Git Down Kitty

It's not a quilt...

2011-09-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

... but it does have a rainbow!

Lukey is in DK this year, so I imagine I will only get away with stuff like this for a teeny bit longer. I better make this year count!

Also, somehow, with TWO little boys, I had no ripped knee jeans in our house. So I got these at a rummage sale for a buck, and when I explained what I was doing the girl gave me two more pair that she hadn't put out because of the rips. Can I get a Woot Woot?

All these babies are good motivation!

2011-08-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

It seems like everyone I know is popping out or cooking up a baby right now. This is fine by me- baby quilts are nice and quick to make! This week the quilt is going to my pastor and his wife. They are having their first baby and the whole church is super excited. The shower is today but I actually had the quilt finished YESTERDAY. Something must be going on here- I am never that early! Maybe I am turning over a new leaf? Hmmm... doubt it. I am calling this an aberration.

Their nursery has a jungle theme with green and brown as the main colors. I found some "Jolly Jungle" fabric at work and fussy cut the squares, and then added some animal print for the strips around.

Close-up of some squares

I wanted the boys to give this special baby a gift, too, so I made a fabric memory game. I thought I invented the idea, but it turns out they've been around a while. One of the girls at work said she was making one to go with an I-Spy quilt- how cute will THAT be? I did do something a little unusual, though. I only had 8 pairs of animals and I wanted a dozen sets. So I stole some photos from the parents' Facebook pages and sewed them into squares. I just put some of the plastic seat protector stuff over the photos.

It will be a while before the baby can play with this game but his mama and daddy DO have a silly streak... I would bet a fat quarter they play it at least once. :)

Lukey and I played a round this morning and I won! But not by much. I thought a clever way to present this would be for the boys to lay out the game (face down) and ask Miss Tobi to play it with them when she gets there. She will be so surprised when she draws the first photo one! And that would just tickle the boys.

I thought of putting one of myself in there wearing a tiara or crown or something but maybe that would be confusing to the baby since I don't normally wear one to church...

HA! I actually worked on a QUILT! Also, have made Awesomest Diaper Bag Ever.

2011-07-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

Lots of pictures, not too many words. I have been BUSY this summer with my kiddos... and my new job at my LOCAL QUILT STORE!!! (And yes, I HAVE brought home a paycheck... once.)


Spinning Wheel- FINALLY quilted!

My first try at quilting with variegated thread. My FMQ needs work, but it's serviceable.

My SIL asked for an owl tote, oh a couple years ago I think. Well, then she got pregnant so I killed two birds with one stone and made an owl diaper bag for her. She LOVES pockets and stuff so it's LOADED.

She packed it up to take to the hospital and was able to put all her stuff AND the baby's stuff in it! Probably needed a forklift to pick it up after that, though.

I have for a long time been mulling over in my head how to finish off Amanda's Mandala Tree Wall Hanging. (So far it's been duct taped. Don't judge me.) Decided to use random squares that match the embroidery thread and make a binding which I have been hand sewing to the edge. This is actually working pretty well.

Another thing I have been working on is the other half of my payment to Amanda- a large teacher sized tote bag. I picked the orange, yellow and green vintage fabric for the lining and then based the outside of the bag on those colors. It's yet another version of "that Anthropologie pillow" applique. I want a bag like this for myself now! Good thing I have enough of the vintage fabric (tablecloth) left!

I have been super busy with life/kids/work and really have not been able to sew much at all this summer. Hopefully that will change- I have MANY UFOs to complete! Also, MANY IOUs. And of course, there is the never ending stream of projects I want to START running through my brain...

If anyone is local... or semi-local? Come to a QUILT SHOW!

2011-04-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

I attended the last show put on by the Northwoods Quilters- this is a local guild. I live in a "twin cities" area (that's tongue in cheek- really they are "twin towns") so this guild has quilters from both towns (Marinette, WI and Menominee, MI) as well as from the surrounding small townships and "country folk". There's a lot of talent in this area! In these "twin towns" of about 20,000 people we have two thriving quilt shops. That says something about the quality of work you will see at this show.

I was VERY impressed by the range of work that was displayed here. There truly was something for everyone. I am not a member of the guild- with the boys being young, I just can't add another thing to my plate, but in the future I can see it becoming a large part of my life. If you are within driving distance I highly recommend making the trip.

And I WILL have one quilt entered. They accepted some entries from non-members so if you go you can see my pride and joy, Cherry Surprise, hanging. I'm gonna wash it- we've been sleeping under it during this cold winter, and get her all ready to go soon. THEN I get to work at the LQS right by my house while the show is going on. So if you DO come to town for the show, you have to come to Quilter's Haven and say hi to me! :)

(I'll be the one with the goofy smile petting the fabric.)

Conversation with a 5 yr. old

2011-04-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Luke (as we drive past a soccer field): "Hey, they are praxticing."
Me (vacantly): "Mmhmm"
Luke: "I'm not good at that."
Me (still vacantly): "Well, you just keep kicking it and kicking it and you get better."
Luke: "No, I mean saying it. Practicing. HEY! I said it! Practicing, practicing, practicing."
Me (not as vacantly): "You're practicing saying 'practicing'!"
Luke: "Haha!"
pause
Luke: "Practicing, practicing, practicing, praxticing... AH, MAN."
Me (vacant again): "Just keep practicing."

By the time we got home I didn't think I could say it anymore... I guess that's where all the vacancy comes from. If you pay attention all the time you'll go nuts.

Seriously? Seven Entries? Well, you guys had good odds...

2011-04-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

I know that a lot more than 7 of you looked at the giveaway... does no one want free things? Does no one like my stuff?? Were people just really busy last week? I guess next time I'll have to give away some fabric.

So... I used a random number generator where I put in 2-8 (one person had added to her comment) and it spit out number 7, which is Naomi! Naomi is my Husband's Cousin's Wife, so is a kind of shirt-tail relative by marriage kind of person. We have a similar sense of humor and share a love of crafting, writing, thrifting and decorating. She is working on her THIRD quilt ever and it's absolutely freaking adorable.

Naomi's oldest daughter loves the movie Wall-E. Like, LOVES it. So Naomi found a tiny scrap of Wall-E fabric and built this entire work of art around it. There are bits of everything in here: vintage sheets, textured fabrics, new fabrics, old, everything. I JUST LOVE IT.

The center is an applique she designed and made herself. Each piece in this is appliqued or sewn- nothing painted on here.

Not too shabby for a first try at applique, no?

The back is mostly a vintage sheet with some cute appliqued and thread painted squares on it.

This square has two hands on it- the green one is Sydney's version of tracing her hand, and the orange one is Mommy's version of Sydney's hand being traced. How absolutely awesome is this idea? And what stellar execution! Naomi is basically self-taught, too. She thinks of something and just dives right in to it.

This gal is crazy good. I am so proud to call her my Husband's Cousin's Wife! Naomi, I will contact you for your snail mail addy. Or maybe someday I will just surprise you and show up on your doorstep... well, ok, I wouldn't do that to you. Unless I called on the way or something... :)

100 posts!!!!! HAPPY giveaway DAY!

2011-04-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

Yep, this is it! The big 100th post... and we all know what that means! GIVEAWAY!!

I will be sending a set of personalized magnets to the winner, as well as a vintage sheet pennant banner in spring colors! And maybe some other fun stuff... you never know what might fall in the box.

To get your entry in, just tell me what kind of magnets you would choose if you won. Like, flowers or butterflies, quilts or roosters, mandalas or cherries, photographs, whatever you think would be cool.
(ETA- I WILL ship internationally! This is for anyone.)

These were a good seller for me, as well as the crayons. I packaged them individually and in sets and the individual ones sold much better. And the crayon totes went like hotcakes- I had them at $10.

Here are some pics of my booth:

Next time we will know a little better what we have for space and stuff. I think we did well with this for a first try. The pennants really drew the eye. I took in $250, which of course is not all profit, but I thought it was respectable for a first try. IT WAS A BLAST! I had a grin on my face all day. I had a wonderful helper. Jenn lives a few minutes from me and I found her blog and we have now become pretty good friends. (The Internet ROCKS.) So she decided to put a few things in (prints of cute/funny sayings) and kind of see what the fuss was about. I would NOT want to run a booth alone, I can tell you that! So, thanks, Jenn!

I will leave this post up til Sunday. Today is Wed, so you have a little time to get your entries in. Make sure you leave a way for me to contact you if you are set to no-reply. You can send people over and if they put in their comment that you sent them and they win, I will give you a set of personalized magnets just for sending them here!

Sometimes you just are wandering around in your own home and you stumble across a treasure.

2011-03-22T20:35:00.000-07:00

(His spelling is a little off... at least I THINK it is... if not, we have big problems.)

Where have you been?

2011-02-25T23:18:00.000-08:00

I have had no new comments to read, no funny emails from my friends... oh..... wait.....

I haven't made a new blog post in WEEKS. Doh!

I do have a reason for this.

I have been working like a 7 yr. old child in a sweatshop in some undeveloped country.

I can see why this craft show stuff is not for the faint of heart.

This is what I have been doing while I wasn't playing on the internet:

Got this mounted and now need to hand stitch a patchwork strip around it.


This was for my sister to give as a gift.


Sent this to Brady's class where it was received quite well if I do say so myself.

Apparently there was a bit of trouble because some kids were "jumping a lot" (B's words) when they were supposed to be standing in line under it. Can you blame them? I want to touch it, too, and I made it!


This is a decoupaged picture frame which will probably be made into a chalkboard/magnet board.

(If I can part with it. I kinda LOVE it.)

This is another thing I've been working on: decoupaged clothespins.

Made over 400 so far. I will be using them in my booth to hang things as well as selling them in packs.

I've been trying to come up with funny/clever tags for my stuff. I thought I would boost sales if people stood around in my booth laughing at the packaging.

(Plus I just like to make people laugh.)

Here are a few of the tags for the clothespins:

I figured they would make really awesome teacher gifts so I tried to have a few reflecting that.

I have a handful of these appliqued embroidery rings made up and want to do some superhero and cartoon character ones from my vintage sheets. I don't know if non-sewers will like them, but they are fairly quick to make and will make my booth look pretty if nothing else.

And then CRAYONS:

...and more crayons.

I have made many many many crayons... and must make more. These things had better sell. I'm just sayin'.

I want to make a few pennants and just see if they move. I will do some with kid themed fabric, maybe sports, and a few Eastery ones. They are pretty labor intensive so I don't know how many I will make, but enough to get an idea on if they will sell or not.

Also working on some marble magnets- if you've never seen these, google them. They are so cool!

These were just some I made for us. I wanted to practice because we will be doing this as a craft with the Kid's Group at church. Totally fun and rewarding. I will make some up to sell, too. Maybe I can get the kids to make them for me...? (Speaking of sweat shops!)

Eat your veggies! (We got a seed catalog.)

So that is what I've been doing. In between being a mom. I did get about 2 dozen of the regular crayon totes made up, but would like to bring about 60 with me to the show. So I have lots more to make! I have orders for about 10 and so those will have to be made first.

I am surprised by how much time things like packaging and collecting materials takes.

I am a bit skeered- hoping I at least get some of my money back for this stuff.... what if no one likes it and doesn't buy ANYTHING??? EEK! Well, I guess then I wouldn't have to buy Christmas presents for a couple years....

There's probably about a 5 gallon bucket full of dog poop under that pretty white snow...

2011-01-29T14:32:00.000-08:00

...so no matter how much it looks like a delicious piece of fabric pie DON'T LICK IT!!

Today is Capital Letter Day in My World.

2011-01-20T12:23:00.000-08:00

I will now be Selling Stuff.

In an effort to avoid getting a real job and having to *GASP* wear actual clothes every day (like SOCKS and Not-Pajama-Pants) I have decided to start making things to sell. This will obviously not take any Effort or Time at all and will enable me to very quickly move to wherever it is the Rich People go and start living In Style with leather furniture and big screen t.v.s and tiny purse dogs and all that. And an Escalade. It'll be great. You can all come and visit me. I'll have a guest house.

In all seriousness, a friend and I have decided to sign up for a craft show in April to try our luck at selling our "arts" and "crafts". Jenn and I will be sharing a booth and our theme for this show will be "Kid's Stuff". (Original, aren't we?) We are going to coordinate our items and try to have a lot of fun. We plan to have Colored Lights and Alcoholic Party Drinks in our booth so of course we will be massively popular and we will sell everything we put a price tag on.

(I am just kidding. We don't have a liquor license so we won't actually be selling pina colodas in our Child Themed Booth.)

Since I am making things to sell, I might as well list them on Etsy, right? So here THAT is:

My Etsy Store Which is Named After My Blog

And here are some pictures of the things I have been making:

Regular Crayon Totes

DEEEluxe Crayon Totes With Jumbo Crayons

These are the Jumbo Crayons that come in the above tote.

Awesome crayon puzzle

Jungle Animal Crayons

Ladybug Crayons

Butterfly Crayons

The crayon sets will come packed in these adorable COLORFUL HAPPY FUN boxes!

So lately, when I wasn't Ruining Gorgeous Fabric by trying to make An Incredibly Difficult Designer Tote Bag, I have been peeling crayons and making crayon totes. Good times, people!

