"Pink Lattice" and "NTG" Quilts

Both our "deck" quilts (lap quilts, for lounging on our deck chairs on cool afternoons) are done! I test drove mine yesterday, and both Cosmo and I are very pleased with it. Both quilts are about 44"x72", a size I decided on based on best dimensions of the various beach towels we've been napping under on the deck up' til now.

I am still looking for the optimum quilt-photo location around our house. It's tricky. I like the idea of outdoors, for days when light cooperates. But our lot is extremely steep.Nice views from up here, but it's practically vertical. We have plenty of deck and railing to hold a quilt over, but in most places I'd need to rent a cherry picker to get up level with it for a photo.

The side of the house is better than the front, heightwise, so I strung a piece of clothesline between two railing supports, clipped the top of the quilt to it while crouched on the deck, then smooshed the quilt through beneath the railing, then scurried down the stairs on the other side of the house, back and around, and up the side slope to get a photo. Repeat as necessary until all sides are done. Cosmo thought this was a fascinating process. Here's the back of the Pink Lattice Quilt, with cat supervision from above:

And this is the finished "Nothing Too Girly" quilt made for Mr. de Hilo. It has two fronts, rather than a front and a back. I did the blue-green squares side first. Photo colors are brighter than actual, but you get the idea:

I did not have a back planned out for this one. While pondering options and rummaging in the far acres of the stash, I came across a large ziplock baggie of long-abandoned, half-finished, monkey wrench blocks that I had  forgotten about. A little quick punching at the calculator, and I figured out that not only did I have enough extra of the orange and purple fabrics to use as borders for the front, but also that using all the mostly done blocks would fit this one as a back and qualify as finishing an embarrasingly old UFO.

Mr. de Hilo has tried it out both ways up, but has not expressed a "front" or "back" preference yet.

Using these monkey wrench blocks makes this side a winner in "most satisfying sewing project of the year" category. And the Pink Lattice "front" I'm going to call my "favorite" item made this year, even though all of the front except the outer border was made in 2009.

Both of these are (I think) worth a closer look, but I have not yet taken detail shots of the quilting, so you'll have to wait for those.

It's been immensely satisfying to get these projects to the point where I could  machine quilt them, which counts as using a new toy: the extension table thingie for my machine was a much-anticipated purchase for the year.

I had fun doing the quilting, and look forward to finishing up more in-progress quilts this coming year. Hopefully by the time the next ones are done I will have found a better photo location. The back wall of the carport has possibilities... and it would be nice to have an indoor option as well.

I only wish, as I was spending so much money on fabric in 2010, that I'd remembered to save a little for a camera tripod, so I could start taking decent pictures of the finished products. I'm going to make that some kind of incentive/reward for fabric purchase restraint in 2011.

Post-Christmas Show and Tell

So, the big day has come and gone and secret projects are no longer secret. Here's the pillow I made for my Mom, to go with the Cathedral Windows one from a year or so ago:

Recognize it? These are the sample One Block Wonder hexagons I made earlier this year, after seeing what Shelley was up to. They lingered on my design wall for months before I decided to go ahead and do a pillow front and back with them. I filled in the outer bits with blue solid.

All those bias edges looked like a hot mess by the time I was done piecing...

but a brutal pressing worked wonders. I quilted each side with some poly batting that was lying around, with cotton lawn for "backing" to reduce weight.

This was my first-ever free motion quilting, and I had a blast zipping around more or less highlighting various shapes in the hexagons. Objectively, I did a really a horrible quilting job: sloppy and imprecise with wildly varying stitch lengths and all kinds of "ooops, didn't mean to do that" moments. Fortunately, Mom is as forgiving of my adult efforts as she was with kindergarten art projects, and I had no illusions going in that I would be capable of anything other than an exuberant slapdash job, so we're both happy with it.

The  piping, alas, did not turn out well. I do think it makes a nice defining line between front and back, but it's why the edge is so ripply. I've decided to think it looks sort of flower-shaped, and to not worry about it.

My sister got a couple of the prettiest coffee mugs (she's happened to mention needing new ones) with matching coasters I made following this tutorial:

My first one was a bit of a dud, due to user unfamiliarity with my new 1/4" foot and how it would behave, but the rest were easy-peasy. Next time I might get really lazy and machine stitch the binding.

Here's the set of six. As you can see they are a mix-n-match set from prints that play well together:

The "back" wraps around to the "front" (or could be the other way around) to make the binding, which is a nice touch when using two different fabrics for each.

