A Few Updates

Here's a few updates on the long term projects I've been working on.

First off, I just finished a cross stitch that I started last August.

At first I was little upset with just how long it took me and then I realized just how much else I did while working on it. (I went back through my Facebook pictures and realized that I finished the downstairs bathroom, including the refinishing projects, made a TON of bows, along with several other Christmas crafts, skirts, etc, etc, etc.- It was a busy 6 months.)

Next is an update on my quiet book. Here's what it looks like (mostly) right now.

Since this picture was taken, I did push the corners out make them nice and neat and then ironed the pages to help them lay flatter. It's finally starting to look like a book!! All I have left is a few activity pieces to attach.
You've seen the patch work pages, here a picture of the unfinished color sorting page.

I took the picture at this stage to show you just how I did it. I printed a font that I liked (and thought wouldn't be too hard to hand stitch) to the paper side of freezer paper and then ironed it onto my felt pieces where needed. I will admit that removing the paper proved harder than I thought it would, but I still managed to do all this stitching (even what's not done in this picture) in one night (that included a school art show and cooking fried chicken for supper too). The little pieces were attached to the crayon shaped pieces of felt to look like a crayon label and help with color word identifying (I believe there are pictures of those on my last update).


Last I have made progress on my first quilt, although it's not much.
I received all the shirts from my brother and took measurements for the designs on them all (minimum size and preferred max, to not have too much empty background). I decided due to the placement of some of the decals (several over one side of the chest up the shoulder), it would be easier to just cut the decals out. Since I'm not a quilter, and therefore don't have the tools that go with, here's what I did. (I know there are computer programs to help with placement of odd shaped squares, that is the tool I don't have.)
I went into Microsoft Paint and turned on the grid lines (through the "View" menu).
Then I used a thick black line to mark the minimum size (one square/inch). Then I went over it with a thinner red line to mark the maximum size. Last I labeled them with what shirt it came from. (I tagged each with a number when I initially measured.) When I was done with all of them, I printed it off, cut it out, and after much trial and error was able to find a way to fit them all together.

I started by sorting them out by similar sizes, but that really didn't help. Eventually, I just started with the bigger ones and fit the others around.

This is the finished placement of the pieces, and to make sure I can keep track of what went where, I made a new Paint picture with the full size and sections. Labeled with what number and final size they would be cut to.
I know it doesn't look like much but to me it feels like progress.

That's all for now,
Jo!