Project Catchup

I made these buckets for my pal Amy for Christmas. I have no idea what the pattern is. Film in the Fridge maybe. I got to use some of my coveted typewriter fabric.
They turned out pretty cute and someday would like to make myself some.

For my friend and boss I made a Russian Nesting Doll.  Here is my pile of inspirational bits.

 And here she is with her babies, unstuffed.

 The back is a piece of vintage fabric. I feels like linen.

The finished doll.

I got a bunch of signed by the author books while in Market and am giving a book a day away on "my" other blog. I blog about 3-4 days a week over there and share my work related sewing.

Is is really the end of May? School is out in one week. Another summer. Last year was a write off.
Nuala broke her leg this time last year and was in a wheelchair. Mia broke her arm and I just worked, kept my head down, and forged ahead. I happily kissed 2012 goodbye.

Thankfully 2013 has started off pretty good. I am in love, Mia made High School cheerleading tryouts (I have a high schooler!!), my friends/coworkers just got back from Quilt Market in Portland, and I am getting sprinklers in my yard (no more hauling hoses around my enormous yard!! Life changing). I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease but that still isn't enough to make this year bad.

I'm riding the happy train as long as I can.

Bloglovin Switch Over

Super bummed about Google Reader shutting down but I think I might really like Bloglovin. Plus, I can download all the blogs I follow through Google Reader to Bloglovin.

I have switched my blog over too. I plan on starting to blog again soon.

 Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Canada, Eh

My annual trip to B.C. to visit family was cancelled in 2012 and reschedulled. My youngest broke her leg and wore a full leg cast for most of the summer. She had a tiny wheelchair. It looks like no permanent damage was done but she still complains of leg pain now and then.

We ended up going to Canada in November. I was not ready for the weather. While it was much warmer than Idaho it rained almost everyday we were there (that part didnt bother me) but the damp cold made a wimp. I wore a jacket indoors.

On our walk downtown I walked by some fantastic chalk art leftover from an art fair. Isn't that portrait amazing?


I noticed a ramped up trend too. Victoria was big into recycling when I live there (almost 14 years ago) but it has really taken it to a new level.
The bike and cart you see goes around to the downtown businesses and picks up their recycling. I also saw a compost section in the food court at the mall. In addition to recycling your paper, plastic and glass youc an now compost.
Most stores still don't have plastic bags and you have to bring your own. And in an upscale hispter clothing store they had a seperate bin to put your recycled paper hand towel so it could be recycled again.


Where I live we have almost zero
recycling. My small town (around 2700) finally put up a cardboard recycling bin and even that took years.

I also noticed how much my oldest is growing up, She is almost as tall as me and has a full shoe size bigger. I am betting on a final height of 5'7" for this new 13 year old. I am 5'5".

Today is a snow day and school was cancelled. It certainly looks like a blizzard out there. I am going to stay in and see what I can get done.

You can see more of my facination with recycling in Victoria on my Instagram profile (and my sewing stuff). I am tinyglutton.

 

Millie's Cathedral Quilt

I love Lori Holt's Millie's Closet, especially the cheater fabric.  But what to make with it?

The whole cloth fabric looks like a charm pack sewn together. I added the raw edge "peels" and sewed them on and quilted it at the same time.

The back is a Tula Pink, I believe.

Shertbet Pips

It turns out we have a bunch of Sherbet Pips charm packs. What does a quilt store do when they have an abundance of something? Make a sample of course. Fabric sells better when you can see something made out of it.

So what to do with the charm pack? A coworker suggested Cooton Way's Cuddle me Cozy. It called for minkie squares but I have zero interest in piecing minkie. I used a solid white instead.

It turned out pretty good. It was nice to knock out a baby size quilt.



Thrifting Haul

I haven't done a thrifting post in a long time. I might have (now that I think about it) taken the summer off from thrifting. It seems my job cut into thrifting time. Plus, I am no longer shopping for resale. I don't have time for that anymore. I am going to be either re-donating, taking to auction or putting my surplus on etsy. I am on to a new phase of my life and I am enjoying the downsizing.

However, I really like to go treasure hunting so I go with a clear plan and put back half of what makes it in to my cart.