Mr. de Hilo's lap quilt is done and has been put to use. I haven't figured out yet where in (or outside) this house to set up for a quilt pic, but hope to get one soon. My lap quilt is almost done. There's a bit more quilting still to do on it, and then binding. My goal is to get it done before NYear, and I might even beat that by a few days if all goes well.

BTW: Santa outdid herself this year in the gift fabric department! I'll show off some of those new goodies in a next post.

The 8-lb Christmas Ornament

... and why we don't have any lights or other ornaments up on our tree yet:

So far, he's only tipped it over once, and he climbed right back in as soon as I'd set it upright. We're waiting to see if the thrill wears off. It's an artificial tree, and a bit ratty; I'm half hoping he does enough damage I'll have a reason to junk it come 12/31.

Cosmo has also been helping out in the sewing room. I'm trying to finish up a lap quilt for Mr. de Hilo to use when we lounge on the deck on chilly winter afternoons (when the temperature might plunge toward 70... brrrrr!). It's already a big hit with the cat, who naps on it every chance he gets. When he's not napping, or out chasing birds and geckos, he tries to remove the safety pins with his teeth:

This my first free-motion quilting project, and I'm having fun. My FM stitching is about as bad as it gets, but that's okay, so long as I feel I'm getting better by the time this is done. Mr. de Hilo is unlikely to notice, or to care if he does, that the quilting is a long way from gorgeous. He'll just be touched that I made something for him, for a change, after sewing so many things for myself.

When this one's done, I do also have a deck quilt for myself to finish up. Chances that will happen before Christmas morning are looking slim, but it might get done.

Hope all your Santa projects are coming along... only a week left for elfin sewing!

Super-Quick Ironing Board Cover

I posted a while back my "someday" intention to do something about the truly grubby cover on my ironing board. I finally got around to it a week or so ago.

Key to making this quick and easy was starting with the replacement muslin cover that had come with the ironing board when I bought it several years ago. I came across it when I was tiding up the sewing room, pre-trip, and was smart enough to set it aside where I would see it again when I got back.

This end-of-bolt length of butterfly fabric -- a bit over a yard and part of my in-person FabricDepot binge -- was a good size, so I lay it out on the hall floor, face down, lay the muslin cover on top of it, and cut that shape from the fabric with pinking shears. I lifted up the edge of the muslin as I went along so my fabric cut-out was just slightly smaller than the muslin.

Then I flipped both layers over and added a few pins to hold things in place. Here it is before pinning:

If it looks wide, that's because I have one of those extra-wide ironing boards, which is great for pressing quilting yardage. You can see exactly how careful and precise my cutting was here:

When pinned, I took it to the machine and sewed around the edge with a zig-zag stitch, equally carefully:

Lickety-split and it was ready to go.

The thin padding beneath the old muslin cover was not adequate. My iron puts out a lot of heat and steam on the "cotton" setting (which I use a lot) and the metal grate under the pad would get very hot. I sacrificed a towel from the "workout towels" pile for additional padding. I simple lay it over the board with the old pad on top (you can see the indelible grate impression below), put my new, double-layer (muslin + print) cover on top, and tightened the drawstring to pull it all into shape around the board.

Then I cut off the edges of the towel that were hanging out (didn't finish the edges, or nuthin', just snipped 'em off), and was done.

Total time for task: didn't track, but I doubt it was more than 10 minutes. That was after I waited for the cat to fall asleep so he wouldn't pounce on the fabric laid out on the floor and roll around on it.

How long it took me to get around to this quick and easy task? I'm not saying. If I'd had any sense I would have waited a couple more days and done this on Nov. 1, instead of in October, so it would count toward the 100 Yard Challenge.

A dinosaur bites the dust!

Wow, does it feel good to slay finally do something constructive with this old dinosaur. The misshapen, badly planned, poorly sewn blocks for this quilt have been languishing in the darkest, most neglected recesses of my sewing room/project bins for... um... something like 15 years now.

Yup, only 3 fabrics in it: this one's all about the visual effect of purple "monkeys" twining around on a checkerboard background (that, and seeing how far I could push an acceptable color combo). The fabrics are prints, not solids, but "monotonal" in effect:, and quite lovely in person although they don't photograph well:

I still like the idea of this quilt, very much. I doubt I'm the first to make a bi-color "background" for a Monkey Wrench layout, but I came up with the idea on my own, and am happy (in a slapdash way) with how it turned out.

We'll be kind, and call this a "learning" project. If I ever decide to write a tutorial on how not to make a quilt, I can use this one as the example. This was one of the first quilt projects I tackled, and at the time I had no idea how to do things the right way, especially planning which of all those straight edges would be the bias ones. Most likely there are bias/stretch issues however you do it, although from my results I'm guessing I didn't take the best route through that particular jungle.

