Die Cuttin’ Divas – November, 2018 sketch

It’s another fun sketch challenge at Die Cuttin’ Divas this week!  I started out in Cricut Design Studio this time and found a punny file that I wanted to use.  Don’t know why it showed up – I guess it was free that week, so I jumped on it!  The collection is called High Jump Phrases.  My friend is having a birthday this month and I think she’d appreciate the pun!I like the font; I think it’s funky with the off-center horizontal lines on the letters.

The yellow paper is from a paper pack called Lemon Flower Stack by DCWV.  It has lots of pretty patterns on it.  The white was an unidentified scrap.  I always love how the colors pop off the black mats.

Come on over to Die Cuttin’ Divas and check out all the other DT projects, then make your own!

Evelyn

Cut it Up – Clean and Simple

We’re going clean and simple today at Cut it Up!  To me, that means not a lot of clutter, which is my style anyway.  (My crafting style tends to be very plain.)

Our sponsor, CAS-ual Fridays, sent us each a stamp to work with.  I made a simple scrapbook page and a card with mine.  I received Best Day Ever, which comes with that sentiment and two adorable flowers.

I made the card first.  The sentiment is so big and strong, I decided to showcase it by creating a tone-on-tone background for it using the smaller of the two stamps.  A couple plain layers, little bit of twine, and this CAS card is finished.  The flowers were stamped using Tim Holtz Shabby Shutters distress ink, and I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink for the sentiment.  The twine is Trendy Twine in Lime and Licorice. I used this tag die from CAS-ual Fridays (a Fri-die!) along with the Best Day Ever stamp to make a title for a quick clean and simple scrapbook page.  This time, I used Stampin’ Up’s Real Red ink.  I love the font used on this sentiment stamp!!  It’s so friendly!Hope you join us for our Clean and Simple challenge.  A random participant will win a $15 store credit from CAS-ual Fridays!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Anything Goes!

When there are five Tuesdays in a month, things get crazy over at Die Cuttin’ Divas – Anything Goes!

I decided to share another page made for that recipe scrapbook swap that I told you about here.  This recipe is for hot cocoa mix.  You make it ahead of time and use it like the packaged cocoa mix, but it’s much less expensive.  And delicious!  (I sometimes use hot milk instead of water!!  😉 )

This Cocoa Cafe file was from Treasure Box Designs, part of a larger collection called Xmas Village, which, unfortunately, is no longer available.  It’s a shame because the entire collection is super cute and fun to put together.  I embossed and inked some of the pieces before assembling.  I love how the mug is like a chimney on the building!  I used the recipe itself as the smoke and adhered the steam element onto it.  Thought that was pretty clever!

You can get the recipe for the hot cocoa mix here.

I wonder what you’ll come up with for our Anything Goes challenge this week at Die Cuttin’ Divas.

Evelyn

Finished Object!

Here is Logan’s cabled red sweater, finished!It didn’t take me long to finish this beauty, and I’m really proud of it.  I love all the beautiful cables, the beautiful yarn, and all the fun techniques and patterns I mooshed together to make it.  As I said here, it’s a mash-up of a few sweaters.  The central cable and the braids on the sleeves and saddle shoulders are from Alice Starmore’s St. Brigid.  The twisted rib neckline is from her Na Craga, which I really want to knit for myself (or the St. Brigid . . .)  I followed Elizabeth Zimmerman’s directions for the hem, and worked out my stitch count numbers using her Elizabeth’s Percentage System!

Here are some of the details on what I did.  To make the hem, I picked up and knit stitches under the cast on edge, knit one further round, then decreased on the second round as Elizabeth instructs in Knitting Around.  (This is a wonderful book by the way.  You should go to your library and check it out – literally!  I did, and loved it so much I bought myself a copy for Christmas last year.  Wrapped it up and everything!! 🙂 )

I knit about 1 1/2″ more, then sewed the live stitches to the inside of the sweater.

