Work in Progress: Pink Cotton Candy Stripe Quilt

I have three crib sized patchwork quilts I have been working on for some time, in various stages of completion. All three are of my own design.

The first one is my Pink Cotton Candy Stripe baby quilt, which is the closest to completion. I loved choosing and using these sweet fabrics from my fabric stash (I think they all came from a Joann's shopping extravaganza with Brie a long time ago). This would be so perfect for a gift for a new baby girl! The back of the quilt is a blue and white cloud print that reduces the girliness factor just a tiny bit.

I opted for no binding, because I currently (from past experiences) have a fear/hatred of binding my quilts, which I'm hoping to eventually get over when I find the right binding method. And it looks pretty without it anyway. I used Warm and Natural batting because it's thin and flat enough to be easy to work with while still providing some warmth. I pin-basted my quilt sandwich together right sides facing, stitched around the edges, and turned it inside out. Then I pin-basted it again...I don't like using a thimble so I did stab myself a few times :P

If you look closely you can see my big quilter's pins still in there because I haven't done the quilting yet...the only other thing I have to do is add my Picky Chicky labels to it (I made my own using some iron-on transfer paper and satin ribbons, thanks to the magic of Pinterest).

More pictures to come once it's finished. Next time: my English paper piecing hexie quilt made from recycled men's dress shirts!

Custom owl orders

I recently had two fun custom orders of my embroidered felt owl ornaments!

The first was an etsy order for 10 pink and brown owls for a baby shower--what a cute idea! The owls are great for decorating, and can then be given as favors to attendees after the party.

I did a bunch of color variations. I actually cut out 19 owls to give the customer a chance to pick which combinations she liked best.

 

 

Here are the finished owls in the color combinations she selected.

So cute!

 

The second order was a set of blue owls for my friend Mary (they were a gift for her daughter who goes to UNC). It was Mary's idea to do them in her daughter's college colors...also very cute!

 

 

I love doing custom orders! Sometimes customers have great ideas for color combinations or uses I hadn't thought of yet :) Plus I love making these owls, they are a lot of fun to sew.

materials: DMC, eco felt, grosgrain ribbon, thread, polyester quilt batting

Red owl ornaments

To go with the stellar bright red sunburn I got on my feet today, here are my red and pink owl ornaments. I was helping Jyoti with a yard sale this morning...nice to be outdoors but forgot sunblock on my feet! It itches!

 

Also here are some of the other owls I'm working on...

 

 

 

May Craft Blog Giveaway Winner

Yay! The winner of my giveaway for the Pink Leaves Felt Cuff Bracelet is:
MommyWantsToRead

Thank you to everyone for entering! Have a great day :)

May Craft Blog Giveaway: Pink Leaf Cuff Bracelet!

Happy Friday everyone!

I know it's been a while since I did a giveaway so here it is! My May giveaway is for one of my new felt cuffs--this one with lovely pink leaves. I made this piece while at a craft fair last week in an attempt to brighten the dreary gray day.

I hand-stitched this bracelet out of two layers of recycled felt, with a bright pink ribbon sandwiched in between. This cuff will fit most size wrists and is quite sturdy.

It's super easy...just leave a comment on this post below including your email address. So enter below and get yourself a free piece of my hand-stitched felt jewelry!

You can leave your email address in this format if you like: pickychickybird AT gmail DOT com, just to avoid spam.

Last day to enter is Monday, May 16th...I'll announce the winner here on my blog the following day, so stay posted!

A few more pics of the prize:

Good luck to all my giveaway enthusiasts!

Valentine's Day...or "You Are All"

I spent this past Saturday making valentines with my friend and her 6-year-old daughter...what fun!

I used to love making special valentines when I was a kid. These are the ones I received on Saturday...my favorite is the heart person which says "You are all" (or "You are all heart," depending upon your interpretation).



Like most kids, we usually got some cheapo box of generic valentines to give out to the whole class. My brothers and I found it vastly amusing (in a toilet-related way) to save the valentine that said "You wipe me out!" to give to the kids in the class we did not like. It had a picture of an alien on it, which I never understood...maybe they intended this in a "aliens take over the world and wipe out humans" sort of way? I prefer the toilet interpretation.

I had a couple of etsy treasury features this week--Never Tired of a Snowflake, Sunny and Bright on a Gloomy Sunday, and  Sunny Spring Flowers.

Also, I worked on some more heart pins on Sunday and have one up in my etsy shop already--go check it out!

This little piggy stayed home.

I've been sick the last few days with a cold, so there's been plenty of time to work on piggies! (Mostly while semi-watching Return of the Jedi and The Fugitive.)

Here are the latest:

Fat Piggy (aka Mr. Plumpy)

Slim Piggy

I hadn't originally planned to use such a thick marker to outline them but I like the way it looks...although it is more cartoony than I had planned.  I am a strong supporter of Slim Piggy in his fight against Mr. Plumpy.

Also, I just remembered this illustration I did in college as a birthday card design:

I love it--so cheerful and colorful! So I'm going to do a couple of more festive piggies today just to see how they come out.

Little hoot owls!

So after my first few attempts at owls, I have come up with a template I love, and also managed to fix the problem with the eyes being overly googly. I just cut pieces for about 20 more owls in various colors and I finished 8 of them while watching Frontier House (one of my favorite PBS series) last night...they came out so adorable!

Hoot! Hoot! Hoot!

Help me pick fabrics!

Ok I've finished all the embroidery on the sides of the Princess Purse and now I'm trying to select a fabric for the lining. I've narrowed it down to my three favorites, a light pink with tiny hearts, dotted yellow, and dark pink with swirls. But I cannot choose! Please help by adding a comment below to tell me which one you like best!





Usually what I do to select fabrics for the lining is I narrow it down, and show a selection of 5 or 6 to my friend Brie. She picks one and I usually end up doing the opposite of what she suggested! Haha. She says the space purse was the first time I actually listened to her on my fabric choice. So getting the feedback really does help!