Machine Embroidered Tea Towel -- 'The Hoer'

------ as in, 'Person Who Hoes'.

She looks kinda funny, up close: 

Still, pretty nifty, the way the embroidery design made her dress look all three-dimensional.

Machine-Embroidered Tea Towel -- Willow Woolkeepers

I'm finally back to embroidering tea towels.  This is the second of a series from Carol Endres, called Willow Woolkeepers.  I have no good guidelines for coloring other than a poor-quality, small picture I found on the Internet.  So hopefully if I label them well, other people who are in the same boat might be able to use my pictures as a thread-coloring guide.

Machine-Embroidered Tea Towel

With my customer's French lace quilt done, I'm back to machine-embroidering tea towels for Christmas.  I finished one tonight.  This is a design from Carol Endres' Willow Woolkeepers set:

Cantilevered Wooden Sewing Box

Look what my brother Loren brought me today! -- it's a tiered, cantilevered wooden sewing box that he gave his late wife Janice some years ago.  He put two of the doilies she crocheted into the trays, along with thread and other sewing notions.  He also gave me a big bin full of patterns, fabric, batting, trim, and suchlike.

Blossoms Bag is Finished

One side is pansies

... the other side is gladioli.

These two blocks were rejects from the Buoyant Blossoms quilt, not quite what I wanted to go with the other flowers in the quilt.  So I decided to turn them into a bag for granddaughter Joanna for Christmas.

Ruched piping

Braided handles

There is a zippered top over the middle four pockets.

One of the outer pockets, with zippered divider in the middle, creating three separate pockets.  Each outer pocket has a snap at the top, and there are also a couple of snaps that hold the top edges together.

Four zippered dividers in the center, creating nine separate pockets.  There is a total of 15 pockets in the bag, six of which can be zipped shut (plus the zipper over the center four dividers).  All these zippers -- because I needed practice with my new invisible zipper foot before putting the zippers into the bridesmaids' and candlelighters' dresses for Victoria's wedding!

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the deck, a downy woodpecker is snacking on the suet blocks.

By the time I decided to trot inside for my big lens, snack time was over, and away flew the little downy.

Tiger

Just like Tabby, he can't lie still while I'm taking his picture;

he just has to come and see me.

Tail up, purring as he comes

Favors Boxes

These are the favors boxes Lydia made -- some 450 of them -- for Victoria's wedding, using her Sizzix Eclips2 cutter:

Blossoms Bag Progress

Blossoms bag lining

Braided handle

Lining, including four zippered pocket dividers

Lining binding

Blossoms bag outer

Gathered piping

Braided handles