Shrinky Dinkies

About 2 weeks ago I bought a Shrinky Dink oven from the thrift store.

It uses a light bulb as the heat source, so it's really just an Easy Bake Oven with a narrower slot. When I bought it I wasn't sure it would be a worthwhile investment, but it turns out that this thing is awesome!

Luke calls Shrinky Dinks Shrinky Dinkies. That cracks me up. I made these two...

They were supposed to be knitting stitch markers, but the hole is only big enough to fit up to a size 5 needle comfortably. Maybe if I find a larger ring I can use them for larger needles. Until then they're just charms. For these I used real Shrinky Dink plastic, but did you know you can use any number 6 plastic for Shrinky Dinks? Yep. Pretty cool. I'm on the lookout for number 6 plastic now because Shrinky Dinks are fun!

EDIT: Here's a link to a tutorial using #6 plastic...it's here on Thrifty Fun. I tried it and it worked great with my Shrinky Dink oven.

Here are Luke's Shrinky Dinks. I wrote the colorful one, of course. He didn't do as good a job spelling his name as he usually does. It's summer, so he hasn't had much practice lately!!


In other news, we aren't leaving for Greece until the 13th now. We were going to leave on the 4th, but my husband is swamped with work. With the economy the way it is, we think it's best to delay our trip. I'm not upset at all since I've got a ton of stuff to do....like, sew, knit and finish some quilts. I should say "clean, do laundry, and change the oil on my car", but eh... priorities, shmriorities.

The Super Duper Luke Quilt

Here is the finished quilt top. I really love it. It is definitely the loudest, brightest quilt I've ever made and it was a lot of fun! Luke loves it so I'm trying to get the quilting and binding done quickly.

Luke made a block, too. Well, sort of! He likes to watch me sew and wanted to "play" (yikes!) so I let him pick out some decorative stitches and press the "start" button. I love that you can operate my machine by either the foot pedal or the start/stop button. There was no way I was going to let Luke use the foot pedal; he likened it too often to the gas pedal on my car, so I had him put the fabric under the presser foot, press the start/stop button, and cut the threads when the stitching was done.

The middle block with the cars, airplanes and dogs is the block Luke made.


The quilt measures 50"X60", so it shouldn't take too long to quilt and bind.

EDIT: This quilt grew...I added to it so it now measures 60 X 75. To see this quilt quilted and bound, click here.

Stitchin'

I was stitching a quilt label and Luke wanted to stitch something, too. So I thought I would share his first stitchery:

Its a mess, but I love it just the same! Its pretty sweet, actually.

Here's the quilt label I stitched...

I finished Luke's quilt top this morning at 5 am. The girls woke up at 3am, so I had to rock them for a while to get them back to sleep. Thing is, once they fell back asleep, I couldn't! So, I finished Luke's quilt top and then knitted for a while. I really enjoyed my time alone and am thinking of trying to make myself go to sleep every night at 9 pm and wake up every morning at 4 or 5 am. That would give me 7 to 8 hours of sleep every night and a few hours every morning to sew or knit. Not a bad idea. Making it work is the hard part!

I'll have photos of the whole quilt tomorrow. Happy Thursday!

:)