The Silence will Fall #8: Stuff is piling up, no time to be sick

Day 207

What do a lucha libre mask, a hand stitched pillow and Bob Mackie have in common?

Day 168 well quite frankly nothing except they are all in this post....hehehe...oh I amuse myself don't I??  It is amazing how funny I think I am which is of course not half as funny as the reality...

While the hurricane gets the east coast wet we here in the Southwest desert hope for rain.  I hope you all have prepared and are staying safe this weekend.  Growing up in Florida it took my husband and I a long time before we were not instinctively doing hurricane prep at certain times of the year now we are working on a general emergency family food supply pantry but thats a work in progress.

Here in the desert we don't really get tornadoes or hurricanes normally just the rare snow and ice, the rare flash flood and massive sand storms galore including some incredible 1000s of feet tall dust devils (nothing to sneeze at the ones that have gone over our house have engulfed it and shaken it like a crazed wannabe tornado) and  HUGE sand storms like the ones they have gotten in Arizona recently.  The Rio Grande Valley down below is a fault line, we have 5 dormant volcanoes that sit behind us on the on the mesa and there is a giant caldera (super volcano) just to the north so you know we have our own share of possible interesting emergencies~NOT that I want anything to happen.

So while that part of the country hunkers down the sewing life here continues.....

Hand embroidered pillow.  This design is from a book of mythical monsters and I hand drew this from it to use.

The 18" block tshirt blanket...a gift for my hub on his 40th.

Having a little fun with a lucha libre mask~waiting to see if I get to work on a  costume persona for a local lucha!

A rug of crocheted squares....sewn together

These crocheted squares were in a box of freecycled materials and I knew I was not gonna put them together in a blanket.

The blanket top to the first of my most recent blanket projects....these are 8"squares and the fabric is Mezzanine by Patty Young via Michael Miller fabrics with a Tina Givens for Freespirit Heavenly in blue added in ...

Here is one of the upcycled skirts I made for G1....

A broomstick skirt~we cut off the bottom two layers and left the bottom unhemmed for a raw look

Dragonflies and other beading cut from a totally 80s? Bob Mackie sweater

Dragonflies flying (hand sewn) around the front of the skirt

Loving the way the sparklies go around the sides

Again I hope you all are staying safe and dry over there on the east coast...send some of that leftover rain our way ok?! Back tomorrow with some more clothing redos, thrifting, books and more....what will you create today?

Everyday I'm Shuffling....

Day 163

Seems like the Summer is coming to a roaring close and I find myself playing this song over and over again in my head as I work to catch up on all the projects that were dancing around in my head and backing up on my sewing calendar.  But we're getting 'em done:
 redoing a wall of my creative lair
finishing yet another tshirt blanket (JOY!)
lots of back to school thrift store redos 
a HUGE pile of UFOs (Unfinished sewing projects)
and some little lightweight cotton woven blankets with cute little chenille appliques that will get fluffier as you use them more
More later...can't wait to show you these fashion upcycling projects!


PS I am in the process of working on a tshirt blanket with 18" squares~needed a bigger option designs on large(+) shirts~  


What will you create today?

Another awesome tshirt blanket!

Main wall of the Creative Lair

Another view of the main wall in the Creative Lair

Ladybug/Bumblebee chenille applique blanket

Simple woven with bias trim blanket

Closeup of Bumblebee Chenille Applique

Close up of Ladybug chenille applique

More Tshirt Blankets & I see art I get ideas

Day 160

Finds me pinning together 2 more tshirt blankets, I can't wait to see these together...

And recently we went to a swim meet in Las Cruces, NM and stayed at this beautiful old hotel....all I could see around me were things I wanted to make into hand embroideries

I am an idiot for sculptures, artwork and architecture I could stand and drool all day.....

What will you create today?

Relay for Life Tshirt Blanket and the Arizona fires

Day 159

We are slowly slowly getting back to what I would consider a normal schedule for us, if you consider hitting 3 swim practices a day normal??!! But hey the girls are having a blast living up Summer with team events, sleepovers and swim meets!