I want to cry.

2011-01-19T14:51:00.000-08:00

This does not look like the one in the book.

It might look okay if you were driving past really fast... in a snowstorm... at night.

But get a little closer...

I don't have it in me to take it apart to try to fix it. At least not right now.

This bag was actually physically PAINFUL to make. It hurt my hands and shoulders to shove all the layers through my machine.

And then I flipped it right side out thinking, "It's all going to be worth it!"

And it wasn't.

Amanda's Mandala Tree Day 6- Done!

2011-01-11T17:08:00.000-08:00

Amanda's Mandala Tree

Day 6- Done!

Now I just have to make it into something!

This was TOTALLY fun- I will definitely be making more Mandala Trees.

Amanda's Mandala Tree Day 5- almost done

2011-01-10T19:34:00.000-08:00

Amanda's Mandala Tree

Day 5

Skipped a day there- yesterday I got to work inventory at the LQS. They pay in FABRIC.

*giant grin*

Amanda's Mandala Tree Day 4

2011-01-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

Amanda's Mandala Tree

Day 4

Amanda's Mandala Tree

2011-01-07T15:15:00.000-08:00

"Mandala Tree"

Day 3

These really aren't true mandalas but since they also don't really grow on trees I guess I can fudge it a bit.

(It's called "artistic license".)

A makeover and a WIP

2011-01-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

Don't fall over! I am working on a tote WIP today! But it's a new project so I can't really count it toward my PhD. I do have a good excuse for starting something new, though. Notice the cute new logo? Well, I have been wanting a cat-on-a-sewing-machine logo for a while now and finally conned someone into an art trade.

My shirt-tail cousin/friend, Amanda (who incidentally has a new blog and a new Etsy store), designed this for me. Amanda is an amazing artist and also an elementary art teacher. So she is getting a special teacher tote and I got a supercute logo.

This is a panel that will be worked into her tote bag. I thread painted the tree trunk, raw edge appliqued the circles and now am embellishing by hand embroidering. Eventually there will be leaves- I am thinking paisleys for leaves, but I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda gal so we'll see what happens after I put green thread in my needle. Always an adventure here.

some closeups

This was my first attempt at thread painting and I liked it. And it looks ok! I can definitely see myself doing this again.

Conversations from a public restroom

2010-12-29T18:19:00.000-08:00

Me (in one of two stalls) (hovering over the WET toilet seat): "Lukey, can you hand me some toilet paper? I don't have any."
Sounds of rustling from other of two stalls. Very LONG pause.
Luke: "Here."
Hands me a wet piece of toilet paper about the size of my fingernail... ok, I'm exaggerating. It was probably the size of my big toenail.
Me: "Uh, Bud, that's not big enough. Can you get me a bigger one?"
Rustling noises commence. Long pause.
Luke: "I have to pee. BAD."
Me: "Ok. Ok. Go pee."
Pee sounds.
Flushing sounds.
(I am still hovering. Almost air dry by this point.)
Me: "Ok, Luke, can you get me a bigger piece?"
Rustling sounds.
Luke: "Auugh!"
Me: "Take your gloves off, Bud."
I see the gloves fall on the floor.
Many rustling noises. I start to worry that he is unwinding the whole industrial roll.
Luke: "Here you go."
Hands me a damp piece of toilet paper about the size of my hand.
I give in and use it, figuring I will just wash my hands REALLY good. And take a Clorox bath tonight.
We exit the stalls at the same time.
Luke: "That was YOU in there?!"

Seriously people, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Conversations from little kids

2010-12-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

Brady: (storming out of bedroom) "I am not playing anymore if you're going to be invisible!"
Luke: (coming out also) "I don't want to be invisible!"
Olivia: (From bedroom-????) :"How about we ALL be invisible?"
Brady: "No!!! How can we play if we can't see each other?"
Luke: "We could all be invisible."
Olivia: "How about we can only be invisible 10 times?"
Luke: "We can all be invisible 10 times."
Brady: (very upset) "NO!!! I'M NOT PLAYING!!"
Olivia: "How about we can each be invisible ONE time?"
Brady: "You're invisible NOW."
Luke: "No one should be invisible."
Brady: "I'm not playing."
Me: "I have to go downstairs."

I think I'll let them work this one out on their own. I can't see them anyway.

Kindergartener Tote Bag 2010

2010-12-22T06:59:00.000-08:00

Last year I made Brady's kindergarten teacher a giant tote bag.

(Some of you might remember this- at the time my children were suffering from the common childhood ailment "Koolaid Moustache". We are having another fairly serious bout of it this year.)

The bag was so big and sturdy that you could put a kindergartner in it so I named it the Kindergartner Bag. All of my teacher friends/family loved it and wanted one, so I decided it would be my go-to gift for all teachers- even non-kindergarten teachers.

(You never know when you'll have to carry around a little kid in a giant tote bag.)

Here is this year's "kindergartner bag":

The teacher has this butterfly print in her classroom as a curtain and a pillow so I know she likes it.

Her favorite color is yellow. The lining on this is a vintage sheet.

Added yellow rick rack too- fun! And it helps stabilize the interfacing where I had to piece it. These bags are so big that I have to piece the interfacing before I can use it.


This bag has 3 pen pockets and a cell phone sized pocket on top of a book/folder pocket. There is also a book/folder pocket on the other side. Brady chose a "Where's Waldo?" book at the used book store to put inside the pocket.

Stats:

28" wide on top
20" tall
20" wide on bottom
8" deep

I feel like I am a bag lady instead of a quilter lately. I have gone through two BOLTS of interfacing since Thanksgiving. I'm gonna have to see about getting that stuff wholesale!

Conversations from a Fierce Jungle Cat

2010-12-18T06:22:00.000-08:00

"I am a Fierce Jungle Cat! I must HUNT my prey- the lowly thread.. I mean STRINGSNAKE!"

"HA! Gotcha!"

"And you thought you could escape by slithering down here... There is no escape! I will BITE you!"

"Rawwwwrrrrrr!"

"I will pull it out of the machine and BITE it and EAT it. I must protect my Human! The Stringsnake could hurt her!"

("Look close- you can see my tongue sticking out.")

("This is what I am trying to stop from being finished.")

("Drat! She managed to get this far. I must step up my efforts.")

Pants Leg Bread Bag Tutorial- WARNING!! PICTURE HEAVY!!

2010-12-12T18:28:00.000-08:00

Pants Leg Bread Bag Tutorial

A tutorial in which one cat is helpful

and one is very lazy.

I don't know about other people's husbands, but mine has a thing for squished bread. He LOVES it. At least, I think he does because he always makes sure to put ours beneath lots of heavy things in the grocery cart or, failing that, he will sit on it in the van on the way home. His sons seem to have inherited this proclivity. (Maybe it's genetically passed down on the male side?)

A while back I saw this awesome tutorial, but I am way too lazy to do all that work when I can find a faster easier way. So here is my Not-As-Cute-But-Useful-Nonetheless-And-Also-Very-Quick-To-Make-Plus-Uses-Stuff-That-Would-Be-Thrown-Out-In-The-Trash-Including-Pants-Legs-And-Empty-Coke-Boxes Bread Bag. Hereafter referred to as "Pants Leg Bread Bag" for short.

You will need a pair of old pants, which should be at least a size 12 or so and preferably have boot cut bottoms. I used a 16 or 18 and had plenty of extra room. These were straight leg pants- I don't think this would work with a pair that was not fairly even. You're going to be using the bottom of the leg of the pants, so if the hem is nice, that's a bonus. Mine had some fraying so I covered the bottom with a cute bit of leftover fabric at the end.

You'll also need a cardboard box like this- I used the one from a fridge pack of Coke for these ones, but any flavor will work- even (makes face) Pepsi. Make sure that your box fits inside the leg of the pants. If it doesn't, find some fatter pants at a thrift store, you skinny freak.

Trim the box to 13 inches- this works out to be right where the perforation is so half of it's done for you!

(See? I told you I was lazy...)

Then cut the bottom of your pants leg off.

I cut it at 15" the first time but should have cut it longer. I think 17"-18" would be perfect. If you cut it too short, no worries- you can add a band around the top later to make it longer.

You will end up with a fairly squared off, oblong tube of fabric. See how one end has a hem? Oh, yeah, baby- there's that lazy thing again.

Now, stitch along the unhemmed end of the rectangle. I used contrasting thread so it would show in the pictures. You can use whatever color thread you want! Most people match it, but honestly, I would use whatever's loaded on the machine.

Now we are going to make a fancy little ruler. You need a piece of duct tape about 8 inches long or so.

Line it up with a ruler or your cutting mat and make a mark at the inches.

Now, take your little measuring tape and lightly stick it to the edge of your box base. See how we are at about 4.5"? You can just remember the size or mark it with a dot. Leave that tape there for right now.

Now, take the sewed edge of your pants leg and make a "bird beak" out of it. You want your seam to run down the middle of the beak. Try to get your top and bottom seams lined up just a bit off from each other so you don't end up with a really thick seam for your sewing machine to break a needle on.

Now, get your tape and find the spot on the bird beak where your beginning and end marks coincide with the edge of the beak.

Now sew a seam on the fatter part of the beak, just to the side of the tape. DON'T sew through the tape. That will give you headaches trying to pull it off.

After you do one side, go to the opposite bird beak and stitch that down, too.

Pull the tape off and cut the tips of both beaks off.

Unless someone can think of something clever to do with that teeny piece, you can throw it away.

Turn your leg inside out. You should have a nice square bottom now. Don't worry if your seams don't line up- the front of my pants were narrower than the back so that's how it worked out. We aren't making fine art here- just a grocery sack.

Now, put your box inside. Uh, oh! This is the leg I cut at 15" so it's too short. But we'll fix that later.

Allow helper cat to rub his face on the box...

...and try to see what's inside...

.. and then push him down on the floor. "Get down, Mooch!"

At this point I made up the other leg and we will go forward with that one. I will show you how to fix the too-short one at the end.

This hem had a quite a bit of fraying so I cut it off and will show you how to put your own hem on it. If your leg bottom looks good, or if it's frayed and you just don't care, skip ahead to the picture with the pink stitching.

Fold the edge down and pin it so that it's even or just a little longer than the box.

After it's all pinned you will have this.

Take the box out and set it aside.

You don't want a raw edge showing on the inside of the hem, so fold it in half and tuck it under like so.

Do that all the way around.

Stitch your hem down. I just use a straight stitch.

Ok, everyone who skipped the hem part- start here.

We are going to make the strap. If you have an old cloth belt or a section of store-bought handle stuff, by all means, use it! Save yourself some effort!

What I used was a scrap of leftover fabric from another project. It was about 8 or 9 inches wide (I didn't measure), but really you can get away with just about any size, depending how wide you want your strap. Trim it so it's a rectangle. You want it as long as you desire your strap, plus an inch or two to tuck under on the ends.

Fold and press the raw edges of the long sides in. I fold mine in half and press to get a line and then open it back up and press each raw side to the center. I had a little extra here so I ended up with some tucked under which is fine. It will just make your strap thicker.

Fold the end up an inch or so and kind of bend in the corners a tad. This will give you a nice clean end to your strap so that you can sew it to the outside of your bag if you want.

Now fold the strap in half so that the raw edge is inside and the two folded sides are lined up alongside each other. By folding those little bits in the previous step you won't have anything hanging out on your ends. You do this to both ends and pin along the length of the strap.

Stitch very close to the edge. I try to stay about an 1/8" in. This is going to show so keep it as neat as you can. Unless you don't care. In that case just make sure to get the whole thing sewed shut along the long edge and both ends.

This next step is optional- you can use it to make your bag all pretty or to lengthen it or you don't even have to do it. We are going to use sort of the same process we used to make the strap.

Make a rectangle of fabric and fold the raw edges to the middle the same way you did on the strap. We aren't going to stitch this one closed, though.

(Push nosy cat onto floor for the 500th time.)

Now, take your trim and put one half on each side of the hem at the top of the bag. Make sure it's even all the way around.

When you get to where the ends meet, trim so that you have about 2 or 3 extra inches. Both ends are raw at this point.
Yell at cat who is getting VERY annoying at this point:

"GIT DOWN KITTY!!"

(And you were wondering where I got the name for my blog...)

Take one of your ends, open it up and finger press it in about an inch.

"Ok, fine, Mooch, if you won't get down at least give me a hand... er, paw."

After you have it finger pressed, fold the edges back to the center

Now put it back over the hem. Take the other end of the trim- the raw edged one- and tuck it inside the finger pressed edge. You will open it up to do that. You're going to end up with the raw edge tucked completely inside the folded one.

I took several pictures of this because it's kind of hard to explain.

Pin through all the layers.

This is the inside of the bag.

This is the outside.

Now stitch down the trim piece. Once again, I just used a regular old straight stitch.

You want to start and end near your tucked in end so that you can make any adjusting that you have to at the very end.

Almost done!! Now we're going to sew the strap to the bag. For this one I sewed the strap to the inside, but you can put it on the outside if you want. I didn't pin it, but you could.

