How wonderful to start of the new year crafting with Iris. They came for an extended weekend over Martin Luther King day/weekend. Iris was disappointed that she would miss the sewing club she is participating in. They were going to be making pillowcases. But she got to sew quite a bit with Mimi. She had ideas of what she wanted to make.

   First, I was showing Leslie some fabric I had that I thought would work for the background of a "bears in the window" wall hanging she wants to make. Iris really liked the fabric, and I happened to have some fat quarters that I had purchased of the same fabric, so she made a pillow with those fat quarters. She did a beautiful job of hand stitching the opening closed, too.
   

   She wanted to make some unicorn hair clips for a friend of hers, so we found a machine embroidery pattern on line. Iris liked them so much, she wants some for herself, so I will make her some to go in the next package we send to them. She impressed me with how well she could thread the machine on her own. It takes quite a bit of re-threading to get all the different colors. She chose the colors of felt and thread that she wanted to use. We also made some penguin hair clips for some other friends.
 

  Then she said she needed a cloth to cover her hands when she's learning keyboarding, so she picked some fabric and I had her serge around the edge. Then she decorated it with different colors of thread and decorative stitches that she picked out on my sewing machine. She did most of it on her own, and I wasn't even in the room.

   When she saw all the colors of felt I had, she decided she wanted to make a bag with some of it. She put a pocket on it and used some decorative stitches on my sewing machine for the border. She did this all on her own.
 

   I told her she could go back and tell her sewing teacher that she learned to use three different machines at Mimi's house: a serger, an embroidery machine, and a sewing machine. 

These freestanding lace butterflies were made on my embroidery machine. The patterns are from Artistic Thread Works and sold through Etsy via an online download. The price was exceptional for 10 different butterflies, and they stitched out beautifully. I used 8 different designs with a variegated thread on the top (except for the one pictured at the top right) and solid colored thread for the underneath part. I sewed the top one to the bottom on my sewing machine using monofilament thread. I think Emelie will enjoy these for her table scatter.  I'll send them to her for Easter. There is a 9th butterfly (bottom right) that I'm going to see if Iris has any ideas for how to use.

I've gotten most of my hair clip designs from GGDesignsembroidery.com. There's quite a variety of motifs available at a reasonable price, and they stitch out very nicely. I chose the Lace Heart Felt Stitches for Julia's February hair clips and used silver metallic thread.

I previously posted the cupcake clips which I will send for her birthday towards the end of February.

I'm trying to do some Craftermath Control. Here are a some pet beds I made with my too-small-to-use scraps of fabric and batting. They will be donated to our local animal shelter which gives them to families adopting pets.