Get Ready to Stitch!

While I was blogging in 2013, I occasionally posted about the Woodland Sampler  cross stitch that I was working on.  Well, I finished that year long stitch-along (SAL) at the end of that year and here is the finished product (still not framed...)!

After finishing that sampler, I immediately purchased the 2014 sampler to keep stitching along with everyone.  That sampler is the Once Upon a Time Sampler and it was so fun!  Here is this one finished, also!

This year's sampler is the Story Time Sampler, which starts on Thursday.  These SALs are SO MUCH FUN and I absolutely love doing them.  This year long project is perfect for just biting off a bit at a time, since each month's section is delivered to your inbox at the beginning of each month.  It's easy for me to stay current and excited for the next installment!

You can join any of these samplers at any time, although for the previous samplers, you will get the whole pattern at once instead of a month at a time.  I hope you'll consider stitching along with me and following the hashtag #storytimesampler on Instagram!

Currently Listening to: You Are All I See by Active Child

Christmas Sewing... Already!

I have already started on my Christmas sewing!  I'm not making too many handmade gifts this year, but I did want to sew up a few small things.  That includes these tiny bags!



I used Jeni's beloved drawstring bag pattern (in the tiny size!) and the bags turn out perfect every time!  They are super easy to sew together, and they feel so rewarding!  I must admit, only two of these are gifts... the one on the left is for me!



I only used scraps to make all three bags and that always feels like an accomplishment!  These bags turned out super cute and I know their recipients are going to just love them!



The countdown to Christmas has begun!

Currently listening to: O Come O Come Emmanuel by Sufjan Stevens

Halloween Pillow: Finished!

First things first: HAPPY NOVEMBER!!

Second: I'm putting up my Christmas tree this weekend.

Third: I finished this Halloween pillow just barely in time for Halloween!



I started this pillow at Sewing Summit in September in Kaye Prince's class.  The pillow top is English paper pieced using Kaye's Doughnut Kiss pattern.  Once I got the hang of EPP, the pillow top came together well and fairly quickly.  I am so, so glad I took her class because I super love this pillow and I super love the technique!



I used scraps from my Halloween Plus Quilt and some scraps from my scrap bins.  I used Moda Black for the background and pillow back.



I'm excited to have this done and also to have another Halloween decoration!  But I must say, I am even more excited to put away my Halloween things and start decorating for Christmas!!

Currently Listening to:  Twelve Days of Christmas by John Denver

Ruffle Pillows

My mom and I took a class to make these pillows back in June, I think.  We finished the pillow tops during one of the open sews at Sewing Summit.  I brought them home after the event and I decided that I was tired of these pillows being unfinished, so I finished them without my mum!



Both of these pillows are for my mum, even though I sewed up one of them.  She wanted a matching pair for her formal living room couch.  However, now that I've made one, I really want one for myself!  I have enough fabric scraps from the Boo Crew line by Sweetwater, so I'll make a pillow to match my Halloween Plus quilt!



These pillows were relatively easy to make.  The pattern is found in this Adornit pattern book.



My mum doesn't know that I have finished these pillows yet, but I hope that she'll be excited!



Linking up with Crazy Mom Quilts today!  Check out some other finished projects!

Currently Listening to: Bandages by Hot Hot Heat

Sewing Summit!! (part two)

The second day of Sewing Summit came earlier and faster than I was prepared for!  I was already wiped out from the previous day, but I had a full day of fun ahead of me!

After breakfast, my mum's and my first class was the Appliqué Tea Towel class with Amy Redden.



This was a fun little class!  It was nice to finish the project entirely in class and not add to my ever expanding list of unfinished projects.



I chose to do a little fox face!  If I were to do this again, I would definitely give him solid colored eyes... but I love his little nose!

Our next class was a Metal Frame Pouch with Elena Roscoe.  This was another fun class!



We finished our pouches during class time, too!  It's a pretty easy pouch, but the results are great!



Our third class was an Embroidered Pocket Hoop with the darling Amanda Woodruff.



I didn't get very far on mine... I still need to finish the running stitches around my color wheel blocks and put it all together, but you kind of get the idea?



Once it's all done, I'll have a little pocket for my rotary cutter and other things!

Our last class of the day was a Photography Lecture by Melissa Esplin.  It was very informative!  Maybe I'll be able to improve my photos!

