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kitchy kitchen curtains

14 Nov

I went on a little fabric expedition with Jeni and Megan last month to Olive Juice.  I grabbed this Melody Miller fabric within seconds of walking in the door.

The little stars have that 50′s feel that I adore and the little white dishes reminded me of my favorite fire king refrigerator dishes.  I didn’t really know what I would do with it, but while standing at the cutting table I knew I came up with a plan for kitchen curtains so I could see the fabric every day.

I love the ease of curtain clips, but don’t like the  look of the clips so I stitched a band to the back of the header so the clips aren’t as visible.

I also slipped some header tape in the top so the top holds it’s shape.

On these curtains the header tape was just stitched and the bottom.  It should have been tucked into the sides, but I forgot.  oops…don’t tell my mom.

the cottage, stitched

24 Oct

For months now, I’ve been tossing making throw pillows for the living room to the bottom of the priority project list.  Somehow, this little pillow made it the top of the list this fall, and I’m so happy with how it looks.

I started with a picture of our house in big huge labs color palette generator.

I matched the palette colors with cosmo floss colors over at the workroom.

For the pattern, I took two pictures of the cottage.

I love the oak tree in front yard, but I really didn’t want a big dark tree trunk in the middle of my pillow so I pulled both shots into photoshop elements and overlapped them to get both sides of the front door in one shot.  In elements, I clicked on image, then to mode and chose grayscale.  Once the picture was converted to grayscale, I chose filter, then stylize, then find edges.  This left me with a line drawing style picture I was able to print onto a sheet of transfer-eze that could be stuck onto my background fabric.

When I was done stitching, it looked like this.

At this point, it’s hard to see past the transfer-eze.  Once it was rinsed and pressed I could not wait to get it on the pillow form.

Here it is on the front step

I’m off to make some new kitchen curtains now.

i was a bit preoccupied

18 Oct

The past few weeks I’ve been getting ready for a trip.  It was a big deal because I haven’t travelled solo since the 90′s.  I was feeling confident until one night when cj was in tears asking how I could leave when I promised him I would always be there for him.  Talk about some Mom Guilt!  I took a deep breath, had some friends and the spouse promise me that all would be well and…

I went to the Sewing Summit…

It was cloudy when I arrived, so I was shocked to see the mountains outside my window when I woke up the next day.

All I can say is there are not enough adjectives to describe the trip…amazing, funfilled, overwhelming, thoughtful, kind, inspiring, exhausting, hilarious…

It was lovely to hang out with people who’s blogs and tweets I’ve been following for so long, and also to meet new people {including Megan‘s awesome Mom & Dad!}

Honestly, it was just great to hang out and instead of typing LOL we could actually just laugh together.

I was lucky enough to be Amanda‘s teaching assistant.  You can blame the boom of mini quilts that’s about to happen all over the internet on her uber-inspiring class.

I got to sit with Claudia during the improve piecing class.

I know what you’re thinking a bunch of ladies on the loose, there must of been some crazy nights…

like this, but she‘s Canadian, and she’s awesome…

mostly, this happened…

(thanks for sharing your pic Amanda)

I love this pic too.

All the classes and dinners and chats and stitching flew by and I was heading home before I knew it.  Oh and  I also saved a camera.

Things at the cottage were fine.  The spouse learned how to make tacos, lulu was thrilled I was able to find sock monkey flannel to make her some new pj’s, and cj keeps the little owl I found him by his bed at night.  He had some trouble sleeping while I was gone and there were a few extra “NO” and “I don’t want to” last week, but he seems to be getting back on track.

I’m doing my best to finish all the projects I’ve already started before starting anything new.

We’ll see how that goes.

my name is…

9 Sep

Here is the name tag I made for the Sewing Summit.

The tutorial for the felt dahlia can be found here.

I put a separate pin back on the flower so I can remove it and wear it separately.

a bit strap happy

4 Sep

I needed a new camera strap cover.  I thought it would be the perfect project for this fabric.  Now, every time I grab my camera I get to see these sweet little cowgirls.

{made using cluck cluck sew’s tutorial}

I also made this strap to secure my suitcase.  I’ve sat on planes and looked out the window as they remove luggage.  Luckily my bags were fine, but it left me with horrible visions of my undies flying across the tarmac. {shudder}

This should help…

{made using i like orange too’s tutorial}

I was able to find a two inch buckle at Hancock’s, but they didn’t have the glide.  I improvised and used some velcro strips to help hold the extra length in place.

Next up, I’m hoping to get a back put together for Cj’s quilt so I can bind it at Friday’s craft night.

laundry from paris apartment

18 Aug

I wish my laundry was in a Paris apartment!

This is my new travel laundry bag made with Bari J.‘s Paris Apartment line.

I’m working with fat quarters so the back uses one quarter with the front pieced to match the size.

You put right sides together, stitch the sides and bottom together, leaving the top open.  Then turn and press the top down 1/4″, then turn down another 1″.  With the bag wrong side out, edge stitch the bottom edge for the drawstring pocket/casing.

Then turn the bag right side out and edge stitch the very top of the bag.  Make a couple of bar tacks at the top edge and bottom edge of the casing, then use a seam ripper to take out the stitches between the bar tacks.  This gives you a little hole for the drawstring.

You could use ribbon, but I made a spaghetti style string for mine.  The main panel on the front is the embroidery sampler from Bari J.’s new project, We love french knots.

I love the look of all the knots clustered together.

Well, all this talk of dirty laundry has reminded me I have my share waiting for me down by the washing machine…

we traveled handmade

15 Aug

We took a little trip last week.

Cj’s favorite part of any hotel stay is having snacks in bed while watching tv.

ahhh the simple pleasures (this was taken about 4 o’clock in the afternoon)

Lulu and I did our best to travel handmade.

Here she is in the elevator with her weekender.

Here’s my weekender.

I love it.

Lily of the valley and purple are some of my favorite things, so I was thrilled to find enough of this fabric. (hooray superbuzzy) It’s the weekender pattern from Amy Butler.  (I love that link because I could access it with my phone and get the pattern requirements while I was in the fabric store, before the pattern arrived at my house.) I tend to have good luck with her patterns.  Although there was one point around step 11 where I finally had to stop and slowly read out loud the same step a couple of times because I just couldn’t figure out what she was talking about.  Once I figured it out it was smooth sailing.  For me, the biggest help was to stitch slowly, pin the corners with several pins, and also not stitch too closely when making the piping.

You can see my zipper pouch made from tape measures that a friend gifted me, along with the tiniest bit of the edge of an embroidery hoop sticking out of the pocket.  I had the best of intentions to get some stitching done, but was too tired by the end of each day.

I also finished a simple drawstring laundry bag from a fat quarter of the dwarves’ laundry print from Heather Ross.

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