mckenna's quilt

Chris' cousin recently had a baby girl, so this was sent off to welcome her to the family.

I've loaned the pattern out and don't remember what magazine I found it in, but will post that info when the pattern is returned.

The majority of the fabrics were leftover from making the yoyo puppy for Trixie. They'd been purchased as a fat quarter bundle. Others came out of the stash. The acid green fabric that balances the fuschia came from Jan's fabric rejects. Isn't it great when one person's trash becomes your treasure?

My favorite part is the backing. I used a vintage pink seersucker I picked up in a thrift shop. It made the quilt even more puckery when I washed and dried it.

thrifty thursday

I'm back!! A very big thank you to Doug for installing the new hard drive and memory card so I didn't have to spend hours on the phone while someone else walked me through it.

On to some thrifty goodness...

I had planned to post this a couple of weeks ago as a follow up to the previous Thursday.

More patterns from the Salvation Army - I love the collar on the middle dress.

I think my mother had this pattern. Three pattern pieces, hmmm. Looks easy, but I'll bet you have to have the fit just right with a muslin before you tackle this one or it'll look like a 7th grade home ec project gone very wrong. Not that that's ever happened to me. ; )

This one might actually get made. I'm wondering if I can steel my nerves and order enough Liberty lawn to sew up the bottom version.

During my forced break I did plenty of sewing, some quilting, a bit of painting and a lot of organizing (I won't bore you with pictures of my new filing system, but the pile of papers that could be recycled or shredded made me VERY happy). I'll work my way through the photos over the next couple of weeks. It's good to be back.

forced blog break

Just checking in to let you know that I'll be off for a few more days. My laptop crashed late last week. We were hoping to have the new hard drive installed by Sunday, but things are not going as planned. Between wrong parts being shipped and Dell scheduling help calls and then not calling when they scheduled them, I'm not too happy with them right now.

Picassa was loaded on the laptop, not on our desktop, so for now I have no access to pictures. I do have plenty to show you though - a new baby quilt, a button bracelet, baby booties, a kimono style pj set for a baby, a cardigan for me, a bubble dress for Trixie(the last four items will be models in the shop before I get to enjoy them) and the thing that makes me happiest - a freshly painted laundry room. I'm sure you're all dying to see pictures of a beige cement floor. It's amazing what I can get done when I'm not spending all my time reading blogs on the laptop.

I hope to have something figured out by next Monday. If you're in the US - enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday and I'll be back to posting soon. Also, please be patient if you've been trying to reach me via e-mail. It's much harder to answer that in a timely fashion without the laptop.

have a cuppa

Pam, I hope we got together for coffee before this posts (I've been on blogger autopilot this week and am actually typing this on Monday morning). If not, Surprise!

I thought coffee cup holders would make cute gifts for girlfriends this year and began working out a pattern that would use a lot of scraps. The basic Starbuck's paper holder served as my template.

Piecing the body was easy. I dug into the button stash and made use of those often forgotten decorative stitches on my machine. However, I wanted a neat finish on the top and bottom.

Bias tape seemed like a great idea. It looks clean and I'm happy with the outcome, but it's unlikely I'll be doing the hand sewing required in the final step on anymore of these. (So Pam, you have a VERY limited edition.) I like to handsew, but this got tedious. Quickly.

Maybe I can turn down the edges of the exterior and lining and just sew them together with a decorative stitch. Hmmmm.

thrifty thursday

I got really lucky at the thrift shop last week. It's pretty rare I find any good vintage patterns there. Usually it's stuff from the 80's or early 90's that I'd rather forget about.

That first one? Now I know what I'm making Basia for Christmas this year...

The one next to it is dated 1957.

These two are so old that the pattern pieces come precut. There's no copyright date anywhere on the pattern or instructions and looking around online wasn't much of a help (or I'm really bad at internet searches which is probably the case). Any guesses on year? The cost of each might be a good clue as well - $.15!

In case I want to dress like the cast of Mad Men. And who wouldn't?

new craft alert

I promised myself I wouldn't buy yarns because I've banned myself from taking up knitting or crochet. I didn't make any promises about wool that hadn't been spun into a yarn.

I've had roving and hand felting needles for a bit. I've checked out project books from the library and still not given it a go. Last weekend I picked up a kit at the shop and that did the trick. Woolpets did a great job with the instructions and it helped so much that we had actual samples in the shop of how the finished project should look and feel.

There's enough wool and other supplies in the kit to make at least one more hedgehog and probably a baby sized one too.

The kids can't touch this one either. Not til I'm done cooing over her.

better late than never - again

Angie, I may be months late, but your pencil roll is finally finished. I know you were going to let the Dirt Monkey use it, but I've decided it's officially yours.

In case the kids forget, you can point to the monogram.

To appease the little guy, he can carry plenty of crayons or colored pencils in this. In fact, there's even room for a toy car or two.

Want to take any bets on how many days it takes me to get to the post office?