A bit of snow during the summer

It is all about my doily craziness…

This is Mantilla Doily from Coats and Clark . I believe, this pattern was always there in Coats and Clark site since i started crocheting.

It was in my to do list for a very long time…yes, I was planning to do this for the last few years..but it never happened. When i started to work...it was another story.

I started it with my favorite Anchor knitting cotton in white, when i finished the center portion, i realised, i might run short of thread …so I stopped it…

I really loved the center portion of this doily, and i got an idea, i can finish it into a mug/jar lid with beads.

I always love making doilies with beads.I thread the remaining white thread with blue beads and started working on the center portion again.

This small little doily with blue glass beads was too cute. The thread was almost over, when i finished the 2nd one.

I was looking at the center piece finish without beads, thinking what to do with it…

with a flash of light bulb, that opened my always shut brain cell no.3,(1 and 2 is always in use)….lol

i decided to continue the doily with blue…

…and the mantilla doily was made.

Now comes the story of the snowball…I made the snowballs from the recipe of my good friend Mini, who is also a seamstress and blogs at Mini’s Treasure Trove.

Her yummy recipes are available in her page Mini’s oven  in cucumbertown.

Snowballs are my DH’s favorite. I once tasted it at his aunt’s place.

I was so happy when i saw this recipe from Mini and decided, I'm going to surprise my DH for his birthday..

It is his birthday tomorrow…and i already surprised him with this yummy snowballs when he came back from work…

A closer look of snowballs…it is not as snowy as in the recipe pictures,

because i was not lavish on powdered sugar for its coating…it is still yummy....

..a close look of the glass lid doilies..

I really loved this little doilies with beads..

and I'm going to make many more as soon as i get my white thread, because i love it in white.

Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments…

Until next time..

Have a nice day..nima

A light makeover for our Living Space

I love doing light makeovers for my rooms with my handmade.

I know this part of our living space is familiar for all my blog readers, because i do most of the photo shoots in this corner of my apartment.

It is just that this is the corner, where there is proper natural light around the day.

This time it is a set of 8 cushions, which i appliquéd and quilted while my computer was down for few days.

I seriously wanted to finish it since long time…but it was hanging around in my sewing room waiting for my right mood..lol.

And days without computer was really productive, i finished a set of cushions for our living room make over.

These Hawaiian flower appliqué patterns are freebies from  Martha Stewart.

I did a raw edge appliqué using the blanket stitch option on my janome mc 8900, and it was awesome..

You might have noticed the new lacy back for my futon. It was a table runner i crochet almost 10 years back.

I got bored it as a table runner and was in my cupboard for few years.

Few weeks back when i rearranged my sewing space, i took it out to give it light and used it to give a lacy finish for my futon.

The appliqué cushion on the futon is not any particular pattern, I just cut it out from the print of the fabric …

(hai..this was the teasing pic on my fb page…sorry to tease you all)

This time I used the quilting guide bar to do the straight line quilting. wow….it was a life saver.

 

I just loved the print.

I got 4 shades in this same print and now i’m enough working with it…lol..

These are some close up pictures of appliqué and quilting.

Raw edge appliqué using fusible web is always my favorite technique…but i ran out of the fusible web and challenged myself to finish it with glue stick..

 

This was first displayed on the day bed in my sewing room and few of my friends who are on what’s app saw this image few days back..

I was itching to share this new finishes with my friends..

Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments..

I hope to come back soon…

Until next time..

Have a nice day…nima

Another painting in silk

I was very happy with my first attempt in silk painting and decided to try a second one…

and i did it again…. I'm happy with my second attempt too..

I got it framed yesterday and my second painting in silk is now proudly displayed.

 

I love this piece of my work…

It was an awesome experience to be with Sharmila and blend colours under her guidance..

This is my work in progress, just before i finished the eyes.

I would love to do many more…but not sure if I'll do it or not…

If i ever do it again…I'm sure that I'll come up with another proud post.

Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments.

Until next time..

Have a ice day..nima

It has been long….

…and i didn’t expect to take this unexpected break for so long….

I recognized it was a long break, when my things to do list piled up.

So i decided to start from one corner.

This ugly yellow fabric is from my stash.

Why did i choose this colour..I tried to convince myself why i got it.

