molehill 5: baby block

More stash fabric used! I made this for a friend who recently had a baby boy. Each side of the block is a different fabric and has a different shape appliqued on it. I got carried away with the stuffing, so it's nice and squishy.

molehill 4: kitchen wedding presents

Last year I blogged about all the fabric I brought with me when My Darling Husband and I married. Here and there I make progress on making things from the stash. I've also given away a bit of the fabric and sold some in a garage sale.

Here's a photo of my latest creation: part of a wedding present for the friends whose wedding we attended last Friday. A couple of years ago I bought some flour sack towels from the local farm store. Sometimes I am very nostalgic, and when I saw these towels, it reminded me of one of my grandmothers and how she has always dried her dishes with big white flour sack towels. I had to have some for my kitchen even though I air-dry my dishes! I bought enough for me and to make a few wedding presents for other people. I made one for this wedding present. First I embroidered a vintage design on one towel, then ripped out the seams of two towels, and sewed them together with a straight stitch. I used pinking shears to finish the edges.

Along with the tea towel, we gave the bride and groom a houseplant potted in the bride's favorite color, a set of blank recipe cards, a cheese grater off their wedding registry, and I crocheted a small granny square hot pad/potholder.

a molehill for Christmas in July

Another item to cross off my mental to-do list. Two more pieces of fabric used! I bought the fabric when a friend and I were at a quilt shop in Humboldt, Kansas last October. My friend liked these fabrics very much but she doesn't sew. I decided to purchase it to make a tablerunner for her. The ladies at the shop had cut the fabric to size already for an easy tablerunner tutorial they created. My friend left the shop to take care of business elsewhere, so I was able to purchase it on the sly. It was meant to be a Christmas present; it became a Christmas in July present.

It's been six months since I posted the first molehills of my stash-busting project, but rest assured that I have begun other sewing projects in the meantime.

molehills 1 and 2

Rescued these vintage embroidered linens from the stash. Both towels were freebies from a colleague at my last job in The Big City. He had been preparing someone else's house for an estate sale and came across some boxes of fabric. These were in the boxes. Pretty lady with the flowers is now a fingertip towel for our bathroom...blue hand towel is in the kitchen.

a sample history lesson

A man emailed me to say he didn't understand about samplers...what are they? I know it was a man because I personally know the fellow. Anyway, for all the uninitiated wanna-be needleworkers and anybody else reading this, here's a short history of samplers:

Samplers began as...samples prior to the 20th century. They were samples of a young girl's embroidery skills in mastering various embroidery stitches and patterns. They developed into embroidered pictures and commemoration pieces.

For additional history reading, go here.

Here are some of my favorites from the book Samplers, by Susan Mayor & Diana Fowle.

This is a fine example of an early sample. Definitely a conglomeration of the embroiderer's various stitches.
Moving on to the picture/commemoration style samplers of later years....

Do you have pictures of your own samplers on your blog or Flickr that we can see? If so, leave a comment with the location on today's post and I'll link to them.

Back to modern times. My Darling Husband and I traveled to A Nearby City for an event last weekend. The hotel we stayed at was quite charming. It was built in the 1920s in the Tudor style. The hallways were even a maze, just like a castle. It was so charming that each room has a balcony, and each balcony has a swing! Love-a-lee.

here, sample this

Did you see Alicia's? Here's my sampler. I'm going to cross-stitch it. I mean, I'll add it to the list of crafty things I want to do. But I will stitch it...perhaps embroider it. Living in a small town means I'm close to the country so I can drive quickly to the rural areas for country inspiration, or walk through town for city inspiration for the sampler. Samplers are so easy to personalize. You can add your initials and date you completed the project, the names of the recipients or images from the life you know.