ducky house

twirl & dance

Last week I had a chance to spend time with my sewing machine, just the two of us. Being out of the sewing loop for so long, I found it difficult to pick a task to work on. My need-to-sew-pile is pretty big and there are of course quilts in various stages, but working on quilts requires a certain degree of inspiration. Instead I opted for the sew pile with a quick start & stop project, perhaps the best place to begin on days of uncertainty. 

It's been awhile since I cut this fabric out, it is a repurposed print that I found in the thrift shop in excellent condition, a standard of mine for thrift purchasing; plus sewing with repurposed fabric gives me opportunity to work out the bugs in a design without wasting costly designer fabric. My initial intention was to make hostess aprons but that idea has since entered the nothing box of my brain (a catchy phrase my MIL used over the holidays) and is now unretrievable. I am keeping with the apron theme though and have cut a bit more fabric, a top portion to be exact, as well as muslin to make this bad girl fully lined. Finished product is a full body apron with enough fabric for the two little bakers in my life. The girls have been shadowing me in the kitchen over the fall and are really taking an interest in baking. But with only two aprons in the kitchen & three of us baking, a solution was needed.

Enter the apron, it's basic with rounded lower edges, I added a couple pleats on the bib portion to provide shape and deal with fabric excess which help to make the bib proportional to little girls. The fussiest part was pattern matching, as this is a busy fabric (good for spilage when baking), the three pieces had to be lined up for this. Surprisingly it wasn't too difficult and I think it went pretty successfully. All in all this was an excellent project to work on having been MIA with sewing; I spent one evening making the design/sewing the first apron, the next evening I whipped off a second. The only thing left was girlie approval which is based solely on the aprons twirl and dance factor.  

FCSP

sneak peek of my FCSP (first completed sewing project) for 2012. I am happy to be back in the studio and actually SEWING!! yes I am shouting it out loud :)

I have quite a few photos to upload from my camera so bare with me as I get organized, it's our first day back at homeschooling and I am distracted. I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the sneak peek. 

ps, the shop is open once again!

quiet

Things are a bit quiet here at the moment as I have a girlie who is feeling under the weather with spring time sniffles and such. It's not leaving me a lot of time for making, but I've been through this before and I know the drill: slow down, nourish, read more and all those comforting things that keep wee ones content. 

Instead of starting a new project I decided to take out a project that I started 2 years ago, ahem, no one is really keeping track right? If memory serves me, I originally put it away because I didn't want the pieces getting lost and all scrambled in the renovation chaos. I'm thankful that I was at least thinking about the {scary} possibilities.

 It took a bit to figure out where I left off and what I was doing. It seems (no pun intended) that I am in the middle of opening and ironing seams. It also seems that a few of the seams are not exactly 1/4 inch so I've been getting real acquainted with my stitch ripper, par the course.

wip: block number 5

I'm pretty much caught up on my free piecing blocks, this is the second block for the month of March. This last block was a girl and you know I couldn't resist making her into a witch given that this is going to be a Halloween quilt and all. 

This block involved more thinking for me as I added a few extra details such as the broom and hat.  My original sketch had her wearing some shoes and her hat tipping but my witch ended up too tall to add the extras. That's the thing with free piecing, the work sort of evolves along the way and you have to take detours when things aren't completely working out as planned. 

I am happier with my witchy block than yesterday's ice cream meets clown, the verdict is still out on that one. I fussy cut Miss witchy poo's dress to reveal her spidery ways and did the same to show the wee itty bitty spider on her broom. Lots of fun! 

For those of you who want to play along, there is still time to catch up, visit the flickr group. Molly just uploaded April's new block and already the wheels are turning for me. I'm signing off for the weekend, hope it's a good one for you. xxx

wip: block number 4

March's block for the free piecing quilt along was a wonky star. I was looking forward to this block as I have always wanted to give the wonky star a go (it looks so cool and rad in a quilt). I assembled my fabrics, sewed, pressed sewed and then bam... my block fell short. I am not totally sure how I feel about this block right now, disappointment is a good adjective, as it is not looking as wonky as I'd like. Instead it looks a bit like upside down ice cream cones that merged with a clown costume. 