Maybe you SHOULD. I sewed my bag shut.

Seam ripper= my friend.

I sewed a box shape along the handle where it met the bag. This is pretty and also nice for reinforcement, although you probably won't need it (unless you buy whole grain bread. HAHA!). Sew both ends of the strap to the bag.

And you're done! Put the box inside and go buy some bread!!

This is a cheapo loaf of bread so it's a little small. If you normally buy the whole grain loaves which are shorter and wider, you can still fit it in here, but to give yourself plenty of room you might want to look for a different box, and maybe get a pair of pants that belonged to a very short, very wide person.

It holds up under bananas!

It holds up under sugar!

(Also, since when did a 5 lb bag of sugar become a 4 lb bag? AND IT COSTS MORE NOW! Stupid inflation.)

This next picture is for Andrea.

Q. What kind of pants do you use for baguettes?

A. Skinny jeans!!! Ahahahaha!

I hope this is useful and fun for everyone! I am making some with four soda boxes taped together because we get our bread at an outlet and I tend to buy 4 loaves at a time. I will post pictures of variations on Flickr. If you make a bag or have an improvement please join and post pictures!

The finished bags would be great to sell at craft shows so go ahead. And let me know how it goes! Feel free to hand out printed copies of the tutorial, but please don't sell them. I would like this to remain a FREE project!! Thank you!!

Oops! I almost forgot to show you how to make the too-short bag longer.
It's almost exactly the same as how we added the pink check trim, but instead of butting the ironed edge to the hem, we are going to pull it outward.

So here is the too-short bag. I forgot to take some of the pictures the first go-round so I kind of cheated and used the leftovers to demonstrate.

I had a scrap end from a vintage sheet laying around so that's what I used, but any chunk of fabric that is large enough will work. You will need a rectangle big enough to make your bag longer. In this case about I needed about 3 inches. I doubled that so I could fold it in half and then added an inch or two for overlap.

Fold the raw edges of your fabric in to the center just as you did above with the pink check and iron it.

Instead of sewing it with the fold up tight to the edge of the pants hem, you are going to have it extend out to elongate the bag. Only the bottom of the new fabric is going to be over the pants fabric.

Pin it down all the way around, making sure to keep it even.

Now topstitch next to the edge, making sure that you are catching the pants leg fabric and both edges of the sheet/fabric.

There you go!

I attached the handle to the outside of this bag.

Hopefully that made sense. If anyone gets stuck, message me and I will try to help you and then I can fix whatever it is that is confusing.

I've been tagged. And I'm only doing half of it because I'm just that way.

2010-12-11T20:23:00.000-08:00

One of the most amusing blogs that I read is Quilting in my Pyjamas. We regularly exchange hysterically funny emails, mostly about the things in my couch. Someday one or the other of us should publish some of them as a series of blog posts. Although maybe no one else would get it...

So anyway, I've been tagged by Shay, which is cool and all and I got some new readers- HI!- but I don't tag people back because some people don't like it and I feel like it puts them on the spot. I am just going to answer the questions and if anyone who stops by wants to play along, feel free.

The "award" is the "Cherry on Top" award and you are supposed to write about 3 things you love, beside fabric, obviously, because that would be... well, obvious. I love:

1. ROYGBV
2. Cats
3. Fiber optic things- like Christmas trees (preferably with fiber optic angels on the tops) or pictures with moving water (and sound!) or those flower lamps that you always see at thrift stores or really ANY thing that glows and changes color.

I think the reasons that I love this stuff do not even need to be articulated. Of these things, sadly, I only own three (or four if you count the cats separately). I don't count the rainbow because you really can't OWN that. I do consider that I own my cats, although they might think otherwise. As far as fiber optic things, I have a Christmas tree and an angel. I really need one of those flower lamps so I can enjoy the beauty all year.

Can you imagine a fiber optic rainbow colored cat??? It would be as beautiful as a gold unicorn or a fat baby. But probably an unbearable snob.

Pictures! Of Bags!

2010-12-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures my big bag order. One of my friends ordered 7 bags from me. She owns a salon and is giving each of the stylists, the receptionists and the massage therapist a tote for Christmas. As if that isn't nice enough she is filling them up! Lucky ladies! I want one!

I quilted the interiors and exteriors to heavy interfacing individually before I sewed them together so the bags stand alone. Which is saying a lot- these bags are BIG.

LARGE bag- for massage therapist to carry blankets to and from work.


All the pockets in the different bags are the same- behind are pen pockets, outside is a pocket that would hold a magazine or papers

other side- divided into 4 sections

Exterior- Amy Butler Lacework with an orange lining

Interior- fussy cut flowers for pen pocket (this one bag is different- the pen pocket is outside the paper holding pocket)

Exterior fabric is Nicey Jane- Hello Roses in Olive. Everyone that sees this LOVES this fabric. I do too- am working on one for myself made from this same print.


The bags for the stylists. The shop colors are brown and turquoise. Really cool!


All seven bags! I am pretty proud of them- they turned out really nice. YAY! Glad to be done with this.

A Bit of Solidarity

2010-12-07T12:03:00.000-08:00

A bit of solidarity

So my new camera came and I thought you might enjoy seeing what I've been looking at for several weeks.

(My grandma would die if she saw this...)

Later, I promise pictures of BAGS.

Conversations from Sunday School

2010-12-05T15:01:00.000-08:00

Miss T: "So, because Solomon asked God for wisdom, what else did God give him?"

Brady: "Lots of stuff."

Lukey: "Santa gives lots of presents.

Miss T: "Ok, but we're talking about what God gave Solomon."

Lukey: "They're a lot alike."

V(Another student): "Not really."

Lukey: "I guess you're right. Santa's a little fatter." (holds up thumb and finger about an inch apart)

Because I went ahead and ordered a new camera Paul found the missing one. And I must confess: I am the culprit. I had put it in a box of sequins (??? I'm blaming it on the codeine) and set it up high on a shelf in my sewing room. I have no recollection of doing this, but the aviator and the cowboy could not have reached the shelf without extreme measures. Their mother must have done it... and yes, I apologized. In my defense there are a LOT of pictures of Legos on the the camera so I was NOT the last one to use it. I probably would only have taken maybe 5 pictures of Legos. Or none.

However, I took the opportunity to upgrade my camera so when I get it I will probably be posting much better pictures. We can hope. And now there is a camera for ME, and a camera for the REST OF THE FAMILY. So no one can blame anyone else for taking theirs. Although I imagine I will still be expected to keep track of both of them.

Would you like some cheese with that?

2010-12-01T17:12:00.000-08:00

I have been sewing a fair amount lately but I have no pictures because, according to one son,

SOMEONE

or, according to the other son,

SOMEONE ELSE

was taking pictures with my camera and now, well, it's nowhere to be found. Most of what I have been doing is finishing up ancient WIPS and working on the bag order (which is due next week). It's not very much fun anymore. No more custom orders for me. Turns out I don't like doing the same thing over and over.

I have been miserable lately (I have pneumonia- YUCK!) and what time wasn't spent sewing or sleeping was spent laying on my couch reading. I even made a permanent dent in the cushions. They are about an inch and a half thick now where I parked my caboose. This makes my butt hurt, but not enough to actually get up. Or even move to the other end.

Of course, being an inconsiderate wife I timed this illness with beer- oops, I mean DEER- season and got zero help from my offspring's "FATHER" "FIGURE" (HEAVY sarcasm- note the caps, italics and quotation marks). I DID get a lot of help from my mom, sister and mother-in-law, so at least the women in my family rock. My mother-in-law kept the kids on Thanksgiving so I slept all day and had frozen pizza for supper. Poor me. Sigh.

So what else can I whine about...? Oh, I'll just quit now. I'm tired from typing. I should take a nap. Maybe I will think of something else to complain about later and find the energy to write a paragraph or two about it.

In the meantime everyone should leave fawning comments telling me how bad they feel for me and what jerks men can be. Probably won't be too hard to come up with something since I'm sure you've met one or two and they're all idiots.

I used a pattern!! An Amy Butler pattern, no less!

2010-11-15T21:44:00.000-08:00

Due to being absolutely miserable with The Plague or The Bloody Snotty Death Cough or whatever it is I have, I have been reeeeeally lazy for the last week. I think Child Protective Services should come and remove my children from this unsafe, unsanitary environment.

(I wonder if I called in a complaint if they would figure out it was me...?)

Anyway, as I was languishing on the sofa this weekend, the library called and said they had a book at the front desk for me. I put a sweatshirt on over my crusty a-leper-wouldn't-wear-them pajamas and brought my germy self down there to see which book it was (since I had forgotten what all I had requested). It was Amy Butler's Style Stitches!! I was so excited to get my greedy little hands on it. Almost made me feel better for a second.
Almost.

I have a friend who recently started working at the library and she has been amazing me with the books she can find. I do catalog searches and come up with nothing, but if I ask her she can almost always find them for me. So: make sure you check with the librarians at the front desk if you can't find the book you want in a catalog search. They may be able to get it for you.

This was the first time I had ever actually used an Amy Butler pattern or read one of her books, but I love the fabric and I wanted to see what the patterns were like. (Plus I think I need to learn to use patterns. And plus her bags are really cute.)

The book is beautiful. It could be a coffee table book. The photography is gorgeous, and the pages almost have a scrap-booked kind of look to them. It is well laid out and has a ring binding so you don't have to worry about it falling apart. The pattern pieces are all full size and are in a cute little folder at the back of the book.

I have not used patterns very many times (for anything, not just bags) so some of the terminology was confusing to me, but I managed to get the first bag in the book- the Cosmo bag- finished during the past few days. I have seen online where people made this bag in a sitting, but it took me much longer. Just the cutting took hours. Once the cutting was done it really seemed to go quickly. The projects are arranged easiest to hardest, and this was the first one in the book. EEK! It was a little tricky I thought. I definitely would not have been able to make this bag if I was a beginner. I am a bit nervous about tackling one of the harder ones.

The book has you cut all the pattern pieces out, then the fusible interfacing, and then you iron the interfacing pieces to the fabric pieces. If I make another one, or any of the other bags with lots of pieces like this, I will iron the interfacing on to the yardage in big chunks and THEN cut out the fabric pieces which would save a step. It would use a little more interfacing, but not much, and the time saved would be totally worth it.

hanging (empty)

sitting (empty)

I also wish the book had more drawings to illustrate the individual steps. I was quite lost a few times, but that could be partly due to me not bringing my A game this week. I am going to make a stiff bottom insert and see if that helps the bag hold it's shape more on the inside.

I did not divide the pockets as the book showed. I wanted to be able to put papers or magazines in the inner pockets so I offset the stitching line to one side or the other. I also added some smaller pockets behind the large ones. Not crazy about the pockets this bag has, but that's a really easy fix.

I have to rip apart the top stitching that is on the inside of the handle. It doesn't look nice, and I didn't catch everything I was supposed to. This is the last place you sew after you flip the bag right side out, and it's got a lot of curves so it's kinda tricky.

Overall, I very much like the book and will buy it. There are some other really cute patterns in it and I learned a LOT making just this one bag.

I heart lime green...

2010-11-09T10:55:00.000-08:00

... ergo, our front "Fo-yay":

I am contemplating which of my vintage sheets to slice into for new curtains for the door window...

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T18:17:00.000-07:00

We play with our food around here. Yes. Candy is food.

Finish for Friday

2010-10-29T07:35:00.000-07:00

This week I have been playing around making myself some bags. These are not for my big order. I am just trying to teach myself new ways to construct things.

I hate to use patterns. My mind just does not work like other people's minds, I guess, so I have to work things out in my own head and make them that way.

This purse/bag took me about 5 or 6 hours. I would have been faster, but I started with no concrete idea and kept changing my mind about how I wanted it to look. I definitely learned a lot and the next one I make like this will be much nicer. However, I am happy enough with this one that I will carry it.

I think I might add a vintage jeweled pin or a scrappy gold fabric flower to the yoke.

Used a magnetic clasp and lined it using the same fabrics from the outside of the bag, but reversed their positions

Shirred the sides and bottom

The gray fabric is a $2/yd one from Walmart and the flowered velvet is a skirt from Goodwill. Stupid skinny size 4 people. Their clothes just do NOT have enough fabric.

My other sewing finish this week is something for my friend's grandfather. The arms of his couch are worn through, although the rest of it is in pretty good shape. We found a couple coordinating fabrics and made reversible arm covers for him. Well, actually my friend found the fabric and I made the covers. I told her she could tell him that she made them and take the credit but she said she doesn't want anyone thinking she can do stuff like that. I can definitely see her point.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out and they really weren't hard at all.

Now, don't go telling anyone that I know how to make these. I'll deny it!

I am linking up to Lit and Laundry's Finish For Friday. Check it out!

Yes, Virginia, you CAN spray paint your clothes.

2010-10-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

The boys wanted to be Mario and Luigi for a Halloween party last weekend.

(Actually, I think they would like to be Mario and Luigi most of the time.)

Well, boys, ask and ye shall receive.

