Mom's Little Monsters.

 I've been having a ball making Mom's Little Monsters on days that we are not renovating Tyler's shop.  

Lurch

Lurch in his butlers suit and his heart tucked safely under his jacket.

Then we have Anti-Bell with her crazy hair, arms to short for hugging but lips perfect for sloppy and sweet kisses.

Anti-Bell

Even Sammy thinks she is cuddly.

Like I said "I've been busy" and having a ball.  These are the funnest sewing projects I've had in a while.  

Ralphy; slightly crazy and really obnoxious.  Named after the younger brother in a Christmas Story.  A little softy at heart.

Then there is the last one still not quite finished, Bucky.

Don't you just love his skullet.

Bucky is a ruff and tumble guy, cool in his hair net and wearing his heart on his sleeve.  Although not quite finished (he is missing a tie) Bucky is quite a fetching fellow.

Bucky

If you are interested in any of Mom's Little Monsters you can  send me an email at terry@seriouslypinned.ca or add a comment below.

Making Dolls

 I have had a ball the last few days making dolls.  I has been to cold to do reno's at the shop so thought I would make a few dolls to go with the doll furniture we are planning to CNC.

I pulled out the dye-able fabric and tea stained it.  It worked perfectly for the face and the body.

A little purple hair and rosy cheeks make Prickly Petunia a real cutesy!

Orange fabric for the clothes.

It had been a long time since I made doll clothes (50 years, yikes).  The pants were pretty straight forward but it took me a bit to get the top right.  Still not happy with it but will try again later.

She turned out cute.

Prickly Petunia

A little precocious. 

Then I made Cindy 

Cindy

Thought I would make a couple of scary ones next.

To much fun!!

Having fun with acrylic paints.

 I started playing with acrylic pours when we lived in NS. Tyler (my son) and I redid the countertops in a acrylic pour and then rosined over them.

It was a great project and my introduction to acrylic cup pours.

I hadn't ventured very far from the typical cup pour and over the years made a few impressive canvases.  

Peaches and Cream

As all things must progress so must I.  As of late I have been trying out a few new technics and pouring tools. 

This is a acrylic swipe using moistened paper towel to drag the paint across the canvas.  I was fun and so cool to do that I did a series in different colors.  Blue, black, green and pink.  The pink is awful (not my favorite color) but kind of cool too!  They look like a side view of the milky way.

Since moving to Shaunavon SK. I have had the opportunity to expand my rapporteur and use a few new tools.  I has helped that the winter here has been cold enough that I don't want to go outside, -32c. yikes!  

My favorite has been the lazy susan.  Being able to spin the pictures creates all kinds of cool effects.

But there have been a few epic fails as well.  Here is my attempt at using a pot scrubber to make wheat like flowers.

Yikes!!

I'll leave you with a blown acrylic pour.  Tyler modified a hair drier for me so it only blows cool air.  That and a small water balloon to create this beauty.

Kelp

Needless to say I've been having fun and keeping busy; although I have no idea what I am going to do with all these pictures.  For some reason they keep stacking up, lol.

Making Spiced Nuts

 Nuts are a great snack.  They are my go to as a bedtime snack most nights.  So I thought I would share my spicy nut recipe with you.

Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:

1 large egg white

1/4 cup sugar (I use monks fruit sugar for less calories) 

1/2 tsp salt

1/2  tsp chili powder

1/4 tsp ground all spice

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1 3/4 tsp cayenne pepper

4 cups nuts (any mix will do, cashews, walnuts, pecans, almonds)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 deg.  Beat egg white until frothy. Combine all the spices and add to egg white. Mix well. Stir in nuts until well coated and spread mixture in a single layer onto a ungreased cookie sheet.

Mix well

Bake nuts for 15 min and remove from oven. Toss using a spatula to help separate nuts. Reduce oven temperature to 250 deg. and return nuts to bake for another 10min or medium brown. Remove from oven and toss and stir again, then place cookie sheet onto a wire rack to cool.  They will crisp as they cool. Break up any that stick together and enjoy.

Into the oven

Don't they look yummy!!

I must admit I do take short cuts occasionally; this morning I used 2 1/2 tsp of Cajun spice and it works well.  For an Asian flair, 5 spice is another but cut the spice down to 1 tsp and use brown sugar instead.  Italian spice,  Montreal speak spice, just to name a few.

Our Maple Leaf

 A wonderful quilt made by Rose with our Canadian Flag in mind.

Made for her son, it is wonderful.  Wanting to show off the colors and the bright red maple leaf meant matching threads and keeping the topstitching simple.

It was fun to topstitch the water pattern up and down as I had to load the quilt on its side in order to take advantage of thread swapping.

It turned out fabulous. I'm sure her son is going to love it!!

Pieced back.

Lisa's Sedona Quilt

 What a wonderful quilt, bright, white, and colorful all mixed into one.

The Sedona was a fun quilt to work on and Lisa loved the meandering feathers that gave the quilt a little motion besides.

Lisa decided to make her Sedona quilt linier rather than the more traditional of mixed blocks and designs. 

Pretty back.

A lovely quilt Lisa, fun to topstitch.

Keyhole quilt

 Anne From Calgary commissioned me to make this wonderful Keyhole quilt for her.  It is large, about 108" x 115".

The view shown above is only a quarter of the quilt.  It used 2 Bali Pops and about 3m of blue fabric for the top.

All the squares are randomly placed and topstitched with a large meandering feather pattern.  Non computerized of course.

I just love using wide back fabric, you can match the front to the back and make the binding consistent with the rest of the quilt.

I am sure Anne is just going to love it when she comes to pick it up in May.

Beach Glass

 Elizabeth brought in this lovely quilt called Beach glass,

Another very large quilt that almost took up the whole longarm.

Elizabeth came in with definite instructions for big swirls or whorl pools for her quilt.  The pale mist thread was perfect.

The back

A wonderful quilt and what a lot of work sewing all those little squares.  Aren't quilters wonderful!!

Bunnies, birds, and dancing shamrocks.

 I had a lot of fun with Kathy's spring hangers and table toppers.

Once again done on the same backing and at the same time saving a few easter dollars.

The bunnies turned out great with a little thread and a few starts and stops.  Worth the extra time.

This is the smaller one.

They will make wonderful wall hangings, one for Kathy and one for her daughter.

A little more thread play to show off the birds.

Then of course the dancing shamrocks, made it to Kathy's house before Saint Paddy's day.  A little bit of luck is always welcome.

Had to show a closeup of the bunnies though,  To cute and all with a different hairdo.  lol.