Bento Box Quilt For A Special Boy

My sister gave birth to her very first little one on May 1st making me a Tante (aunty) for the very first time! Yay, so exciting and to celebrate I want to make him his very first quilt.

I've been looking for the perfect pattern or idea for a boy's quilt for quite a while and when I saw these photos for a Modified Bento Box I sort of fell in love with it *grin*. So much in fact that when I started digging through my fabric stash I had my ipod in hand so that I could consult with her photo to match up similar colors LOL.

So far I've cut all of the center blocks out but since I don't have a pattern to give me exact amounts of fabric to cut I'm sort of just winging it when it comes to how many strips of fabric I will need. I didn't want to cut too many just in case I don't use them all so I may have to stop and do some more cutting before I get to the end but I'd rather do that then end up with a bunch of three inch strips I don't need later.

I had planned to spend the entire morning sewing away but my daughter seemed to have other plans and ended up pulling me into a little sewing project of her own so this is about all I got finished today :) I think I have about a month and a half to finish though so that should give me plenty of time to finish it... should being the operative word as I have been known to be a bit of a procrastinator. I just may end up at the baby shower with bright red blood shot eyes from pulling an extreme all nighter to get it finished in time. Let's hope not though! *grin*.

Hugs,

Rosina 

I'm Late, I'm Late, For A Very Important Date!

I have been literally counting the days until I could show you what I made for my Alice in Wonderland swap partner *grin*. I wanted to keep it top secret so that it was a total surprise so I restrained myself from sharing any hints! Today I received an email letting me know that it had arrived and she liked it and I'm so happy :)

From the information that I had I knew that she loved bunnies so I knew that the White Rabbit was a must do! The only problem was that I had no pattern *gasp*. I wasn't sure how I was going to tackle making a rabbit having never made one before.

I thought perhaps I would sew one from fabric but I was stumped. I'm a sucker for felt as you know so I knew I would have to use felt in some shape or form and then it hit me. I would create the white rabbit in a mixture of embroidery, felt & found objects!

I started by going completely high tech and sketched an outline of the rabbit onto my muslin canvas with a pencil *grin*. As I was stitching I wanted to give him the illusion of being furry so I made a hodge podge of irregular stitches all throughout his face and bottom so that he looked ruffed up and I think it turned out pretty well. If you're a pro at embroidery please don't slay me for bad form! LOL

Next was to tackle his clothing and give him a bit of a 3D effect so that he looked like he was popping off of the canvas :) Leaving the embroidery thread to just stitching on the pieces I made his tunic and collar from my felt stash. The sleeve on the right is actually sewn so that you can look right up inside of it and see his embroidered arm and for the collar I folded some blue felt accordion style and then snipped and tacked it until it fit just right :)

But he still looked incomplete. He needed a scroll and a watch since in the movie he is always checking it and yelling out he was late but I didn't want them to be flat pieces to my puzzle by using felt or more embroidery. So I hit the second hand shops until I could find an old wrist watch that was dainty enough to be his pocket watch :) I wrapped & glued some embroidery floss around a scroll made of some stiff handmade paper I had from scrapbooking and then stitched it and the dangling watch head beneath it to finish my white rabbit creation :)

I'm pretty darn pleased with how he turned out and the last little touch I added was to paint the ecru colored muslin with a bit of light blue paint in irregular strokes to give him a bit of a whimsical look. The kids actually thought that it looked a bit like he was flying and I thought that was perfect since Alice had fallen down a rabbit hole.... perhaps my white rabbit was on his way flying through his rabbit hole as well *grin*.

Such a fun swap!! If you want to see more of what others made for their swap partners you can check out the flickr group here and have fun watching the new Alice in Wonderland movie this weekend! We're definitely going and I can't wait :)

~ Rosina

Flickr Favorites ~ Eye Spy

1. Owl, 2. Polka dotted, 3. speak2, 4. Precious Gems

I am completely in love with turquoise and blues right now and as I searched Flickr for some photos matching that color I found these amazing pictures of eyes :) The photo in the bottom right hand corner made me think of a magnified section of an iris. The color is so vibrant!

Play along!
Build your own mosaic and visit Artmind's blog to join in :)

~ Rosina

Working on a new apron

After making an apron for my apron swap partner last month I just had to whip up another one *grin*. The bright pink is such a great accent color to go along with the blues and I've changed up the bottom on this one and created a fun scalloped edge that just flows when you wear it :)

All I've got left is to work on my little Rosy Posy embellishments to be attached and it'll be ready for the shop.... or me! LOL. I don't really want to part with it, but then again I've got some great polka dot fabric just begging to be used so maybe I'll whip up one in red *grin*.

~ Rosina