These were super-easy and cheap. I hit a few thrift stores and found some overalls which were very faded and run down. I simply laid them in the driveway and spray-painted them bright blue. The hats I was pretty lucky with. The red one was from Goodwill and I just had to spray the brim red, and the other one was originally blue and I spray-painted the whole thing green. It didn't cover very well so I used the leftover felt from the letters and glued it on the hat. The white circles are quilt batting and the letters are cut from felt and I just glued them all on. No sewing here- just lots of spray paint and glue.

It looks like I missed a spot here, but I think he just had the straps flipped around.

Don't they look awesome? Of course they do.

And they weren't excited at all as you can see.

I had to dress up for the party, too, so of course I was a KITTEH! This is because I was able to make my entire costume in about 4 minutes. So the funny part...:

I inadvertently used a regular black marker instead of the erasable one. We all had mustaches or whiskers for a couple days. Paul laughed and laughed and laughed. And then every once in a while he meowed at me.

These are my crappy old safety glasses because OUR 6 MONTH OLD (MUTT) PUPPY ATE MY GLASSES. Like, literally ate the glass. There were a few tiny bits of shattered glass left along with a very mangled frame. You'd think that would make her sick, but, no, she was fine. Must be the lab in her.

The boys had to dress up today for another event and they both insisted they would NOT have mustaches.

I promised if we used eyeliner it would come off, but they don't trust me anymore.

One tote down, six to go

2010-10-22T19:29:00.000-07:00

In case you missed my last post, I am making 7 bags for an order for a friend. Today I finished the first one.

(I want to keep it.)

I wish the green would show up more true. It's a very limey green, but on here it looks almost minty. I need a better camera or something. Or better lighting in a better house. Or something.

I wanted a really stiff bag that would be easy to fill so I used a heavyweight interfacing (Peltex? I think it was called?) and quilted it about a half an inch apart before I cut out the front and back. I did the quilting after I did the applique. It helped, but I only used a lightweight fusible interfacing for the lining and next time I think I will use the heavier weight for both. I would like the bag to stand up on it's own, which is asking a lot of a bag this size. Speaking of, it is:

27" across on the top.

19" across on the bottom

8" deep

17" high

The straps are about 3 ft long

Those measurements have no rhyme or reason, beside the fact that I cut it out to use the entire piece of brown upholstery fabric that I had. This was as big as I could get it- trust me, there were barely some shreds of waste.

I only put 3 pockets inside- one for pens (or scissors), one that would be good for holding a cell phone and one that is pretty large. It holds a magazine with room to spare.

This was my first attempt at a loop/button closure. Notice the marking pen on the bag. Sign of a true seamstress, that. Or, no wait, that's sewing through your finger, isn't it? Never mind. I'm just a hack.

Next post: Mario and Luigi costumes. No sewing. Did you know you can spray paint clothes?

I am linking up to two parties this week. I actually made myself finish this today so I could get in on the fun. These parties are good for me.

Lit and Laundry hosts Finish For Friday, which does not have to be a sewing related finish, and Amylouwho hosts a Sew and Tell every Friday. Both are super fun to cruise around. Now, go! Enjoy!

In the works

2010-10-18T20:19:00.000-07:00

Please excuse the crazy glare. When I started blogging I thought my photography skills might improve as my quilting skills did, but it turns out you have to actually work at things in order to get better at them.

This is for a set of bags I am making for a friend. I have an order!! I am sort of easing my way into making this sewing thing a possible money-making gig. My friend owns a business and wants to give her employees each a custom bag for a Christmas gift. (Awesome boss, right?) I took her business card design and tweaked it up quite a bit and came up with this, which is something I think I can applique with a modest degree of success. Now I just have to incorporate it into a bag design. Oh, yeah, and make 7 lined reversible bags... with pockets... and maybe zippers? Nothing like jumping in with both feet!

Cherry Checkerboard Quilt and I learned a new trick!

2010-10-08T12:22:00.000-07:00

Cherry Checkerboard

Cherry Checkerboard with Super Helper

I started this quilt a LONG time ago with the leftovers from this quilt. It sat around as a quilt top for, oh, forever. I have a hard time quilting anything larger than a baby quilt on my Bernina. Some people can ram a king size bedspread through there, but I am not one of them, being as I am not double jointed and have only the standard two arms.

Last year my local quilt store got a long arm quilter and made it available for renting. For $15/hr you can happily quilt tents or king size bedspreads or even normal size quilts. I took a class for 2 hours and the next day I quilted TWO quilts in about 7 hours. It was actually really fun. I dislike the quilting step on my domestic machine and expected not to like it on the long-arm. WRONG! I loved it. I will definitely be doing this regularly from now on. They even change the bobbin for you- and supply the thread. It's a great deal.

I did loopdy-loops on this quilt and am very happy with how it turned out. Next time I might get brave and do some flowers or feathers or something fancy.

We are keeping this quilt and are already using it on the couch.

(But we do fold it up and put it away when we're done. At least while it still has that new car smell.)

I am linking up with Lit and Laundry for Finish For Friday. Swing on over and see what other bloggy persons have been up to.

ETA- I just found a really cool new to me blog, amylouwho, with a Sew and Tell for Fridays. There are some really really cool quilts and sewing projects over HERE.

Before/After Project- Desk

2010-10-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

Before

After

The before picture is really a middle picture. I got this desk for $2.50 at Goodwill. It was a tan color before, full of stickers and just a mess. I forgot to take a picture of it. (Oops!) So, anyway, I painted it one time, didn't like it at ALL, and this week I painted it again.

My sister gave me a gallon of paint she had mixed up from a bunch of leftovers. It's a great denim colored blue, so I am using it a lot. Denim blue has become a neutral color to me. Everything matches jeans, right? The only problem is that I really really like this color and it is a OOAK gallon of paint.

I painted the whole desk black and then put a couple coats of blue over that. To get the distressed look, I grabbed some sandpaper and gave it a quick once over. I didn't go too crazy with it. A little goes a long way.

Then I put four light coats of poylurethane on it so it should be a good and sturdy finish. The boys are using this desk so any extra "distressing" (mauling) that they do will just add to the look. I think. Probably permanent marker would not do much for it... but we know MY kids would never write on the walls or furniture...

Before/After Project- Dining Room Chairs

2010-10-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

I have been on a mission lately- Our furniture is in pretty poor shape. It's not old, but in our house furniture ages in dog years. So it all needed a makeover. Here are the dining room chairs. We do have six, so two more will be coming, but at this point those two are functioning as sawhorses for the living room baseboard trim which I am painting. (BTW- painting all the trim in the entire house is a job for crazy people. It's never-ending.)

Before

After

After (The red is my fav. I think.)

After

I know some people think the mismatched chair ship has sailed, but I don't care. I like it! I did do something since the pictures that makes me cringe a bit, but was necessary. I put Old Lady Sofa Protector Plastic on the seats. It sticks to your legs in the summer and doesn't look the nicest, but if you saw the state of the fabric I took off these chairs... well, you'd probably gag a little. So until the boys are older, we will have tacky plastic seat covers on our chairs.

I used spray paint and was very pleasantly surprised at the color options available. I especially love the apple green color. This paint is Rustoleum brand and it's the 2x coverage one. It really did cover very well. I would buy it again in a heartbeat. The fabric was free from an aunt who gets scraps at her job. LUCKY ME!!!

How to make felted chair pads- you know, the kind you put on the bottom of the legs of your chairs so they don't scratch your floor?

2010-10-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

1. Get cat(s).

2. Don't clean the bottoms of your chair legs. Ever. You can clean the top of the chair, but don't flip them over and clean the bottoms.

3. Voila! Felted chair pads.

(The number of cats you have will directly affect the amount of time needed for proper felting.)

How to Search for Vintage Sheets in 13 Easy Steps

2010-09-25T06:32:00.000-07:00

I recently had an amazing day searching for vintage sheets and wanted to share my secrets. (But do not use these secrets within 200 miles of me. Thank you for respecting my territorial rights. I am creative and would possibly find evil and humorous ways to retaliate against anyone who encroaches on my personal thrift stores.)

1. Find a Thrifting Partner. This is tricky. The partner must not mind lingering in the store while you dig and search. (This rules out husbands. At least all of them that I know.) In addition, the Thrifting Partner must NOT be a VS lover for very obvious reasons. No one wants to get kicked out of a Salvation Army. Or worse yet, get a costly ticket for Disturbing the Peace or Cat Fighting in a Thrift Store. For most of us, this still leaves a decent assortment of friends or relatives. I chose my sister who collects Pyrex. We can appreciate each others finds, but do not fight like cheerleaders over any particular item.

2. Acquire a Tom Tom or other GPS device. Rich people often have these built right into their cars. I am not rich, therefore I borrowed one. Borrow=free. Free= very good.

3. Get yourself a phone book for your target city. These are often free. (Once again, free is significantly better than cheap.) If legal means fail, theft is possible but not recommended. Some places to “borrow” a phone book include: restaurants, motels, gas stations and public phone booths. Wait, you say, what is a public phone booth? HA! That was a trick to see if you were paying attention. Public phone booths are basically the predecessors to our current cell phones. They are antiques which are very seldom seen, even in thrift stores.

4. Look in the Yellow Pages under “Thrift Store”. An alternative is to Google “thrift store” and the name of the city in which you desire to scrounge.

5. Enter every thrift store with its address as a favorite in your GPS device. Pay special attention when naming. I did not and ended up with quite a few “Goodwill”s and had a hard time telling them apart. Maybe name them “Goodwill South” or “Goodwill Pine Street”. After a few trips you can name them “Really Good Goodwill” or “Crappy Overpriced Goodwill”.

6. Plan a route, making sure to include any doughnut shops or coffee houses that you may desire. These can also be Googled and entered just as thrift stores can be. Same concept. Keep in mind that any time spent eating is time spent not thrifting.

7. Clean your car/van/truck and make sure there is room for the occasional dresser or hutch. These are incidental purchases, often bought on a whim, so you have to be ready at any time. You never know what you might find. A girl can never have too much huge old junk. I mean antique furniture. You know, treasures.*

8. I find it helps to offer up a small sacrifice to please the Gods of Thrifting. This can be as simple as accidentally cutting through two layers of a sheet instead of one or as complicated as washing an entire load of vintage sheets with a red sock. The resulting tears seem to be nectar to the Thrifting God's ears.

9. Fill gas tank. While you are near an ATM, make sure you have enough cash. Cash is King!

10. Stock up on Coke/Diet Coke. (NOT Pepsi. Real thrifters do not drink Pepsi.)

11. Start your GPS, making sure to choose a voice that makes you and your Thrifting Partner giggle. Now get shopping!

12. Be careful not to get too caught up and buy sheets that are too thin or unusable. I have brought a few home thinking they weren’t TOO thin or I would just use the edges, and they ended up as drop cloths. Pretty drop cloths, but wasted money. And space. And Husband Tolerance Level. Husband Tolerance Level is a completely different topic- worthy of its own post. Suffice it to say, you don’t want to waste it.

13. Bring home all your finds, fold into pretty stacks, photograph and post said pictures on Flickr or your blog to make fellow VS lovers jealous! I mean… inspired… yeah, that’s it! Inspired.

So there you go! Follow these easy steps and you should find yourself with some awesome new sheets by the end of the day!

*My husband refers to this as “crap”. Don’t worry; that is just parlance. Different word, same stuff.

I don't mean to brag....

2010-09-17T20:03:00.001-07:00

...er, well, yes I do:

One day
One City
One Phone Book
One TomTom
Two Sisters
$29.98
=
18 sheets and 2 pillowcases

Giant smile, and, yes.... a little gloating... :0)

Ghetto-neck

2010-09-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

Can you imagine this car...

without these horns?

Of course not.

Yes, this is my car. Yes, I am totally a redneck. But sort of a ghetto kind of redneck.
Ghetto-neck.

I have wanted a huge old convertible ever since I got my driver's license. We got this car about three years ago, but it was lacking something- it wasn't quite tacky enough. So one of Paul's friends gave me this set of steer horns for it. In a fit of gratitude I promised him a quilt. I have been working on it for well over a year now and it's finally done!

I robbed the fish skeleton shape for this from our friend's tattoo. He has this on his upper arm. I had to simplify it a little, but it's definitely recognizable as his tattoo.
This is the quilt I started for Project Improv. I really wanted to piece the fish skeleton rather than applique it, but I tried and tried and finally gave up. I guess I just don't have the wonky gene.

I did use batiks in the quilt and really "guyish" colors so it was WAY out of my comfort zone and it was hard to make myself work on it. I do like how it turned out. It's funny- I often choose clothes in these colors but I had a hard time sewing with them.

The back was inspired by this quilt. It was a little tricky to match up with the front. I would not have been able to do it if I hadn't had my mom's help. She has a set of wooden rails that we use to either tie quilts or pin-baste them. It was much easier to match up that way than if I had been trying to tape it to my floor which is what I usually do.

I like this quilt, but I don't love it. It isn't one that's hard to give up. I am so glad to have it off the WIP pile! I have been working hard this summer to whittle down my stack and have made a lot of progress on it. It will feel really good to be able to start new projects guilt free.

