Category Archives: Stuff to make

Honey, I Shrunk the Quilt!

Posted in Kids, Sewing by

My 2013 resolution: make a quilt.

Check. Completed, and just under the wire.

2013-12-15 11.11.07-1

 

OK, enough already. Maybe I fudged it a bit and made a teeny-tiny wee quilt. Don’t be so particular! But ain’t it cute? It only took about 15 minutes to make versus the never-endingness of its queen-size version. (If anyone’s curious, I cut 2-inch squares, pieced together, made a mini-quilt sandwich with some on-hand batting, and finito. That’s how to quilt, man.)

And to go with the little quilt and the little bed, a little cupboard that I recently found in a Concord, Mass. junk shop:

2013-11-10 11.45.29-2

Bunny ornaments

Posted in Holiday, Sewing, Stuff to make by

img_24381These little bunnies are easy and addictive to make–plus so cute! I had some left over wool felt from a tree skirt I made last year and wool stuffing that I bought ages ago and have used countless times. (I love when a seemingly extravagant purchase turns out to be perfectly practical.) I made a cardstock template and cut out two felt bunnies for each ornament. I added the embroidered details and then blanket stitched the two sides together leaving a gap for stuffing. I learned after a few bunnies that more stuffing is better and it’s important to fill all the spaces. Then I just closed the gap and left a loop of thread for hanging. Simple!

Advent calendar

Posted in Holiday, Kids, Stuff to make by

IMG_2344

Five days of cuteness! Still to come, six more peg elves, two more elf houses, the big guy himself on the 24th, and some other little surprises. I’ve had so much fun making this advent calendar. I haven’t painted anything except walls in a long time, and I was a little out of practice. My skills definitely improved after a few elves–the elf waiting on December 18 is superlatively cute. The little drawstring bags were pretty easy to make and I just stamped the numbers on with a regular ink pad. I still have a few more things to make–Santa’s house!–but I’ve got days and days to finish up.

IMG_2341

WIP–My First (Endless and Ongoing) Quilt

Posted in Quilting, Sewing, Stuff to make by

When I refer to the abbreviation WIP, I mean Work In Perpetuity. Sure, there’s progress, but it’s so slow. Who knew sewing a quilt would involve so much sewing? Maybe I should have guessed as much after dutifully cutting 278 4″ squares of fabric. Here are the squares “chain-pieced” into piles of pairs:

image

For newbies like me, chain-piecing means sewing two patches right side together and then just lifting the presser foot and feeding in the next pair to make a continuous chain. You cut the pairs apart later. Two other rookie things I’ve learned: there’s no backstitching in quilting, and quilters really dig a 1/4″ seam allowance (so if a pattern doesn’t give an allowance, bank on that one).

image

Now I’m sewing my pairs into strips. According to Alicia Paulson’s Ollalieberry Ice Cream quilt pattern, the squares should be random. Tell that to my brain! I can’t stop myself from trying to create patterns from the chaos!  Order out of entropy! Here Captain Wonderpaws overlooks my work:

image

 

 

Autumn Projects

Posted in Fabric printing, Quilting, Sewing, Stuff to make by

image

Nothing cheers me more than a VW bus parked on my block. This belongs to my neighbor’s son. It used to be completely green but has since evolved into something weirder–and more autumnal, don’t you think?

Kind of like this:

image

image

image

Autumn colors and old vehicles bring to mind two projects I want to tackle this fall. First, I’d like to try my VW bus pillow freezer paper print again, but this time on a throw pillow backed with groovy vintage fabric.

Second, I really, really need to return to my abandoned quilt project. The pretty picture below is actually not a pretty picture. I had to dust the fabric off in order to snap the photo–that’s how long these fabric squares have sat on my table.

image

I’m afraid that I may need to actually count each individual square to make sure I have the right number. So, stay tuned as I make myself some coffee and contemplate a whole lot of counting.