Craft Book Month with Craft Buds
I'm excited to be taking part in Craft Book Month again this year! If you haven't heard of it before, my friend Lindsay from Craft Buds takes the month of September every year to celebrate crafty books with a blog hop, some great interviews, and a linkup with prizes. Be sure to check out all the info at the bottom of the post :)
So for my project, I dusted off some craft books (yes, I vowed to use them more after last year's hop, but haven't!) and pulled out Make it Sew Modern by Vanessa Christenson of V and Co. This book focuses on a few different techniques (ruffles, gathering, twisting, pleats) and has projects for each. Holy texture! The Spring-Blossom wreath was just dying to be made. Since I mainly stick to quilting, pulling out a hot glue gun was a fun change.
So I set forth to ruffle 150 strips of white fabric into tiny white flowers. It was surprisingly easy to do with her instructions - you make the top tension really tight by holding the top thread between two fingers and squeezing. The fabric ruffled up right behind the foot, just like she promised (yes I doubted!). There were a few I had to go back and redo or redistribute the gathers more evenly, but for the most part, this was a really simple and effective technique.
Since I went with a light cream fabric, my pile of gathers looked like a mound of delicious wedding cake frosting. Mmmmmm....
Next up, time to glue. I attached my first flower and squealed in delight - gah! It looks amazing! Then I kept gluing.....and gluing.....and gluing.....
Ok, so this was after an hour straight of gluing. Sheesh. Let's just say I wouldn't suggest making these in bulk.
By the time I finished this wreath (2 days later...over 8 hours to make a wreath!), my back and feet ached from standing and gluing, and my kids had destroyed the kitchen...and they were stained red with food coloring. But look!
Seriously, the texture!!
I hung it with a strip of Pearl Bracelet on a pretty vintage hook. I swoon a little every time I look at it.
All in all, I would definitely suggest this book, but when she says "this project takes a bit of time", well...she isn't kidding!
Don't forget to check out the other stops on the hop, as well as the linkup rules and prizes (all below). Thanks for stopping by!
Blog Hop
Week One Monday 9/2: Fabric Mutt / LRstitched Tuesday 9/3: Stitch This! The Martingale Blog / Stitched in Color Wednesday 9/4: Fabric Seeds / Pile O Fabric Thursday 9/5: The Feisty Redhead / Rae Gun Ramblings Friday 9/6: Sew-Fantastic / Clover + Violet Saturday 9/7: A Prairie Sunrise / Small Town Stitcher
Week ThreeMonday 9/16: Sew Very / CraftsideTuesday 9/17: The Littlest Thistle / CraftFoxes
Rules
1) One entry per person. 2) Your craft book project must have been completed in 2013. 3) Create a new blog post or Flickr photo (dated September 1, 2013 or later) and link back to Craft Buds/Craft Book Month in your post or photo description. In your post or photo description, make sure to list the craft book you used and provide a link if possible. 4) All winners chosen via Random.org. Some prizes available to international winners, so please join us!
Prizes
Visit Craft Buds and link up your craft book project during the window of Sept 1-30 and you'll automatically be entered to win some fantastic prizes from the Craft Book Month sponsors!
No time to make a project? You can also follow Craft Buds all month long for your chance to comment and win some new sewing and quilting books for your library.