Don't know if I'll ever feel like tackling this pattern again, but paper foundation piecing would be the way to go, for sure. It's possible I didn't even know what that was way back when. If I had heard of it I didn't know enough to know that would be a good path to take.

More problems can be blamed on a sad combination of misinformation and ignorance. I'd been told, when I bought the machine I began this on, that the edge of the standard foot would result in a nice 1/4" seam for quilting purposes. Silly me: I believed the guy. Being a rank beginner at the quilting game, it didn't occur to me to check. So my seam allowances were all off by a wee bit. A wee bit off on a bunch of seams in some blocks and not many -- or none -- in the others, means my three blocks each came out a slightly different size. Plus, the non-adjstable presser foot on that machine pressed a bit tight, and pushed bias edges even more out of whack.

"Aaaaaaagck!!!" hardly begins to describe my emerging realization of the disaster the blocks were turning out to be, but nicely summarizes why I walked away from it and allowed these blocks to languish in a plastic storage bin for so many years.

Somehow that plastic bin came along for the ride through all my recent moves, waiting patiently for me to be over the trauma,. And there it was when I shopped the stash for fabrics to make a back for the "Nothing Too Girly" lap quilt I'm making for my husband. I saw possibilities in that bin, and enough time had passed that I no longer felt attached to making it come out right.

A little trimming down of the larger pieces, and some liberties taken with tidy seaming, and I was able to mash this together into something that looks (from a distance) almost presentable. Size at this stage is roughly 44"x68". It needs a narrow border all round (probably from the purple; I think I have enough) to come up to size.

Once I've tidied up the edges and added the border, this might even become the front of the "Nothing Too Girly" quilt. I'll let Mr. de Hilo decide which side he likes best.

My goal is to get top, back, and batting sandwiched and basted before putting it away for a bit. No machine quilting is gonna happen around here until I splurge on the table-extension thingie for my machine, which I am saving up for by abiding by the 120-day fabric and pattern embargo currently in effect.

Next up: making a pieced back for the pink lattice quilt I'm making for myself.

... No, I have not forgotten about the Kyoto skirt! Sheesh, it's sprawled all over my ironing board, leering at me. How could I forget it?

I might even sew another little bit of it tomorrow.

Dressing up my desk

No, these are not dinner napkins...

... although they are made just like 'em (cut a large square, make a narrow double-fold hem with neatly mitered corners).

Actually, the red one in the middle is a napkin, "luncheon" size, I'm calling it. That one's becuase I had a small piece of the red colorway lying around, and I figured why not make one more. I eat lunch at my desk a lot. Sometimes that's because I'm on a roll and want to keep going on a project, but more often I'm using my lunch break to blog-surf or catch up on personal emails.

The four large ones are for my desk. Which is really a square dining table, and which has these very cool glass-covered sections. Each is about 15.5" square and 3/4" deep, with a bevelled glass top. The insets have a woven reed lining, which is a blah brown that I've never liked (I am a COLOR fiend, as you may have noticed).

In the past, I've lined these sections with beautiful papers of the heavy/expensive hand-made, gift-wrappy kind, and sometimes I've put little trinkets in there, too. Sort of a 3D collage of pretty things and favorite stuff.

When we last moved, a year ago (yikes, it's been that long?!), I tossed the faded old paper and disassembled everything for packing. Then reassembled here, without doing anything at all in terms of desk decor. Because moving is hassle and a time-eater, and I wanted to get set up and back to business. I figured I'd dress the desk back up in a little bit, when I had the time and felt inspired.

I've had the inspiration/plan for a while now: make some cloth inserts from fabric left over after making my office curtains. But the time-motivation thing didn't happen until this past weekend. When I produced these, cleaned up the desk, and got them in place:

Don't they look nice?

Of course, this is a WORKING desk, and although I like to think I'm a smidge toward the "tidy and organized" end of the spectrum, my desk typically looks something like this: 

So glimpses of flowers is what I get. I'm thrilled, though, to have finally crossed this off the "someday" list, and to have a more colorful, cheerful, and inspiring desk to sit at all day.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to stop blogging and go get some "real work" done...

Future project #2

Here's one reason I haven't posted any tutorials yet:

I love this ironing board. It's extra wide, and super sturdy. My old one used to collapse on me on a regular basis, which led to much hissing and/or yelling of obscenities on my part and a refusal to ever iron anything. But this one's great. Except that I've been using it for several years now with the default muslin cover that came with it. Which has not stood up well to the great blasts of heat and steam that come from my super-duper iron.

