of Open Up! Your Dream Flower by Harumi Asada from Japan. I love paisley patterns as well as the colors of this piece. I couldn't find a site for Harumi but I did find this picture of a quilt using a similar paisley.



The next two pictures are more traditional patterns but are a couple of my favorites. This is a feathered star which was the center part of the quilt Autumn Sky by Gretchen Neal Jackson. This shows 3 feathered stars inside of each other. I have done a feathered star but have not completed it in a quilt yet.



Mariner's compass is another one of my favorites. You might have noticed that a lot of the pieces I have shown has curves in it somewhere . I also like angles which explains the feathered star but the compass pattern has both elements. I really like the triangles (reminds me of distorted flying geese) that circle this compass. The full quilt is called Follow Me by Margaret Curley.

I hope you enjoy these little details from just a few of the pieces I admired and I hope they inspire you to try a new technique.

I Finally Made Some Birthday Cards

Nothing like a couple of birthdays and a new Scrapbooking Club to get me to sit down and use my stuff. I made these cards this past Friday when I finally made it to the Our Redeemer's Scrapbook Club. I started attending this church last fall and met the founder of the group while dropping my daughter off to Sunday School. Laura is her teacher and also the organizer for the Crop for a Cause event I attended last month.

Although I have what looks like a lot of stuff (hardcore scrappers can see I'm just a novice when it comes to what I have) and it looks like I have it organized, I yet to have projects organized especially when it comes to scrapbook pages. So instead of looking like I had no idea of what I was going to do I decided to make cards for my mother-in-law and father-in-law's birthdays. We met them today for lunch to celebrate. Their birthdays are only a couple of days apart and my husband's is on the same day as his mom's. I hope you enjoy the cards.

The first card is for my mother-in-law. I really enjoyed making this card. The message is with stickers and I helped to attach it to the background with spiral paper clips made by The Paper Studio. I also used my Sizzix Big Kick to cut out the flower details and paper buttons. I am quite pleased with this card and my 3-D flower that you can see in the close-up.


The second card was more of a challenge. I didn't have much masculine paper in my small stash but I did have that cute little robot tag that my fellow crafter Martha made for us one night at our Chicago Craft Collective meeting. He was my "guy" inspiration. He actually is holding a heart above his head but I put a speech bubble sticker over it to shout out my birthday wishes. I used stickers also for "Grandpa". I really have a thing for stickers but I never seem to have enough of some. I need to practice stamping more.

Blast from the Past

My daughter found a box labeled "Donna's Dolls" and requested to go through it. I wasn't quite sure what was in the box and finally gave in. This is part of what was inside. The large Barbie was called Super Barbie and the other one I believe was named Tuesday. She's kind of cool (at least pre-80's) because you could move her hair around and make her either blond or brunette. The other doll I put in the photo for size reference - he is the size of a 11" Ken doll. If you don't know (and if you are under 35 I would be shocked if you do) it is, yes, it is Donny Osmond in his original purple outfit that was worn on the Donny and Marie show. I remember it even had purple socks to go with it but those have been lost. I had Marie too but she must have went with the socks.

The more amazing part of this is the clothes I made for the larger dolls. I crocheted them somewhere around the 8th - 9th grade. I remember doing the Flamenco dress to take to a High School Foreign Language fair at Ohio University. I don't think I made the skirt for any reason in particular. I really liked to make doll clothes when I was young and loved when I could actually crochet them. I've included a few close-ups of the clothes. If you click on the photo you should get a larger view of them. I've kind of gotten motivated to make some clothes for my daughters dolls but I haven't told her. I need to find the time first.