I was in love with the texture of the fabric, and so i wanted to try it..but there wasn’t any better choice of colour.

Few months back, i decided I'm going to make this ugly duckling into a pretty thing.

I started to crochet on the edge…this is a tip of an iceberg…it is a pretty long piece.

With dull white , i crocheted and crocheted and i got bored…

When i got a decent width for the lacy edging, i stopped crocheting. But still it was not looking pretty.

Yesterday i was searching for one of my crochet hooks…yeah it was not in my tin.

i tried to rewind when did i use it last…ok…this was the project…

i went digging  into my finished stuff bin, where i usually keep my crochet and embroidery finishes…it wasn’t there.

Then went digging into my quilted finishes, in the bottom drawers of the chest…yeah it was there…

To my surprise, it was neatly folded with the crochet hook inside..that was something unusual ..i never do it like that.

I think, because i wasn’t happy with the stuff, and i was in 2 minds to do few more rows of crochet or not…I don’t know why…, anyway i got the crochet hook.

But still this ugly yellow was looking at me…. I decided to block the edging .

Since last week, i was playing with my new toy Janome MC8900 QCP .

I pieced, appliquéd and tried a bit of quilting also,I'll talk about it later, this smart guy has so many of the decorative stitches to try……some 200+ ....

Few hours back, I decided to try one of the decorative stitches on this piece, to make it better…and it worked…

…it is looking better right…

Now i love it….

It is definitely going to have a place in my decor, along with some new set of cushions…

That’s it for now..Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments.

I have few more stuff to share with you..

Hope to come back soon..

Until next time …

Have a nice day…nima

Exclusive in pink

This pretty in pink doily is again from the extra-special doily collection by Mary Werst.

I finished it few weeks back thinking of showing off during the valentines day time..but it didn’t work.

So i thought I'll show it off before February vanishes from this years’ calendar.

 

I love the detailing in Mary Werst patterns..and it looks lovely with finer thread.

I always love to work doilies with Anchor knitting cotton,

but for these patterns I prefer,No.20 Anchor thread.

Valentines day was beautiful as always and i got an awesome gift from my DH…

Here is my new toy, the new Janome Horizon MC 8900.

I have not yet used it in full swing…but played with it for sometime…

I’m reorganizing my sewing space, because this guy needs more space with an extension table..

I’ll talk more about the experience after i work with it..

Back to my sewing room…have to finish off the organizing this weekend..

Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments.

Until next time,

Have a nice day…nima

Silk Painting- i started something new

I always used to get fascinated by the drawings and paintings of my brother..and later on when my SIL joined the family, i started to feast on her beautiful works…she is an awesome artist too. But i never thought i will try my hand on painting and that too silk painting.

When i heard about the classes by Sharmila, i always said, i cannot accommodate another hobby into my apartment, because as you all know it is filled with threads and yarns and fabrics…and finding a place for painting is difficult at the moment.

But i was again fascinated by the beautiful finishes of her students and decided I'm going to try it once…and yes i did it…Now my painting on silk is proudly displayed…

I don’t know if I'll do more…but i really enjoyed the experience of blending colours

and silk is altogether a different kind of media…and it was interesting..

This was my painting table on the last day of my class.

If anyone of you want to know more about the classes, please do mail me…I'm happy to share the information.

Sharmila is an awesome artist and a beautiful person too.

Thank you so much for all the get well soon messages…I'm back on track.

Until next time…

Have a nice day…nima

Yearly dose of tatting with Jane

This year also I enjoyed the tatting with Jane with an added fun factor. Here is the tiny little baby stroller after the fun filled journey. I'm sick and on bed, but I had to finish the last bit of tatting today itself and I wanted to blog about it when it is still hot. So I'm trying to blog from my iPhone. Please drop in at Jane's tat it and see blog for the fun tatting project and to see all the baby strollers coming from around the world. Until next time, Have a nice day... Nima

Desi quilters- Foundation piecing QAL 2012

I’m back again with the foundation piecing QAL by Desi Quilters, to feature beautiful finishes of the participants.

It was totally a beginner tutorial, and I'm glad to see new quilters came up with their beautiful finishes.

When i say novice quilter, i would love to feature Maya’s table topper…

she is an expert seamstress, who loves to sew dresses for her pretty girls.

