Susan Spess Shay

Still playing make believe.

Tag Archives: Craft


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Getting Crafty

Omega had a birthday celebration yesterday. (Her bd was Saturday. Yeah, we’re a little slow.)

I got bit by a craft bug this weekend.

What does one thing have to do with the other? I. Don’t. Know.  But I created all weekend. Not necessarily good crafting, but it filled that need for the moment.

First I got out my cutter quilt and made hearts.

hearts  I wouldn’t take them to the fair, but they filled my basket. 🙂

Last week, I found a blog that I loved. Check it out. It’s called The White Bench, and just the colors on the page make me feel good. The owner is an artist (which I’m not!) and everything she does is beautiful.

She has several tutorials, one of which is how to make roses.

So I made these–

rose-white

rose-blueA hot glue gun holds it all together.

Untitled-1

Warning: This can be dangerous. If you try it, keep a bowl of ice water nearby, because hot glue stay where you put it and it HURTS! It doesn’t stop me, though.

rose-burlapThe artist didn’t have anything made with burlap. (Hers are gorgeous!) But I liked the gunny sack, turquoise and lace look.

rose-1I have no idea what I’ll do with them, but when I gave a couple of them to Omega (for her birthday) I told her she could put them on bags or hats or wear them like a pin on her shirt or lapel.

How’d you spend your weekend?

          

 

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Keep Me in Stitches

One of my absolute favorite things in the world is quilts. Don’t you love them?

When my father-in-law remarried after G-Man’s mother died, his wife and her sister were into making quilts. It didn’t take her long to figure out how much I liked them, so she made one for Baby Boy.

 Isn’t this adorable? I love it. It was kind of big to wrap Buggy in, so I hung it on the wall.

I love that they took the time to finish it with Prairie Points.

I like old quilts even more than new ones. This one belonged to my Grandmother. She gave it to me when I lived in Pryor Creek.

One of my boys got a virus not long after I got it, and nothing made him feel better except wrapping up in this quilt. It really is kind of like a hug from home. You know?

Grandmother told me her mother (Grandma Mitchell) made it for her when she was first married in about 1922. How cool is that?

 This is a crazy quilt my mom used to pad some furniture because nobody wanted the quilt. My Grandma Reeves’s mother-in-law made it and gave it to her  when she was a newly wed.

Same quilt, just turned to another part. It’s not a cozy comfortable quilt. Not like a hug from home, but I love it.

To be VERY honest, I don’t remember where I got this one. I believe one of my sisters who loves me a ton gave it to me. Lots of people would rather not have a quilt that’s tied instead of quilted, but I love them.

ALL!

I’ve even made a few small pieces. A pink baby quilt I made for my baby girl, who turned out not to be a girl, so it became a wall hanging. I’m not sure where it is right now, but it had heart squares–all different kinds of heart squares. (I’ve never made an appliqued quilt. I like piecing them.)

I made this star square. It started out to be a toilet seat cover, but I couldn’t quite figure that out, so I changed it to a wall hanging.

This is a sailboat. Can you tell? I made it, too. 🙂

And I saw a picture of this one in a book, and I wanted it. So I figured out how and made it, too.

Yes, they’re all wall hangings. A baby quilt is the biggest thing I’ve ever made. But the ones I made are hand quilted by moi. Impressed? LOL.

One of my two absolute all time favorites is this one. Grandma Reeves’s sister and mother made for her when she married Granddad. It’s a double wedding ring quilt.

Grandma and Granddad were married about 64 years. The quilt is old and stained and faded and has a hole worn in it because she said with all her kids (seven of them) she had to use everything in the house to keep them warm.

This beautiful quilt hangs above my bed.

For inspiration.

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Loving the Weekend

How was your weekend?

Mine was FANTASTIC!

First, it rained. Lovely, wonderful, glorious, beautiful rain. And not just a little drizzle. We had 2 2/10 inches in our rain gauge. One of the women I go to church with said she got 1.61 inches. When I commented on how precise she was, she said she had a digital rain gauge. (I want one!)

We celebrated #1 DIL’s birthday yesterday. I have to tell you, my kiddos are the best when it comes to picking wives, and #1 did a bang up job. His wife has great relatives that I just enjoy the heck out of.

Her parents, sibs, and the woman she made my Shirt Tail Relative are all people who just tickle the soup out of me. We didn’t get to see her fam this weekend, but I did have a little time to play with her pupper.

Yesterday, Queen Sophia had on a designer mini-skirt. DIL told me the name of the designer (something to do with Guns and Roses) but I don’t remember the name. It’s funny, but this sweet doggie has a better wardrobe than I do! LOL.

#1 son charcoaled yummy burgers for us. DIL prepared wonderful dips which, while they were actually purchased at Sam’s she tested to find the best ones and put in beautiful bowls. They were delicious! We finished with a cake from Merritt’s Bakery.

Ooooh, yum!

We said goodbye to Stony-the-super-youth-minister and his family yesterday. That was a heart breaker, I can tell you. As I mentioned before, he’s been here for 18 years and he’ll be sorely missed. The church was full of people who didn’t want to miss his last sunday with us.

