V and Co's Abby Tote

I feel like I suck at all this blogging stuff these days. I mean, I'm getting things done, but by the time I actually finish something and have a chance to take a picture, it's night time! Then, the next day, I forget and/or don't have a chance to take pics with daylight! (We won't even talk about the precious shirts I've made Noah with Expressions Vinyl iron-on vinyl- I want to show you but by the time I see him in the afternoon he's a mess and the shirt is so dirty!)

Well, not today! Yesterday I sewed up V and Co's Abby tote! My fabric (Robert Kaufman's Metro Living Rings in Pewter and Anthology Fabrics' Bryant Park Rooftop Garden in Yacht) came in the mail, I threw it in the wash then stayed up sewing til the wee hours of the morning (which seemed like a good idea at the time... but then 6am came early this morning!).
After school today, I actually thought to have Joe take a couple pics of it for me!

I look excited, huh?

As I mentioned before, I am a bit obsessed with the grey-yellow combo, though this is actually the first thing I've made with it! The bag itself was not tough to make- the pattern is very clear and concise. Don't get me wrong, this isn't a quick sew (like I thought it would be!), but it's not difficult! I like that it's reversible, but I don't know how often I will take advantage of that and may add some pockets soon to just make it a huge purse. I did add a 16"x6" fabric-covered cardboard piece in the bottom of the bag, but sewed a casing with the fabric rather than hot gluing it.

To summarize: great pattern, cute bag- remembered to take a pic in daylight. Woot!

current project (for someone else)

(please excuse the cell phone pics- someone has hidden the battery charger for the camera. I have my suspicions that it's a short, bald, handsome fellow. )

When I went back to working full time (while still working my 15/hr a week part time job), I decided I was not going to sew/embroider for people anymore.

The only thing is, I seriously SUCK at saying "no"... which is actually a good thing in this case!

I am so honored to be doing this awesome project for Mary Catherine, a sorority sister of mine from "back in the day". She contacted me, in oh January, and told me she has a bunch of aprons that belonged to her grandmother that she has had sitting around since she passed away in 2004- I immedately got excited. I got into quilting soley for the purpose of finishing my great-grandmother's unfinished quilt tops- I LOVE family things like this!

Mary Catherine asked if I could make 3 mini-quilts (about 24" x 36") for her and she is planning to frame them and give one to her mother, one to her aunt, and keep one for herself for Mother's Day.

So precious. How could I say no?!

After a lot of back-and-forth about the details/design, we decided on a simple half-square triangle design with Kona white. I think these are going to be awesome! The prints are all so different (to quote Mary Catherine: "some of these are really ugly"), but I think that's what makes it so great- I'm sure that each of these patterns hold a memory or two of her sweet Grandmama.

I can't wait to finish these up and send them to her!

you know what this blog has been missing?

This boy.

He's getting so silly, and refuses to look at a camera. That's getting old quick.

He even came to visit me at school yesterday to bring me lunch!

I love that boy.

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!
According to Random.org, the winner of the awesome quarter yard fabric bundle is...

... comment #14 - miamihoney!

(I have sent you an email- so please check it for further instructions!)

Thanks for entering, everyone- and thanks for the beautiful fabric, Down Shadow Lane!

Now get off the computer and go have a fun Saturday! :)

I'm embarassingly predictable.

This was my cart from Fabricworm a minute ago:

grey.

yellow.

grey.

yellow.

then i started thinking about the fact that my house is a little:

grey.

yellow.

grey.

yellow.

yikes.

the play/sew room is now ready for playing and sewing!

*If you're looking for the Down Shadow Lane Giveaway, it's in this post.*
***The giveaway ends tomorrow night so go sign up!***

This past weekend we almost finished the mini-redo of the play/sew room! We patched the walls, painted the room, hung shelves, made some new wall art (the Seuss fabric hoops) and organized, organized, organized!

I say "almost finished" because you will notice in these pictures:

A) There are no blinds! The old ones from the previous owners literally fell off the window. Strings snapped, huge disaster. But I'm ok with it because we planned to slowly replace all the blinds in the house with the 2" faux wood kind (I say slowly because that 63" window? $80 worth of blinds. YIKES!). The new blinds are here and will be hung this afternoon!

B) There's one more big blank space on the wall (to the right of the shelves)- but I'm ok with that- I hope to one day put a quilt wall hanging there!

Either way, I love the way it is now- so bright and cheerful!

(Hmm... I just realized that I might as well call this the IKEA room)

I love this idea that's been floating around the internet and it seemed like a great way to bring a little "theme" to the room without going overboard (or using too much of my precious Seuss stash!)

Did you get a look at those IKEA shelves? They make me so happy!

We put them both up there in the corner for my sewing supplies that are most often used. Thinking way ahead, we think that they'll also work there in the corner with a changing table underneath them, should this room ever becoming a nursery.

My silhouette and I went to work labeling and organizing everything.

Between this room and the mini-bolts in my fabric cabinet, I am so excited! I love getting organized, it's just keeping it organized that's the problem! I'm hoping having everything out of reach of tiny hands will help!

wordless wednesday

happy birthday to me.

