Baby Quilt #2: Critter Patch

I couldn't very well stop with the bunny fabric. The whole line is adorable.

Again, my inspiration photo didn't have directions but here's the way I built it.

• The three main rows are made up of 12-3x6 patches. (36 total)
• These three rows are attached with a strip of 2.5 inch white fabric and then bordered with the same. 
• The thin strip is made of 2 inch wide strips of varying lengths pieced together in one long strip. 
• The whole thing is bordered with a 6 inch wide strip of white. 

I backed the finished quilt with some blue minky I got from Pick your Plum a few months ago.

My little one may not have a name, but he is going to be warm! I am so happy with how both quilts turned out. This one was by far the easiest to piece together, lots of straight lines.

Cheers!

Baby Quilt #1: Mid-Century Modern

The color scheme started with the Critter Patch Organic cotton quilting fabric in Orange Bunny Toss and grew from there. 

My inspiration photo didn't have any real directions (in fact it was a link to an item on an Etsy page that didn't exist anymore) but I figured it out as I went.

If you are feeling inspired, this is how the quilt works out:

• 42 squares made up of 3 pieces. 
• Each square is made up of 2- 2x5 pieces of fabric of your choice and 1-2x5 piece of white. 
• Each square is bordered in strips of 2 inch white (I used muslin but cotton would work). 

I built each row one at a time joining the squares with a piece of 2x5 white and then attached each completed row with one long piece of 2 inch wide fabric. 

For a backing I used a Moda pattern called Fairy Tale Friends. 

This would be a great scrap busting pattern. I could easily see this in a monotone all blue or pink, or even a fun rainbow. If you can sew a straight line you can make this quilt. 

Cheers! 

Baby Blanket Round-Up

Baby needs a blanket! Here are some of my favorites:

1. Love the colors and pattern in this hex-quilt from Blueberry Park. Her stitching on the solid pieces is beautiful.

2. Super simple and very baby blanket from Needles. Maybe with brighter more modern colors?

3. This one was from Etsy by Mulberry Patch Quilts.  So far it is my favorite. It is no longer available for sale (boo!) but I think it could be replicated. It would be a great stash buster quilt.

4. You & Mie's Sunburst quilt is adorable.  She lays out the tutorial pretty clearly, but it still seems harder than the rest.

5. Mod is all the rage right now and this is a great design. Another cute Etsy find from Peace Love and Quilts.

It's been a long time since I quilted but I'd love to make something for the little one. I'm definitely leaning towards #3. It looks like a good beginner quilt.

Any quilting tips from all you quilters out there? I'm not hopeless but I'm not great either.

Cheers!

DIY Sparkly Shoes: Take 2

Two years ago (almost to the day) I made these sparkly shoes. What I didn't tell you is that they ended up being a complete and utter fail.

After one wear the paint and glitter started peeling off. No good. But my love for sparkly things persists so when this tutorial came around I gave it another go.

I started off with a pair of Tom like shoes from Lands End. I loved the idea of them, but the light color just wasn't practical.

I grabbed some gold fabric paint, gold glitter, and fabric Mod Podge and went at it. In the end I sprinkled even more glitter over the glittery paint just for the fun of it and then sealed it all in with MP. I let the whole thing cure in the sun and gave them a walk about.

Good as gold.

What was different this time? I think the fabric paint adhered to the fabric shoes better than the acrylic to the faux leather. Only time will tell but I've worn them on two long-ish city walks and no peeling or chipping. I'm calling it a success!

Glittered anything lately? Nothing is safe I tell you.

Cheers!

Kitty Ghost Hunter

Since neither Michelle @ Ten June nor I got our next 30 day photo challenge done I thought I'd post this little fun tidbit.  This weekend I found this little tutorial on 320* Sycamore for making these cool cheese cloth ghosts.

So I gathered my supplies and got going. I used paint cans to make the form and height and added a bowl and a ball of foil for the heads. 

Then I draped them in the cheese cloth and sprayed with my spray starch.

Two coats and a day later I had these neat ghosts

I arranged them by the fire place and went downstairs to get some felt for the eyes. When I came back upstairs I was greeted with this amusing sight

She ain't afraid of no ghosts. And while my cute ghosts were ruined I can sleep safely at night knowing I have a kitty ghost hunter to keep me safe. It's a good thing we love our pets right?

Linking up to:

The Shabby Nest and

Tuxedo Pillow DIY

I'm not quite as obsessed as Sherry over at Young House love is about pillow covers but these ones might turn the tide.

Check these out

Via E Tells Tales

E is great. You can buy them at her Etsy store or you can make one yourself following her easy tutorial. I'm cheep so I made mine. I wont bore you with the details since she explains how to make them better than I could but I will show you how I modified mine. Here he is:

See the difference? I left off the bow. I think it makes it a bit more masculine (which my husband appreciates) and I have it to add later if I want. I'm calling mine the tuxedo pillow. This is for the master bed, maybe it needs a friend? Something with ruffles? I used a heavy linen and I love the texture that it lends, a perfect accent pillow. Even if you are a beginner sewer this is super easy and fun to do. In fact I made more bow things (more on that later) 

Cheers!

Linking to
Just A Girl

DIY Colorpath Pillow

I have an abundance of scrap fabric that has been taking up space and I love any project that can help me get rid of it (and make something pretty too!) so I turned to the trusty internet to find a good rainy day project.

Jessica at Sew Homegrown gave me the inspiration to make knockoff this pillow (she wrote a great tutorial too). Here's hers.

Here's my finished product

Mine isn't as ruffly as hers looks but I'm loving the texture and color. 

I chose my fabrics based on, you guessed it, my inspiration pillow. I love this thing, it really is helping me make design decisions. I picked through my scraps and pulled out the ones that looked good with the pillow.