From time to time I start to photograph the steps of something that might become a tute, but inevitably some pressing is involved, and I think, "cr*p, I can't use a photo of this hideous thing."

So, future project #2 is to make a new ironing board cover. Easy project, but the only fabrics in my stash of long enough length are pricey designer cottons that I'm not willing to sacrifice for this purpose (unless the day comes when I decide I'll never get around to making whatever it was I thought I'd sew from them, which is entirely possible but hasn't happened yet).

I'd run right out and get some fabric except I'm about 40 days into a 120-day fabric-and-pattern embargo. And I really mean to stick with it this time.

On the other hand, once the embargo is over, a splurge on a suitable length of something pretty to re-cover the ironing board would make a nice reward for honoring the embargo for the complete term (for once!).

In the meantime, my ironing board remains blotchy and scorched and discolored, and any tute photos that involve pressing will have to wait.

What's that? How's the Kyoto Skirt coming along? Um, well, I sewed up the patch pockets for the muslin this weekend. A grand total of about :10 of sewing time put in over the past several weeks. So it still qualifies as an "active" project (incomplete, but not a UFO just yet), although progress is slow.

Future project #1

Some days you see something you look at every day, and really see it. Or, in this case, you see how faded and ratty it has become. 

This little pillow lives on my deck chair, and I'm very fond of it, because of all the many "throw" pillows in the house it is the only one that fits the small of my back just right on this chaise. It was once bright orange/white, with lime green welt around the edge.

It hasn't been anywhere near those colors for some time now. I'd noticed it was fading, just hadn't felt any need to do anything about it. Until this morning. It is now officially "future project #1".

Which doesn't mean I will get to recovering it anytime soon. But I officially acknowledge that it has devolved into an eye-sore, and merits a return to beautiousness one of these days.

I did get to another "someday" project this weekend (and even finished it, thus avoiding the usual consequence of starting something new, which is to add to the UFO pile). Haven't sorted through pics yet, but will show it off shortly.

Another set of curtains done

DH's curtains are finally done and up. I achieved my goal of getting them done before XMas (ahead of time, even), but we were feeling so lazy and relaxed over the big holiday itself that he didn't get around to putting up the rods until yesterday.

It's unusually sunny and bright for Hilo this morning, so even with a flash it's hard to take a window shot. Here's the best I managed:

These are about 60" long, plus the tabs. They do bring some much-needed color to the all-white room. And pushed back, as they will almost always be, they are "not too girly." Second best part of this project is it gave me a reason to learn to use the blind-hem foot/function on my sewing machine. Not sure this shot is any better, but here's view 2, anyway:

Best part is, Mr. Wonderful declined an accent pillow for his desk chair ("too girly"), which meant there was JUST enough fabric left for me to make a skirt from TNT Burda 8280. I had to cut the pieces just slightly off-grain, but getting a skirt from this luscious fabric is such a nice bonus I won't care if it's less than perfect in execution. It's not like I'm a fashionista or anything.

The skirt has a curved hem, which I wasn't quite prepared to do by machine, given my limited blind-hem experience, but I got the hem sewn by hand last night. My eyes gave out before I finished stitching the waist facing to the side seams and zip, and I still have to add a hook and eye (my most-loathed sewing task), but it will be wearable very soon.

More curtains in progress

... sort of. I have managed, over the course of about a week and a half, to cut four curtain panels to length and trim off the selvedge (and drape them over my ironing board, as you see here). That's not exactly a stunning rate of progress.

These are going to be for my husband's home office. When he saw the curtains I made for my office, he realized how greatly his space needed some big, bold color, too. He insisted nothing else would do but a  large blue and green print, something suitable for our tropical location without being too over-the-top Hawaiian/aloha-print. We found this stunning fabric, from Anna Maria Horner's "Drawing Room" collection, in the close-out section at Fabric.com, and it is perfect. Floral, yes, but such a bold scale that it's not "too girly" for DH.

We picked up the curtain hardware a couple of days ago, so now I have no excuse not to get these done by Christmas Eve. Yikes, that's less than a week away: I'd better pick up the pace.

I still need to cut the lining pieces, cut and sew 36 rod 'tabs', and learn how to use the blind-hem foot on my sewing machine. DH won't care how they are hemmed, but I do. Besides, I want to learn how to do a blind hem, and this seems like a good project for that. I'm going to practice on scraps, of course, but first I need to cut all those tab lengths and see what, if any, yardage is left. I might see if I can get a pillow from this fabric, too.

