Some home decorating with fabric

Before I start the main purpose of this post, I have to take a second to post two shop notes.

First - my LQS has found and posted online some old school Tula (Neptune and Hushabye). If you are a collector and want to check it out, here's their link. Sew Smart Fabrics.

Second, I need to gush about the Fat Quarter Shop (I am not being compensated for this at all). I always forget how much I love this shop until I order from them. Last week I placed an order with a major fabric store which I will not name. A few days later I placed a second order from FQS. The FQS order was at my doorstep and I still had not received shipping notice from the other company that I ordered from first! And of course everything was gorgeous and beautifully packaged as usual.

Check out what I got:

Pretty, yes?


So the main stars in that photo are the two prints in the center which are from Delighted by Riley Blake.


I've been struggling with what to do with this corner of my kitchen. There were two prints here from the previous owner and the paint has been discolored so I need to keep with two prints. I found these two, but the just scream doctors office to me. Very blah.

Lately, I've been seeing so many covered canvases all over blog-land and I wanted to do some myself. I figured this is the perfect spot. I went to AC Moore and picked up two canvases. I already had the staple gun, and that's all you need!

The Amy Butler floral is going to be my curtains, just waiting on hubby to cut my board to hang it! Here are the canvases....

And here is my new corner.

What do you think!? This technique is so easy, I'm going to have to restrain myself from hanging fabric in every room!

Hubby did get my board hung in the dining/sewing room and I was able to hang up those curtains too. These curtains used Ty Pennington Impressions (which now has new colorways). I used this great tutorial from Addicted 2 Decorating. She says it's a little difficult, but really, if you can quilt this is no problem. It's all straight lines.

And up close:

 And just little quickies that I managed to get done. More burp cloths for myself! 'Cause, you know, I bought the whole pack, they all need to be fancy.

It's been productive around here. Hoping to keep it up! Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend.

WIP {36}

I have to start out this post with a big Happy Birthday to my daughter who is 3 today! A lot of my works in progress this week have been party related. We took these Micky Inspired cupcakes to her school yesterday.

 

I did some cleaning of the sewing room since we have people coming this weekend. I'm back to my old method of working with several projects going at once, but I'm still trying to keep it clean!

I finished putting together the center of my mom's Bird Bath quilt (for those who are curious, the pattern comes from Practical Guide to Patchwork but I've upsized it). The center of this is 72"x72". Now I just need to add the borders. My mom wanted as much white as possible so I think I'm going to do solid white borders.

 

I also started piecing my hexagons. I'm not 100% sure what I'm doing with these, but I'm thinking maybe the bottom of an apron?

 

I made a push on the double wedding ring arcs and got done the first set of 40!

 

And I've started on the 2nd set of 40....

 

And I've been doing some burp cloths for me to use for my little boy.

 

And I need to do some scrap-booking (I used to do so much of this before quilting found me). When I had my daughter I signed up for Scrap a Faire (i think it was 2007) and took a baby book class with Janna Wilson. She taught this great baby book where you make everything for baby's 1st year in advance and then you just add the photos later. I made this for Samantha and loved it so I'm making another for this baby. I managed to pull everything I need from my stash!! I printed some of the needed transparencies and got that started too.

So that makes 5 total WIPs this week. Oh, 6 if you count my curtains that still haven't been hung! 

Head on over to Lee's at Freshly Pieced and link up what you are working on too!

A beach tote in October

My sister asked me to make her a beach tote and of course I told her I would. Sadly, the timing was bad and I got hit with morning sickness shortly after getting the fabric. As a result, she's getting a beach tote in October! Whoops!

When I was trying to find a large enough bag, I came across this tutorial at Creation Corner. I asked my sister to pick out the fabric she likes and this is the resulting bag. She chose Amy Butler Midwest Modern for the fabrics and asked for yellow accents. I chose a yellow I had in my stash.

This is a huge bag, that front panel is 20"x18". I tried to put a beach blanket in it to show scale and it swallowed it up! It's going to be perfect for my sister to drag with her toddler to the beach.

This side has 3 large pockets on the outside.

I took this photo for a few reasons. First off, you can see the lining fabric. And the detail on the yellow fabric. It's not a solid.


The other thing is that this is where I veered from the tutorial. I had used a cotton weight fabric so I lined it with interfacing for a little more strength. That meant the bag needed to be lined also and the original was not lined. So I decided to sew the handles in-between the lining and the front fabric.


Overall, I'm happy with how the bag came out and I would definitely recommend the tutorial! I'll be linking up to Sew Modern Monday this week.

