necessity is the mother of invention . . .

I finished up the bike embroidery and started on a squirrel (which is *really* appropriate, since what I needed to be working on most was my mystery quilt for guild).

After I finished up stitching, I decided it need a word.

It needed the word 'autumn'. But it was raining. And I didn't want to go out into the Nook and use my lightbox. Plus I wanted a pretty script. So I pulled out my iPad and googled 'autumn font'.

And look what popped up! I thought that was pretty darn appropriate.  But I still didn't want to print it and take it outside (lazy rain and all) and pull out my lightbox, so I got this idea . . . 

I enlarged the word to the size I wanted it for my stitchery and screen shot it, so the image would remain stable.

Then I taped down my stitchery to the iPad so *it* would remain stable and traced the word.

And voila . . .

I like the way this worked out!

:)

yet another . . .

Yesterday was a quiet, grey day. We had a wet, cold front move through Tuesday evening, and it dropped our temperatures drastically! Todd had been busy, busy, busy for the past several days and when he was finally able to make it home, just wanted a quiet day. No problem with me! I got the crock pot out and made Skinny Red Beans & Rice from a recipe found at Skinny Crock Pot, and decided to try out one of my new toys . . .

A light box!!! A LightTracer2, to be specific. I've wanted one of these for nearly two years and with some of my birthday money I went ahead and took the plunge! They come in several different sizes, but I liked the larger space of the 12" by 18" box, so that's what I got. I pulled it out of its box and got ready to go.

I found a design I wanted to transfer ... no surprise here ... another pumpkin!! This particular design was a freebie that came from Bird Brain Designs and they've actually got several fun freebies for the taking.

Sooooooo . . . I pulled the design up and enlarged it from it's original size, and then printed it out on regular paper.

Then I picked out my fabric. I wanted a solid and I had this tan fabric, but the back side of the tan had more of a vintage linen, which was kind of the look I was going for, so I cut out my square, ironed it flat, and flipped it to the wrong side! I'm such a rebel. :)

I secured my picture, face up, on the light box, and then centered and taped my fabric over top of that. You can tell, with the light box off, trying to trace that pattern onto the fabric would be really, really tough.

But with the flick of the switch, Voila! Look how nicely the design on the paper shows through the fabric!! Makes it very easy to see and trace. In fact, when I was going back through the photos, I had to double check to make sure this wasn't a photo where I'd already traced!

And so, lickety-split, I had my design traced onto my fabric. (With water removable ink, of course.)

It's pretty neat to see my pumpkin go from computer to paper to fabric . . .

And in less than thirty minutes, too. Not bad. Now for the long part; picking colors and lots and lots of back-stitching!

But I love how my Pumpkin 'n Vines turned out! It's so sweet -- I especially like the little french knot pumpkin blossoms down there.

Now to find some fun fabrics to frame it and we'll see where it goes from there. I can tell that I will have fun my light box . . . there are several applications I'm looking forward to trying with its help.

Dinner last night was great, by the way. I've really enjoyed every recipe I've tried from the Skinny Crock Pot website. And it was nice to cook again -- even if it was a crock pot meal. I think Todd was happy to have me at the helm for a change, too! Tonight is our guild meeting -- and Todd's going to take me. Yay! Can't wait to share!

:)