New Fabric Alert!

I have so much new fabric right now!  It is making me very excited for upcoming projects.  One of my favorite collections is Spring Street by Carolyn Gavin:

There are adorable rain drops:

And birds!  Which I thought were chickens but now I'm not so sure....

My plan is to use this bundle (20 fat quarters) to tackle this quilt:

This behemoth is the "Modern Crosses" quilt featured as the cover of this book.  I bought this book specifically to make this quilt!  I love it!  Also, I am nervous!  This quilt will require greater skill in cutting and piecing accuracy than I currently possess.  I think I'm going to wait to tackle this one until I have more confidence in those areas.

Don't worry though - I have a lot of projects still to do!  Check them out tomorrow!

Wild Weekend

I really went on a sewing bender this weekend!  So much sewing.  Actually, it went by quickly.

On Friday evening, I finished the 42 squares for the top of the quilt:

And by Saturday evening, I had a completed quilt top!

With questionable corners:

But cute patterns and colors.

Now I am working on the back of the quilt.  I'm thinking stripes..... we'll see!  Hope your weekend was more fun than mine!

 

Where The Magic Happens

Have you ever seen an episode of "Cribs" where the celebrity giving a tour of his/her house didn't say "this is where the magic happens" upon entering his/her bedroom?  The answer is no.  Because it never didn't happen.  They all say it.

Well, brace yourself, because this is where my magic happens!

Uggggh.  I am not happy with this look.   I want things to be a little more crisp and gender-neutral.  In other words, I think it is time for a mini-makeover!

I'm not going to paint or anything - but I'm thinking of replacing the drapes and duvet cover, and also changing the pillow situation.

Remember when I went to Rosie's Calico Cupboard (a happening place!) for quilt fabric?  Well, I also got some fabric that is going to be the inspiration for the makeover.  This:

It is Joel Dewberry Sunflower in Lake.   I'm going to make an oversized, rectangular bolster pillow for the bed.  I'm also going to replace the duvet with a solid white one, and rethink the pillows in general.

The final piece of the puzzle will be replacing the soggy yellow drapes with something crisp and navy.  I haven't purchased any fabric for this yet - but I have three contenders.  Let's take a look!

Option 1 is Herringbone in Lake - nice navy and white pattern.  Sort of like chevrons!  A good one!

Option 2 is Nap Sack in Lake.  Also nice.  And the name - so apropos!  Who wouldn't want to be ensconced in a nap sack?

Option 3 is Acorn Chain in Lake.   Hmmmmm......

I think I know which one I'm going to pick!  Do you have a preference?  Are you going to start calling your bed the Nap Sack?  Share!

Another Piped Pillow! In Pink!

I made this pillow this past weekend to go with the quilt for Charlotte.  I had a lot of leftovers from the quilt -- both strips and binding.  I like to have excessive supplies for a project so I can feel free to make mistakes.  Here, I used the leftover strips to make the front of the pillow and used leftover binding strips to make the piping.

Front:

Back:

To make the piping, I bought some upholstery piping cord at Joann's and sewed it into the binding strip.  Once the cord has been sewn into the binding fabric, you just sew it onto the front side of the pillow, lining up all the cut seams.  Then, sew the back of the pillow to the front as usual.  When you flip your pillow right-side out, the piping is there -- like magic!

Speaking of magic, are you into "Game of Thrones" on HBO?  I am LOVING it.  But then again I really like nerd-based-fantasy-medieval-magik-with-a-K-type entertainment.  I've just started on the books too!!!

Back to pillows, I do think this one came out pretty cute.  Next time, however, I will use bias-cut fabric instead of straight-cut fabric for the piping (the pattern will look better).

I'm gearing up for my bedroom bolster pillow project and definitely want it to be piped -- so this was good practice.  Just wait until you see the fabric I got!!!!  And watch Game of Thrones!!!  Let's discuss plot points ASAP!

Summer Cake!

Do you remember when V-8 introduced their non-tomato-based "V-8 Splash" fruit drinks?  This was at least 10 years ago or so.  I think Y2K madness was starting to happen at this time.  Anyway, I was getting my hair cut that summer and the hairdresser kept going on and on about how much he loved V-8 Splash and how much V-8 Splash he'd already had that day and how much V-8 Splash he was going to drink later and how V-8 Splash was the official drink of Summer '99.  This is true!

Well, it looks like this rooty-tooty fresh 'n fruity berry summer cake is going to be the official dessert of Summer '11.

I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen.  The first time I made it, I used strawberries, and it was incredible.  This time, I used a mix of berries (blue, black & rasp).  I over-berried it and it got a little gooey in the middle, but it was still very, very good.  And sort of healthy, right??  Right!

Here it is before baking:

And after:

Yum!  Make a summer cake!  You will not regret it!  Well, you might if you are a night-eater like me, but that's another issue altogether...

Blenders!

I've been making pretty good progress on the Castle Peeps quilt.  I decided to use a pattern called "Square One" from the book Simplify by Camille Roskelley, using the various Castle Peeps fabrics as the squares, and keeping the borders and sashing white.

The quilt has 42 squares in it.  At first, I was just going to use various combinations of the Castle Peeps prints.  But that made the squares look too much alike.  Here are the 12 squares I've completed so far:

See?  Kind of busy AND boring (not a good combination).

To remedy this situation, I went to the quilt store (Rosie's!  Finally!  It WAS a happening place!) to look for solids and small monochrome prints in the green/brown/yellow color scheme.  According to my quilt books, these types of fabrics are called "blenders."'

I found a nice yellow print that sort of looks like it has brush strokes:

And a very interesting ombre fabric that goes from olive green to brown:

So I'm going to cut these up and add them to the remaining squares for the quilt.  I think having some solids in there will quiet down the loudness and also make the cute prints stand out more.

Only 30 squares to go!  Ugggghhhhhhh.  

PS - I also got a TON of other fabrics at Rosie's!  Look for them soon!

Finished! And Clean!

I GOT SOMETHING TO SAY!!!!!

This blog needs more Jerri Blank!  Also, the quilt for baby Charlotte is finished!  I even washed it to make it soft & squishy.  This was actually the first time I'd washed one of my (3) quilts, so I was glad it came out so well.  Also, I found the cat sleeping on it, so I had to wash it.  Are you ready???

Here it is!!!  With a 5 year old for size reference!!!

And here is the back!!!  Which might be cuter than the front!!!

I decided to quilt it using diagonal lines in one direction:

I think it looks good that way -- not too busy.  Also I don't know how to do the swirly-designy quilting.  So straight lines it is!

I'm very happy with it!  I hope my sister likes it too.  Now I just have to make a little pillow to go with it.  And get started on the next one!  Such is the quilter's burden.....