Sewing Night Results

Last night was another sewing night for PMQG. We got together at Sew Smart Fabrics in Doylestown. I had a great time with the ladies who came. I think there was more shopping and eating than there was sewing. At least for me! So let me show some of the fun stuff I got.

I picked some fabrics for my new diaper bag. Yeah, it's girlie and I'm having a boy. I'm the one who has to carry it though and none of the boyish stuff was calling me. AND I really wanted to use a laminate on the inside.  I haven't worked with it yet so I'm excited to try that Soul Blossoms laminate out.

A couple yards Kona Charcoal for the baby's quilt.

Some cute fabrics for embellished burp cloths.

Fun grays for my stash. Can't resist!

And, check out that rainbow zipper! Yes, the teeth of the zipper are all different colors! I'm beyond excited about that and I don't even have a project for it. haha! And the shop owner was super generous and let us all pick out a free fat quarter. I just had to have that purple!


So when I finally did get down to sewing I was working on my Double Wedding ring. I managed to get 9 more arcs done.

*disclaimer - this is a recycled photo. I didn't get one this morning and it's pretty cloudy and dark out now. But it happens to be 9 arcs in the same fabrics!


Thank you to the ladies who hung out with me last night! Looking forward to the next one already!

October Bee Blocks

It's not even October yet, but I got all my bee blocks done. For Sew Modern, Kristy put together this tutorial for the blocks she wanted. I'm a big fan of these blocks and have bookmarked this for future use, they are pretty clever!

 

 For do.Good Stitches, I'm the Queen Bee again this month. A big thank you to Amanda for switching with me. I was originally scheduled to host again in February, but I'll be a little busy having a baby that month!

I chose the LynneBobSquarePants block from Lily's Quilts. We are going scrappy with this one and anything goes for color choice. I can't wait to see what everyone sends me.

Excited to join some fellow PMQG members tonight for sewing night at a local shop. I know I'll have stuff to show you after then!

WIP Wednesday {35}

Okay, I seem to be getting back into the swing of things and have a bunch of stuff to talk about this week. And I remembered why I do so many projects at once instead of focusing on one at a time.

Burnout!

After doing another 12 of these birdbath blocks I was ready to move on to something else. Thankfully, I'm DONE! No more of these blocks for me! I got started doing my layout. I have 9 extra blocks for the back. Keep in mind this is just the center of the quilt. Once I get these together and get the final measurements I have to decide on how many and how thick to make the borders.

I did start another little project this week. I saw on someone's blog that they were using their Petit Four for hexagons. I can't remember who it was so if it was you, give me a shout out and I would love to give you credit because the idea is genius! I have a Petit Four of Circa 1934 and I decided to use them for hexagons. I love having some hand work when I'm stuck watching Sesame Street at 6am! Now tell me, what should I do with the hexagons? A pillow, an apron, mini quilt?

And I got done my curtains for the dining room but this is still technically a WIP because hubby needs to hang the board for it. I'm a little too clutzy at this point in my pregnancy to be climbing ladders. Seriously.

I also did an initial fabric pull for my son's quilt! I've been hoarding my Neptune for something special and I think this qualifies. So I pulled a lot of Neptune and Prince Charming. The only thing I'm wondering about is the yellows on the top of this pile (the Prince Charming). Would you leave it in for contrast or is it just too different from the rest?

The idea right now is to do Jaybird Quilt's Fast Forward pattern with a Navy or Charcoal background. Technically her patterns use precuts, but I haven't found a jelly roll where I like the whole roll enough yet so I'll just cut my own strips. That's why I pulled so many fabrics.

And for now, I'm also piling up my work for Fridays PMQG sewing night. Probably going to focus on my neglected Double Wedding Ring. Exciting to have a little social sewing time, and maybe do a little boy fabric shopping. Btw - did I mention that I am now the Vice President for the Philly Modern Quilt Guild. Well, only until February when Anna Ziegner will take over for the rest of the year. Looking forward to helping the Guild grow!

Lee is back this week, so head over to Freshly Pieced to link up your own Works In Progress!

The results are in and there is a winner

Well, first off:

I'm in total shock because I was totally convinced it was a girl! But, I was also convinced my girl was a boy before the ultrasound. So that just proves that I shouldn't guess at things!

I'm really excited to have one of each though. And thank you all for such great fabric ideas! I'm ready to shop.

On to the giveaway.
For the pink stack of fabrics, Mr. Random Generator pulled:

 

Number 7 which is Laura!

For the blue stack, Mr. Random Generator pulled:

 

Number 70 was Lorri who said:

 

Congrats ladies, I'll be sending you an email for your address!