This blanket was delivered yesterday for a friend's mom...they are very big supporters and participate as a family in the Relay for Life Nearly two years ago they lost a family member to cancer and we were able to get a few of her tshirts to incorporate them into this blanket...even though her mom knew we were getting tshirts from her she did not know we had gotten some from her Aunt and apparently when she received this she cried and did not let go of the blanket (happy sobbing) this makes my heart sing and it means I am in the career I am supposed to be in!!

These blankets are not meant to be put up on a wall and displayed (unless of course you want to) they are meant to be used every day. The backing on this one is a double sided sherpa with a minky fleece on the outside so it is incredibly soft and snuggly!

Gosh I guess you could tell we have been spending our who waking lives at one of 3 pools around Albuquerque considering this picture was taken at A POOL lol lol.

I positioned the center squares using the Aunt's tshirts so that they form a sort of message of Hope, Remembrance and Surviving and even though her Aunt did not survive her cancer in the end she fought a good fight and has continued to (survive) live on in the loving memories of her family.

On a lighter note my garden is starting to really come back to life although I predict that everything will be stunted this season because of the amounts of smoke we have been getting from the fires in Arizona....

Every morning and night we go out and spray off the ash which is EVERYWHERE it looks like snow flurries. These are my wild pink snapdragons that bloomed for the first time this year.

My hollyhocks are really suffering the worst because their leaves are not as smooth and seem to collect the black ash and it sticks there despite daily dousing.

Sunsets thick with smoke producing some cool red suns but I am tired of smelling like we live in a BBQ pit with the windows closed all day and night and no swamp cooler to keep the house cool SIGH.....

(both of these images are from KASA.com )

See this wall of smoke overtaking the city??!?...this is what it looks like every night as the smoke rolls in and is so thick you can't see 100 feet in front of you ....I am hoping that they start to get some containment on this fire to protect the families in it's path and that the firefighters stay safe as they battle this huge blaze.

What will you create today? So happy to be back in my creative lair/sewing room again....

Tshirt blankets are the ONLY way to keep your memories...

If you are outside of Albuquerque and interested please email me and we can work out an inexpensive shipping method so I can create a blanket for you!

Rocking some serious well thought gifts: Tshirt Blanket #3 and Memory Pillows

Day 131

Finished up another Tshirt blanket and this one is double sided with shirt squares which makes it awkward when sewing the whole thing together. My goal is to one day have a quilting machine so I can do some really cool designs but for now I work with what I got....

This particular blanket was for a local youth pastor and it included some really neat blocks like from where he went to seminary and one with children's signatures all over it that I had to cut into 4 squares to get most of them onto the block.

This is the back side, not much different but since there were so many shirts it worked to cover both sides to include as many memories as possible! In between is a simple queen sized flat sheet to add strength and weight to the blanket since the knit of the shirts can get stretchy and pull at the stitches.

In order to sew these together I picked a simple cross design and had I to do it over again I would have shifted the design so it was tilted corner to corner over the squares instead I just followed along the square design in the center of the blanket. But live, learn and be creative and grow eh?! I am pretty happy with this because it was the first one I had done with shirts on both sides.

And apparently I forgot to take pictures of the fleece backs and simple grid designs on the first two blankets but I will take pictures of the next one I have which should be within the week I promise! Basically the blankets with the plain backs are simple grids sewn in straight lines vertically and horizontally, starting from the middle and working out.

And here are some Tshirt memory pillows I just completed that will be Christmas gifts for family members of the beloved Mother, Wife and Grandmother who passed on. Her family could not bear to part with her clothes and had been storing them until they found me! I can just see the tears flowing as these are opened on Christmas morning surrounded by all those happy memories.

The request for each pillow was that they had to include a Harley-Davidson shirt and a Winnie the Pooh. She also wore a lot of button downs so I made sure to include squares of those as well.

I really, really love the ways these all turned out different but unique. The ones made from the button down shirts are my favorites, so crisp!

These are 12"x16" pillows covered in 4" squares. Can't wait to do more of these they were a lot of fun and so simple to create.