"M" is for Madison

2010-07-18T06:38:00.001-07:00

This is a quickie quilt I made for a birthday party this weekend. One of my son's cute little kindergarten classmates, Madison, lives 2 blocks away but we never realized that. Now that we know I am thinking we will see a lot more of her. (She's a doll!) Brady said her favorite color is pink so I made this up for her party yesterday. It was a quickie- no piecing, just a little satin stitching and a border. These pics don't really show the colors well- the pink is very bright. It was dark out, but I finished it late and had to wrap it right away so I couldn't wait for daylight pics.

I did make sure the rick rack was sewn down really well. I stitched close to the edge on both sides so it won't curl after it's washed.

I just did straight line quilting about 3/4 of an inch apart. Then a striped binding because they ROCK.

I think she really liked it, and so did her mom. :o)

Huge massive finish. MASSIVE!

2010-06-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

My Cherry Surprise Quilt is done!!! Down to the last stitch in the binding. I am so relieved. I started this over 6 years ago and thought it was just the Neverending Quilt. But it has ended, and now I get to enjoy it. I am afraid to use it, though! I put too much into it. So I will just look at it for a while, and maybe in a few months will work up the nerve to sleep under it.

The back. I used a Kleenex box to show scale. It was the closest thing handy.

I was going to hand quilt it and had it basted together and then couldn't bring myself to start. So I picked apart the basting stitches (which kinda stung) and sent it to a local long arm quilter. She did an amazing job and I hope my pictures captured some of her beautiful work. She did something different in each row of the log cabin going around.

Then she did some feathers and vines in the borders and made them look so pretty!

These are my corners- they are much improved! I have been working on that this year. I am proud of these. Lots of practice there.

I am just so relieved this is done! "Ahhhhhh!" *big sigh of contentment*

I linked up over at Lit and Laundry for this post. She holds a "Finish for Friday" every week and I have been able to hit them quite a bit this year. If you would like to link a big finish, head on over. Or you can just see what others have been finishing up this week.

Another Giveaway!

2010-04-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

Listen up people!! Another unbelievable giveaway! Shall I see if three times is a charm? (More about that at the end of the post.)

I assume anyone who is interested in quilting at all knows what an AccuQuilt Go is. YOU CAN WIN ONE!!!! FOR FREE!!!!

The blog doing the giveaway, I have a Notion, is doing a lot of giveaways this month to celebrate their one year anniversary. Unfortunately, I missed out on most of these, because I didn't know about them. But then someone posted about the cutter and I was able to catch this one in time.

The online store of the same name, I Have a Notion, is where you can purchase just about any color thread you can think of. They also have Paintstiks, which are really cool and fun to embellish with, along with a ton of other, well, notions!

Now, some of the fine print stuff needs to be passed along, and I am going to do a copy and paste here so I make sure I get it right: "You also must let everyone know that all giveaways from March 15 - April 15 2010 are open until 10:00 PM CMT. Readers can post on any of the giveaways they choose but the comments need to be relevant to what was asked for in the post. Saying, "add me to the list" does not qualify as a comment relevant to the post. "

And now, I hate to brag... ok, no I don't. I have won TWO giveaways in the past couple weeks!!!!!

One was the one in the previous post- 10 fat quarters of Naturella. How lucky am I?? Since (obviously) you didn't win, you can get these delicious fabrics here.

(There are also lots of other awesome new fabric lines there, too.)

And then there's the book- one that I have been wanting ever since BEFORE it came out- Color Your Cloth, by Malka Dubrawsky, which you can read about on the author's blog. Amazing blog- amazing quilts- amazing fabric! I can't wait to get it!

I won this from the Fresh Modern Quilts Flickr group in their celebrating 2000 members giveaway. This Flickr group is the first place I go for inspiration. I just love that all these talented quilters put their work out there for others to enjoy.

So, good luck to you on the AccuQuilt Go, and if you win, cut some stuff out for me! :0)

Awesome Giveaway!

2010-04-10T16:27:00.000-07:00

Check this out!! Really pretty fabric, also sold here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/FabricFlair

Here is the giveaway addy: http://fabricflair.typepad.com/blog/2010/04/naturella-by-art-gallery-fabrics-has-arrived-giveaway.html

Now don't win! Or if you do, send me the Garden Aquarella!

Finished for Friday

2010-02-26T06:37:00.000-08:00

I have another Finish for Friday. You can join all of us "FFF-ers" at Lit and Laundry.

This quilt is a (late) wedding gift that I started about a year ago. So I guess it will be an anniversary gift now. (Lest I appear completely lazy and stingy, I would like to point out that we did give them a gift at the time, along with the promise of a quilt.)

I only used one black and white print for all the squares. The couple decorates with a lot of black and white architectural photos (that they have taken themselves) so I wanted to reflect those. I think this works. I ended up really liking the black and white, which is surprising since I usually like color and scrappiness so much.

I quilted it about a half an inch on either side of the ditch.

The back is solid white because I found that anything with a print showed through on the front of the quilt. I also just think it looks really nice with the simple front.

This quilt measure 70" x 80", so it's a very generous throw size. Plenty of room for two to cuddle under. (If they still like to cuddle. It has been a year, after all.)

This post is brought to you by the number 2.

2010-01-29T06:38:00.000-08:00

I missed Finished For Friday last week, which is hosted by Lit and Laundry every week. I was trying for a quilty finish every week this month, but missed it. I did have a finish last Friday- I finished being 33! My birthday was Saturday, and not one, but TWO of my aunt-in-laws offered to babysit for us, so we got to go out on both Friday and Saturday nights. (TWICE in a row!!) Happy Birthday to me!!

I did (finally) get the TWO baby quilts bound this week so they are ready to go to their new owners on Monday.

For my birthday Paul went with me to TWO new-to-me quilt stores in Green Bay, and I chose a yard of fabric at each. (See how good I was? Only TWO new yards of fabric!)

Jane Sassaman designed this one for me:

Amy Butler kindly thought this one up just for my birthday:

THEN we went to Joann's and I got a new cutting mat! Yay! Paul was quite a good boy during our outing, although he did try to borrow my scarf to hang himself at one point.

The boys spent Saturday night sleeping over at their great-aunt and uncle's house, so during my peaceful quiet morning with NO CHILDREN I made myself a present- a new bag like the one I made for my cousin.

I used a bright green (thrifted) linen tablecloth to make this bag:

The lining is polka dots of course, and I put pen pockets in again. Loving those.

I cannot believe how much more I can get done with no little, mmm, helpers we'll call them.

I addition to binding the baby quilts, in the past two weeeks, I finished TWO quilt tops. Well, finished the centers anyway. This is my Cherry Checkerboard quilt I am making to use up the cherry applique squares left over from Cherry Surprise. I finished making all the blocks and stitched them together, but I still need to put the borders on. It turned out very narrow, which I don't like, but in order to get the Irish chain to look right, this was the layout I had to use. (It's about 60" x 84" at this point with no borders added.) I think as I add each border I will make the side ones an inch wider than the top and bottom ones to kind of fix this issue.

This next one has been sitting in my WIP box for FAR too long. I finally stitched the petals down on all the flowers. (It took me a while to collect the right thread colors.) I am not quite sure what I will do for borders on this one. It will be a play mat/blankie for my newest niece, Baby Autumn, who is just the cutest thing in the world. She loves to stare at my Mom's ceiling fan, so I think she will like this.

A closeup of the satin stitch holding the petals down.

My SIL should be able to wash this a hundred million times with no problems. These babies are ON there.

So that's what I've been up to. If you have a finish to share, head over to Lit and Laundry and join in! Be sure to compliment her beautiful hexagon quilt. It's gorgeous!

The Kindergarten Bag

2010-01-16T20:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some more pictures of the "Kindergarten Bag" being modeled in my home. I had posted about it before I sent it to the recipient, but thought I would give an update. This bag is the one I sent to Brady's kindergarten teacher for Christmas and she sent a note home saying that she loves it and uses it all the time. YAY! It's awesome to hear things like that. She also said she gets lots of compliments when she is using it, so that was nice to hear, too.

This tote is called a "Kindergarten Bag" because you can put a standard sized kindergartner in it and carry him/her around for an indefinite amount of time. (The bag won't rip or tear, but you may.)

Here the bag is shown holding an actual kindergartner. Note the smile and general air of well-being evidenced by the child. This happy feeling is DIRECTLY caused by the fact that he is IN A BAG.

The Kindergarten Bag can also hold a pre-schooler as evidenced here. (This child does not actually have a deformity. The discoloration on his face is caused by the quite common childhood ailment "Koolaid moustache"*. )

*This is not a life-threatening disorder and can usually be managed with soap and water, depending on the severity of the case. The child with the ailment may not even realize he/she has it until someone mentions it or they see themselves in a mirror, upon which they will demonstrate surprise and possibly dismay. To prevent this ailment from recurring the parent may choose to have the child drink his juice, punch or koolaid with a straw. Although that will present it's own set of issues.

Finish For Friday- applique bag

2010-01-15T11:54:00.000-08:00

Another Finish For Friday!! I am 3 for 3 this month!

If you want to join in on Finish For Friday, head over to Lit and Laundry and join in. It doesn't have to be a sewing finish- it can be anything.

I have no quilt finish this week, but I did get a bag done. This one is for my cousin and she has been waiting a while for it.

I am slowly getting better at these as I make more. Each time I make one, I tweak something and make my pattern better. This time I made a stiff "board" for the bottom on the inside. I just used the lining fabric, 2 thicknesses of the interfacing and then quilted it with close lines. It really helps the bag hold it's shape. The bag is very large (18" wide x 16" tall x 8" deep) so it tends to be a little floppy. I like the bag to stand on it's own, so I use the heaviest interfacing I can find. Another tweak I made this time was in the large pocket. I put a layer of interfacing in the fabric for the pocket, which keeps it from sagging open.

I have been admiring Joanna's very recent applique art quilt and also a less recent one. I liked how she mixed brights with brown, so that is what I did for my applique on this bag. I liked how it turned out so much that I am making myself a bag like this one, too.

I love the brights and brown together, but would not have come up with that on my own, so thanks, Joanna!

Finish for Friday- vintage sheet quilt

2010-01-08T10:42:00.000-08:00

I have a Finish for Friday again! I am shooting for one every Friday this month. You can join in, too. Just hop on over to Lit and Laundry to see what others have finished, and maybe even post something of your own!

My finish is the quilting on this vintage sheet quilt- I had the top done already but was procrastinating (of course) with the quilting. This quilt is for Paul's cousin's little girl, Sydney. I made one for her new baby brother and realized I had not made one for her when she was born. Her parents just bought a new-old house and coincidentally her bedroom is going to be orange and pink!

I did the closely spaced wavy line quilting again, which is my favorite quilting technique right now. I think it goes especially well with the vintage sheets because it reminds me of how old bedspreads were quilted.

The back is a cute, BRIGHT vintage sheet as well. Everything in this quilt is from an upcycled sheet, except for the flower head itself, which is from a kit that was supposed to be used to make placemats. Some of the sheets are not extremely old, but they are all used/recycled. They. Are. So. Soft. This is the first quilt that I have made entirely from vintage sheets and I have to make one for myself!!! As I was quilting it, I just kept running my hands over the finished part. It feels so GOOD!!!

This is Sydney's baby brother's quilt. I showed a picture of this before, but the quiting was not finished at that point.

I did a version of the same quilting, but switched directions in each square. I won't do that again!!!! I couldn't lock my stitch because the machine kept switching directions when I did that so I had to pull all the tails to the back and knot them.

There are over a thousand little knots on the back of this quilt. Which means I pulled half that many tails through to the back. Not fun.

It looks really nice, but was not worth the effort. I think the straight line all the way down the quilt looks almost as good for about a quarter of the effort.

So maybe by next Friday I will have them bound and ready to go to their new little owners!

Another semi-finished quilt

2010-01-06T16:13:00.001-08:00

I hereby declare January 2010 "The Month of the Finished Quilt"! I would declare 2010 "The YEAR of the Finished Quilt", but I really don't think I could handle the pressure for an entire year.

So here is a finished quilt top:

And back:

This back is totally inspired by a quilt I saw on Flickr. It's such a simple, but effective, layout. And it makes this quilt reversible! Now we will find out if I can keep the back and the front even while I quilt it. I made the border on the back a couple inches larger than it has to be all the way around, so I did leave myself a little wiggle room. After I trim it, theoretically, it will have 6" strips of white all the way around to match the inner ones.

A gratuitous shot of my oh-so-cute helper (for once, not one of the cats):

I had to show a closeup of this fabric because it matches the fish skeleton appliques SO well. I got it during a sale at a quilt store near my hometown- Jeri's Quilt Patch. They have a huge sale every year where the fat quarters are a DOLLAR! So these were an awesome deal, but some of the other fabric was NOT so that made up for it.

I actually had this quilt laying out on the (washed) (well, wiped down) floor to baste, when I realized my batting wasn't big enough. So I can't quilt it until I get some batting. But I almost finished a quilt. I intended to!

I didn't want to waste a clean floor so I did baste a baby quilt and I will hopefully have an actual finish for the end of the week. But maybe not. No pressure.