She is a fast learner and picked up quilting too..she is not into blogging yet, otherwise i would have linked her blog,

This is Preeta’s beautiful wall hanging… she has blogged about it .

She loves to decorate her home with her handmade stuff,

I'm sure you will enjoy visiting her blog Inspirational Art.

Gayathri finished her QAL block into a yoga mat for her daughter.

You will enjoy visiting her blog Gayathri’s Art and Crafts spot, with her sewing stories and yummy recipes.

Uma finished her QAL block into a table topper …

You will enjoy visiting her blog Umacheenu where she blogs about her embroidery attempts.

Vaheeda, is planning to finish her QAL block into a table topper..

you can read her crafty expeditions at creative crafts from Zova.

Last but not the least…

Tina who is a pro in quilting and blogs at Holy scrap, went out of the box and played few variations of the block..

 

it looks awesome, how a simple block is transformed .

So nice to see all the beautiful variations of a simple block.

If you love to try this block, please feel free to download it from my free pattern page 

or you can get it from Desi Quilters blog.

I would love to feature your finished piece in my blog,

so please do mail out your finished pictures to stitchynight(at)gmail(dot)com.

Until next time..

Have a nice day…nima

Mastering the Cathedral window…

Cathedral window wall hanging…i was thinking about it since January 2011.

After graduating the Cathedral window in 2011, this project was in my to do list.

After 2 years of thinking and dreaming, i finished my cathedral window wall hanging..

and it is proudly displayed on my living room wall.

It is a 48” x 28” wall hanging, I pieced the blocks on the machine,

and attached the windows by hand…that was the time taking part..

I finished it as a tied quilt, with knots on the back side with black thread.

I didn’t use batting, because it is already heavy …

I used 4 meters of black fabric just for piecing the blocks…

then i realized that it is a “fabric drinking” project, with all fabric folded in.

My finished blocks were 4”, for that i took 8.5” square to work with.

It was tricky to get the right colour picture…

I tried with light in the night…that worked better than the day light..

This project was the part of my new year resolution(i usually don’t take resolutions).

I started to work on Jan 1st, with a deadline on Jan 30th.

Hurray…that worked …and i finished this piece by Jan 30th night 11 PM,

(working for 8 hrs on the last day, to meet the deadline…lol)

and displayed it on the wall before i went to sleep..

This is the only decent close up picture with the right colours, that i could take.

A stained glass effect was in my mind when i choose the black fabric,

I decided this colour scheme with the help of the Excel worksheet..

My DH who is a pro in Excel, helped me with that..

If anyone is interested to see, how it was on the worksheet , please check here.

I loved working on this traditional cathedral window project.

I have few pictures from my working table, hope to compile it into a picture tutorial soon,

so that you can see how i made this..

Ok that’s all my rambling about my cathedral window wall hanging…

Thank you so much for stopping by, and encouraging me with your lovely comments.

Hope to come back soon with something new..

Until next time..

Have a nice day…nima

Desi Quilters - Foundation Piecing QAL 2012

It was an awesome experience to be a part of the Foundation piecing QAL with the Desi Quilter.

 

  

 

After attending a fabulous workshop with Carol Doak  last year, as a part of the Dubai International Quilt show,

i started to enjoy foundation paper piecing.

 

When Veena, requested me to lead a quilt along in our desi quilters group, I was honoured, and took it as a challenge. 

I wanted to develop my own piecing pattern, so that i can freely play with it without disturbing anyone else.

Search for developing a pattern took me to Quilt Assistant . It is a simple free software, for making piecing patterns..and i enjoyed playing with it.

 

I made few patterns and tried working with it, learned from the mistakes i made and developed this string block, with a pieced border.

 

This is not at all a challenging pattern and i can guarantee any beginner can try this.

If you feel like trying this pattern, please feel free to download the pattern from the free pattern page  and check out the tutorial in the tutorial page.

 

 

I’m happy with the mitered corners and the free motion quilting …

 

 

 

Thank you so much to all the desi quilters who participated in the QAL.

 

This is a quick printed label i made for this piece.

 

 

Special thanks to  Veena and Tina for this opportunity.

 

Looking forward to do many more foundation piecing projects…

 

Thank you so much for stopping by with your lovely comments..

 

Until next time..

 

Have a nice day….nima