The Business Is Slightly More Official

Crafting a Better Future is launching its business! You can find us on Facebook here, or email us at LoveGreen.Artistry@Gmail.com.

While you're at it, check out Blue Heart Art. They are a wonderful local business who showcases artists, like myself, in their beautiful downtown shop.


As soon as I get it completed, I'll post the logo here for you all to see. I can post my sketch of it however. The finished version will be more stream-lined and professional-looking.

I'm Back!

We got a new machine, and I'm back in the game!

Since Friday I've been working on a pinwheel quilt for myself, and one for my son. I have nearly finished the top for a quilt for a friend's baby, and I've made the tops for a few mug rugs. I've certainly been busy!



This was originally going to be a mug rug, but I fell in love with the fabrics, the pattern, and the quilting. So instead of doing a bunch of mug rugs, this is now the first piece in my quilt-as-you-go quilt for myself. My son's is green and blue pinwheels.

Unfortunately this is the only picture I have for you right now, as my camera's batteries are nearly dead. I promise there will be more photos soon!

The Sewing Machine Broke!

So, until we can get it fixed, I am unable to do a lot of sewing unless I want to do it all by hand.


I am working on an embroidery sampler, though. In a month or so I will be teaching a friend and her 2 daughters how to do embroidery, so I am busy whipping up a sampler with a bunch of different stitches and techniques. I've found some really cool ones here. It's a really cool blog that has been very helpful in my embroidery endeavors.

Clothing Refashion & Somewhat Tutorial

This is a project I have been working on for a little while now. I got most of it done on a Saturday, and when the day was over it was put away in my "works in progress" bin. I brought it out again today & discovered a dastardly mistake, which I will reveal later.

Here is the before picture of the size 24 stretch slacks that I started with. I helped a friend out with her wedding, and as a payment her mom gave me her old fat clothes, knowing that I love to repurpose clothing. The bigger your starting pieces the better, I say.

See the fancy zipper, double button closure? I actually didn't use it lol but I think it will make a nice embellishment to some future project.

Here you can see that I cut off the entire leg of the pants with my trusty rotary cutter & ruler.

And the other leg, matched back up.

I took the pant legs and opened up one side seam on each, getting two large panels to work with.

Making sure to keep the already hemmed edges together, I sewed the two panels together to make one large piece.

This part was odd. The hems were done in such a way that I couldn't machine stitch them up like the rest, so I plan on hand stitching this part with whipstitch.

After fitting it around my body I determined that four panels was too much. So I removed one panel (one half of a pant leg) to get these three left.

I don't have a picture of this next part, sorry! But next I fitted it around my body again and decided that the bust was good, but it was a bit tight everywhere else (I'm still working off my pudge and I have somewhat wide hips) So from the part that I removed earlier I cut out a triangle and attached it in the back.

After finishing everything but the bottom hemming I took a look at my work and found this mistake! These pieces are supposed to be even, and this is at the top of the dress. Woops! Short of tearing apart the 3 seams involved & redoing it, what do you readers suggest I do to fix it?

Duct Tape Roses for Valentine's Day

My 17-year old brother decided, at 10 pm on Sunday, that he wanted me to make him 20 duct tape roses to give out on Valentine's Day. I chuckled and said "I'll see what I can do." I got one done before I went to bed.
So yesterday he tells me its okay if he hands them out on Tuesday, so could I keep making them? "Of course" I said. I managed to get 6 more finished between making lunch & dinner,  and feeding & changing my son. They turned out quite well, but unfortunately he snatched them up before I had a chance to take pictures. They were black and red and a few of them reminded me of the card knights from Alice in Wonderland.

Pictures of my Busy Day

As promised, I have found the time to take pictures of all that I did yesterday.

These green squares are roughly 3 1/2" x 3 1/2". As yet I'm not really sure what to do with them. I'm thinking of surrounding each one with denim squares (repurposed from old jeans of course) and making a quilt. Another idea is to take 4 of them and make a larger square and turn them into coasters or trivets with denim on the back. (I really like repurposing denim)

The finished squares all started out like the one at the bottom. You take two like that one and sew them rigt sides together on all four sides. Then you cut them apart from corner to opposite corner (diagonally) both ways and when you unfold them you have 4 squares made up of triangles. It's much faster than piecing the triangles to begin with.

You may remember when I posted about finding some old quilt blocks that I had hand stitched. I found more of the purple and polka dot fabric, already cut into squares, and I machine sewed them together to make more blocks. Also in that find were blocks of horses. I took the ones that had their heads and put them into the blocks. Right now it is only a long strip but I hope to find more of these fabrics in my mother's stash (which is where I originally got them from several years ago) and convince her to part with them so that I can at least make another row of 2 above the horses. I'll have to find other purple and black & white fabrics for the rest of the quilt.

This is my favorite project right now. It is going to be a ticker tape quilt for my son. I only have one row done and with only one row it does look pretty silly. The fabrics laid over it randomly are the other fabrics I am going to use on this quilt. They are all scraps from either myself or my mother. Mostly from my mother as she does much more quilting than I do.

Quilting Day

I had quite a long day of piecing quilt blocks. One is a purple, black and white quilt for myself. The other is a blue ticker tape quilt for my son. I did not have time to take pictures today but I will be sure to take some tomorrow and post them.