Simple summer crafting

This will be a post short on words but heavy on pictures -- and mostly scans, at that.  But I have managed some very simple crafting these past few weeks and wanted to share.

At top is my most recent Crocheted Scalloped Hot Mat.  The ombre is called Buttercream and I think it is so pretty.  The light blue edge is called Aquamarine.

Last month I shared pictures of the wrap skirts I made for my granddaughter Julia's American Girl dolls, using a pattern from You Can Make This.  Julia actually took photos of the dolls modeling the reversible skirt with the two different shirts, so I'm sharing those here.

I've also crocheted a couple of necklaces from this pattern:   Trellis Necklace Tutorial.  I hope to make at least one more.  They are so easy and quick to make, once you have cut the yarn to length.

Multicolored

Green-blue

You can read my post about the first ones I made here: Pretty Crocheted Necklaces.

And I've made quite a few mailing envelopes from calendar pages.  You can find a tutorial for those here: handmade bubble mailers.  The ones I have been making are not for fragile items, so I've been eliminating the bubble wrap from those.  Skipping the step of adding in the bubble wrap makes the process go much faster.  I am just showing a couple of the mailers I've made.

The calendar covers are sturdy enough to make mailers without reinforcement, but for the inside calendar pages I cover them with clear contact paper to make them stronger and more weather proof.

This is what mailer #1 looks like on the back.

 

And this is what mailer #2 looks like on the back.

 I've also started making some envelopes approximately 5x7 inches from the calendar page pieces left over from each mailer.  These Gooseberry Patch calendars are too pretty to throw any of the pages away!

And then this past weekend while on an overnight mini-vacation, I managed to complete an embroidered tea towel while relaxing on the shore of Otter Lake.

The design is a freebie from Bird Brain Designs.  So much fun!

The folded tea towel

I folded this one a bit differently to show the striped edge.  Isn't it pretty?  This was made from the dish toweling fabric that one cuts to the desired length and then hems.

There's my simple summer crafting in a nutshell.  Hope others have enjoyed this as much as I have!

Recent simple crafting

I do love making things, but life is too busy right now to do much of any crafting on a regular basis.  I have a number of UFOs to finish, and I want to try my hand at some cushion covers for the patio chairs.  Maybe next week ... possibly even Saturday.  We will see!

In the meantime, here are just a very few small projects I've completed lately:

Above, two more crocheted hot mats  -- from this pattern -- some have asked about it, so here's the link again -- Scalloped Potholder --in the Fruit Punch ombre.  I'm pretty much addicted to making these.  I love seeing how they turn out in the various colors of ombre and whatever accompanying colors I choose.

Then I completed a bit of sewing:

 The doll t-shirts were some I found at a bargain several years ago.  I used fabric to coordinate with them to make this simple reversible wrap skirt.  You can find the free and easy pattern here: You Can Make This.  I chose fabrics that would work with both the blue and red t-shirts and my granddaughter liked the outfits very much.

Later, when I had a few minutes, I made a second skirt -- again, planned to go with both t-shirts for maximum versatility.  I'm pleased with how they came out!

And finally, some embroidery:

 This is the same dish towel as at top.  I purchased the embroidery pattern from an Etsy shop called Lova Revolutionary.  The design is intended to be used in a hoop, but I thought it would look nice on a dish towel, so I used some dollar store dish towels from my stash.  The one I just completed has a red border, and the one  I finished last fall has a tan border.

The red one has been languishing around half finished, so I finished it up this summer.

Lastly, I've been making a few handmade mailing envelopes from old calendars.  These are to use in mailing certain sizes of vintage sewing patterns from my Etsy shop.

Still working on this project, but you can see a finished envelope above.  See the fold at the top?  That's the flap to fold down and seal.

There you have it, short and simple, but I am so pleased to have created a few projects lately!

My simple Christmas curtains

A few days ago I mentioned my dining room curtains and a simple change I made for Christmas, and Vee asked to see my Christmas curtains.

As I mentioned in that post, years ago I made some curtains to cover the bottom half of the dining room windows that look onto the porch.  The view is not all that pretty , and these simple curtains from vintage fabric

worked very well to camouflage it and still let light in.  Later on, I made some fall curtains with fabric I had on hand. 

For years, I've been wanting to make curtains specifically for Christmas or winter.  I've seen some lovely ideas, but there just hasn't been time to make the curtains.   So I usually just use the geranium curtains shown at top.   They are green and red, after all.

But this year I tried something different.  I used wooden clothespins to clip red-and-white checked dishtowels to the tension rods.  

 The photo above shows both windows.  Since the dishtowels are not wide enough to cover the entire window, I opted to keep them to one side of each window.

This is a better photo as far as showing the color of the walls and so on.  The hooked rug picture, if anyone was wondering, was made by my great-aunt Marjorie with the traditional hand hooking method.

These "curtains" would look nicer if I had enough dishtowels to use two per window, but I only have enough for one each so am going with that for now.  It has occurred to me that I could probably find some Christmas dishtowels, maybe even in the dollar store,  to serve the same purpose, so I may eventually do that.  And I'd still love to make some Christmas curtains, one of these years.  For now, though, my simple and cost-free solution is working fine.

From the August archives, Part 1

Going back and looking through the archives on either of my blogs is a lot of fun for me.  Here are some of the links I'm sharing for August:

My grandmother’s cool kitchen is a memory post -- one of the first posts I ever wrote,  about something I never wanted to forget.