Since I don't know quite what to do with it I am going to leave it for now in hopes that it will grow on me. If it continues to bother me then I will have to do something about it. Maybe if I interchange the middle square for fabric with more contrast, or redo the fatter star points making them skinnier, or just make it less equally wonky, or ... *sigh* I guess this too is part of the process. 

wip: block number 3

Phew, made it through the last week. It was spring break here for kids in the school system and we partake by shutting things down on the school front so we can overdose on friends and family. Our week consisted of a 6 day sleepover for my nephew, oodles of late nights, an adult niece sleep over and more visiting with friends. Busy, busy, busy. Yesterday afternoon our house was strangely quiet and the boys went into cousin withdrawal - poor fellows - they all have such a good time together.

While the kids were occupied last week I worked on the next block - a free pieced heart. I went for the high contrast of orange/red with black for my square, I wanted it to be a little creepy. I started reading Dracula by Bram Stoker a couple of weeks ago and I think it might be infecting my work as the point on the bottom of the heart looks sharp like a vampire tooth. I can almost see it dripping blood...Oooo scary {{{shiver}}}.

I'm having lots of fun with this quilt so far and am really enjoying the whole learning process. Today as we be settle back into our daily rhythm I'm hoping to squeeze a bit of studio time in. Next up is the wonky star. What are you up to on this happy Monday? 

wip: block number 2

The second block in the free piece study was the good ol' log cabin. 

Wonky and fun, I couldn't resist doing a little fussy cut to make sure that sweet little ghost is looking out the window. In hindsight it would have been cooler if he was just peeking out the window but that just dawned on me now while I type this and I don't think I will be picking stitches at this stage. Besides, learning to make it and appreciate the way it turns out seems to be a part of the process, you know letting the art-form take it's course.

I should get back at it, more blocks to be done. Happy Monday all, xxx. 

free piecing study

I've been settling in my new studio space for the past couple of weeks and couldn't wait to start on a quilting project. It's not that I don't already have a few neglected projects from the past couple of years, I just needed wanted something fresh. 

Sarah from House of Krom, blogger, flickr friend & fellow homeschooler had just the new project to tantalize my senses and get me started on the right foot. She is doing a free piecing study for the first 10 months of 2011 with another blogger Molly. Free piecing is a part of the liberated quiltmaking process of which I am a huge fan. You can check out Sarah's blog post here for some information links. 

I am joining late but I don't think it matters too much as you work at your own pace. I'm also taking on a theme for this study: halloween. I've always wanted to make a halloween quilt but seem to run out of time nearing fall. By starting early I just may just finish in time ;)  In the first month (January) they started with the mondo bird. In my block I was thinking of a black bird and I really like how the black, white & yellow play up the mondo bird. Gives it that wee bit'o creepy/cuteness - terrifying isn't it? 

It isn't too late to join, there are no sign ups, just come play along and as always upload your photos to the flickr group here.  Yay! 

hello and

go on over and say hi to Jen from Vintage Sheets who is featuring my "don't get out of bed pants" tutorial. Make one for you and one for all - Christmas is just around the corner you know.

Be back Monday with a proper update. Happy Friday, xxx.

hexagon love

I just can't get enough of it. 

I've been wanting to try my hand at English paper piecing and I couldn't think of a better place to start than with hexagons.  I'm not alone, I see them popping up all over blogland and flickr, so many little hexagons to be made.  

Really aside from knitting it is the perfect portable craft.  One little baggie filled with fabric squares, paper hexagons, a needle, thread and you are set.  I can see how nice it'll be to sit outside on a warm summer day sewing hexagons and not missing a second of summer. Ah...that's the way it should be done...sewing and sunshine.

I used the tutorial from TheSometimesCrafter.  She also has a pdf template for 2 inch hexagons available for download. That size seems just right for me, don't want to start with 1 inch hexagons and completely overwhelm myself.  By the way, I've seen other tutorials where people have trimmed their fabric squares to the shape of hexagons but really this is an unnecessary step and expends a lot of extra time that can be given to hexagon making.  Just cut your fabric squares, fold and sew.   

I'm still unsure what the end product will be.  I was thinking about a pillow cushion or table runner but then again a quilt might be nice.  My kids think I'm making beehive. What ever I end up with, I'll warn you ahead of time making hexagons is addictive.

Happy (Good) Friday, can you believe it April already??