Hi there! I discovered sewing and quilting in 2010 and have been addicted ever since. You can find me stitching it up in the Kansas City area.
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Time for a little back-blogging.
Made this Game Boy costume for a friend of mine for Halloween. She had spied something similar on Pinterest and it was SUPER easy to make. Get some stretchy material and make a simple tube dress. Then cut out the felt pieces and sew them on!
Don’t have a picture of the night she wore it, but luckily we snapped this one when she was trying it on. I think we still had a couple of adjustments, but it turned out pretty cute.
Sewing & Fabric | 
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It’s taken me a while but I’ve figured out (and ordered!) my Weekender Bag fabrics. I’m SO totally excited! I saw Pink Chalk Studio’s bag and I about died from a love overdose on the fabrics. Aren’t they perfect? They Echino plane and Melody Miller phone… *sigh*
I don’t fully trust myself to patch piece anything I’d truly love, so I decided to go with solids and mix up a few fabrics (and stealing some choices from Pink Chalk). Since I LOVE all of these I figure I can’t go wrong.
At first I was going to use some fat quarters from my Tina Givens Opal Owl bundle, but I wasn’t totally into it. And for me to attempt this bag, I need to be. Can’t wait for my fabric to arrive!
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WARNING – Picture heavy post!
For some reason I just had no desire to finish this thing up. I got this idea in my head that I really wanted to crochet a border for a quilt. When we were on vacation in Florida the home we stayed in had a beautiful quilt with a crocheted edging, so I just had to make one.
I’ll tell you what, trying to figure it out frustrated me to death. First I bought an awl, then after playing with scraps realized my fingers would fall off before I punched all the way around a quilt (3 layers, ya know!). I knew I didn’t want to blanket stitch all the way around. So I kept playing around with scraps and finally came up with something I was happy with, and wasn’t totally time consuming.
Recently I posted my pattern for my Superstar quilt and wanted to try something for the quilting. Following Oh, Fransson’s orange peel tutorial, I found it was relatively easy. Now, don’t look too closely! It was definitely a practice but I really like how it turned out. Off kilter circles and all.
This quilt had a series of firsts for me:
The crochet quilt edging definitely did not save time from traditional binding, but I love the look of it and it’s worth the effort. Although, I’m not sure I’ll try it on a large quilt!
To make the crochet edging I assembled the quilt a little differently.
Now the tricky part. Pull out a small metal crochet hook (I used 3.25mm) and thin yarn. Red Heart Baby Sheen was a nice size for me, it’s a fine yarn.
Between each overlock stitch there is a thread on the outside of the quilt, on the very edge. Put your hook between under that thread and single crochet. At first it seems really strange until you get going. I noticed where the thread makes a “V” on the blanket is directly below where I wanted my crochet hook. This step takes a little time but you can do it.
After Single Crocheting (sc) all the way around, pick your design! I chose a simple scallop pattern: *5 DC, skip a stitch, slip stitch, skip a stitch and repeat from *. When you get to the end you may have an extra stitch or two but just slip stitch to your beginning DC and tie off.
I just love the texture this created. If you know of a better method for adding a crochet border, let me know! I did NOT want to blanket stitch all the way around, it just looks kind of messy to me.
Crochet, Quilty Stuff | 9 Comments »
For the holidays I went a *little* crazy with paper stars. I made some Waldorf Window stars, German paper stars and even some fabric versions and a bunting.
Here are a few versions of the Waldorf stars that really brightened up our windows. After you understand the initial concept (see my original post) it’s so fun to play around with color and shapes.
The ONLY supplies you need is the colored kite paper, some type of glue (I like rubber cement) and your fingers 
Now that I’m seeing these again I want to make more and put some up. Are they ok to have up year ’round?
They easily adhered to the windows with a little rubber cement. When you take them down the rubber wipes off like a breeze. I am storing them in a round hat box for safe keeping.
The wax dipped German 3D stars and fabric stars are a completely different style and I’ll do a separate blog on those tomorrow. They are all SO addicting and fun!
Gack! The pattern arrived in the mail today. I’m actually terrified of making this bag after reading reviews about the pattern all these years. This pattern is what first got me interested in sewing a couple of years ago. I’ve decided it’s go time and nothing can hold me back. Right? Eeek.
I still have NO CLUE what fabric to use, I think that’s my biggest hold up at this point. I’m going to use Oh, Frannson’s patchwork panels to avoid some of the interfacing. I’ve been reading so many tips and tricks and have my little list ready. Still pretty daunting… wish me luck!
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Last summer we spent a gorgeous week in SW Florida. I really wanted a nice beach blanket for us to lay our towels and bags on without them getting all sandy. Sorry, but laying towels in the sand just doesn’t work for me! Having just purchased a bunch of vintage sheets I decided to cut some up and and back it with an old cotton matelasse coverlet. I hand tied it on all the corners of the blocks for a more vintage feel.
Fortunately I caught a few images of beach blanket with our vacation pics. We used it every day and it was easy to pack up and carry around with two sewn in, wrap around velcro straps.
The house we stayed in had a gorgeous quilt that had an awesome crochet border. I totally forgot about that! I’m going to try to figure out how to do it on a baby blanket. I hogged this to myself every evening! Does anyone know how to add crochet to a blanket? I remember it did not have a regular binding and was hand quilted. Almost like the crochet edging came out from the layers, although I know it was done after it sewed together. (it wasn’t sandwiched in)
Every morning Paul and I were a lucky, lucky couple and wake up to THIS. Ahh… I wanna go back. It’s miserably cold here right now. Beautiful room and pretty sunrises every morning. I actually woke up early to see them (I’m typically a late sleeper) and had my coffee on the beach.
I’ll leave you with a few more warm memories. I think I need to get busy on planning this years trip and do some wishful thinking!
Oh…. see this right here? On low tide we planted an umbrella super deep and all day we floated around it! We stayed in a small town and had the beach to ourselves, so it was nice and quiet. Just what a vacation should be.
Other / Misc, Quilty Stuff | 3 Comments »
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