As a going away gift, the church gave Stony and Dana an interest-bearing account to be used anyway they want, but which (hopefully) can be used someday as a down payment on their first house. And a Past Preach came to say goodbye, too, although the YM will actually be living closer to where the Past Preach is living now. I loved the few moments I had with Sherry, the PP’s beautiful and talented wife! Sadly, I didn’t get to speak to her DIL who was part of #1’s wedding.

The rest of my weekend, I spent taking an online knitting class at Craftsy called, KNITS THAT FIT. I’d have named it Fit Your Knits, since that’s what we’re learning to do, but they didn’t ask me. (Go figure.)

Here’s why I took the class–I tried on my Shalom Sweater that I knitted last year. (Might have been the year before.) And I found that I must have had someone else in mind when I made it. Someone like, oh, I don’t know, the Jolly Green Giant, maybe?  😦

   You can find the pattern here.

That’s what it’s supposed to look like. Because I didn’t swatch, didn’t check the sizes and did the equivilant of putting on a blindfold and throwing a dart (sizewise) I ended up with a sweater that would fit the Hulk.

It hasn’t been blocked yet, so it will look better, but it’s still huge. And since I absolutely refuse to unravel it and start all over, I might just add buttons and turn it into a double-breasted robe. 🙂

Anyway, I’m taking the Craftsy class to keep that from happening again. I hope! LOL. Now if I can just get brave enough to actually write down my measurements. *sigh*

Tell me, how did you spend your weekend?


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Snitting. Again. Ü

I’m a snitter. (Sit+knit=Snit. Right?) I might have  mentioned that a time or two in the past. (Cough.) The thing is, though, I’m a winter snitter. I love to knit with wool during cold weather.

Once in a while, I like to have a project to work on in the summer, too. So the other day while I was in T-Town, I decided to buy yarn to knit a prayer shawl.

I love the idea of knitting prayer shawls for people. In my imagination (which is often so vivid, it gets me into trouble) I can see people I’ve been praying for and with, wrapping up in these shawls as they go to the Lord in prayer.

But when I got to Loops (my favorite knitting store) and started looking through the yarn, even acrylic was too hot for this break-into-a-sweat-at-the-drop-of-a-hat woman to use.

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Snit Fever

Running late today, but I wanted to share the progress I’ve made on my Meret Beret.

Remember late last summer (or early last fall) I showed you this–That was near the beginning of what I hoped would one day look like this–

That’s not mine. You can tell because the color is wrong and it’s darn near perfect. Mine won’t be. 🙂 This is a picture I found online to show me what it might look like someday. Well, I’m not there yet. Here’s where I am today.

 And here–

In case you’re wondering, that’s my Bible it’s lying on. (I just finished my Bible study for this morning.) And my Bible is lying on my GMC chart for the book I’m currently working on.

I’m such a neat person. Not.

The beret isn’t that complicated, so why am I so slow? Besides time restraints (I hate that excuse, but there you go.) I Christmassed and knitting a cat scarf. (Except for sewing on the head, it’s finished. Yay!) And a pair of fingerless gloves.

While I found the above pictures, I found a couple of other things I finished this year. I just have to share.

This great little scarf (I still need to block it, I guess, because I haven’t worn it.) and my chicken. I call her Shake a Tail Feather.

I learned to knit when I was in junior high. For some reason, I really wanted to learn, even though no one around me knitted at all. Maybe it was seeing Aunt Sally here on a Christmas visit one year, knit throws for her family. Or it could have been seeing people knit on TV and in movies.

Anyway, I bought a book and “taught” myself. It’s really hard to learn to knit (especially casting on) from a book. While the pictures and arrows look as if they’re going one direction, they’re really meant to be going another way altogether. But I persevered.

I discovered how useful knitting was in high school when I was in a one-act play called the Legacy. It was a period piece, set in the 1800’s. I used knitting as busy work during the play.

By the time we quit doing the play for competition, my square I was knitting was really lopsided, because when I’d pick up my knitting to work, I just started knitting. I didn’t look to see whether I had it forward or backward. 🙂

I wish now I’d kept it. 🙂

I’ve taken several classes and found I love knitting along side other people. One of my favorite things about knitting is teaching others. Some pick it up so easily, you’d think they’d learned it somewhere before.

For others, it’s not quite as easy.

Now Omega (kid #6 in the Spess family line up) was determined to learn. She’s in a wheelchair, her hands don’t work as easily as they once did and she can’t drive herself to go to the yarn store, but she was bound she would learn how. So I taught her, and she caught on so quickly I felt as if I’d been a really  slooooow learner.

She even knitted one of the Christmas presents she gave away this year. How cool is that?

This isn’t the best picture of Omega I could find, but I usually try not to capture her wheelchair, because it’s not who she is. I wanted you to be able to see it today.

I wanted to warn you, when Omega decides she’s going to do something, look out!

No telling what she’ll be doing next.

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