Large tin faux basket, 1.00. I think this former biscuit tin will become my hand sewing basket.
2.75 yards of vintage fabric, 2.00, destined to become a fall skirt. Its kind of sheer with dots.

Jadite chili bowl. I have never found jadite thrifting and I don't really collect it anymore but I couldnt pass up .75.
Vera scarf in perfect fall colors, 1.00
Blue mason jars; large, 5.00 each and smaller 3.50. I felt like I paid a lot of these jars but I really want to make a light fixture of some sort. What do these jars go for where you are?

Two hand knit cream sweaters. These were on my list and I found 2. I was hoping for kid sizes (for a fall photo shoot) but one will fit me (left 2.00) and the right one might be too small for me. It is however, divine. slit front pockets and the lovliest wool, 2.00. Not sure what to do with it. I wish I could take off the cowl neck. Oh ya, another wool cardigan in the back. I wanted to add to my Miss Marpole fall fashion wardrobe. Now to dig out my tweed skirts. If only I could find brown leather ankle boots.

And a stack of books, 1.00 each. I started one, very excited by the back cover, only to realize that I have read it already. One of the hazzards of reading 100 books a year. This year (see job reference above) I have only read about 10 books. Surprisingly, I am ok with that.

For those of you who thrift how do our prices compare to your store's prices?

I have a large to do list before winter hits so this might be my last trip in a while. There might have to be a quick trip for Halloween costume shopping. The characters have been chosen and I think they are from Adventure Time. Nuala might still want to be a dead bride cat. Thats my girl.
 

Chicklette

 

We needed a model that would fit into a size 3 dress and naturally I thought of my almost 7 year old. I don't call her Shrimp for nothing.

This shop sample needed to be blogged on The Quilt Barn blog (I blog over there) and a sundress on a hanger just isn't as cute. 



 

 



 

Of course she was very happy to oblige my request to be a Barn Chicklette model (we call ourselves Barn Chicks at work). The above photo is her "this is how models pose" pose.

 

We are getting in to a good groove with the new school year. Mia, now 13 has braces (and the changes in 3 months are nothing short of a miracle) and is a cheerleader. Ava, now 9, is a very bright and creative girl. And Nuala is still a free spirit. Almost 7 she has a huge gap with her missing teeth and always keeps me on my toes.

 

My girls are my life and the days they aren't here are still tough but I am learning to enjoy the quiet and time to myself. I am feeling the desire to blog more. Fall is here, my favorite time of the year, and I am feeling renewed and optimistic 

Boy Head

So this is a direct copy of the blog post I did for Quilt Barn. I wanted to share it with you but I didn't have it in me to rewrite it. Sorry.
We have several fires close by. I have been sitting on my deck at night and watching it get closer everyday. The girl's dad is is at these fires and he sends me picture texts. Scary stuff. They are doing evacuations and many dairies are close by. How do you evacuate  hundreds of cows?

Now for the other window display. Our other window has a large iron bed and it stays put. It gets a new theme for window change day too. We have the girl's room all pretty but the boys needed to be represented too.
Like our vintage girl pillow we made a matching boy pillow using our t-shirt printer and white muslin. Isn't he sweet. He was made using a free image from The Graphics Fairy and tweaked in photoshop by Laura. He is backed with a blue reproduction feedsack fabric and stuffed with wool batting scraps.
Again, my inspiration was these pillows

The pillow next to him is a robot applique pillow from the book Curiosities and Mischief. I hope we get more books in because there are more cute pillows I want to make from it.

The bright quilt is also made from Curiosities and Mischief. The car pillows are simply wrapped in a piece of remenant fabric from the line Peak Hour.

 The bed bunting I made with the same Peak Hour remenant. No template, I just cut roughed out triangles with a long ruler. Each car was a different size so a template would not have worked. Each triangle was ironed on to a light fusible, stitched with a bright red thread and then sewn on to large green pompom fringe.

Vintage Girl Head Pillow

Like many, many of you I am a big fan of pinterest. I saw these pillows and had to make one. They are darling. We have a t-shirt printer here at the Quilt Barn so I thought we could make something like it. Its been fun trying out this machine. It has been very busy this summer printing our sports, reunion, and summer events t-shirts but I knew it could print on fabric too.

