Tales from the Rainbow Room: January 2011

Friday, January 28, 2011

Flickr Favorites Friday 1.28.2011

1. Rainbow Round, 2. rainbow umbrella seen through the crystal ball , 3. February 3rd, 2010, 4. Somewhere over the rainbow, 5. Trapeze , 6. colourful twist, 7. wet rainbow umbrella, 8. Rainbow Umbrella, 9. IMG_9489, 10. fi-rainbow, 11. Rainbow Reaching for Kite Salvation, 12. rainbow umbrella #5, 13. Rain of colour, 14. (in) rainbows, 15. Rainbow Umbrella!, 16. In Rainbows - American Oystercatcher Reflection

My mind is swirling with creative ideas right now--crazy quilts, color wheel quilts, crocheted flowers, painting, a plethora of embroidery and sewing projects--but I just can't resist a good Flickr mosaic. I was reminded of how lovely a vibrant rainbow umbrella is, so I went searching and here is a sampling of the what I found. How cheery!

I think my personal favorite has to be this one:

There is something so ethereal about it that just speaks to me. I love it! But it can be so difficult to pick a favorite when they are all so beautiful. :)

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

2011 Calendar

I have had in my mind to make a calendar like this for quite some time:

From So September

I saw So September's calendar on her blog over a year ago, and I have been trying ever since to figure out how to make something similar. I was stumped on how to make the bottom half of the calendar. Should I use paper or fabric? How would I get it printed? Where, for that matter. I also loved that you could personalize the top half of the calendar, but what would I do with it when the next year comes? I was stumped until this fall So September decided to create a 2011 calendar and sell them blank on her Etsy site. I immediately snatched one of them up, knowing that I would figure out the details of the calendar later.

I decided that what I would do for the blank part of the calendar is cut it off to be reused each year. I wanted to make a garden of crochet flowers using a tutorial from un jardin de hilo, so I stocked up on many colors of DMC Perle 5 cotton thread. I plan to embroider the stems and leaves, likely in black to maintain contrast, and come up with a clever but not stupid-sounding title for the calendar at some point to top it off.

I am backing the entire calendar in simple white flannel and am binding the top and bottom halves of the calendar separately. I went with a simple black sateen Kona Cotton for the top and a black with small white polka dot fabric for the bottom. I like this because it leaves open the possibility of changing the binding on the dated portion of the calendar each year. Hopefully So September will be making one of these calendars every year so that I can simply change out the bottom half, but if she doesn't I'll figure out a way to make that year's calendar on fabric.

These pictures were taken two days ago, and my fingers have been furiously crocheting since them so I have a few more flowers made than in this picture. I have more colors of thread than room to place flowers on the top, but I figure I can go ahead and make the flowers and then use them for another project. They are rather addicting to make!

When I have finished the top half of the calendar I will attach it to the bottom using a little bit of black thread. The bottom will hang about a quarter to a half inch below the top of the calendar. It will not be tightly attached so that I can simply remove the bottom half with a seam ripper or scissors at year's end and attach the next year's calendar. I hope to be done sometime next week and am very excited to see how this will turn out :)