A few years back, when my Shih-tzu Rosie was just a puppy she was a trouble maker.

(Rosie on the left, Frankie on the right. We walked them to the Snow Cone stand where they shared a Doggie t-bone flavored snow cone.)

I was also a totally irresponsible person and left a threaded embroidery needle on the couch without thinking. DUMB! Rosie ate the needle and it thankfully passed through her whole digestive system where it got stuck at the (ahem) very end. I cannot tell you the guilt that I felt but I was also so thankful that she ended up not needing surgery. After a doggie emergency room visit, $600 and a week of antibiotics just to make sure she was as good as new. Do not be as foolish as I was, we were very lucky.

After that incident, I made a needle book so I would keep my needles all in one place. I am very, very good about taking a needle out and then putting it back the second I am done. The thought of hurting my baby girl again sickens me.

Here is the needle book I made a few years back.

I used cheap acrylic felt and a daisy t-shirt iron on. The felt melted a little bit when I applied the daisy.

It was never very pretty and it didn’t wear very well. It totally did serve it’s purpose though.

Last week, I broke out my secret stash of vintage sheets that I bought months ago and started piecing bits together to make this, my new needle book.

I made the cover just like I would a mini quilt. I pieced the strips together, sandwiched the layers, quilted and bound the edges. Easy and a great beginners quilting project.

Here’s the inside:

I used felt again but used an 80% wool/20% acrylic blend for the “pages”. I like to used darker color felt because it’s easier to see the needles in the pages. The closure is a basic purse closure that I got at Joann’s.

I bound the needle book together with the grommets. This was my first time using grommets, they are a total bitch to work with. Seriously, my fingers were sore after the whole thing and punching holes into the book was scary. What if I made a mistake and ruined it? Thankfully I didn’t and the grommets were well worth that hassle as they do a great job of holding everything together.

To finish the look of the book, I made another Kanzashi and decorated it with a vintage button purchased from my favorite, local antique store.

Cute and functional, LOVE IT!

(I would like to take a moment to explain that we’re still learning about our fancy new camera and cannot seem to master the white balance. It’s like looking at the world through rose colored glasses, right?)

Long story short, my husband and I purchased our first home in November. It’s been great, we really love our home and have been enjoying the slow but satisfying journey of putting our stamp on it. We are on the verge of finishing our kitchen which has been painted and outfitted with new appliances, counter tops and cabinets. We’re about to install a back splash and make the surprisingly difficult decision regarding hardware.

The hall bathroom might be the next candidate for some color (the whole house was painted in a very neutral beige that was great in the beginning but now I look at our walls and yawn) as I’ve been stalking this gorgeous shower curtain and will hopefully be purchasing it this week.

The one area of our home that is in desperate, desperate need for some love is our bedroom. It’s painted in the boring beige and it literally has nothing decorative in it, it’s purely functional. I keep looking at comforters online and in stores and nothing has really excited me. I’ve decided that once I figure out the bed covering, I’ll use that as the foundation for styling the room.

So, I’ve had horrible luck in finding something so it’s come to the time where I’ve decided to make something. I already have a nice down comforter, so I’ll make a duvet cover for it. As far as bedding goes, a duvet is a simple thing to make as it’s really only two large pieces of fabric sewn together. Once the duvet is made, coordinating pillows and curtains can follow. Easy! (Isn’t it funny how I’m saying the project is easy before I even start it?)

I’ve decided to make things a little more complicated to really bring home that “one of a kind” feeling. Here is a MS Paint version of what I plan to make.

1. Instead of searching for and purchasing yards and yards of fabric patterns that I like, I’m going to purchase bleached cotton to dye from Dharma Trading Co. Because I need a lot of yardage (duvet, pillows, curtains) and I need a decent quality, this fabric and the appropriate amount of dye will be the most cost effective way to go.

2. To create an interesting pattern on the blocks, I’m going to screen print a pattern on fabric and then add a few details of embroidery here and there.  For the screen printing portion, I have my heart set on purchasing a Yudu, one of those new fangled screen printing machines. (Side note! Every purchase from my Etsy shop goes toward the Yudu! Go and buy!).

3. I have not come up with the pattern that I’m screenprinting yet. Hell, I haven’t even decided on what colors I’m going to use! to dye the fabrics!