Scrappy Goes to the Prom

2009-12-31T19:43:00.003-08:00

WOOHOO! My big finish!! I am calling a quilt top a finish, because in my world, well, it is. I had an entire year to make this quilt and am skating in under deadline with a whole 2 hours to spare! (If you don't count the quilting and binding.) Nothing like getting it done early or something.

To keep my New Year's resolution for 2009, I have given this quilt a name: "Pink Tie Affair". I used some satin in the blocks and some fancy-dancy embellishments. I intend to add some more frou frou before I quilt it, but I have to actually buy more sparkly beads as I don't have any more old bridesmaid dresses to rob. :0)

Here are some closeups of the embellishments I have added so far.

Some rick rack and pink satin:

This white ribbon came wrapped around the boys' new Christmas pajamas and Paul knew enough to save it for me. :0) Good man! He's learning!

Here is the same ribbon on black satin:

The center of this block has a mostly black fabric that read too dark, so I turned it around and am using it backwards. The roses show up much better this way.

Here is the fabric turned the "right" way. I cut apart a leather barrette and used the sections as flower appliques. I sewed on different-sized shiny pink buttons for centers.

This is my favorite block in the whole quilt. I found a book at St. Vincent de Paul with pictures of "antique" stencils that were supposed to be used to paint furniture or walls or what-have-you. I have been using it to make applique patterns. Some of them seem so modern and they are remakes of these really old patterns from colonial times. I have a feeling that book is going to get worn right out!

I am so glad I entered this challenge because I NEVER would have made this quilt on my own. But I love it. So thank you so much Jackie! I have learned a LOT and really enjoyed meeting some new bloggy friends. I actually had to go shopping for the black and white fabrics because I had NONE and that was a completely new experience. I had a hard time passing up all the colors to spend money on these plain colorless fabrics, but then I got this awesome, fun, pretty quilt and now I am a convert! I think I will be using a lot more black and white in my quilts in the future.

Progress Report

2009-12-30T18:58:00.000-08:00

It has a name now! I am calling her (because it is definitely a her) "Pink Tie Affair".

Black and White and Pink all over

2009-12-29T10:33:00.000-08:00

So I have three days left to finish this. Nothing like a deadline to get the creative juices (or as I like to call it: "panic") flowing, huh? Kinda gets you moving, especially when you have a whole YEAR to make something and leave it til the last 3 days. But I have been known to do heroic amounts of sewing in very small amounts of time, so there is a chance that I will skate in under the deadline. I think I am going to call a quilt top a finish in this case. (Well, I always call a quilt top a finish, but that's not what we are talking about here.)
I have a box of frou frou to embellish this quilt. It will be for me, so I can have a sparkly, girly quilt to watch t.v. under.

I am a bit of a messy creator as is evidenced by these photos.

Cutting table:

Ironing table:

Do you... smell something?

Yes, yes. In there.

Hmm...

Ah! Someone must have stashed these in here for use in case of emergency.

This situation is not an emergency yet, unfortunately. Maybe on the 31st as I am frantically trying to finish this quilt top I will break open the box. MAYBE this situation won't even turn into an emergency and I can save it for later. ;0)

I've been making BAGS!

2009-12-17T21:55:00.000-08:00

I have been on a bag kick lately. I have been making Big Giant BAGS!I started out making a few because I wanted them for groceries. Well, I found a half a dozen on sale at Walmart for a DOLLAR each so I snapped those up. They weren't quite as big as mine, but they rounded out my collection nicely. So now I have enough bags to go to the grocery store, and when they ask if I want paper or plastic, I can answer, "Fabric, please!" :0)

Anyway, it was fun, so when my sister asked me to copy one of my "real" purses, which was just a storebought purse/bag thing, for her, I thought I would give it a go. Here is the real purse- for some reason I can't get it to load right so you all will just have to tilt your heads. I have had this for years and I love it, and always get lots of compliments on it, but it's starting to wear out.

This is the applique that I have sewn to the bag fabric for the new one. The owl applique turned out awesome. It would have been much cheaper just to go buy the bag, but they don't sell them anymore, and plus the one I am making is better made. I may end up making another one so I can retire my poor raggedy worn out one.

I will post pics when it is completely done. I have to make the straps and then sew it together so maybe a few hours of work left on it.

Emboldened by my success I decided to make one for Brady's kindergarten teacher for Christmas. He helped me a little so I can say it's from him. (He likes to peel the paper off the back off the applique pieces.) I made it HUGE- here it is sitting next to a paper bag, so you can get an idea of the size. My cousin is a pre-school teacher and she said that all teachers would love a huge bag to carry all the crap they have to bring in. This should fit the bill! LOL!

I designed the applique myself, just tried to make it bright and fun for kids, but not too kiddish to where she couldn't use it elsewhere. I think I succeeded. She could haul this to the beach or grocery shopping or whatever. My applique is definitely getting better as I practice more.

I think it turned out really cute. The lining on this one was a little loose, and I have not had that problem yet, but I think it is because the bag was SO big and I didn't quilt it much.

These are really fun to play with. I have lots of friends who want them so I am going to be busy making bags for a while. I do have a new quilt in the works, made COMPLETELY from vintage sheets, but no pics yet.

It's beginning to look a lot like... something.

2009-12-09T14:06:00.001-08:00

This is how my husband decorates for the holidays:

This is how my kids decorate for the holidays:

This is how I decorate for the holidays (I am proud of this because it was very CHEAP.) :

I got the shelf from the side of the road during city clean-up a couple years ago and gave it about 10 coats of white paint yesterday. (It was bright red.) Those pictures are my favorite ones EVER, and the rest of the stuff was all in the basement (or on the tree) so I didn't pay anything for this!

I have had these silver candlesticks for years and I keep re-using them- they look so cute with the ornaments in them.

We got a BUNCH of snow today- no school for Brady, no work for Paul, and no power for any of us for about 5 hours today. It's back on again and we appreciate it more than ever! I missed our heat, but more importantly the Christmas tree was off!

Caturday

2009-12-05T20:33:00.001-08:00

So I am getting a lot of mileage out of my cats on here lately. I figured I would jump aboard Lit and Laundry's Caturday posting and show you the sweetest picture:Brady was up sick all night last night and the kitties came and sat on his lap to comfort him. How adorable is that? He wasn't as charmed by it as I was and said they were "too heavy". (He was pretty sick.) Normally it would be pretty unusual to have that happen and he would eat it right up. He is much better today, poor guy.

How to make a cat applique.

2009-12-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

Place cat on level surface:Lay fabric over cat:

Trace cat with erasable marker.
(Try to keep cat still at this point.)
Cut out and applique to a quilt!
Ta Da!

Da Blahs.

2009-11-01T11:39:00.000-08:00

*This post is being brought to you from the Land of Blah and Inertia.*

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have periodically struggled with depression in the past and, for whatever reason, the last couple months I have been dealing with a doozy. I have been seeing my (wonderful) doctor and the lethargy and grayness seem to have lifted now and I am doing so much better. I started sewing again- yay!- and have even recently made some half-hearted stabs at CLEANING MY HOUSE!!!

Unfortunately, I do have some sad news to report- my "old kitty" (as the boys called him), Sly, passed away. Maybe this precipitated the aforementioned funk? (Ok, it was not really a funk, but rather a deep black pit of sadness and despair.) It was rough, but he was old and not doing well, so not entirely unexpected. I cried for a few days, and now I can smile when I think of him. I truly don't think I will ever have another cat that I love as much as I did him. He was MY cat and I was HIS person.

Ok, icky sad stuff out of the way- time for happy fabricky stuff!

I have gotten some of my sewing mojo back, and this is what I worked on yesterday. Every piece of fabric in this quilt top was from a vintage sheet, except for the flower face itself. These flowers were on a panel and were intended to be made into place mats. A place mat would have a very short lifespan in my house, so of course they had to be incorporated into quilts instead. I wish I had a ton more of these panels because the quilts turned out so cute!

I made two identical quilt tops, one for Paul's cousin's daughter, and one extra for my gift bag for a future gift. I didn't like the pink daisy as much when I saw it photographed, so I think I will use both of the yellow flowers and save the pink ones for another project. (There are two of each flower since the place mats were supposed to be reversible.) The squares are sewed together, but the flowers still need to be ironed on and stitched down.

I will post better pictures of the quilts when they are quilted and bound- I have a cute striped sheet that will make a great bias cut binding, so I just have to choose a sheet for the backs and I will be ready to quilt! I had an absolute blast working with the sheets. I have been collecting them for so long now but had never actually made an entire quilt using sheets. This one is for a pre-schooler so it's only 40 x 50, but it still counts.

I have been toying with the idea of making some quilt kits to sell from my vintage sheets, so I cut out a couple sets of 10" squares from the sheets as I was cutting the squares for these quilts. Then, as I sewed the blocks together I noticed some issues with the "squareness" of my blocks. (Or rather, the LACK of squareness!) With some investigation, I realized that my cutting mat has some big ripples in it, probably from incorrect storage, so I have to get a new mat before I go into business. I think I could justify my compulsion to buy these sheets if I could make them pay for themselves. Maybe I wouldn't even need to sneak them into the house anymore?

Lots of awesome giveaways!

2009-09-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

Head over to Needle Little Inspiration to see all the amazing giveaways going on today! There is an open house going on and more than one shop has offered up some great giveaway items. I've got my fingers crossed to win something- these are really generous giveaways.

Lucky Dog!

2009-08-28T09:54:00.001-07:00

My Finish for Friday this week is a bit weak (it's not very big) but it's still a finish! We are babysitting for a cute little dog whose name is Truman. I wanted to practice some FMQ on my new machine and a few other tricks, so the boys and I made Truman a quilt.

I used Heat-n-Bond and a zigzag stitch to put his name on there. I wasn't overly impressed with the zig-zag stitch from Bernie, but I was only using Coats and Clark thread from Wally World, so that may have been the issue. She was missing stitches- actually quite a few of them, so I think it was operator error. These machines are famous for their even stitches. I am going to try a new needle and better thread next time and see what happens.

The fabric we used has little scottie dogs all over it. The gold for the back is a pillowcase, and the black is a sheet that I have used a LOT of. I am going to have to keep my eyes open for another black sheet.

I used black thread so that I could see what my FMQ looked like and where my problem areas are. I think I just have to work on being smoother (is that a word?) with my motion. I got a pair of those sticky quilting gloves to try with the next quilt. Moving that quilt around really made my hands sore and this is a small quilt.

The reason we are dogsitting is that Truman's owners are visiting with their brand new grandson! I couldn't very well make the dog a quilt and not the baby, now, could I? So this quilt will be for Elijah. It's fairly big- 40 x 50, so he will be able to use it when he is bigger.

(I sure hope I got the name right- I got that info thirdhand- and it came through TWO MEN before it got to me... not that most men are stupid or anything- they just tend to be wrong a lot.)

If you want to see more Friday Finishes, hop over to Lit and Laundry and see what everyone else has been up to! (Check out the cuddly fall quilt!)

Another wedding and another Christmas quilt!

2009-08-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

We had another wedding this weekend. (I have lots of cousins who have been doing the marrying thing lately. Silly kids.) This couple has been painting my late grandma's old place, which is right next door to my aunt, and they are going to live there. They painted the upstairs bathroom lime green!! I LOVE it! So I knew I could make them a really bright quilt- and here it is! I basically just wrapped a jelly roll around a charm pack of Merry and Bright, then used the last of the strips and a thrifted sheet for the floating blocks border. It turned out so cute that I wanted to keep it.

I even used one of the Bernie's fancy quilting stitches for the first time!

The theme of the gift was a "Tradition in a Box".

I wrote some little poems and attached them to each item. There are a couple of bowls for candy and popcorn, a DVD copy of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the REAL one, not the Jim Carrey one) and a photo album so that they can take a picture of their family in front of their Christmas tree every year. (If anyone is interested in doing this and wants a copy of the poems, just email me or leave a comment and I will send you a copy.)

The wedding was last night and I was still up at 4 am yesterday morning hand sewing the binding! Nothing like leaving it to the last minute, right? The gal at the local quilt store laughed at me when I went to pick up some basting spray at 5:00 the night before the wedding- she was the same one who sold me the binding that I sewed on in the car on the way to the last wedding!

So I have now quilted TWO quilts with my new Bernina, and I love it more and more every time I use it. I actually enjoyed quilting this quilt, which is saying a LOT.

Finish for Friday

2009-07-31T16:59:00.000-07:00

You're gonna want to grab a chair- I finished a quilt. As in, I actually quilted it!! This is because... dun! dun! dun! I got a new Bernina 430 and I really really love it and I can even quilt with it!! We are out of town for a wedding now, which brings me to my big finish for the week- it's a wedding gift! But I didn't really know the happy couple's favorite colors or their house's style so I just went with a Christmas quilt.

I made it a nice little matching storage case with a clear plastic window on the front for a page of instructions about how to store and clean a quilt.

