Tag Archives: sewing

Small studio projects.

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I’ve had a list for a very long time or little things I’d like to make for my studio space.  With the recent organization and burst of creativity and productivity I’ve felt lately, I finally crossed a few things off.

I attempted to make a sewing machine cover a few years ago but never quite got the math right.  I took another stab at it though and this time it was a breeze!  I used some flying geese I’ve had for a long time for one side and an (Amy Butler?) home dec print for the other.  I think I like the orange side better, it’s so cheery!

I made a set of coasters I made years ago (incorrectly, I might add) that I always hated so I just threw them out and made a few more.  I used the stack-and-whack method, based on the coaster pattern from Denyse Schmidt’s Quilts but I only used 4 fabrics and cut each 5″ by 7″ (instead of 5 by 8). I wanted to pull from both the green wall and the orange sewing machine cover.

When I made an ironing board cover a year or so ago, I cut it too small but never took the time to fix it.  I finally tore out the old stitching and added another channel for the rope and it fits so much better!  No more coming off the board when I’m ironing fabric and pulling it towards me.

The post craft fair calm. Sort of.

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The Krankies Craft Fair on Saturday went pretty well.  The spring one is never as good as Christmas, which makes sense, but I had a good time and gained a little bit of a fabric budget :)

I also bought some really neat things like a t-shirt and screen print on wood from a really nice guy named Thomas Dean from Charlottesville, VA and a couple prints from Blue Raspberry Designs who is from here.  It was a really good fair as far as vendors go.

For the last printing of my business cards I got my Etsy shop address on them, a shop that I’ve never actually opened.  But now, I have enough things left over that I have no reason to not finally sit down, photograph, and post everything.  I’m just not sure what to do about having 30 $5 things… Do I post them all separately and pay the posting fee?  Do any of you sellers have any tips?

So now that that deadline has passed, I have two quilt commissions due in three weeks and July’s Last Minute Patchwork project which actually, proudly, I have already gotten to the quilting phase and made the binding for.  Hopefully everything else will go as smoothly!

Has it really been this long?!

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I have been crazy busy and distracted lately, but I can hardly believe I have neglected this space for so long!  I’m so sorry guys; I’ve missed you!  (Sorry the photos aren’t the best quality, they’re from Instagram.)

This first half of May was spent cutting, cutting, cutting,

and sewing, sewing, sewing (thanks to gutenTAGS for the rush printing of more labels!!)to make things to sell at the Hand to Hand Market this past weekend,

which, as it happened, didn’t go very well.  I don’t know what happened but the attendance was not what was expected by anyone.  It was nice to hang out with Caitlin for a day though, we met a couple other really awesome vendors, Andy and Nicole, and I have very little more to do to get ready for the Krankies Craft Faire in July, so that’s pretty nice.

The week before the market I was fortunate enough to go to the beach with some friends for my birthday!  I spent 4 days in Emerald Isle with a fun group of people and got to begin my 27th year relaxing with a good book and the ocean.

I went from the beach to Columbia South Carolina to see my friend Joe and my favorite band, mewithoutYou.  The show was so good.  If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you might have seen something I posted afterwards that said, “I fell in love with a boy @mewithoutYou tonight.  We danced next to each other & then he shook my hand & walked out of my life.” to which mewithoutYou responded “missed connections, find him!”  Am I the post-to-missed-connections type?  Why not!  *blush*

So coming back to town, it was right back to work Monday morning and I have begun moving into my new place.  I wish I could fast forward and just get in there and get settled but it’ll probably be a two week process and it will definitely be a sparsely decorated house for a while.  But I’ve never lived alone and I’m really excited about it!I don’t have too much on the creative front right now.  I have May’s LMP+QG project to get started on, another quilt I REALLY need to finish, and I’m anxious to finish the hand quilting on my Single Girl quilt which is taking forever.

Sorry again for my absence but thank you for sticking around!  I’ll be back soon, I promise. xo

Let’s pretend it’s still March…

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and I totally finished and posted about these on time.

For our (Cait and I) Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts challenge, I had picked pillow covers. As it turned out, I didn’t like a lot about the way they were put together so I ventured away from the instructions a little bit.  As they are written in the book would be a good project for beginners but I wanted a little more work to do :)

None of my fabric was calling to me until I realized that a remnant I bought at Karen Gray‘s last week was a home dec fabric that I probably wouldn’t use otherwise (it’s Anna Maria Horner’s Turn of Events in azure), so I pulled some coordinating solids and the scraps from The Undertoad, and went for it.

I pressed all the seams out and top sewed them outside the lines in navy blue thread.  I chose to use an invisible zipper closure instead of sewing it right around the pillow.  My zippers aren’t perfect but they’re good enough.  They are backed in the scraps from the Undertoad’s backing.

I think these pillows will live on the studio couch for awhile.

View the past projects here and be sure to look at Caitlin’s great interpretation of the pattern!  Next month: Summer Breeze Picnic Quilt.

Studio space.

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One of the changes around here is that I’ve moved into a studio space outside where I live.  I didn’t think I wanted that for a long time because I figured it would hinder late night productivity sessions and such, but I now have a space in the building where I work and I’m super excited about it.

I work at a coffee shop called Krankies and the building they inhabit, which was originally a meat packing plant, is filled with many other things.  There are apartments and a web design company upstairs, a guitar repair place, some practice/teaching studios, and Device, a screen printing business in the basement, the Electric Moustache gallery on the main floor and the studio with spaces for 8 artists (including Laura Lashley, Liz Simmons, and Ian Dennis).  I moved in and set up pretty quickly, minus shelving to hold my fabric.  I had built in shelves in my last space so now I have to figure something else out, something to put in a concrete wall, no less.