So, there’s my prelimary battle plan of the start of the bedroom. I didn’t even touch upon the refinishing of the 100+ year old chiffarobe that I inherited and was told that I would be killed if I ever lost possession of.

And then I stitched some more. And then I kept on stitching.

My favorite cloth to stitch on is a piece of an Aunt Martha pillowcase. The fabric is stiff and has almost no stretch. I couldn’t imagine using it for a pillowcase, let alone putting it anywhere next to the skin (maybe after a 1000 washes?).

I started stitching this little sweetie Saturday afternoon and finished her Sunday night. She was made with DMC satin floss (LOVE!), one tiny vintage button and a handful of glass seed beads to add a hint of glimmer.

After I was done with the embroidery, I sewed a piece of 100% wool felt to the back and then added some ric-rac to a piece of bias tape for a hanger.

She’ll be hanging on the door of my craft studio when we move into our new house (in only two weeks!).

It’s probably not that most intelligent choice, you need lots of sharp things like tiny needles and tiny scissors, but I have a small case that carries everything I need.

Because I work two jobs, I like to carry around my projects for that boring lunch hour or if I get a short break where I need to be quiet for a few moments.  I recently finished 2 tea towels and then spent last Sunday night putting a little trim on each one and backing them with a coordinating fabric.

Both of my tea towels came from Sublime Stitching, as I agree with a lot of the girls over at Craftster, they have the best texture to stitch on.

I stitched this one because I was looking for an excuse to use that bobble trim that I kept seeing at Joann’s Fabric. The pattern is from Sublime Stitching but part of Jenny’s Artist Series, this one was designed by Lisa Petrucci.

Because I work two jobs, I like to carry around my projects for that boring lunch hour or if I get a short break where I need to be quiet for a few moments.  I recently finished 2 tea towels and then spent last Sunday night putting a little trim on each one and backing them with a coordinating fabric.

 I backed this one with a predominatley orange batik fabric that had tiny but vibrant bits of yellow throughout.

You can kind of see the texture of the towels in this last picture. See how I got that grid effect in the puppy’s fur? That’s due to the texture of the towel, it’s almost comparable to a looser cross stitch fabric called Aida cloth.

This mermaid towel was a crafty feeling I had last week and I needed a project to keep my hands busy. I had iron on the pattern month ago but never went any further.

Her tail and the gold flecks in her hair were done with DMC’s satin floss, which is one of my favorite threads to use when I have to fill in larger spaces. The satin floss seems to be able to fill in more quickly, that might be my mind doing tricks on me though. The large ric-rac was an afterthough, sort of the top of the waves in the ocean.

This one was also backed with a batick fabric, it has a blue-ish green bubbly texture; it felt very “under the sea”.

I wish I could have gotten a better picture of the texture of the starfish. He es done all in french knots, so he’s got a swirly texture.

No matter what, there will always be wrinkles around her tail *sigh*

The bubbles were done in a very light blue with a touch of iridescent blending filament. Very bubbly and shiny.

I don’t ever really have a plan for these little bits, maybe someday I’ll sew them into little pillows or maybe into a patchwork quilt. Maybe I’ll never do anything with them and my great grandchildren will find them in some dusty hope chest.

It’s kind of nice sometimes to craft without purpose. Most of the things I make are presents for people or for swaps on Craftster. Oddly, I very rarely ever make anything for myself. I wonder if that’s a common thing?

Both of these patterns are from Sublime Stitching and both of them incorporate embroidery techniques that I don’t normally do.

This little cake on a pedestal is iced in French Knots. French Knots are a really fun technique that once you learn, you want to put them everywhere. The pedestal is an overlapping chain stitch done in DMC’s satin thread which is one of my favorites, it’s shiny and really shows off texture.

My next piece is made with a lot of DMC’s new metallic threads which are still a pain to work with but a little easier than your regular metallic threads (metallic threads are historically a total pain in the ass, they catch on everything!) I also used some satin stitch on the rocks around the campfire. I love the two colors used on the flames of the fire.

Right now I’m working on a funky tea towel using Sublime Stitching’s patterns from Lisa Petrucci.

The tea towel is from Sublime Stitching and I can’t say enough good things about it. This is the best material I have ever stitched on.