Here’s the sleeve and saddle shoulder being sewn in. (That safety pin is from when my first baby was born.  I was going to use cloth diapers.  That lasted until about her first poop . . .)Here is a picture of a sleeve.  I love the way the cable runs all the way over the shoulder and up to the neck.  I was originally going to make a hem on the sleeves, too, but I think it would be too bulky, so I just left them as is.  If Logan needs more sleeve length in the future, I can add a twisted rib cuff.Of course there were some bumps along the way.  I didn’t realize I had dropped a stitch on one of the sleeves until 12 rows later.  I tried “laddering up” but it created a section that was too tight.  It neither looked right nor felt right, so I ripped out those few rows and re-knit them.When the whole sweater was finished, sewn, ends woven in, it had its photo shoot.  Looking at the photos, I was dismayed to find one very, very loose stitch near the collar (on the front, of course!)  I couldn’t leave it.  I located the offending stitch on the inside of the sweaterand pulled it tight with my crochet hookuntil it looked good from the right side:I sewed that pulled stitch right into the collar.  Now it’s perfect!! Ta da!!  I’m back to knitting Christmas presents now, which I can’t show you until after Christmas, but they’re turning out really nice!  🙂

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Happy Halloween

Boo!  Happy Halloween from Die Cuttin’ Divas!

Everyday I download the freebie from Miss Kate’s Cuttables.  Sometimes I’m inspired to make something with it right away, and that was the case with this Happy Halloween title.  I knew not to cut it out “as is” – it would be way too thin.  So I created an offset, colored it orange, and did a print and cut.  Then I made two other offsets, tan and black, and layered them together.  I had previously assembled the square background elements with a file I created in the Silhouette software using squares and rectangles.  They were just sitting on my desk waiting for an image to adorn them!I made eight like this and still had one background left.I decided to try and color up an adorable stamp I bought a year or so ago from Craftin’ Desert Divas called Wonderfully Wicked. She’s really cute!  We’d love to see your Halloween projects over at Die Cuttin’ Divas this week!  While you’re there, check out the fabulous creations of my teammates!

Evelyn

 

 

 

 

 

Knitting in progress

My granddaughter, Logan, and her mom visited us for a week and we all went to the Fall Fiber Festival and Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials.  I asked Logan to choose a color for her next sweater.  She requested red so I picked up three skeins of 2 ply worsted 100% Coopworth sheep wool from Lazy O Ranch and am having a blast creating her sweater!

It’s a mash-up of a couple of sweaters.  I’m using the classic shape and saddle shoulders of an Aran sweater, incorporating two of the cables from Alice Starmore’s St. Brigid, but I knit the body in the round using Elizabeth’s (Zimmerman) Percentage System and will add hems using her method also.  It’s like a Frankenstein sweater!!

The body is finished and blocking.  The colorway is called Barn Door.  It’s a darker red than this picture shows. 

This is the real color!  The sleeves (above) are almost finished.  I’ll hopefully finish them today and get them blocking while I pick up stitches on the body for the hem.  I’ve never done a hem before; I’ve always knitted a ribbed welt.  We’ll see how it goes!  I love trying new techniques!

Left to do:
Knit and sew down the hem
Hem the cuffs
Seam the sleeves
Attach the sleeves
Knit the collar
Weave in the ends . . .

Sounds like fun.  Can’t wait to see how it turns out!!   🙄

Evelyn

Cut it Up – Just in CASE

Crafters are always deriving inspiration from each other, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?  🙂  Our current challenge at Cut it Up is to CASE another crafter’s project.  I save lots of projects on my computer to inspire me.  I chose this one to CASE.

I made this card using a file from our sponsor for this challenge, My Scrap Chick.  Two files, in fact.  For the penguin, I used Snow Globes Cards and the holly comes from Stars & Holly.

My card is 5 x 7, but the paper I used was from a 6 x 6 pad.  This is how I solved that problem:I cut off the paper that was hanging over the right-hand side of the card and used it on the bottom.  The white and ribbon border covers the seam!

