Tag: sewing

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Fabric

These days my heart calls out for color. Bright vibrant colors speak volumes to me and these three were at the top of my list. I bought more but these are like Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in nearly ever way! I have a new product heading to the shop and I think you will like them. Yes, I have more than one for the shop! Yes, I am so excited about it.2014-06-06 09.59.17

 

The house has been really quiet this week as our high energy kid is at camp this week. She is the one that keeps us talking and busy. She is fun and exciting and makes life that way too! While quiet is nice and allows me to think in complete sentences, I miss her. I miss her chatter and vibrant personality. Thankfully, she comes home tomorrow. I need to go and sew some more as the photographer promised to take some pictures for me tomorrow.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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June

It was a quiet day yesterday and I pulled these out to work on.  I love the bright colors and simple design. I embroidered the stems and leaves of these teeny tiny little flowers.  I choose the smallest buttons in my button box to sew on as the flowers. The bunting was cut from my smallest scraps. I guess this is why things are always in an uproar in the studio. I have an extremely difficult time throwing any of these little scraps away.2014-05-31 21.58.00-1I just have to finish up the machine sewing and then I can give you a better picture of what this is! It will end up in the studio eventually. We are in the midst of getting a child ready for camp and another child is at urgent care with his Dad. The cold/cough has gotten worse. He needs a letter from the doctor for his job as he is not ready to go back to work tomorrow. He has been off of work for a week and we would appreciate your prayers that he would feel much better super quick! Talk to you later, Karen

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The May Garden

I love perennials in my flower beds. These grow in the raised flower bed at the front of the house. I am transplanting an off shoot to the new flower bed.2014-05-23 15.18.55

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Aren’t they bright and sunny. I can’t remember the name of them. We also have Russian Sage growing in this flower bed. The sage was planted in the middle and has migrated out to the front edge.

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It has bright blue flowers that the bees love. It is tall and ferny and simply lovely and yes I cropped this photo so you can’t see the tree growing in the bed at the back. Here is a good shot of reality. It is the area around the corner from the front garden bed.

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It is pretty wild and needs a lot of work. These are the new flowers that we added last week.

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English daisies and Purple cone flower both of which we had at our last house. They seem to love hot summers and the so- so watering job that I do.

I have too many projects going right now and I feel really stretched thin on the creative side of things. I am in the process of adding some new to the shop and I feel really pretty overwhelmed and terribly forgetful. I am tending to skip around from project to project during the day and not seeming to accomplish much.

I guess I need a new challenge and there is one I am thinking about but I just can’t decide if I really want to participate. It is a daily listing challenge and I am wondering if it would be wise to try it. I would have to list something new in the shop everyday. Summer, has been a little crazy so far. We have three of the kids home. One is working a full time internship with regular working hours and the other is working almost full time hours at Arby’s. This means that he has crazy hours. So I am not sure about the listing challenge. The other challenge is a one hundred Granny Square block challenge. I am still thinking about this one. I have been tossing it around since we lived in Iowa, which is close to 2 years ago. The other challenge has to do with more scrap busting! I am still thinking about this one, but I know that it wouldn’t be wise to totally stop buying supplies like I did for the 100 items in 100 days challenge!  http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/01/17/1-thing-for-100-days-challenge/

I do need to use up some scraps so we will see!

talk to you later!

Karen

 

 

 

 

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WIP’s

WIPS or works in progress have been stacking up at the sewing table. The good news about that is that cleaning has brought a bunch of partially finished projects to light. Here are a few that I have been working on lately.

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There are several many crochet projects in a partially finished state. I tend to work more on inspiration when it comes to the yarny projects. So, yes there are many half done. IMG_4025

Like this one. I am going to take it to the DMV  while I wait for the driver’s license testing to be over. I hope things go well. I also hope that we don’t wait long for his turn to take the test.

See you later,

Karen

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Cottage Charm

Here are some little cottages that I made several years ago. These are just for fun as I have so much to do today. These cottages are hand sized Christmas ornaments. I haven’t put the hanging ribbon on them yet. There are some things that I would change but overall I like them. I would call these prototypes.IMG_0126-002 IMG_0127-002 IMG_0128-002

I am thinking about adding some like them to the shop, but I’m not sure. What do you think?

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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Monday!

Yesterday it was a rainy Monday. I sent two kids off to town. One to apply for a job and the other to drive him there and do some errands. It has been a busy day already with a trip for two to the orthodontist and then a trip to the bank to open a checking account for one of the kids.

I spent time yesterday morning sewing some new bibs and then I spent a little time crocheting this.

I love the bright red lady bugs. and the red crochet cotton just goes so  nicely. We will see how it looks when I am done. I am trying something new for the shop. I think the fabric and cotton thread go so nicely together.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

 

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Scraps into Diamonds

If you follow me on facebook or instagram. You have been seeing these photos.

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I spent a day combing through my scraps and cutting out diamond shapes.

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It was an easy thing to do and still feel like I was accomplishing something. I cut out tons and then I put them together to get these neat little stars.

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I’m so proud of the points matching in these two stars. I think I have finally figured it out.

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See  the perfect points in the middle! Can you guess what I am making in the studio these days? I have some others finished and waiting on some photos but it is too dark today. We are finally getting some rain so I am not complaining. I hope that it cuts down on the wildfires that we have had. There have been some huge wildfires in Oklahoma and many people have lost everything. So, our area has been under a red flag, which means no fire pits, no cook outs, no burning of any kind.

If you want to follow me on instagram (I am new there) you can find me with this user name: Chocodogstudio

You can also follow me on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/Chocolatedogstudio

There is too much to do today. We are in the midst of printing out 300 graduation programs and are running low on toner. One of the nice things about having your child in public or private school as there are details that you really do not have to deal with, like printing graduation programs!

I will talk to you later!

Karen

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Natural light vs Indoor light

I try really hard to take most of my photos with natural light. I wait for a bright day and take the photos with the sun shining. Here is a really good photo illustration why I do this.

This is the same blanket one photo taken in indoor lighting and the second photo taken in natural light.

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There is a huge difference. Sometimes you can successfully edit photos and get a more natural appearance. I am truthfully not that good with photo editing software. I use Picasa, an old program that was free. It is pretty easy for me to use.  These photos are cropped but not color edited in any way.

Talk to you later,

Karen

 

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100 items in 100 days!

Looking back at this challenge. I would say that it has helped me think outside the box. I had to get out of my comfort zone in my sewing and forced me to finish some mending projects. I finished a bunch of things in a short period of time.  I forced myself to use what I had on hand to fill my shop. It was good for me as it pushed me to create new and different things. It was an incredibly freeing experience to

Here they all are!

See you later,

Karen

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Finally completely done! 100 items in 100 days

This is the final post of 100 items in 100 days!

I finally caught up with myself and I finished these items for the 100 items in 100 days.

Finally completely done! 100 items in 100 days

Lavender and rice pocket warmers or relaxation hearts, or hot or cold pads. These are pretty much for whatever you need them to be. They are filled with rice and lavender buds. You could also put the in the dryer for freshly scented clothes.Finally completely done! 100 items in 100 days

I finally finished up these non paper paper towels. I have had them cut out for ages and they just needed to be sewn.

So there you go the last two items that I needed to post to really be officially finished.

Talk to you later,

Karen

Here is the previous post on this challenge: http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/04/01/april-fools/

and the post before that: http://www.chocolatedogstudio.com/2014/02/05/progress/