Flour Sack Dish Towels is one of the most popular posts ever on this blog.  Guess a lot of people are interested in knowing how to make these.
 
Another very popular post has been Building a Prayer Journal -- a practical how-to on this important topic.

Another post on prayer from 2007 may encourage you in your own prayer life: Ongoing answers to ongoing prayers.

And lastly, these Bacon Cheeseburger Subs are completely amazing.  With our avoidance of red meat, we aren't likely to make this recipe again, but it is wonderful!

Later in the month I'll share a few more links from the archives.  Meanwhile, enjoy these!

From the March archives

Gorgeous winter collage (very appropriate today) is by Abby at Little Birdie Blessings

I had so much fun putting together a post from the February archives that I decided to do one for March as well.  Since it's sort of a hodgepodge post, and since there is no Wednesday Hodgepodge this week, I decided to post it on Wednesday.

For March 2008, I found several posts I would like to share with you.  Many of them involve spiritual encouragement, especially for dealing with trials.

Trusting God is based off notes that I took at a women's seminar by Elizabeth George.  I was blessed all over again as I re-read this and some of the other posts.

This is a digital page that Abby at Little Birdie Blessings designed with a friend.

If you can't read the verse, it says, "When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I ... I will trust in the covert of Thy wings."  The reference is Psalm 61:2, 4.

Bookends is another post based on notes I took at the seminar.  This thought has helped me more often than you can imagine.

God’s Path is the first of several posts I wrote during my study of Elizabeth George's book Finding God's Path Through Your Trials.  I highly recommend this book -- I cannot recommend it highly enough, in fact.  While you are in the March 2008 archives, you will find several more posts concerning this study that you might like to look at.

And then there is this one, featuring a special cross stitch I made for one of my daughters.

For March 2009, I'm linking to a post about some of my paper crafting efforts with these winter tags.

For awhile on my daughter's blog, she was doing a feature called A Homemade Life.  I linked to it and shared homemade goodness for as long as she kept the feature going.  In this post I share my recipes for baked beans and brown bread.  Good, economical comfort food!

For March 2010, I chose two posts: one about my early spring decorating and the other on some fun handmade gifts for kids in Chef’s Hats Galore!

 A prayer for my grandchildren, shared in 2012,  has the distinction of being one of the most popular posts ever on the blog.  Not exactly sure why, but a lot of people have visited it.

In March 2014, Gluten-free Irish Soda Bread was a great discovery for me.  If you must avoid wheat (or simply prefer to) you would love this bread, I'm sure.

Also in 2014 I shared these cute felt play mats I had made for my grandchildren.  They were adorable and a lot of fun to make, but sadly, the hot glue didn't hold up well at all.  Guess I would hand-sew these if I ever made more.  Not that I think I will.

In 2015 I shared the recipe for homemade samoa bars from Jocelyn at Inside BruCrew Life.  They are decadent but scrumptious.

And then from March 2016, I shared info on some vintage camper dish towels that I had made and which a lot of people have asked about.

Putting together this post was a trip down Memory Lane for me.  Hope you've enjoyed it too.

Those vintage camper dish towels

A couple of people have asked about the designs I used on the embroidered vintage camper dish towels.  I actually did an entire post concerning this several years ago.  You can find it here: Vintage Camper dish towels.  In the post, I have links to the site where I found the transfers and also to the tutorial for the fabric borders on the towels above.

To read all about it, check out the link above.  The towels are just ordinary flour sack towels from Walmart (cut in half and raw edges hemmed).  For the vintage camper design, I used the Camp Out transfers available from Sublime Stitching.  Although the edgier designs on this site don't appeal to me at all, some of the transfer sets like Camp Out, Forest Friends, etc. are cute.  I have used this camper design a bunch of times and the transfer is still working perfectly.  I must say it is probably the best and longest-lasting transfer I have ever used. 

As noted on my  previous post, I've made several different tea towels with the Camp Out transfers.  Others might also be interested in a Christmas ornament/decoration I made with the same transfer design, so here's a picture of that.

Hope this answers your questions about the embroidered vintage camper towels.  Happy stitching!

Just a few more embroidered dish towels

Okay, by now probably everyone is bored with my dish towel obsession.  However, I am going to share just a few more of these.  Life is crazy for me right now and these older photos are something I can share easily.  So here goes.

More of a closeup

With a crocheted dishcloth for gifting

Made with dish towel fabric from my late mother's stash

Camper motif

Closer look

I did a whole set of these day of the week colonial girls

Towel at left is a vintage one found in someone else's stash.  It had been started in black, which I didn't really like, but I completed it and it came out fairly cute.

Christmas tea towel with a cookie motif

Fabric-trimmed camper towels for a friend

Another stamped towel from someone else's stash.  I finished it for a granddaughter.

One more camper towel

Closer look at the red camper

Bluebird towel with crocheted hot pad for gifting

Hope you have enjoyed this simple peek at some of my embroidered dish towels.  Sharing with Sandi's  No Place Like Home today, and with Stephanie's last (boo hoo!) Roses of Inspiration.  Also sharing with Bernideen’s Tea Time, Cottage and Garden Blog Party, Share Your Cup Thursday and Vintage Charm.  You will want to visit these fun link parties and get some wonderful inspiration for Easter and springtime!