The closing dinner that night was bittersweet.  It was a lot of fun, but it was sad that it marked the end of Sewing Summit.  Our keynote speaker was Heather Bailey.  It was a lot of fun to listen to her speak and share her story of how she got to where she is.  It was definitely the highlight of the evening.

After dinner, the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild put on a mixer at a nearby gastropub.  Mum and I popped in for just a bit, since we were both so exhausted and had to drive home that night.



We were glad we stopped by when we received this swag!

I forgot to mention that Friday night, during open sew, Amanda, who owns Westwood Acres, staged a pop up shop in one of the sewing rooms!  Of course, I couldn't leave empty handed...



This is Tula Pink's new Acacia!  I fell in love with the colors immediately and I had to bring it home!

Well, that ends Sewing Summit 2013... I have lots of plans and ideas to make next year's event even better and I'm already excited for it!

Currently Listening to: Convergence by Thirty Seconds to Mars

Sewing Summit!! (part one)

Sewing Summit was this past weekend and it was so much fun!!  I had such a great time, I came home exhausted, but already thinking about Sewing Summit 2014!  This is an event that I will definitely go to again.  It was worth every penny and I am so excited about all the things that I learned and all the people I met!

First, there was the shop hop Thursday morning.  I chose not to ride the bus, because two of the shops that the bus stopped at are really close to my house and I thought I would come home to eat lunch and let the girls out after visiting those shops.  I still came home with a good stack of fabric and some free goodies!



Everything on the stack to the left was free!  Gotta love free stuff!  Even though I visit those shops regularly, I seem to always find something that I can't live without!

That night we had an opening mixer, which I failed to take photos at... and then mum and I stayed up late in the sewing rooms working on some pillow tops, which we still have yet to finish!

We woke up bright and early Friday morning, had breakfast and went to our first class!



A lecture on fabric design by Pat Bravo!  It was a really fun and inspiring lecture.  I super enjoyed it.  She even gave us fat eighths of her fabric!  (I didn't take two, mom gave me hers!)

Our next class was the Fold Over Zipper Clutch with Alessandra Guiterrez!



It was a fun class, but neither of us actually got the clutch done during the class time.  We both finished during open sew that night, though.



I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  It was really easy to make and I'll probably make more in the future.

Our third class that day was English Paper Piecing with Kaye Prince.  This class was a blast and could have been my favorite class at Sewing Summit!



I didn't get very far in class, but I worked on it a bit when I was home and lounging on Sunday.  This is the beginnings of a halloween pillow top!

Our last class of the day was the half square triangle quilt top with Amy Smart.  My mom picked this class out and she was thrilled when she laid out the blocks to the first quilt top that she's ever made!  I only got as far as finishing the blocks...



I'm hoping to finish this quilt top some time this year... I just have so much going on right now!

After dinner, mum and I went straight back to the sewing rooms and worked until about 11.  It was a great day!

I'll post about the rest of Sewing Summit tomorrow!

Currently Listening to: Back to Back by Wolf Gang

Finished Pillow

I have recently been thinking about Father's Day and what I should make for my Dad.  Last Christmas I gave him this quilt called Body and Sole.



It's made of Deb Strain's Spa with Kona Iron.  (There's a full post on it here)

So, I thought I would make my Dad a matching pillow!  I promptly turned to the book Pillow Pop for a pattern that would match and one that I could use the left over fabric from the quilt.  The Crimson Stones pillow was perfect!



Since I used jelly roll strips to make his quilt, that's all I had for this pillow.  Luckily, two prints from Lizzy House's Constellations line are a perfect match in color to the Spa line!  I used those prints for the center squares.  The solid is Kona Iron, to match the quilt.



The pillow came together pretty quickly and I'm very pleased with the result.  It's about 18" square.  I didn't have a pillow form the correct size, so I just used what I had and stuffed some batting in to make up the difference for these photos... I'll be flying to Dallas and giving it to him in person, so I'll buy a pillow form there!



This was my first time sewing partial seams, and it wasn't as hard as I was expecting!  It still came together easily and quite well.



I'm excited to give this pillow to my Dad! I hope he likes it as much as I do!

Currently Listening to: Birth by 30 Seconds to Mars

A Bench Cushion

One of my friends from the apartments where we used to live asked me if I could make  cover for some foam she bought for the top of a toy chest.  I had never made a cushion cover before, but I thought I could figure it out.  I read through a TON of online tutorials, but in the end I just decided to do my own thing.



Since I don't have a bench, I used two chairs to stand in for some of these photos... [Also, yes, I keep three mannequins in my front window...]