Fortunately most of my other XMas prep is done, so I can focus on this project over the weekend. I can't wait to see them done and up; they are going to be gorgeous!

... and a pillow for my desk chair

to go with the curtains:

I whipped up a pillow for my desk chair yesterday afternoon, to go with my new home office curtains. My chair is really a dining chair, and I sit on the front half of it while working, so a big fat pillow to fill up the space behind me is welcome. The white Guest of Honor fabric is from the stash, and I consider the border fabric stash also, as it's from the piece left over after making the top borders for the curtains. It's the same on both sides, except that the big white blossoms are positioned slightly differently.

I used a 20" square pillow form, and the "Sunset Button Pillows" pattern from Amy Butler's Softwares. I even read and (mostly) followed the directions! I had to size down (Amy's pillows are huge: 27"), and I skipped the buttons, but did the rest according to plan.

I love how the flanges turned out, and the whole thing was super quick and easy to do. Except for sewing the seam through both sides between the flange and pillow body (so the flanges become flanges, not just a bigger pillow cover) ... in spite of pinning, it was tricky to get the seams lined up just right. I was in my usual slapdash mood and, after considering briefly the pros and cons of doing a super-careful, precise job, did a quickie, imprecise one instead. Unless you look closely, which no one but me will ever do, you can't tell that my "stitch in the ditch" wanders on and off the ditch more than it stays in it.

The only drawback to this pattern is that the pillow cover is entirely sewn on, no zipper or other closure, so it's not removable for washing. I have zippers in the stash, and could have added one. But I didn't want to bother, so I'll just have to be careful not to spill coffee on this one.

Guest of Honor Curtains...

... for my home office! Ignore, please the messy desk. Things got moved aside, and then I was so eager to snap pics as soon as the rods and curtains were up that I haven't even unplugged the power drill yet. My office is the dining alcove: the plants are orchids on top of some storage cabinets that function as a room divider so the space feels less like an alcove and more like a separate room. Here's the view from the kitchen:

It took me a long time to make these. I got the fabric all measured and cut some not too long after we moved in early this summer, and then was distracted by life and other projects. I kept thinking I ought to sew these up, but after getting our bedroom curtains done (shown here, two of the five total made, Amy B fabric, not blogged yet):

I just couldn't face another curtains project right away. Which turned out to be about two months.

But the sun has been inching ever southward as we've inched into autumn, and glare on my computer screen has (as I suspected) become a problem. I didn't want to change my office layout (for feng shui reasons, as well as it's a very small space and options are limited), so curtains are the solution.

These are made from Anna Maria Horner's "Guest of Honor" fabric from her Garden Party line, with borders in two colorways in "Dance Floor" from the same collection. Many thanks to Kerith at Material Girl Shoppe for the fabric, good price, and great service. I look forward to shopping with you again.

I did not make these curtains "by the book" at all. For one thing, they are quilting fabric, which is not very wide, nor does it have the heft and drape a good curtain should have. Well, too bad. I love, love, love everything about this print. So yes, while the curtains do cover the windows when drawn shut, they are not as wide as they should be according to curtain-making guidelines. Sad truth is that 1.5-2X window width for fabric means double the yardage (i.e., cost) plus at least twice the cutting headaches plus finicky print matching on the seams. It just wasn't going to happen.

So, these are just one fabric width wide each. There is barely 1/8" turn-back at the sides, as I didn't want to sacrifice even fractions of an inch in width. Lining is a cheap cotton-poly blend in pale blue. I experimented with using a "clip strip" at the top back, so the curtain ring clips would be hidden rather than grasp the top edge of the curtain, but after doing one curtain I decided I didn't have the energy or patience to go that route. So, visible clips it is, even though I don't like them. They sure are easy, and that's worth a lot to me.

Here are some close-ups of the borders. The top is interfaced (on the lining) for 3", to avoid drooping between the curtain ring clips. So nice to work with coordinating prints, as the color match is perfect. I love how the red border at the bottom picks up the colors of the blossom centers:

Next up, I have some of this fabric with white blooms, and I'm going to use that to make a big pillow for my desk chair. I might even have enough left of the blue "Dance Floor" to trim the pillow with it.

Only problem is that these dress up my office so nicely that my husband has decided that his office needs curtains, too (we both work at home, so we have two full-time home offices). He's right, too. Compared to my office, his now looks bland and blank and white, and in need of some nice fabric embellishment in the window area. I don't think he has anything as boldly floral as this in mind, so first challenge is to get some idea of what kind of fabric he'll be happy with. I really hope we don't have to settle for something traditionally gag-inducing like boring stripes or plaid. We're just not the traditional type, either of us.

