There are a couple images that have really caught my eye recently that I wanted to share with you, dear readers.

The first two are from the blog Debi Van Zyl. The mobile I think is just fanastic. I have always loved those strange little seed pods and I think this is a beautiful way to use them. And I can’t stop thinking about the polaroid pictures she took and what great little art quilts they would make. I never thought I’d be one to make an art quilt, but it’s next on my list (right after all that other stuff).

It was this block [edit: the picture was removed by the artist, sorry] that got me thinking about art quilts to begin with. It’s from the blog Dear Meagan, and she has recently made another block just as beautiful as the first. The soft toy is hers as well. I think this is a great idea and a nice way to remember how little your little one once was and the adorable outfits they won’t let you put on them anymore.

I found this beautiful piece of embroidery at my local thrift store the other day. He is almost entirely done using the stem stitch, with a couple of french knots here and there. And his little beady eyes are, well, little beads. He’s not quite finished, but I’m happy to fill in the rest. I have a question for all you seasoned embroiderers out there. I think someone must have just sketched directly onto the canvas and then embroidered over it, but there is some color (fabric paint? watercolor?) you can see on his jacket and on the ends of the feathers. Is that meant to stand on it’s own or be “colored in” with stitches? I’ve never worked with transfers or patterns so I’m not familiar with the rules. He’s a little dirty: anyone have any laundering advice for something like this? He was meant to be a rather large pillow, but I might try to stretch it over a frame and hang it in the kid’s room.

These little babies are for the embroidered button swap that Ms. Greetingarts is hosting. This was my first idea and I’m very happy with how they turned out. I’m fairly new to the whole embroidery thing and I wanted to try something that was a little more detailed–something closer to drawing. I used the backstitch for the hands and the split stitch for the chopsticks. It sure as hell wasn’t easy. I pulled out a lot of stitches, but by the time I got to the fourth button I was on a roll. For the smaller buttons, which are a little under an inch across, I traced the design and for the bigger ones, which are just over an inch, I simply looked at the picture and embroidered freehand. This second method really worked well for me, though by the time I got to the last button (in last row on the left) I got cocky and thought I didn’t even have to look at the picture–bad idea. It’s pretty wonky, but oh well; I was hoping the little egg I embroidered would make up for it, but then it didn’t really turn out looking like an egg–more like a strange yellow piece of food, so I just put my needle down at that point. There are a couple of more picture of the buttons on my flickr account, if you’d like to see. This will be my first swap and I am ridiculously excited. We were only supposed to make 5, but that would mean making an incomplete set. Then you wouldn’t know how to use your chopsticks and we can’t have that.

Inspired by good + happy day’s week of organized activities, I declared Monday “making day.” I’m afraid it stops there though–I just don’t have the follow through for everyday to have a planned activity. But I always wanted to be that mom that lets her kids go crazy with art, screw the mess. But then I became a mom. And it involves a lot of mess: dirty dishes, dirty laundry, dirty diapers, dirty hands, dirty faces. So much of everyday is cleaning babies and things that it’s hard to start something that you know will make yet another mess. My daughter just turned 2 and she needs some more art making in her life and I need to say screw the mess a little more. So this morning we made potato prints: she watched as I cut the shapes out of the potatoes (“star! star!”), dipped them in the paints, and kind of got the hang of stamping, but somehow painting the potatoes was more fun, as was painting her arm and her hands and her belly, but really it wasn’t more than soap and water couldn’t handle. And there you go. Art.

If you’d like to join in Making Mondays (or any day really) do! Comment and tell me what you and your littles make together. Or make a date for next Monday.

I’m still posting about past projects, while I try to make this blog better. That will probably have to wait until the tech support I’m married to has time, which is always in short supply. There are new projects in the works, but progress is slow with two babies in my charge. This little banner was made for one of those babies. When I was pregnant with my second child, my friends threw me a lovely baby shower. Along with many unexpected and beautiful gifts, they all brought a little swatch of fabric to be made into a banner. My good friends, who planned it all, didn’t have sewing machines, so I offered to put it together. They gave me the templates–three different size triangles–and I cut and arranged the fabrics and sewed them to this big ol’ blue rickrack they picked out.  Nothing fancy, but the various sizes make it a little different and big rickrack is always awesome.  I really like that the fabric came from all different closets and bookshelves and boxes (why is it everyone has a little stash of fabric, even if they don’t sew?), that it’s a mix of new and old, and that it came together so well.  It makes me incredibly happy every time I look at it. We moved to this town when my daughter was very small and I didn’t know anyone. Now I am surrounded by a group of very generous and very talented women. I am too lucky.