Gothic Blue Fabric Cuff

Was home sick with a cold yesterday - actually, I'm always home since I work from home but I'm usually not sick so... you know what I mean... :-P

Since I felt kind of crappy, I decided to put in some of my favorite movies and relax a little. I really wanted to make another fabric cuff using one of the roses I made the other day so I threw together some goodies for inspiration. Since the rose I wanted to use is blue with black veins, I gathered together lots of lace, ribbon, beads and bobs in mostly black with a little blue.

The cuff has a decidedly Gothic feel to it so far - I'm pleased with how it's turning out. The hard part is deciding what to add next!

So, since I'm still feeling a bit under the weather it's movie time again tonight! Guess what I'll be working on??

My First Fabric Cuff

As I said in an earlier post, I have been fascinated by the wonderful fabric cuffs and rolled fabric roses found on Etsy (and elsewhere, of course!) and decided to give them a try. I made several roses in different colors - I still haven't done anything with most of them yet - but I did take my favorite of the bunch and set about to making a fabric cuff featuring it as a centerpiece. Here is the final product!!

Wearing my creation!!

Moring Coffee Quotes

"The two greatest mistakes in life are mathematical: misjudging the brevity of life and miscalculating the length of eternity."
- Unknown

"It is not seeing the difficulties that prevents action, but failing to see the resources."
- John White

"Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so."
- Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

"It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations."
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

"Never let the urgent crowd out the important."
- Stephen R. Covey

"Football is a sport that bears the same relationship to education that bullfighting does to agriculture."
- Elbert Hubbard

"Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools."
- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital."
- Aaron Levenstein

"Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them."
- Adlai Stevenson

"Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore."
- Sir Cecil Beaton

"I'd rather be rejected than used because they both amount to the same thing in the end, but being used takes a lot longer."
- Marilyn vos Savant

"Faith is not a thing which one loses; we merely cease to shape our lives by it."
- Georges Bernanos

"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle."
- Benjamin Franklin

"There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you."
- William Hazlitt

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
- James Baldwin

"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."
- Thomas Paine

"Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned."
- Emily Dickinson

"Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true."
- Robert Brault

"Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he should be, and he will become what he could be."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason."
- Jerry Seinfeld

"A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company."
- Charles Evans Hughes

"The world is full of suffering; it is also full of the overcoming of it."
- Helen Keller

"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and a willingness to remain vulnerable."
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

I'm Obsessed!

Working with fabric has always been a love of mine so it might sound odd when I tell you that I sold my sewing machine at a garage sale last year. The reason is because we live in pretty limited space and there just isn't room for sewing - at  least on a machine. Way back when, I really enjoyed hand-sewing and did quite alot of it. I made a crazy quilt out of men's brocade ties and did all the fancy embroidery and added silk ribbon flowers, lace and such. Somehow, I got away from that but have really had a hankerin' lately to get out my fabric scraps, ribbon and embroidery floss. So, I did.

I have been admiring the jewelry and clothing with rolled fabric roses on it for a while now but yesterday I simply HAD to figure out how to make them! When I say I HAD to I mean I HAD to!! (Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about, don't you??).  At times like those, the internet truly is a magical thing. Do a Google search for just about anything and you will come up with 50 pages of websites that have information you might be interested in. I found about a hundred sites that offered advice, tutorials (for free and for sale) and You Tube videos. Anyway, I gave it my best try while watching "Pushing Daisies" (I miss that show). Here are some of my first attempts:

Some of these I'm going to use in necklaces but I decided to use my favorite as the centerpiece for a fancy embroidered, mixed media fabric cuff. I threw together an inspiration kit to get me started. Many of the components here will ultimately get used in the project but some will just be there for "moral support".

Then I thought it would be nice to have all of these pretty morsels in a small case so I can take this project on the road, if needed. I have 2 or 3 small vintage sewing boxes and decided to use one as my little travel sewing valise.

Everything fits so nicely, don't you think?? Now I just need some fancy little embroidery scissors. :)

Morning Coffee Quotes

"Primeval Whirl", Disney's Animal Kingdom - Summer 2008 (photo by Cindy Caraway)

“If the whole world followed you, would you be pleased with where you took it?”
- Neale Donald Walsch

“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
- Abraham Lincoln

“Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth.”
- Ludwig Börne

“Things turn out the best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
- John Wooden

“Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.”
- Henri Louis Bergson

“What torments of grief you endured, from evils that never arrived.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Learn how to separate the majors and the minors. A lot of people don't do well simply because they major in minor things.”
- Jim Rohn

“There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow.”
- Alfred De Musset

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves.”
- Will Durant

“We have the Bill of Rights.
What we need is a Bill of Responsibilities.”
- Bill Maher

“You can't manage what you don't measure.”
- Old Adage (often erroneously attributed to W. Edwards Deming)

“Respect gained by fear is only an empty pretense that turns to contempt the moment the threat disappears.”
- Michael Josephson

“An optimist is someone who goes after Moby Dick in a rowboat and takes the tartar sauce with him.”
- Zig Ziglar

Morning Coffee Quotes

Smoky Mountains - Summer 2008

"Before we blame, we should first see if we can't excuse."
- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

"You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him."
- Leo Aikman

"For most leaders, the great challenge is not understanding the practice of leadership: It is practicing their understanding of leadership."
- Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan

"As long as the world keeps spinning, we're gonna be dizzy, and we're gonna make mistakes."
- Mel Brooks

"Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see."
- Paul Klee

"Any party which takes credit for the rain must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought."
- Dwight W. Morrow

"Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory."
- Leonardo da Vinci

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."
- Niels Bohr

"An artist is usually a damned liar, but his art, if it be art, will tell you the truth of his day."
- D.H. Lawrence

"Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create the fact."
- William James

"Assmosis: The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard."
- Unknown

"Be not simply good, be good for something."
- Henry David Thoreau

"Statistics are no substitute for judgment."
- Henry Clay

Construction Zone

Here is a sneaky peek at what I'm working on at the moment. Hmmm... what are the chances I'll actually get this piece done in time for the Etsy Beadweavers monthly challenge...