Cathedral Windows Pillow

Mum loved her birthday present, and now that she's opened the package I can finally post photos of the Cathedral Windows pillow I made for her. Here's the front:



And the back:

The prints are all Amy Butler fabrics. I tried, but failed, to tweak the colors in these photos for greater accuracy. The pale blue is not quite so neon-bright as it appears, and the dark taupe is softer.

Finished size is 18" square, and there's a zip under the right side of the dark taupe strip on the back. I'd show you a close-up, but then you'd see how messy some of my hand-stitching is.

Here's my advice to anyone tempted to try this pattern/method: If you Google "Cathedral Windows tutorial" you will come across some variations in construction. One major difference is whether to simply press in the raw edge on the large foundation block or to sew them up. I fell for the "fold instead of seam" approach (it seemed so much easier) and I can saw with some expertise now that it does not produce as good a result.

It may seem like so much more work to do the tedious seaming and turning and pressing first step on the large square (setting up to fold the corners in a second time to make the "window" frames), but it is worth it.

I had fun making this, as I've wanted to try my hand at Cathedral Windows for a long time, and was curious how it would work with a limited color palette and repeated fabrics, rather than the more traditional "charm" approach using as many different fabrics as possible. It was a good "lap project" to have on hand for TV nights.

I can't remember exactly what size foundation squares I started with (9"?) before all that seaming and folding. If I ever make something like this again, I think I'll start a little smaller (8?), so the windows/charms are smaller as well.

But that's not likely to ever happen. Getting this done really stretched the outer limits of my patience and attention span for doing something so tedious and repetitive. Before pillow, my attitude toward Cathedral Windows was "that's so interesting and different; I'd like to tray making something with that method some day." After pillow, it's: "been there, done that." I still like this pattern/method, but will be happy from now on to admire the efforts of others. How anyone makes it through enough of these fussy little squares to get an entire bed-quilt out of it is a mystery to me.

Speaking of quilts, I started on the lap quilt I'm making for my husband. Will post more about that some day when I've reached a photo-op point.

Do I dare...

... post a photo of a gift for my mom here?

I don't think she reads this blog, but maybe she takes a peek from time to time. You'd think my own mom would be a "follower" but I doubt she knows what following is, or how to do it (she only recently got her own email account, a big step for someone of a generation for whom all things digital can be intimidating).

Mum's turning 75 in September, which seemed worth making a bit of a fuss about, although she says she'd rather ignore birthdays at her age. So, way back last winter I got started on a gift for her, something mostly hand-sewn that I could work on in the evening while watching TV.

I am totally patting myself on the back for starting it so early, because it's the kind of thing I'd work on for a few days, then drop for a couple of weeks. Progress was slow, but it only took me seven months (I'd allowed eight) to finish what for some might have been at most a week or two project.

Anyway, it's finally done, and turned out gorgeous, and I soooooo want to put up a photo and show it off.

But I don't want to be a spoiler, so I'm gonna hold off for a bit longer. I'll provide a teaser, though, by saying that the finished product falls into the "home decor" arena, and by showing you a fabric sample to illustrate the prints/color scheme:


Mum loves softer blues and demure florals, and I'm an Amy Butler addict, so these are a happy compromise: the colors are "Mum," and while the prints are bolder than she'd choose for herself they make the gift look like something made by me.

I'm going to go take a photo of the finished ... thing ... right now, so I can really show it off here after the big day.

Curtain #1

We love, love, love this new house, but man, does it need curtains.

Nice tall window above the "throne" in the second bath has a view of an empty lot and banana trees, but there are houses on the other side of that lot and at night it feels very exposed in there! Even though I doubt anyone can see in. Why the builder didn't use frosted glass is a mystery.

The room is all white, and in desperate need of COLOR, so I pieced this from several colorways of Kaffe Fassett "lake blossom" plus a couple of coordinates from the stash. It's roughly 20"x30", lined with plain white cotton sheeting from the stash.

I have grand plans for a shower-curtain to go with it (planned out already from KF stash fabric, but not a priority; I probably won't get to it for a while).

This weekend it's nice and rainy, so I plan to stay indoors and make some progress on curtains for my new home office. They're gonna be gorgeous. Here's a sneak peak:

(Anna Maria Horner fabric laid out on floor so I can play with motif placement and border width; color's a bit off, but you get the idea)

I hope to maybe cut fabric for bedroom curtains, too. Will be using Amy B's new colorway of "trailing blossoms". Nice that I had a piece in the stash for inspiration, but of course significant additional yardage was required. I have way blown my fabric budget this summer, that's for sure. And I cringe at the thought of updating the year-to-date yardage chart to see how far behind I've fallen.