I think it turned out really cute, don’t you?  We hope to see your CASE’d project over at Cut it Up.  You could win a $20 store credit from My Scrap Chick!!  (Be sure to include a link to the project that you copied.)

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – Food

This week’s theme for Die Cuttin’ Divas is Food!  I love food.  ❤️  My mother taught me to eat everything on my plate.  If there’s something there that I don’t like, I’ll start with that.  (If it’s something that I really don’t like, I scarf it down very quickly just to get it out of the way!)  After that, I can savor each bite.  I’ll often put the meat, vegetable, and potato all on one forkful to enjoy the mixture.  But if it’s something that I really, really like, I save it for last!!  I nibble at candy and other sweets so they last longer.  I can make a Milky Way last half an hour!!  🙂

Anyhow, I signed up for a recipe scrapbook swap one time that never got off the ground.
I was still teaching at the time and wasn’t sure I would be able to satisfy my obligation once school got going, so I got all my pages for all the months finished in one weekend and sent them off.  Apparently no one else did because I never got anyone else’s pages back!  But I still have the ones I kept for myself.  This is the perfect time to show off this page:That cute apron was a free svg from Pazzles in 2015.  It’s called Mom’s Kitchen Apron, but I don’t see it on their site anymore.  I used liquid pearls on the bodice to accentuate the heart shape.  The skirt was done as a print and cut so I could get the recipe on it.  The embossing folder used for the background came with my eBosser electric embossing machine.

It’s hard to read the recipe in that photo, so here it is in case you want to make it.  It’s delicious!  I serve it with buttered cornbread, a salad, and a nice cold glass of milk!  Yum!

Chicken Divan

2 small packages frozen broccoli
4 chicken breasts
1 can cream of chicken soup
½ C mayo
½ tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp curry powder
1 package shredded cheddar cheese
bread crumbs or wheat germ

Parboil chicken.  Remove the chicken from the boiling water and boil broccoli until slightly cooked.  Put broccoli in a casserole dish.  Put cut-up chicken over it (bite sized pieces.)  Mix soup, mayo, curry, and lemon juice and spread on top.  Sprinkle with bread crumbs and cheese.  Bake at 350° for ½ hour – 45 minutes

Check out the other food-related projects that my teammates created then link up your own at Die Cuttin’ Divas!

Evelyn

The Merry Christmas Challenge – October, 2018

Christmas is fast approaching!!  My family always needs lots of gift tags, so that was my focus this month for The Merry Christmas Challenge Blog.  At the Silhouette design store, I chose four from Lori Whitlock.  The squarish Christmas tree tag is #34789, the roundish Christmas tree tag is 237949, the snowman is #71612, and the deer is #106735.

They were all really easy to put together, and I bet you could make them bigger, really dress them up with bits and bobs, and adhere them to cards or bags, but I just need gift tags, so I only gussied them up a little bit.

Remember, The Merry Christmas Challenge Blog is all about Christmas.  You can link any Christmas creation that you make, any kind of craft.  Can’t wait to see what you make this month!

Evelyn

Die Cuttin’ Divas – 3D project

It’s almost Halloween, and I’m sure many of you, like me, are getting into the spirit.  (Get it? 🙂 )  I don’t have many Halloween decorations, but I do put a few out.  This little tealight holder that I made for Die Cuttin’ Divas‘ 3D challenge will join them this year.

He’s called the Jack-O-Lantern tea light, a freebie from Dreaming Tree.  It was super fun to put together.   I followed along with Leo’s assembly video.  Here he is shining in the dark.  Cute, huh?I didn’t have any yellow vellum so I created a rectangle in Microsoft Word, filled it with yellow ink, printed that out and used that!  Not my idea – I got the idea from the assembly video!!  Looks great next to the candy bowl from Tuesday’s post, doesn’t it?

Hope you join us for our 3D challenge at Die Cuttin’ Divas!

Evelyn