(I'm not so good with the "wordless" part, am I?)

down shadow lane fabric bundle GIVEAWAY!

Here's a riddle for you:

What do the fabric behind Noah's library bag,

these pants, and a few of the fabrics in that stack of fabric in my header have in common?

All that fabric came from Down Shadow Lane!

Down Shadow Lane is an online fabric shop, run by Jen, a stay-at-home-mom from Arizona. I won't lie, I orginally found her shop by searching for a certain fabric and just pulled up the shop that had it cheapest- I wasn't aware of everything else this shop had!

Down Shadow Lane carries all of the designer fabric names that you read of all over the place- Amy Butler, Anthology, Michael Miller, Denise Schmidt, Anna Maria Horner, Joel Dewberry- at great prices. You name it, it's there! She has yardage, fat quarters, patterns, scrap packs, amazing sales - and the bundles... oh, the bundles!

I have ordered a good bit of fabric from Down Shadow Lane and let me tell you- it is always top-notch stuff and arrives quickly and folded ever-so-neatly (I'm a sucker for good folding!).

The good news for you, my friend, is that Jen has oh so graciously offered up this awesome 1/4 yard bundle of Sugar Pop for Moda in brown, chartreuse and aqua to one lucky reader!
(that is, 1/4 of a yard of each of these prints)

(um, drool. )
mod blossom in brown
mod tree in chartreuse
large floral in aqua/brown
buds in brown
mod blossom in cream/chartreuse
mod tree in brown/aqua

Would you like these pretty fabrics to make their way to your mailbox?

You can make that happen 2 ways:
1. Comment on this post telling me what you would do with this fabric should you win. Do you have a quilt pattern in mind you'd like to try or maybe you want to make a gathered clutch? Tell me about it!

2. Head on over to Down Shadow Lane and add them as your favorite on Etsy, then leave me a separate comment letting me know you did!

Please make sure you leave me with an email address so I can get in touch with you if need be. This giveaway will close at midnight on Friday, March 18th and I will announce the winner sometime on Saturday !

Good luck!

what's that I smell?

*sniff sniff*

... smells like
a giveaway!

a bright, pretty, yummy, "ooh I want that!" giveaway!

**stay tuned**

Collin's quilt

My sewing club (no really, we'll have a cooler name soon!) is about to do a 3 week quilting "class" using the Charm Square Baby Quilt tutorial from Oh Fransson!. Well, I jumped the gun a bit and made this a week early! I had this Half Moon charm pack and had no clue what I was going to do with it- I just loved the black and white- and some Kona Peacock seemed the perfect compliment for the son of a surfer and a girly girl!

Seriously, how cute are these goons?

As it turns out, my BFF (yup, that's right. bee-eff-eff) since 10th grade, Stea, and her husband (who happened to be my other BFF in high school long before they even started dating!), Paul, had a baby shower this past Sunday for their first little guy, Collin! This is the perfect quilt pattern for something like this- pieced in about an hour (and hour!!) and basted, quilted and bound the next afternoon!

I feel like I barely quilted this one (just two straight lines on either side of the pieced strips and then 1/4" inside each black square and half-square)- unlike Brady's look-a-like quilt, which I quilted til I was blue in the face! However, I do love how fluffy it made it- especially with the big black and white flannel on the back. I didn't take a pic of the finished back, but it had a 4"x4" peacock square label on the back declaring my love for the little shnookums...

SQUEE! I can't wait for Collin to get here so I can snuggle him!!

Question....

Does this font/these colors make you feel like you're going cross-eyed?
I'm thinking "a little"...
UPDATE:
Ok, I'm going back a more legible font and hopefully soon I will figure out how to make the headers and sidebars a cute font, but leave this be!

Yay! I feel semi computer-smart!

Operation: Organize-Fabric-and-Get-It-Away-From-Sticky-Fingers

... is now COMPLETE!

We had a busy, busy weekend that involved getting new light fixtures throughout the house (I'll probably post pics soon!), picking out our new wood flooring, baby showers, a girls trip to Mary Jo's, cleaning and organizing... and organizing... and organizing.... and rearanging and organizing some more!

I have now moved all of my quilting weight cottons, seersucker, minky, linen and pre-cuts to the den in this random piece of furniture that used to act as a bar (you know, back in those wilder days of mine). I love that I can now see all my fabric, but sticky little fingers can't grab it! It's a bit of a pain that it's not in the same room as my sewing machine, but hey- it was all in tupperware drawers in my bedroom closet before, so I'm not complaining!

Now just to figure out what to do with the flannels, large scraps, broadcloth and upholstry-weight fabrics.... ok, so I may have a problem.

On that note, my birthday is tomorrow (WHEEE!) so I may be buying myself a little birthday present. How weird is it that as soon as I got all this fabric ogranized, I immediately thought "Ok, now I should buy some more fabric"? I'm seriously drooling over these circles and I did the math and with the free shipping I can order a yard of each without spending any real money (cause PayPal money isn't "real" money, right? .... right?!)

:)

wordless wednesday

comic book boards.

genius.