BTW: Still haven't taken pics of all those FQ skirts I made just before the move. That's because at any given moment I'm usually wearing one, and another one or two are in the laundry basket. They are soooo comfy. A long way from haute couture, but they suit my personality and lifestyle and they are at the top of my (short) "sewing successes list. I'll show 'em off here one of these days.

On the move

My sewing room is all packed up and half of it is already over at the house we're officially moving into tomorrow. Big "mahalo!" to the owner for letting us have the keys a week before we start paying rent. Professional heavy-lifters are hauling the furniture on Tuesday, and by then we should be done with almost everything else. All we'll have to do is "out-clean" this place (I so wish I had the budget to pay someone to do that!), unpack at the new place, and settle in. That shouldn't take more than, oh, most of the rest of the summer.

Early last week, when I should have been packing, I was grabbed by the "use it up" bug and whipped up a bunch of quickie skirts from large scraps and some fat quarters. I don't have photos of any of them yet (and am not sure where the digital camera is... it's either hidden in the not-yet-packed debris that litters this place, or went into a box days ago), but they were so quick and easy to make, and are so comfortable to wear, I'm hooked. Best part is each one combines at least two gorgeous fabrics, which is so much more interesting than just one. Drafted the pattern on freezer paper from "Sew What: Skirts!" basic A-line instructions and added a drawstring waist. Just pull on, tie, throw on a T for the top half, and go.

The first skirt was so successful I couldn't help making a few more. I've been wearing them all week as I pack and haul (and sweat). I may never bother to make anything else ever again except for more of these quickie skirts. Okay, I admit, that's not likely to happen, but it's how I'm feeling today.

I'll post further details on super-easy skirt construction whenever we get around to unpacking the camera. The new house will, I think, offer much better fashion-photo opportunities than this one does, so perhaps I'll do better about having pics of what I've sewn to show here.

Other Indulgences
In the midst of packing up all my fabric I also ordered more (gak!): Hancock's had an Amy B. print I've had my eye on for a while on sale ("trailing cherry" in the new colorway):


...so I picked up a few yards of that plus a yard of what I hope will be a good a coordinating print:


If the two don't play well together I'll just play with them separately. Parcel is still in transit, but confronting the fact that I'd succumed to yet another fabric-shopping indulgence prompted me to update my 2009 yardage spreadsheet to see how far I've fallen behind in my "sew" vs. "buy" stats.

Turns out, I'm doing better than I thought: so far this year I've purchased 59.5 yards, and have used 42.5. So, I'm only 17 yards behind.

Which got me thinking. The new house only has blinds on some of the windows; I'll need to make curtains for the bedroom and my office, and probably will do a cafe-curtain treatment for the kitchen window. And although the guest room/sewing room does have blinds, I want to make the curtains to coordinate with daybed cover/bedspread that I never got to while in this house. And our two shabby-looking papasan chairs, as well as two large floor cushions, are all in desperate need of fresh covers.

A lot of that can be done from stash: I've got fabric on hand for the papasan chairs and the guest room curtains, and if there's any guest-room fabric left over I'd love to use it for the kitchen, too, because last year I recovered the kitchen chair cushions with some large scraps of the black colorway.

And surely I can find fabric in the stash to cover two floor pillows. Quickie guesstimate of yardage requirements for those three projects: oh, probably around 17 yards. So if I can channel my creative energies into home decor projects, and resist more skirt temptations, it looks like I can close up that buy-sew gap.

The truly clever thing to do would be to approach this on the incentive plan. How 'bout I'm not allowed to buy fabric for my office curtains until I've "made up" that 17-yard short-fall? That would put a bit of a fire under my butt.

The downside of all these plans is that I've been telling myself (and my husband) that once we're moved in at the new place the sewing machine is going to stay in the closet for a while so I can catch up on the 1001 other things that need my attention...

It's Done! (Guest Room Coverlet Part III)

Hand sewing the backside of the binding to the back of the coverlet took 4-1/2 days of TV time (good thing it’s baseball playoff season, lots of hours on the couch with needle in hand), but it is finally done.

Hey, look at that, it’s GORGEOUS!!

You’re seeing the coverlet draped over my bed, ‘cause the guest room’s not fit for photography at the moment. (I’m reorganizing the closet in there as a preliminary step to next weekend’s pre-guest-arrival cleanup marathon, and there’s stuff piled all over.)