I found a free image on The Graphics Fairy and Laura (Quilt Barn co-worker) tweaked it in photoshop to get the image we used.

This is part of Quilt Barn's Aug/Sept window, Vintage Children's Room. You can see more blog posts about the whole thing on their blog (there will be about 4 or 5 posts, some still coming)

A Win and a Fail

I am often inspired by the customers that come into where I work. I saw one such customer wearing this bag and I recognized the pattern. I never in a million years would have given that pattern a second glance.

One, I don't make bags (translation; I am not good at making bags) and two I didn't like the fabric on the cover and I am lame enough not to be able to look past that and imagine different fabric.

Back to the customer, she had this bag and it was in this exact fabric. I had to make it that night and rip off her fabric choice too. To my credit I did chose a different lining fabric (cause we didnt have the one she used). Surprisingly this was an easy bag to make. The cutting out seemed to take longer.

The sewing planets aligned that night and this bag turned out terrific. If I made this bag again I am quite sure it wouldn't be as good.  I am a little puffed up about this bag. I never have bag success.

Now for the fail. Having 22" of lining fabric leftover I decided to make a zippered pouch to go with this. Huge mega throw it in the garbage fail.

This summer my girls are having many summer adventures without me (sadly and it is a little depressing) so I have lots of sewing time on my hands. If I am not working its either housework or sewing. Soooo, I do lots of sewing.

What I Wore: Repurposed Jeans into Lace Skirts





This is me trying to not look like a complete dork. I remembered a Pinterest pin that showed how to stand for pictures, one leg in front of the other, hands on hips. The sunglasses are my genius idea. I tend to have most pictures with my eyes closed. I overcompensate by opening my eyes a bit wider. Yah, not so good either. But sunglasses? No one can see my closed or deer in headlights eyes. Why didn't I think of this years ago?

On to the skirt. I have a local thrift store that has quarter clothing weekends at the end of the month.

I picked up a couple pairs of jeans. They sat around. For about a year. Last week (at the same store) I found a lace table cloth remenant, 1.75. Ding! I dug out the jeans and added a wide pices of lace to the bottom. I also added a tunic lining that I had cut off from another project. Done and done.

I have made 2 other pieces of clothing with the lace so this skirt cost about .83 

This skirt is made the same way but I used extra wide dotted swiss from work. No lining so I might have to wear a slip with it.

I cut the jeans off just below the bottom of the zipper, leaving about 1/2 inch for a seam allowance. I also made sure not to cut off the front pockets. I like pockets. I don't remember how much of the fabric I got. I held the fabric on the bolt against my leg and cut off how much I thought it would take.

I was in a clothing sewing mood last week and have a few more projects to share.

I spent the weekend putting a bunch of my vintage pattern in my shop. I am slowly getting tinyglutton on etsy up going.

I also created a facebook page. Still messing around with it a bit.

Quilt Favorites

While I am thoroughly enjoying my new computer I am unable to upload new pictures via blogger. I'm not sure if this is my fault or blogger isn't feeling well.

I discovered that I can upload old blog pictures. I have to admit it was very wierd to see the last 5.5 years all laid out like that on my screen. It was great to see my girls growing, projects I have made (furniture, decorating and quilts) but it was a little sad to see the other parts.

I thought I would take a trip down quilt memory lane and share some of my favorite quilts that I have made.

The first one is Heather Ross Mendochino fabrics in a quilt as you go pattern. I made this for my youngest as she is a huge mermaid fan. She was not a fan of this quilt. Maybe it wasnt pink enough.

This fabric is now really hard to find and I was lucky to pick up a couple of scrap bundles a few years ago. I have no idea where it is now. In a box somewhere. I should find it.

This is one of my favorite fabrics of all time, Swell by Moda. I bought 6 charm packs a few years ago and added about 10 squares from my stash to make a twin size. This one is in my closet.

Hope Valley, maybe my second favorite fabric line, by Denyse Schmidt. I bought a lot of this fabric at a store closing. I made another quilt with this fabric and it sits in the to be quilted pile. Its been there a while. This is her pattern too, Hills and Hollars. Its a queen size and was very quick and easy.