Baseball, Karate, and Godzilla...Tshirt blanket #2

Day 129

I finished this a while ago but I just did not want to look at it any more to post the pictures lol. This was another blanket with the karate belts sewn along the sides I WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN>>>>EVER.....NEVER....not even if you paid me double.....and these particular belts were of a different quality apparently than the ones I did on the first blanket these were thicker and the fabric a denser weave and took hours to do HOURS. But this time I decided to spread the time out over the past month or so because it was just so much work. Even so I have callouses on my fingertips, peeled and rehealed skin over those callouses, a needle sized hole in one fingertip callous where I apparently push the needle through without realizing I am doing it and a crick in my back from sitting in different places while working.

Each side is sewn 5 times with a thick polyester stiff thread...reminded me of suture thread (the kind they use to sew wounds, etc.)....and I used ALL 200 yds on the spool between both blankets which amazes me.

I tried several different types of thimbles but nothing worked over the long haul because they kept coming off or getting too sweaty. I don't like things on my hands or fingers either so I am not sure if anything will work. I hope to find one I can use though so I will keep looking, any suggestions?

So here it is...I love making these....I majored in Anthropology/Archaeology so I LOVE history and to me this is like being able to sort through a family member's history, telling a short part of their story in shirts...see I'm using my degree, sort of, not really BUT the interest is still there, lol

B

....check out the cool 'My Grandpa Played For the Red Sox'.....

...loved redoing these karate gi's using the neckline and moving the patches to fit....

...Go go Godzilla....weeeooooeeeoooo...apparently this boy loves Godzilla so I did a reverse applique with the Godzilla name that did not fit within one 12" square...I did not take a close up of this but I cut it to look like a bite mark...

....did you hear they are going to make a modern Godzilla movie to be released in 2010? I dunno my daughter heard they are going to use some of the directors from some of the original Godzilla movies, the guys from Japan so it might be okay...but CGI be darned bring back the guy in the rubber suit I LOVED watching those! And I HATE all the 3D movies, HATE them...why? I ask you why?...ok enough whinging

...more baseball...this boy is apparently an awesome baseball player...Red Sox here he comes!

So what are you creating today? I am working on 4 blankets at once right now cutting away at my squares with the new plastic pre-measured squares my awesome hub made me, now I need to find an ergonomic rotary cutter and a rotating cutting mat!

One Tshirt blanket down 1 to finish & some great memorable Tablerunners in the mix

Day 117

Ok so I sat for 11 hours nearly straight hand stitching on the karate belts onto the sides of this Tshirt blanket, I used thick upholstery threads and each side is sewn 4 times in total--for all the effort it was worth it as it really makes the borders nice....I don't have a picture but I left the belt ends to drape over the corners and I don't particularly like the way they look but they had the child's name handwritten by her over the course of her karate 'career' and I just could not bear to cut them off. A mom at the pool came up with the idea of tying some of the belts together at the corners but since they were all different lengths that only worked on a couple of corners-in the end it really did end up looking fabulous and I am totally ready to make more blankets-just no karate belts for a while as my fingertips are bruised and sore lol.

Scratch that, I still have to get through the other one from this client for his son and wait till you see the Godzilla block that I did--A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! Please send me your prayers as I will be wrapping this up today through a horrible asthma episode I am going through...good thing I am doing what I love to do....sewing, sewing, sewing and being creative!!!!

Now I am on the lookout for a used industrial sewing machine that can sew through the thickness of 2 karate belts and a couple of layers of fabric with ease...any suggestions?

And now for an even more creative project in the works--sewing tablerunners as Christmas presents for family members in memory of their Mother, Grandmother and Great-Grandmother who passed away recently--and get this, she was a sewist so I was given lots of notions to embellish each runner individually!

She had LOTS of hankies so I spent a couple of hours with the client choosing colors for each recipient, learning details of this special woman's life and discussing the details of what would really make these beautiful.

Here is just the tip of the bias tape, ricrac, ribbon iceberg....

Buttons and closures galore....yes I will be putting some buttons on these even though they are table runners because of the delicacy of the hankies I am putting on them they will only be for display and not really used for putting things on as the fabrics are really fragile.

....I will even be adding small patches as well as an entire bagful of laces.....

....I love these gifts of memory I have worked on some in the past and there are many happy tears shed when I get to drop them off....

....I have a Halloween post later and some more things to show off.....what will you create today?