My friend picked out this Alexander Henry ombre dot and she was very specific on how she wanted this to look... I was initially planning on chopping up the fabric and adding grey piping, but she wanted the front to be wrapped around seamlessly.  It took awhile for me to wrap my brain around it seamlessly.



I sewed the sides together, just like one would wrap a gift.



She wanted button closures.  So I thought this would be cute.  Since the toy chest she has is made with a hinge all along the back, I added this little strap to help keep the cushion on top.  She could also put velcro on the strap and the top of the chest to keep it in place.



I used buttons to keep the strap on.  And now that I see this photo, I see that I need to clip some threads! Seriously!

It was a fun little challenge, but  can say that I like making quilts more!

Currently Listening to: It's Alright by Matt & Kim

Quilted Tote Bag: Finished!!

I mentioned my excitement for Sewing Summit last week and since then I have been thinking a lot about travel handmade.  The first project that came to mind was a tote bag.  I've been wanting to make a tote bag for awhile now, but I just never got around to it.  Tote bags are my favorite because you can use them for basically anything.  Every time I travel, I try to buy a new tote bag that will remind me of the trip.  So, I have quite a collection.  However, I did not have a quilted tote bag.  So I had to work on that...

I searched online and found this tutorial found on the Sew Mama Sew blog.  I used the tutorial more as a basic guideline for constructing the bag, so mine is not exactly like the tutorial.

One change I made is in the way that the patchwork panel is constructed.  I didn't want to make it out of two pieces and then sew it together because I didn't want the strong line across the bag.  So, I made one big piece and then quilted it.  Also, the handles are shorter.  Which I am so glad for because they are still plenty long.

Instead of making two patchwork panels, I used just one fat quarter for the back.  This is Parisville by Tula Pink and I've had this fabric for forever.  It's been hard for me to use it because the print is so large.  But I knew this would be perfect for the back of this bag!

I used this herringbone print from Madrona Road for the lining.

I also added a pocket!  It's nothing fancy, but it'll hold my keys or something else that's small.  This little pocket was left over from the Neighborhood Quilt I made with Modern Domestic.  I auditioned a lot of fabrics, but this one seemed just perfect to me!

So, this is a happy finish for Friday!  I think I'll take it to the library today for a test drive!

Currently Listening to: Warrior by Kimbra

Friday Finishes!!

Although this week has been busy with a bunch of other stuff going on and I've been wanting to spend every available minute on the Fireworks quilt, I did manage to finish up a couple of things.

First, despite my desire to not finish March's Woodland Sampler before the last week of this month, it just stitched up way too fast!

I think I finished it in like two nights.  I like them to last awhile because this is what I do when Jake wants to watch tv.  I really don't like to just sit there!

The only edit I made to this little mushroom is that I did not add the eyes and mouth.  I never really understood the desire to put faces on things that don't have faces... But, I still love this little mushroom!  So much that I actually used him in my next little project!

A needle book!

This little needle book was inspired by the Woodland Sampler.  I used this amazing tutorial from Amy.  

I tried to use all my favorite yellow and green fabrics on the back.  We have some Lizzy House, Jenean Morrison, and that Quilted Fish yellow chevron that I seemed to use in all my projects when I first found it...

It's so cute and adorable!  I am pretty pleased with how it turned out.  Just to illustrate how badly I needed this little needle book... Here is my previous method of storing needles...

Seriously?  Ridiculous.  This needle book was totally called for.

I hope you have a happy Friday and a great weekend!

Currently Listening to: On My Way by Passion Pit

A Friday Finish!

Since I have been so furiously working on my Pow Wow quilt, I have only had the time to finish this little project!!



I am absolutely in love with this little Woodland Sampler!!  It is so fun for me to relax on the couch, watch tv, and stitch up these cute things.  They are small enough that it's no stress to get them done within the month and I like that!



I cannot wait to get the pattern for March and start stitching it up! It is seriously so much fun!

Also, I usually post pictures of Omi because she is my little shadow, so she's around whenever I have the camera, but yesterday Kio was being particularly adorable (as well as around!).  Kio is 100% a sun seeker and yesterday morning she was pouting that the sun hadn't reached the floor where she could lay in it.  It was, however, on my cutting table, which I wasn't using.  So I pulled up a dog bed and set her on it until the sun was hitting the floor.  She loved it!



I'm such a sucker for my cute girls!

Happy Friday everyone!

Currently Listening to: Carrie by Speak