It too is in my closet.

A dresden plate quilt made with yellow vintage sheets and solids. I needle turned the outside edges of the circles. Its probably in my closet. I dont use it much anymore because the inner circles are raw edge appliqued and they are fraying a bit too much.  If I made this pattern again I would make the inner circles much bigger and turn them as well.

The girls are with their dad this weekend so I am watching Pretty Little Liars on Netfliks and making a cute bag for the store. It was such a great pattern I think it would make a good class. This means at least 2 more bags. One cut out for swap outs when teaching and one halfway done to show technique. 3 is my magic number for gifts with 3 girls so it works out.

Sherbet Woods Quilt

I find myself wanting to talk about things other than quilting. I love quilting. Its my job, my hobby and my therapy. But sometimes I just want to let it all out. I've got things to say you know (just like all of you do too). But I don't know where to draw the line so I don't say anything.

So I will show you a quilt (cause I do love sewing after all. That is one real thing).
I made a Salt Air quilt a bit ago using Jaybird Quilts Radioway pattern and it sold out our fabric.
There are people just like me out there who have to see fabric used to know you like it. In fact, I wasn't sure I liked the fabric so I made a store sample with it. Turns out I did like it.
Anyway...I thought we still needed another store sample with Jaybird's pattern.

It is a very fun and easy pattern. Got a jelly roll and some neutral? Done.
But what fabric? My mind went to fabrics that were not doing so well in the store (see my above thoughts on people like me needing to see fabric being used to appreciate it).

For some reason people here in Southern Idaho are not jelling with Aneela's fabrics. It boggles my mind. I love her stuff. I made up a few jelly rolls using Walk in the Woods and Sherbet Pips (and maybe Little Apples, not sure).

I also found a new long arm pattern just for this quilt, mushrooms! Love love. Amy quilted this one up for me and its perfect.

If for some reason you are wondering where I have been and what I have been making you can find me over at my work blog, Quilt Barn.

And I finally got a computer and finally found someone to help me set it up.
I had been doing all my personal computer stuff via my iphone so I am happy to have something more substatial to work on. Hopefully it will get me back in a blogging frame of mind.

Hexagon Rag Quilt and Dating

 I thought I was going to hate this quilt. The idea had me jumpy. I was so excited to get started. It was going to be brilliant. I had to start it now. Of course I was at work and closing up shop so I could sew was not an option.
So, I waited. A few days. My barn Chick co-workers and I all caught this rag hexagon bug so we all took turns at the giant fabric cutter and cranked out hexagons.

I put it on the long arm, took the belts off and got to sewing/quilting. I hated it. The lines were very wonky and there is no way I was going to show this one to anyone. It was going to be a picnic blanket. Or dog blanket.
But then I washed it. Miracles happen when you first wash a quilt and this rag quilt turned out pretty good. All wavy lines were no longer visable.
I would make this quilt again. I would use a fabric glue stick instead of spray adhesive next time.
I like it so much I was able to hang it (high) at The Quilt Barn and not be ashamed.

April was the one year mark for my divorce. I've dated a bit and have a date this week. A second date. I am freaked out. I thought I was past thinking about first kisses (what date does that happen on?) and all that nerve wracking stuff. Egads, my heart beat picked up just typing that.

What do I wear? Don't forget to shave your legs (guys don't like hairy legs yet do they?). Hair up, hair down. Where to go, do I pay? And of course I have kids now so that whole arena make me queasy.

Divorced certainly is not how I pictured myself at this age but it is kind of exciting. This time last year I vowed no dating or marriage ever again. I might be changing my mind. About the dating part anyway.

Any advice?

Ever So Grateful

I would be ever so grateful if you had a moment to pop over to The Blogger's Quilt Festival and had a peep at my entry. I am number 589. I don't know if I am allowed to ask you to vote for me. If I am allowed then would you pretty please vote for me?
This quilt means so much to me, its a memory quilt for my mom and her sweetheart (my dad) who died 5 years ago. That is their initials "carved" on the tree.