With my fancy new machine I was able to use a funky stitch to attach the plastic. I did this really quickly this morning before we left so, shh!- don't tell, but it got a little crooked. (I am being sarcastic about the shh! thing. It is drunken sailor crooked, but when the quilt is in it you can't tell quite as much. I didn't have time to make another one, so, meh, whatever.)I like the idea of a zigzag quilt with no HSTs like Amanda Jean's tutorial, but I wanted pointy points all the way around. So what I did was add a white strip all the way around, except for the left side, where I added two strips. I had intended for this to be an oblong quilt, but ran out of the white on white polka dots, so Paul and I got real cozy with the seamrippers (yes, my wonderful husband helped me rip apart two sets of blocks, but he whined a lot so that kind of took away from the sweetness of it) and the quilt became square. (Well, sort of square. I won't switch sewing machines halfway through a quilt again.) If I do this again I won't put the extra fabric on the sides, but I would do it on the top and bottom.

I finished hand stitching the binding on the way here today. Which is one of my favorite ways to spend a car ride. I actually really like doing the binding. For this one, since there were... issues... with the "squareness" of the quilt, I used a white on white for the binding, too. Normally I like a contrasting binding, but for this quilt, well, not so much.

For the quilting, I did a double stitch in the ditch.

Where I had striped fabric, I cut it so that the stripes go the same direction.

I even made a label for this quilt! (The back is a flannel sheet.)
Just a shot of it hanging over the railing at the motel. You can see how the color is graduated from light to dark.

Unfortunately, the Friday finish over at Lit and Laundry is a sad one this week. I will let you head over and read about her kitty.

Dude. I had to.

2009-07-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

I wish it was a little more Boone's Farm-y, but it's not bad.

ETA: Wine snobs, don't read any further.

I added some Mountain Dew to it and now it's AWESOME!!

The new additions to our family

2009-07-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

I have been a bad blogger! I forgot to announce the birth of my beautiful new niece! Future Niece has finally graced us with her presence. She was definitely worth the wait. She had a bit of a rough start, but is doing very well now.

I have proof of her cuteness:

My mom and I were playing dress up with her already and we think she liked it. She is a sweetie and is already satisfactorily spoiled. (Just as a firstborn should be.)

My boys think their new cousin is "so cute" but were wondering if she would turn into a boy when she got bigger.

Mmm, probably not.

I have been promising my boys sock monkeys, so we finally did it! I have been trying to have something done so I can link up to Lit and Laundry's Finish for Friday, so we (I) labored away today (Thursday) and came up with these fellows:

The boys each picked out a pair of socks and this was what they wanted. Not the tie dye ones or cool striped ones. They wanted brown and black. (Are these really my kids?) So they got brown and black. Then they each picked out some button eyes, but Brady said he really really really wanted googly eyes on his, so we super glued some googly eyes right onto his button eyes.

Brady's monkey is named "Blackie". (Brady is a fairly literal child.)

And Lukey's unfortunately named monkey is "Poopy-head".

We will probably be renaming the monkeys tomorrow, especially since Lukey isn't supposed to say that word. The monkeys are snuggled in with their happy owners and hopefully not keeping them awake.

These monkeys were an absolute blast to make- talk about instant gratification! I used this tutorial, which was entertaining as well as informative. I do have 5 nieces, so maybe I will get to make some polka-dotted, stripey cute ones yet...

Now run over to Lit and Laundry and see what everyone else finished up this week!

Vintage Sheets

2009-07-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

I have been seeing a lot of pretty vintage sheet quilts all over in "blogland" lately. I love these and since I love to "thrift", I had already bought a few sheets. When we go out of town, I always look up the local thrift stores and make Paul take me to them. (Better yet, I ditch Paul somewhere and go on my own.) My collection is getting bigger now, but I have yet to make a quilt entirely from vintage sheets. I have used them in other quilts, but I basically just view them as more fabric. I also have been buying old clothes when they are cheap enough. I have a little litmus test: if this was a fat quarter, would I buy it? If the answer is yes I will pay up to a dollar for a shirt or pillowcase or set of napkins or what have you. Any more than that and I will usually leave it there.

This sort of quilting makes me think of the "old ways". My great-grandma, Nanny, was a very prolific quilter. She made what we would call utilitarian quilts and gave them away to anyone in the community who was having hard times. When she was older, she suffered from macular degeneration and was considered legally blind. Her quilts showed it. However, she didn't let a silly thing like blindness stop her! She kept sewing away even if the seams didn't always get caught. I have one of her quilts and even though my mom went through it and tried to fix all the open seams, there are a few areas that are going to need some attention. Nanny used old clothes- polyester, cotton, blends, whatever she had on hand. People would bring her bags of old clothes and she just cut them up and sewed them right up into quilt squares with no thought to color placement at all. Christmas fabric, Halloween fabric, baby prints- everything went together.

Nanny tied most of her quilts, except for the "nice ones" which she would hand quilt. I can remember playing under the frame in her living room- her house was tiny and when the grownups were tying off a quilt there was literally no room to walk around the quilt. If you were on the "wrong side" and wanted to go to the kitchen or bathroom, you had to go out the front door, around the house and then go in the back door. I love that this is my heritage- making do with what you have, making old into new, giving a new life to something destined for a landfill.

Here are some pictures of my vintage sheet stash. There are some pillowcases and tablecloths in there too. The cabinet that I store them in is also my ironing station and it was given to me by my dad's mother. One of my uncles made this in shop class before I was even born. They just don't make things like they used to! Our table which is only 2 years old is in worse shape than this cabinet!

I pulled some of my favorites out and took pictures of them. Since I am poor (lazy) and didn't have (want to run downstairs and find) a quarter, I used a clothespin to show scale.

Can you see the polka-dots in this one? They don't show up true- they are pink like the flowers.

This may be my very favorite.

It says "Oleg Cassini" on it. I googled that but can't find anything that tells me about his vintage bedding. All I find are references to clothing. This is one that will be hard for me to cut into.

I like florals.

I am drawn to butterflies, too. This one is perfect for fussy cutting.

I have three of these- each one is a bit different, but they obviously came from the same line. I have a couple pillowcases in similar patterns also. I plan to cut the squares out and use them basically as a charm pack. The blue ones will go into the centers of some "squares inside of squares" blocks for the back of my quilt for my bed.

This pile is a set of homemade curtains and a "spread" as they called it at St. Vincent DePaul. I got a TON of fabric for $7. I am going to use it as a kind of stack and whack, but instead of squares I will make large Dresden plate type wheels and applique them onto alternating blue and green solid squares. I have some linen tablecloths that match the colors and will use those. I am going to end up with a VERY cool, wild quilt top for around $12.

.This sheet is not very old, but it was so cute I couldn't leave it there.

This floral is "Aunt Grace Ties One On" (I think) and it is a new fabric, as is the black and white polka dot. The green and yellow are vintage sheets, though. Don't they look nice together? I have no qualms about mixing new and old.

These are newer sheets, also, but they are cute. The green whales on pink is a Tommy Hilfiger sheet. It is a bit worn, but I will cut around those parts. Once again, these were too cute to leave there.

The orange and pink sheet is a vintage find, but the white with polka-dots is newer. I got the pink and orange (fitted and flat) from an estate sale down the block from my house and the pink one was a dollar at Goodwill. The pinks match perfectly. (The white and pink one is a Disney sheet and has a ruffle at the top with Baby Minnie on it.)

This blue and yellow pile is all shirts, pillowcases and a set of napkins. I want to make this quilt as sort of a tribute to Nanny and will use her favorite quilt square (churn dash) but I will make it wonky so that it will reflect my style as well. I will use a thrifted white sheet for my setting fabric so this will be another VERY inexpensive quilt top. I am still collecting fabrics for this one.

I hope this post inspires someone to think outside their fabric box. I do buy designer fabric, too, but "reclaiming" fabric makes those pricey fat quarters and half-yards go a lot further. Just don't start shopping at MY Goodwill. Or if you do, leave some good stuff for me.

I'm gonna call this one a learning experience!

2009-06-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

First off I want to make clear-this quilt is not completely my design. I "copied" (sort of) one that Kellie made and anything that looks awkward about my quilt is NOT her fault. I did eventually buy a pattern from her, but started this before I got it. If I had waited I am sure I would have much prettier flowers and butterflies. I feel a little funny ripping off someone else's design so I wanted make it clear that she provided the inspiration for this quilt!

I had a great experience purchasing from Kellie and there was the added bonus of the exchange rate working in my favor. I got a deal when her site converted my U.S. money to A.U. money! (Is that the proper initials? For Australia?) Her pattern was very clear and included a large section of paper with the placement of the little pieces on it. Sometimes you get a pattern and you have to tape together some smaller letter-size sheets of paper, but Kellie's was great. Now that I have the proper pattern, I will make one of these and keep it! For ME! I will use the pillow pattern and just convert it to a quilt.

So anyway, Future Niece's first quilt from her "Auntie Leesee" is finished! And it has been put into her mama's care. Before she was born even! I didn't have it done in time for the baby shower, but I did get it done before she was born, so in my book, that's on time! I used these colors because my brother has always loved purple and green- he used to have big lifted-up "monster trucks" and he would paint them one of the two colors. Or both. Well, after I gave this to my SIL, she said it was one of her favorite color combos, too. So that was cool.

This was my first try at a lot of things- free-style handquilting (which I think I made up), raw edge applique, bias cut binding and a scalloped border.

On here you can see how I just sort of started quilting "straight" lines (without marking them). At first I liked how wavy my quilting lines are, then I didn't like it, and then I switched back to liking it. It is basically what I had in mind, but after a while, I wasn't sure if I liked it in real life. I have decided that I do. I said it was "organic" and my mom laughed at me. Then all day she kept teasing me about hypo-allergenic quilting or something. I take so much abuse from my family. At least Sherry understood me.

I liked the raw edge applique, although I am a bit leery of how it will wash.

I LOVED bias cut binding and will now switch to that. Up until now I have always just done a straight cut. Straight cut is faster, but this looks and handles SO much nicer!

The front:

I just realized I took the picture by the one straight seam in the whole binding. Nice.

The back:

The white with purple polka-dots is a "vintage" sheet. (Or maybe it's just an upcycled sheet. I don't think it's very old.)

Yeah. And then. Scalloped borders. Right. Um, won't be doing that again. Not for a while. A LOONG while. It is pretty, and it turned out... well, it turned out ok.

Some areas (by that I mean ONE) even turned out pretty good.

And Future Niece herself could have done a better job on some of these BLANKETY-BLANK-BLANK pointy-inside-corner-things! From inside the womb!

I have posted this picture so that I may inspire (fear into the hearts of) those who are possibly considering making (a BIG mess of) scalloped borders!! It's a great way to finish off a quilt (if you are masochistic) and gives it a little extra charm (and some arthritic lumps). So if you want to try taking your binding and border making skills to the next level (and by that I mean if you are INSANE) go ahead and try this. (Just don't do it my way- which is trial and error, mostly error.)

Someday I will write a proper post about how (not) to make a scalloped border.

In the meantime, I would suggest you make a (slightly) wavy border and call it good.

I do other things besides quilt. I also paint.

2009-06-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

Here is a sampling of my work.

Each item is completely original, and made either by me alone or with the help of my two assistants. Or maybe the assistants made it and I helped... I am never completely sure who is in charge.

We like to use found objects in our art. And color. We are quite fond of color.

(Our neighbors would attest to that fact.)

By far the most utilized component is the "googly eye" which Lucas demonstrates here:

Unfortunately yesterday's work session quickly degenerated into an ant attack. That is, my assistants attacked the ants. With paint. So someday some confused geologist is going to find some poor ants fossilized in bright pink craft paint.

We will be displaying these pieces in our garden all summer, so feel free to stop by for a private showing. (Prices are negotiable.)

Whazzup??

2009-06-09T14:38:00.000-07:00

What's up on my design wall, that is:

I am working on my quilt for Project Improv. I think I can use this for the B & W plus One Challenge, too, actually. It's black, white and dark green. I have it this far and now will leave it up there for a few days and switch things around- sort of mull it over. I somehow have a glitch somewhere because I only used 90 of the 100 squares I made. Anyone see the problem? I don't, but I bet if I leave it up there a while I will figure it out.

One picture shows the fish swimming clockwise and one shows them going counter-clockwise. They will be cut down smaller and have a border put around each one.

I am leaning toward counter-clockwise at this point.
So if anyone has any suggestions or input, I am wide open over here!

Edited to add: I figured out where I went wrong and it's 10 x 10 now, but I am not sure it's improved. I don't like how two of the white strips end up on the outside.

A quilt show from Mom's house

2009-06-04T09:04:00.001-07:00

The boys and I went to my mom's house last week and spent a week there sewing and having fun. She has THREE weddings on one day next month and was trying to get a quilt made for each one. She had them all cut out and two of them sewed together. So we put the completed tops on the frame and pinned them and she quilted those two while I worked on sewing the third top together and making a fancy backing.

Here is quilt number one. This is for my brother's friends' wedding and is the one I worked on sewing together. My brother is standing up in this wedding, so he helped pick out the fabric and my SIL helped with the sewing, too. For having three different people sewing on this top, it turned out remarkably square. I was proud of us! The back is gray camoflage.

This one is for a friend of the family's wedding. These are the colors in her bedroom. The binding on this is really pretty- a large scale blue gingham.