Once I had them arranged my my liking I used my round cookie cutter to trace 2" circles. 

This was seriously tedious and took about 2 episodes of NCIS to cut all 60. After they were cut out I stacked them together and lay them out in two lines on my pillow fabric. 

I scooched then around and pinned them down where I thought they looked good being careful to make sure the circles were all slightly uneven so they would show later.  I attached them by simply bar tacking them down with my sewing machine. It took probably 1/3 of the time to actually make the pillow as it did cutting all the circles. (I made my pillow using the envelope method and the fabric is a heavy white linen).

See how well it complements my inspiration pillow. One thing I would recommend if you make this pillow is to draw straight lines where you plan to put your scraps so that they are straight. Mine are a little crooked. 

Pretty!

Cheers!

Linking up to Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Beneath My Heart, Serenity Now,
and the Pinterest Challenge brought to you by Young House Love, Bower Power, Emily Henderson, and Making A House A Home.

***Norman had to put his two cents in, check out his reaction to my hard work at the Book of Norman. 

They're Here!!!

I was very happy to take a break from the yard to recieve this package. My house inspiration pillows came!  This all started with Sherry at Young House Love's Sue the Napkin. They had found a napkin who's colors just spoke to them and decided to use it as inspiration for their whole house color pallet, so when we were first buying our house I started looking for my own "sue".

The simple idea of it is to find a set of colors that all look good together to help keep your home looking cohesive without being staged. It also is nice if you are color challenged like me to know what will be complementary to your house. The easiest way to find a good pallet is to pick a picture, piece of fabric, anything really that you think looks good and pull colors out of it. Design Seeds is another great place to find color pallets. Isn't this one just fabulous?

 

My house inspiration started it's life as a napkin from Pottery Barn but they don't seem to have them any more. They do however have the pillow covers and when they did their big sale a few weeks ago I had to jump on them.

Wanna see? Of course you do!

I didn't have large enough inserts for them so I just put them on top of the shaggy pillows I bought from Target a while back (here) that were already there. I plan to have them either in the library or in the breakfast nook in the long run but at 16$ each plus free shipping and a 10% off coupon I couldn't pass them up (I just checked and they are still on sale!).

I like having something tangible as a color pallet because I can tuck it in my purse and bring it with me when I shop for linens and pillows and paint and it helps keep me from going to wild with my color choices. The napkin features more of the blues, greens and golds than the pillow but I love the pop of coral. 

One has taken up residence here and I have to say I like it.

Yard update to come. We are working steadily away (Daniel has had a quiet week so he's been lots of help this week)

Cheers!

So Much Time, So Little to Do...

Wait. Scratch that, reverse it. I have way too many things that I want to do. You might might have noticed I've been doing a lot of little projects lately (like the button monogram, button billy balls, and spray painting my side table) in between work on the back yard. There are just so many fun projects I want to work on but the bigger things have been getting in the way. I decided I needed to make it official and make a list.

I started to type out the whole list but decided you'll just have to wait and see what I come up with. If you'd like a sneak peak check out my Pinterest To Make page. Here are a few at the top of my list.

A terrarium 

Closet storage

Sunburst mirror

Shabby flower pillow

Scrap colorways pillow

and a Lacquered side table

Just to name a few. 

Every time I read a blog or get on Pinterest I add a few more to my list but there is nothing wrong with that. Just wait until the holidays, my head just might explode from all the craftiness. Joy!

The lumber is here so we are going to try to knock the backyard out this weekend. Fingers crossed people!

Cheers!

Welcoming Pennant

I've been wanting to make a pennant banner for ages and I thought it would be the perfect thing for the blank space to the left of the front door.

Since it is summer and the weather has been warm I decided to make the pennant bright and welcoming. I kept to what fabric I had on hand (leftovers from quilts I have made) and chose a range of blues, greens, yellows and pinks. Then I did some googling (the English teacher in me loves that googling is now an accepted and understood verb but I digress). There are millions of patterns, plans and places to buy a pennant pattern but the over all idea is really simple.

Hardware:

• Pinking shears
• Cutting mat
• Rotary cutter
• Quilting ruler
• Sewing machine
• Pins (if you are a novice or pickier than me)

Software:

• Pretty fabric
• Paper to cut your pattern from
• Felt (for letters)
• Coordinating thread
• Bias tape (or ribbon)

Step 1: Decide on the shape of your pennant triangle.

Step 2: Cut out triangles from fabric (I did a front and back but you don't have to if you know you aren't going to see both sides) This is made a lot easier if you have a rotary cutter, cutting mat and quilting ruler but you could always pin your pattern too.

Step 3: Arrange the triangles to your liking (this is way harder than it looks but maybe it's just me)

Optional Step 4: Cut out and place your message (you can see I reversed these steps but it doesn't really matter). I wanted mine to say welcome so I picked a pretty yellow felt, printed out some letters and cut them out.

Step 5: Sew triangles together. Now depending on what style you are going for you can do this right side in and flip them out for a more finished seam or you can do them right side out and pink the edges (using pinking shears to keep the fabric from fraying). I liked the more casual look of the pinked edges so I went with that. This would also be the time to sew on your message if you have one.

Step 6: Sew pennants on to your coordinating bias strip. In hindsight I would have used a double fold instead of a single fold but oh well. You might want to pin your pennants on the bias first to get your spacing even but I am beginning to feel like pinning is to sewers as taping is to painters. You only need it when you are new or for the really tricky bits.

Step 7: Stand back and enjoy your amazingness.

You can see the finished pinked edges a little better here

They won't be staying here long but I love how bright and happy they look. Just what my newly remade front porch needs!