I think the lime-pink candy stripe binding looks fabulous, now that it’s done:


It will look even better when I get around to pressing it, but I'll do that the day before guests arrived, as this will be folded up on a shelf until the guest room is tidy.

The pieced seams, while not a perfect match (see this post for what caused that), are good enough for a quickie guest room project:


But man, handsewing the inside edge of the binding was a monster chore. Hope to avoid having to do that again.

I’ll post a pic of how it looks in the guest room just as soon as I’ve tidied up a bit and made up the bed in there.

If I ever come up with a work-around for Butterick 5120, I’ll be tempted to make it out of this lovely ivory/tropical fabric. I still have lots left, and maybe just enough of the pink solid for a yoke and trim. And if that works, I might even have enough black pieces left to make a black one with green trim…

But I’m not starting any new projects right away. Must finish some more of the stuff from the UFO pile first.

Like the Zig-Zag quilt I hope to finish for my other guest who may need another blanket. (Sure would be nice to get that UFO done!) If I'm gonna tackle it, it will be with another flannel sheet as batting (I bought an extra one), and straight-line machine quilting of some kind: whatever I can get to work on this machine without investing in either a "darning" or "walking" foot.

Stay tuned.

Candy-Stripe Binding (Guest Room Coverlet Part II)

To go with my “holiday” fabrics, I also have some rayon solids in lime green, tomato red, and hot pink. Tomato red I used with the black for the Pleated Beauty handbag. Decided to stick with the green and pink to make a striped binding for the Guest Room Coverlet.

First step, sew lots of 3.5” strips together, alternating colors. A little tedious, but easy.


Here they are pressed. At this point, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve wandered too deeply into “garish” territory. I tell myself it will look different when it’s all done and applied.

Next up, cut into bias strips.

Yikes, not sure that’s an improvement!

But I’ve set out on this path and am sticking to it.

Which maybe wasn’t the best plan, because I discovered, when I went to sew the strips to the coverlet edge, that I’d cut them too narrow for machine sewing both sides.

Crap. That means I’m going to have to hand sew the second edge to the back. Roughly 80” wide x 90” long = way more linear inches of slip-stitch than I’d have chosen to do if I hadn’t messed up.

Reminder to self: next time you are cutting binding strips, look up how wide they should be in a book or something by someone who knows what they’re doing! Clearly calculating it in my head is a mistake. Hopefully not one I will repeat soon, but frankly am not going to hold my breath on that. Repeat idiot-moments could happen.

Stay tuned to see how it turns out.

Guest Room Coverlet, Part I

You know that gorgeous bright tropical floral (I think it's Kaufmann “Holiday,” but may be misrembering) in black that I’ve posted a few pics of here and here?

Well, at the same time I got the black (I made a slipcover for the guest room day bed, for when it’s folded up into a couch, plus some pillows -- pics still to come, ‘cause the daybed’s been unfolded all summer, only room in the house that’s cool enough for napping) I also got a huge piece of the ivory colorway, intended to make some curtains. Here is some of it, draped over my ironing board:

Then I discovered that drapery rods were going to be an issue with the windows in this rental house, so I put the fabric away for when we have a house of our own, or, as happened, when I decided to do something else with it.

As I’ve mentioned before, both my sisters are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, to help celebrate/commiserate my 50th birthday. And although we have places for them to sleep, and plenty of sheets, towels, pillows, it’s a little chilly in the wee hours here in late October, and I could use another blanket layer for each of them.

Easy out would have been to buy a couple of cheap blankets at Walmart. Instead, I decided to use the white fabric to make a coverlet for the guestroom bed, backed with a white flannel sheet. I got a good one, from Land’s End. Sheet alone cost twice what I would have spent on a Walmart blanket, but it’s soooo lusciously soft and a good weight for Hawaii.

First challenge is to piece the fabric. It’s 54” wide, and I plan to add a 14" strip to each side.
Being home dec fabric, it's designed so that it can be matched at the sides to make wider panels.

If you look closely, though, you’ll see a problem. There should be some white showing on both edges, on the selvage. Hmmm, this piece is printed a little off-center, so the pattern is running off the selvage edge on one side:

And I've discovered the problem gets progressively worse toward one end. This is going to make an exact lineup on the seams impossible.

Gee, I wonder if that’s why this length of fabric was so irresistibly cheap?

Oh well, too late now. It will look nice anyway. And it’s not like Martha Stewart is going to show up and inspect it.

Here’s how it looks pieced and trimmed to roughly 80"x90”, laid out over the flannel for pinning:

I’ve decided to use some of my leftover rayon imitation-linen coordinating solids to make the binding for the edges. You can read all about that here.