Heart 2 Heart Project

There is an organized group project in the quilting community to make fabric postcards for the miliary wounded. These postcard will be delivered to patients at the Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington DC on Valentines Day. You can find out more details about this at Karey Patterson Bresenhan' home page.

Anyway, I decided it was high time that I get involved in one of these charitable quilting projects. ...;and what a wonder gesture to send something handmade for those who have suffered and sacrificed for us all. I quickly sent our a mass email and am having two groups of people come to my studio this weekend to make postcards-yeah! Satuday is for adults and children and Sunday is for just adults. I am so excited. I love doing this kind of thing. I love seeing people play with all my supplies. I love seeing people try something and realize that they really are creative. I love the banter, the enthusiasm and the idea exchange of getting together. I love the fact that it's forcing me to clean up my studio. I guess you can tell I'm excited.
Last year, I did a similar Valentines Day fabric postcard workshop, but it was for personal use. Here are pics of some that were made then.

These were the ones I made up as class samples. I played with photos on fabric, beading, embroidery, foiling, fusing, hand quilting, free motion quilting, painting among other techniques..





Here are what the workshop participants created...


This was made my Marion who has done quite a bit of quilting and is always receptive for trying new things.






This postcard was done by Liz. She really had fun making this (and is coming again this weekend). She used all the decorative stitches on my machine, she foiled, she attached a heart rock, a wire formed heart, two heart charms, and and even found some of my heart fabric. Liz is an avid knitter, teaches rug hooking and even gets to dye wool yarn for a living.


This was made by Teresa - a total sewing novice. She is my role model and shining example of what you can do when you are willing to try new things. I love it!





Finally, this postcard was made by Kinsey, my 14 (then) year old daughter. Kinsey loves making things and is incredibly creative, but she doesn't really enjoy sewing. So, here is a marvelous example of what you can do with different glues and adhesives. I also personally love the fact that my thoroughly fashion forward up to date daughter created this 1930s retro feeling card. Lace, tulle, and cute little vintage images just don't seem to fit with her hip/hop style. That girl does keep my guessing.

I can't wait to see what we come up with this weekend!

Handcrafted Christmas Presents

I didn't make that many Christmas presents this year. Here are pictures of some of the things I did make for either personal gifts or for my business, Bogate Designs.

First of all, I had to make Marlene a stocking as they don't hang stockings in Germany. (they put out their shoes on St. Nicholas Day). I hope that she will take this home with her and start a new tradition with her family

I felted red wool fabric for the stocking in the washing machine. It is then embellished with wool felt appliques, gold rick rack, sequins, beads and jingle bells (Marlene loves her jingle bells). I embroidered her name on my machine. I was really happy with how this turned out, but of course, it wasn't until late on Dec. 24th that it was done.



In early December, I bought a book called It's A Wrap: Sewing Fabric Purses, Baskets, and Bowls. These bowls are based on that book. Basically, you wrap strips of fabric around clothesline and then sew the covered clothesline together. You can adjust the shape of the item by the angle you hold it when you sew. I made several before the holidays. They're fun to make, but my arm and wrist definitely hurt after wrapping the clothesline for awhile. I think I would develop some kind of repetitive motion syndrome if I did it for too long.

I made these red and white ones based on the shape of a planter. They looked great with a pointsetta in them -very festive.






Since I really don't market my children's clothing business very well, it is a blessing that so many of my sales are from repeat customers. A number of people called me after not seeing me at a specific holiday craft fair and bought things directly. (I love the sales without the corresponding booth fee). These two fleece tops were made for a set of twins. It is the third year in a row that they have gotten Bogate Designs' tops for Christmas from their aunt Patty in Vermont. This heathered green fleece is reversible so we alternated the main pullover color so that the boys wouldn't be too matchy-matchy. I don't know if it shows up in the pictures, but I also did some handstitching on the truck to define the wheels better. These tops are a first with these applique designs. I like them, but I might try doing reverse applique on the truck's wheels and windows next time - I want really round hubs.

Beaded Quilt Blocks

I've also been making up some beaded quilt blocks in the past month or so. The beaded portion is a 3" square. My current plan is to make a wall hanging with all the squares, but I also think they might be cute individually framed with a wide white mat and a square thin black frame (maybe 9" x 9" total?) . So far, I have absolutely no plan for coordinating either the center fabrics or bead colors.
--but I don't think that will be a problem...

The first one is my favorite so far. But, it's also my favorite fabric!

Bead Embroidered Barrette

Last August I posted a picture of this barrette while I was still working on it. I've had it done now for several months and wear it all the time. It fits a 4" long barrette. I also made another one (even more elaborate) that I will try to post soon.

I'm Back - Winter bead embroidery projects

It's been five months since my last post. So much for keeping a current journal of projects, classes, kid activities and life... It's been quiet on the Bogate front during this time. I only did one craft fair at Christmas time, I haven't taught any classes and I haven't really been making that much. That's not really true, but I consider the things that I've made to be more "playing" rather than working. But then again, I am very lucky to consider most of the work I do as playtime.

For a non-TV watcher, I've been watching a lot of TV this fall and winter. We made the big mistake of renting the DVD of the series called "24" It is so good (and addictive) that we have watched all five of the previous seasons now. Season 6 just began and I know what I'll be doing now on Monday nights.

One thing that I do alot of when watching TV is beading. I just embroidered these three hearts that I'll make into pins for Valentines Day. My favorite is the first. I usually just wing it when I do bead embroidery. I look at it kind of like trying to put a puzzle together. With this heart, I actually first drew a rough sketch. While I didn't really follow it exactly, it is pretty close to my plan. Since I like this first one the best, maybe there is something said for planning ahead.

I like the stripe effect on this one. Interesting when one row is with 8s and the other row is with 11s. It creates a nice texture in addition to the color change.
In this heart, I used a mix of all size 11 beads. The beads are laid out in various circles. The smallest circle is on the top left and is the most obvious. The other areas just show parts of circles and aren't as effective. I think next time I'll have the center of the circle in the middle of the heart and just have one circle radiate out.
(You can see the pencil outline of the arc I drew for the lowest circle segment).

These hearts have been fun. I hope to come up with a variety of samples and techniques. It would make a nice class project.