This one is for my brother-in-law's brother. (Wow- all the apostrophes in these relationships are confusing me!) Mom started this one a while ago and worked on it at my house so you have seen pictures of this quilt in progress.

There was a flaw in the (Walmart!) fabric that my sister had gotten for the backing for this quilt. (Not the spot- that was on my camera.) So Mom said we should cover it with a heart with the wedding couple's names on it. I agreed and said we should look at their invitation and use a heart from that. Well, there was nary a heart to be found. They had really cool, sort of gothic/bohemian invitations. So we decided on a fleur de lis instead of a heart and my bestest friend Sherry and my SIL helped me make a really big one. Then we printed their names using a cool font, appliqued them on and voila! the back is almost as cool as the front!

A closeup to see the font. My SIL designed the fancy "plus" sign and Sherry freehanded the fleur de lis. Cool, huh? Lots of artsy fartsy types in my family. Sherry is technically a friend, but she has been around long enough that we have "adopted" her. (She's just crazy enough to fit right in.)

I cut out my scalloped border and started hand quilting the purple and green heart quilt for Future Niece and the other two quilts are a lap quilt with the Lord's Prayer on it for my grandpa's birthday and a panel baby quilt for one of my cousins. My mom made those two in between making the big ones. (She's a busy lady to put it mildly.)

All stacked up.

Lukey wanted in and so he held Katie's quilt for Future Niece.

My parents have a log cabin with 2 lofts which are perfect to hang quilts on. Mom switches out the quilts seasonally. She had her spring quilts up so I took some pics so you guys could enjoy the view.

The tulip quilt is the one my Mom considers to be her "best" quilt. She made this one for herself and had it machine quilted locally by Arlene Readman who does amazing work.

This is a pretty daisy quilt that Mom made to keep. (She gives most of her quilts away.)

This quilt is MINE! My mom embroidered these fans for two years. She has over 40 hours into each fan. My mom has MS and she likes to take hand work with her whenever she gets an IV of steroids when she is having an attack. (Right now she is working on a bluework quilt that is going to be stunning.) I loved the squares and the pretty colors she chose, but had no idea that it was for me. Then when I got married she gave it to me for a wedding gift. I couldn't believe it! What you see is only half the quilt so there are another 5 fans on the other side of the railing. She saved enough of the yellow so that I can make a bedskirt out of it, but I won't take this quilt home yet. I will use it in a guest room someday and I don't have one right now. Also, I have two small "ruiners of everything nice" at this point who would get marker or koolaid or something on it and I will wait until they are a little older to have this treasure in my house. Also, I need to put this in a room with a door that closes so that I can keep the kitties off of it. Normally we use our quilts so that we can enjoy them, but this one is too precious to me to risk damaging. I will use it, but not at this point in my life.

I should have gotten a closeup of the fans, but my camera batteries were dying and it kept turning off. They are VERY pretty. I am a lucky daughter!!!

Another quilt for Future Niece!

2009-05-30T22:09:00.000-07:00

My already-here-niece, Katie, designed this quilt! It is for Future Niece, who is Katie's Future Cousin. She picked out the flannel fabric from my mom's stash, then my mom cut out the squares and laid them out in an around the world pattern for her. Katie took one look and decided that it was not to her liking. She pushed the squares into a pile (while chanting "Bulldozer! Bulldozer!") and then rearranged them into this pattern. (She likes squares in squares like her auntie.)

Then, she sat on my mom's lap while my mom worked the foot pedal and they sewed the blocks together. My mom will quilt it for her, but she did most of the work, and all of the designing. I am a proud auntie, that's for sure!

(Katie is only 6. Impressive, no?)

Can't I have anything NICE without you guys breaking it? Part 2

2009-05-24T12:24:00.001-07:00

Does anyone else's cat CLIMB their design wall? Mooch has been literally climbing the walls lately. He tears into the room, gets a flying start and can reach the ceiling on a good leap. My nice taut tablecloths are now hanging and droopy looking. Tiger-E is polite with her claws, but not Mooch. I think he needs to take a trip to the vet. (I always feel bad getting them declawed, but I think he will ruin too much of our stuff- like our box springs!!- if I don't.)

Speaking of trips to the vet, Mooch also has a new, er, friend. He appropriated one of the kid's stuffed bears. He LOVES this bear a lot if you get what I mean. (The kids think he is "fighting" with the bear so we leave it at that.) No one else touches the bear and when I have to move it I pick it up with the dustpan. It looks really ragged and the stuffing is falling out. I have heard of dogs doing this, but never a cat... leave it to Mooch.

Today Brady "fixed" this plate.

I'll just go throw that in the dishwasher now.

This little pile can make a BIG impact,

if you spread it out!

This is for Future Niece. This is what I ended up with for a color wheel idea. Now I want one for myself! Lukey added that tiny purple circle in the middle. He said the green circle was the "mommy circle" and then added the purple one and stated, "This one Lukey." So of course, it's staying! :0)

I tried it on white, too, but it just doesn't have the impact. I am working on hand quilting the purple and green heart quilt and want to try a scalloped border on it. We'll see how that goes.

(I think you are supposed to use a plate to trace your curves for a scalloped border... but my plate is broken! Whatever shall I do?!)

We had a sewing bee at my house!

2009-05-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today my mom came to (visit and) sew. She had this quilt started and today she finished cutting the squares and got it this far- over half-way put together. (It will be queen sized when it is finished.) These are not her preferred colors...

...but they are pretty.

This next quilt is for my Future Niece. It is absolutely adorable (just as she will be). Mom is making all the nursery stuff and she brought the quilt top down so I could add my touch- which was the embroidering on the bumblebees.

(We always have one "naughty" winking face. What a rebel bee!)

This next (the color wheel) is going to be used in a baby quilt for Future Niece. In some incarnation that is- I may be cutting it up or trimming it. I like this quilt, so wanted to do something like it and came up with this. My Sis-in-law is an artist so she will enjoy the color wheel, and hopefully Future Niece will like those pretty colors, too. The original is amazing (and I would not mind one of those for myself). This was really fun to play with. I sewed it backwards- this was definitely a learning experience- but the baby won't mind. Lukey keeps pointing at it and asking if he can have it, so I see something along these lines in our future.

My brother loves purple and green together so Future Niece also needs a purple and green quilt. I am a huge fan of Kellie's work and made my version of one of her quilts. When (not if!) she puts out a book, I am first in line!

I am currently sewing down all these petals and circles- a bit tedious, but still much faster than hand applique. I remembered basically what Kellie did- made a lot of cute girly shapes all close together in a heart shape, so I wouldn't let myself look back at hers until mine was done- at least cut out and ironed on. It turned out pretty cute, so I am sure Future Niece will like it.

I am considering cutting out the heart and doing a ragged edge applique to put it onto a white background. I don't think I like it just as it is. I will mull it over while I sew the rest of the petals down.

And now for an update on the recent post- no, the wedding gift quilt did not get finished in time for the wedding. I started quilting it and had to rip it all back out. So now I am hand-quilting it and they will get it late. (Hopefully it will be done in time for next winter...)

I did finish a quilt recently, though! I made a rag quilt for my aunt out of mostly Daydreams (blue and green colorways) along with some other coordinating prints. Unfortunately, I did not have both my camera and the quilt together at any point so I don't have a picture of it.

I had the best time sewing with Mom today, and the kids were good, and the sun was shining... it just doesn't get any better! ;0)

Some decorating pics and a new project

2009-04-23T09:58:00.000-07:00

Ok, blogger is not letting me rearrange my pictures so I will have to write about them in a strange (out of) order.

This is the fabric for the quilt I am working on now. It is going to be a wedding gift for some friends who are getting married in May. Paul is standing up in the wedding. (They don't know about my blog, so I am safe posting about it.) They are a pretty modern couple and have lots of black and white photography in their living room, so I wanted a simple, modern quilt with clean lines. I know they like to cuddle under blankets while watching movies, so this is probably going to have a soft microfiber back, either black or white, not sure which. If I do black, I will have to put a batting inside to keep my white true on the front. That would make this a really heavy blanket, but they live in Chicago so that would be fine.

This is the quilt laid out on our bed. It's very wrinkled as it spent an uncomfortable night all balled up in a chair. (We had some company and the kids were playing hide and seek last night, and the quilt got knocked off the table and "put away" by one of the boys.) Gar! Maybe it will unwrinkle a bit if I leave it like this for a while. Acutally, the more I see it there, the more I like it. The quilt I have started for our room is made from a Swell jelly roll and some vintage fabric, but I like the black and white, too, now... hmmm....

The words above the bed are from Pier One and were supposed to say "Live Laugh Love". I thought for the bedroom that just the word "Love" was appropriate. (Some days not so much...) This room is still a WIP, as I have to finish our quilt and make a bedskirt and pillow shams and such, but I have some other projects to finish first. The quilt top is made but it's gigantic and I am afraid to quilt it. It is the one I posted about here: http://gitdownkitty.blogspot.com/2009/01/so-as-it-turns-out-they-can-be-too-big.html

(I'm not allowed to do much on here today, it seems- like link inside the word or move pictures!)

The lamp in the corner is from Goodwill and I LOVE it. Paul hates it because it's so girly, but it's on my side, so he will just have to deal with it. I let him hang his stupid deer antlers on his side. Which I believe is called a "compromise" or something like that. (Silly concept if you ask me.)

Here is a closer pic of the lamp. (For Leslie!) Those are cherubs on there. I have to find a shade that fits it, but haven't been having much luck so far. No fear, though- it's almost rummage sale season!

Finally! Some pictures!

2009-04-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

I figured out a way to get the pictures out of the camcorder! It's one of those mini-disc ones and I had to "finalize" the disc and then could put the disc into my computer and that is where the pictures were. That should teach me to throw away my manuals, right? It took me long enough to figure out how to SNAP a picture, and they aren't the best quality, but at least this will tide me over until I can get a nice camera.

Here are some pictures of my "new" sewing room. Eventually I will paint the walls, probably white, maybe a little PINK or some light aqua, but I think white would be better so that my fabric colors will show true. Right now the walls are a yellowy paneling, so I am picking up that tone in the light. This room layout is a test, but so far, it's working really well. When I am sure I like how it "works" I will start painting. Also, I will do a little bit of decorating, but no sense doing it at this point.

Here is the sewing table. I can look out the window as I sew, or open it if the weather would get nice enough! I think a window box is somewhere in the future of this window (with geraniums!?). I am having too much fun with the design wall thing and most of the walls are covered with vinyl tablecloths turned backwards.

Here is the ironing station and fabric closet. The shelf unit between the design wall and the closet holds future projects that I have pulled fabric for or am collecting fabric for. Now, if I only had the time to make them all! On the short wall of the closet is a "tiny" design wall for Lukey. He had so much fun putting scraps on my wall that I made him his own and cut some squares and triangles out for him. He sticks them on and makes them "talk" to each other, which is highly entertaining for me.

The cabinet that is the ironing station was made by one of my uncles in his high school shop class and my grandma gave it to me years ago when I bought my first house. It has a butcher block top on it and I used it as an island in my first kitchen. Grandma has passed on now, but she would be proud to see her cabinet being used in a craft room as she was a very "crafty" lady. (The cabinet is full of vintage sheets and cutter tablecloths.)

This is the wall above my cutting table. There is also a tall box of rolls of wrapping paper standing on the floor. All of the gift wrap supplies are here- paper, tape, ribbon, bows, bags- everything all in one place! The ribbon spools are threaded onto a dowel rod.

Oh! And the music! lives here. :o)

This is the cutting table. We recycled when we made this- the wood pc. is the bottom of Lukey's poor broke-down old crib. I used a small shelf unit on one side and shelf brackets on the wall side. We put a pc. of mdf under there, too, to make it sturdier, but the crib bottom was the perfect size and also nice and smooth.

Here is a shot of that whole corner. The design wall is just a tablecloth (well, 2 of them) turned backwards. I had not even heard of a design wall until I started reading blogs, and wow, what a concept! This could just change everything! It's so much easier than laying quilts out on the floor. And the kitties can't mess these blocks up!

You can kind of see on the floor where I have little plastic cubes. These hold my scraps and they are all separated by color. (The cubes were 99 cents at Walmart!) I will eventually put them on a shelf on the wall but for now they live on the floor.

This is the kids' art table. As of now, those boxes have all of their art supplies all organized, but I expect that is a temporary state and things will be all mixed up in another day or two. They love this! I give them little "projects" to work on while I sew. Mostly they just like to cut things up. And glue them. Cutting and gluing are a lot more fun than coloring apparently.

I did my first sewing in the new room this week and have a completed quilt top to show for it! I took some pictures of that and will post soon. I cannot believe what a difference it makes to have a room dedicated to sewing, and also, separate cutting, ironing and sewing areas. It is sooo much faster and easier to get things done. I don't think I will ever be without a sewing room again, no matter if we ALL four have to share a bedroom. Heehee! (My family may think differently about that.) :o)

Giveaway! Giveaway!

2009-04-23T07:55:00.000-07:00

Go here! Go here and sign up! I won a most excellent prize box from this lady and it was just like Christmas morning!