2011 calendars: patchwork

Two years ago, I fell in love with SeptemberHouse's calendar panels. So last year, I decided to order a few and customize them for the family members on my holiday list. Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing the calendars that I made with you. 

For the first calendar, I made a mini quilt from scraps in my bin. I appliqued the patchwork piece to the calendar panel and then used navy embroidery floss to quilt it.

To finish it, I added ribbon loops to the top of the panel and then backed it with some Japanese fabric I was given a few years ago.

P.S. Thank you to Melissa for spotlighting "Welcome to Our Year" on her blog, Oh, My Darling!

embroidery project: potholder

Last summer, I made my grandmother an embroidered potholder for her July birthday using this tutorial by Maggie Makes. (These pictures were taken last summer in Vermont, hence the bright sunshine and green grass in the background. Sadly, Maryland looks nothing like this right now.)

The potholder is lined with ThinsulBrite and embroidered with variegated floss I found at a thrift store in Austin before we moved. I love how the potholder turned out so much that I'm currently putting together another one for myself.

This Will Be Our Year (Took a Long Time to Come)

Tomorrow, a new collaborative show opens at Assemble Shop and Gallery in Seattle, and I'm so excited to be one of the exhibiting artists. The show is centered around the theme This Will Be Our Year (Took a Long Year to Come), after The Zombies' song. This is my contribution to the show:

Here's my artist statement for the show:

This piece is about the highs and lows of relationships, and in particular, about deciding to embrace a moment, a year, and making the most of it. I used traditional "Welcome to Our Home" cross-stitch samplers as the inspiration for this piece, since those samplers often have a prominent place on a home's wall, welcoming visitors. In this case, the piece is meant to welcome the inhabitants of a home and serve as a daily reminder, an affirmation, of the possibility of a fresh start, no matter what has come before.

The piece is 10 inches wide--it's the largest piece I've ever stitched--and is done on linen aida cloth. It took what seemed like ages to stitch, but I'm happy with how it turned out. If you're in the Seattle area, I hope you'll stop by the show; it's up until February 8.