blue & white tureen

If there is one versatile food container in my household, it´s this tureen.. I have two, the other one is a bone china with gold trimming from Oscar de la Renta that  I got with main dish and soup plates. I got those at a fraction of a cost, probably because the design had been  discontinued.

 This one here is my favorite. I´ve been using this  for more than a decade now, sometimes as a serving dish, a bowl for fresh berries in season, as soup tureen and mind you it keeps the soup hot and warm during the meal when served on the table. I used it once as a base for my Advent decorating below.

I just love it because I can put it directly into the microwave to heat food and then serve right away on the table..

Here, I used it as a serving dish.

The blue and white ceramic design gave a nice contrast to the colorful vegetables and meat. The Stir-Fried Rice looked wonderful in it, don´t you think so?

Btw, you can get the recipe of my Stir-Fried Rice here . I omitted the spinach.

Hope you have a good start of the week!!! 

This blog is linked to : French Country Cottage
                                 The Charm of Home

a floral blue pillowcase

The main fabric used here was a leftover of the fabric I used to cover the headboard of our blue guest bedroom (below photo) ...it´s from my  blog called  Parade of Pillowcases.

I  make and collect pillowcases, below are so far what I have gathered. I  use various methods to make and grow my collection... some of the white ones were either crocheted, embroidered and quilted. Others were flea market finds.

The blue pillow was intentionally made as a Mother´s Day gift to my mom in-law a few years back when she had a blue sofa. The strips that framed the quilted center came from an english stripe fabric from a curtain shop. 

I cut the blue stripe part and used 4 strips to make the border for the quilted center. I have adapted the quilted design from Ako´s Lone Star Quilt and used it here..

I think, the overall effect of the blue fabric plus the floral strips that framed the center came out nicely. What do you think?

I could see that mom in -law liked and appreciated it for she proudly displayed it on her sofa for a long time... now that she has a new sofa in grey, I should think of another project to suit the new sofa color...

I hope that the blue pillowcase inspired you...

As usual,  it´s a gray in gray weather today in Vienna!!! 

At least the hyacinth´s sooner blooming gives me a bit of consolation. Oh my... Spring where art thou?

Hope your Friday is wonderful!

xoxo,

Mercy

Partying at this fabulous links: FrenchCountryCottage - Feathered Nest Friday

a caddy for my yarn...

Today, I´m blogging about a caddy I recently did for my yarn. It´s a bag

 I crocheted while watching night movies at home. A carry-all bag that will hold all my crafting materials...yarn, threads & needles, scissors, etc.

Blue & white are my fave colors so I used both for this project.

This blue yarn was supposed to be a sample yarn that I brought 

along from Spain during holiday. The skein was a 100 gram/100 % Acrylic and the off white is made of 100% cotton that I´ve ordered from an online shop.

The bottom of the bag is a simple granny square, the sides are made of 8 smaller grannies that I handstitched together to form the bag base.

The acrylic yarn was thick but a bit softer... here, I used hook nr. 5

After handstitching the small granny squares to the bag base, I went on crocheting the blue yarn until it was finished, then I added the white yarn and the straps..

Basically, I couldn´t decide what to do with the blue yarn..

...I thought of making a bread basket, but I needed a pouch, a carry all bag for my craft materials and then came up with this one.

Crafting is my way of relieving myself from all the stress after a

 long day at work....glad to have done this one finally!

Have a nice Saturday!

Shared @ Bewitch Me & Titi Link Party

It´s finished !!! Handquilted Blue & White Pillowcase

     Can you imagine that this pillowcase had always been my WIP ( work in process) project since 7 years or so? Well, not until last Weekend.. got all my guts to really finish this one...

 

       It was in those days that I had so much time and energy to do projects particularly sewing and home decorating... But then, something came up before I could execute all my crafts ideas...I need to work for my pension scheme and started putting away all my pending projects and went back into my corporated world..

 

 

 

 

 

This pillowcase is part of a set of 2 that I handquilted....The 2nd pillowcase was transformed into a BAG below !!!

 you can view more photos on the link below

 

- 

 

 http://challengingartsandcrafts.blogspot.co.at/2012/08/mercys-handquilted-bag.html 

 

 

The trick of the handquilting is that, I used masking tapes to set the lines straight, no need to have templates if you are just quilting simple lines and squares...

     The Pillowcase front

The inner side of  the top part. 

  

 

  I cut the back fabric into two for the closure since I´m using buttons. 

 

I got these vintage linen buttons from hubby´s Grandma, I love using them when I make pillowcases. These are the ones I used for the closure..

 

 I think the style of the button fits well to the button hole....

  

 Here , I cut a dark blue fabric as contrast border  making a piping for all the 4 sides.  

 

 

Here´s hoping that you like today´s blog. Am glad that you took time reading me.

 

 

THANK YOU !

 

XOXO;

 

Mercy