Bella Dia

Pink and Red Quilt Mosaic

1. Vintage floral napkin, 2. pineapples, 3. Vintage Fabric, 4. Vintage Fabric, 5. Vintage Fabric, 6. girassois, 7. Flowers, Stripes, and Dots, 8. Pink Rose on Black, 9. floral, 10. Cherries and Strawberries, 11. Pink Floral, 12. vintage fabric, 13. Polished Cotton, 14. vintage fabric, 15. img152, 16. img145

I just found this cool little third party Flickr app called Mosaic Maker (while your there check out their other toys too). Now if everyone already knows about this please just humor me, sometimes I want to feel hip and ahead of the game;) Basically, you can create a variety of mosaics from any pictures that are on Flickr, then it gives you the image and the code to do with as you will. This mosaic is my pink and red quilt that I put together from the images at the Vintage Fabric group. I love too that it gives you a clickable link for each picture in the mosaic in the html code. I'm so excited thinking of all the ways I can use this and best of all...it's free!!

Quilt Cards

I've been dipping my toe in the quilting waters lately. I bought the new book, Denyse Schmidt Quilts, and these cards are the result of my first efforts. They are fun, fast, and easy - in other words, my kind of project! The floral images in the corners are copies from the book Funny Town that I posted about here, the rest is fabric.

Do you recognize the fabric? I told you I love it ;)

Something a little different here. I've been building a stash of Japanese inspired fabrics for a project I have in mind so I used a few of them for this card. The vase is cut from a Japanese newspaper. I'm participating in the Denyse Schmidt Quilt Along so go check out what others are doing too!

Fall Garden

Help for the Animals of Hurricane Katrina

I'll be donating 50% of all sales from my shop through October 10th to Noah's Wish a non-profit organization that is helping to rescue and take care of the many animals and pets that were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. I can't imagine being separated from any of our sweet animals in such a disaster so hopefully we'll be able to bring a little furry sunshine back into someone's life. I'll be adding some more pincushions soon too :)

Fabric and Crochet Drawstring Bag

I've been wanting to tackle this bag for quite awhile now. It was inspired by a picture in a Japanese craft book (of course!). My variation is crocheted, not knitted, and the construction is my design as I didn't feel like figuring out the Japanese. It's about 10" tall and 8" wide and completely lined. I wove ribbon through the body of the crocheted part of the bag; it's the same ribbon used for the loops. I received the great floral fabric in a trade with Katey and I absolutely love it!

My sweet girl is modeling it here for me so you can get an idea of the size. I had intended to do an enclosed drawstring but got too far ahead of myself in the sewing and had to make a change at the last minute. Sometimes that kind of thing works out for the best and I think I like it better this way :) This bag is my test run - I'm hoping to get some similar bags in the shop for Christmas.

This is the book and picture that was my inspiration. (ISBN4-579-10981-3) I'm in the process of scanning all my Japanese craft books and will put them in an album over at Flickr.

Aprons Through Time and Cyberspace

I finally found this cutie when I was going through some of my boxes that I got out of storage. I don't remember where I got it, I'm thinking a flea market, but I definitely remember the Ed Emberleyish birds and the colors - some of my favorites :)

Now, for something really cool... go look at what Woof Nanny Barb has (go ahead and click, I'll wait). Now, isn't that amazing!! I think it's so neat that there were actually apron kits and I love seeing her "before" and my "after"! If you haven't checked out Woof Nanny the blog be sure to - there's lots of vintage goodness over there :)

Wow, I feel like I've been gone forever - I hope you haven't given up on me. The kids and I have been doing a round robin of fevers, flu, and colds and just for interest my internet connection was teasing me too - sit down, read one blog, shut down, repeat in 4 hours. I finally figured out that I had a bad cable so luckily it wasn't too involved but I feel like suing it for mental distress. So, crossing my fingers and toes, it looks like we are out of the woods. I was able to do some cleaning and organizing and once again have bags and bags to take to thrift, but this is the first time I've seen the top of our kitchen table in several months so that feels good :)

I have lots of things I want to post about but the first thing I want to get to is the lovely package I received from Leslie at Rubber-Sol. I ordered some of her beautiful cards and she included some great fabrics and buttons as a special treat! You must visit her shop, The Paper Princess, where she has the most adorable designs and the quality is amazing - the pictures don't do them justice at all.

Aren't these fabrics and buttons great? I love them! Thank you so much Leslie!