What's on my design wall: The Undertoad

Things show no signs of slowing down.  I’m powering through to finish a commission this week, hopefully going up to Roanoke this weekend for some quilting action with Lindsay and to hang out with Catherine, finishing another quilt for a shower on St Patrick’s Day, having another sewing date with Cait for our next LMP+QG project, and then going to DC for a long weekend. Looking farther ahead, my dad is coming in April, I’m going to the beach for my birthday in May, I’m still trying to go to Toronto this spring, and I’m hoping to get four quilts that have been in the works for awhile off the WIP list, and sew a couple more dresses.  Let the productivity commence!

To lay on and to hold on.

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I am in love with this new pillow.

I made this block in Jess’s wonderful Improv Piecing class at Sewing Summit back in October and as soon as it was finished, I knew it had to become a pillow.  So what if it only took me three months?  :)I surrounded it in Alexander Henry’s Heath in black, quilted it in a pale grey thread by following some of the natural lines in the block and sewing on on both sides of them, and bound it in white, and closed it with an envelope back.

I’ve also made a few bags and pouches recently for various things.Using Jeni’s wonderful and oh-so-popular lined drawstring bag tutorial, I made a bag for my herringbone cowl out of one of my favorite Aneely Hooey Little Apples prints, a red dot from my stash, and a DS Quilts print for the ties (I really should buy a bolt of that stuff!),

one for that portable speaker system I got a couple weeks ago (the first one, on the far left, was a little too small but the second one fit just right, both out of Jay McCarroll Habitat prints and coordinating solids),

and a triangle pouch for my binding clips from this tutorial, also out of a Habitat print.  Thanks Jeni for such a great project!

Snippets of life.

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Where did I go the last couple weeks?   No where, just not here apparently.

I don’t have any big finishes or anything quite yet but I wanted to share a few snippets of life around here lately.

Remember I set a goal to bake a loaf of bread every week this year?  Well week two was pizza crust and may I say, it was amazing.  The recipe I used, from Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day, made enough for five 10″ pizzas so I used two and froze the rest. Mine, pictured above, had roasted garlic, olive oil, bacon, caramelized onions, and fresh basil, with mozzarella, sharp cheddar, and feta cheese.  Yum!

I spent a gift card at Marshall’s and got, among lots of other kitchen things, a lovely green Le Creuset pan into which, I promptly made blondies.  I added whiskey and instant espresso to the batter and seeing as they spread so thin, it’s possible I ate twice as much :)

This is quilt three of three for Catherine’s nieces.  I finished sewing the binding on the front today and will complete it tonight in front of the tv (Castle and Parks & Rec have returned!) and then it will be in the wash for all three followed by a photo shoot with Cait in a couple weeks!

I got a sweet Groupon deal for a portable iPod speaker system that a friend of mine had recommended.  My computer speakers just don’t get loud enough when cooking or washing dishes and this is a great solution!  It came with a small bag and strap but I think I’ll definitely be needing a much prettier one!

I actually made this a couple months ago but never showed it.  It’s only 8″ square (instead of 24″) but now I’m not sure what to do with it!  I think I might streamline it a little and  use some in a larger quilt.  I like these as minis!

When I started rearranging my studio a few months ago (no, I’m still not done :-/ ), I took down a couple pieces of beloved artwork so I knew they needed to be hung elsewhere.  So now they adorn the hallway and I’m able to see them multiple times a day, and a couple of them when I’m laying in bed.  The three on the left are done by the lovely Laura Lashley, the middle and top right are by Liz Simmons, and the bottom right is by Molly Bolton.

Remember when I mentioned a tattoo I got being part of a larger art project?  Well the show is up this month at the Electric Moustache gallery and Evan did such a fabulous job!  He took photographs of all of us that participated and our tattoos and made a video loop of our horses in motion.  You can see the video here.  It’s based on a series of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge in 1877 who set out to prove whether or not when a horse runs, all it’s feet leave the ground at once.  Through the photographs, he pioneered stop motion animation. I love the tattoo and the show and I’m so happy to be a part of this project!

I’ve been feeling the need to sew clothes lately.  I’m on the search for an easy, versatile top that I could make a lot of.  This is Simplicity 3835, a Built by Wendy pattern that I had a lot of hope for.  I’ve made the shorter dress with the ties before and it fit super awkwardly but I hoped the shirt would be better.  And it’s not really.  This picture actually isn’t bad but I kind of just feel like I’m wearing a bag :(  There are darts in the back but it doesn’t give it enough shape.  I could either shirr the waist or I could easily take it in but then I’d have to put in a zipper… I plan to work with it and see if I can’t make it better.

I ordered myself a couple things!  I love getting books in the mail.  I got a red sketchbook because I’d like to start drawing/sketching again this year (I haven’t done it since 11th grade), Denyse Schmidt Quilts (I didn’t realize until looking through it recently how much I love almost all the quilts in it!), and Last Minute Patchwork + Quilted Gifts.

Speaking of which, I’m excited to tell you that my friend Cait and I are embarking on a challenge in 2012 to make a project a month from LMP+QG!  We have designated 12 projects and will be blogging about them the last Thursday of each month.  I very rarely buy quilting books because I feel like I have to be drawn to a majority of the projects, so this is a good prodding for me to try some things I might not, otherwise.  After flipping through a few books that Cait owns, we settled on this one because it has a range of projects, and because of the iconic Color Wheel Quilt.  (That’s when I also realized I was drawn to a lot of DS’s projects so I threw that in my shopping cart, too.)  Can’t wait to show some things off!

Christmas weekend.

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This Christmas was pretty nice.  It’s wasn’t as snowy and awesome as last year but it was a weekend filled with sleep and cooking and a couple new things.

Saturday night I made pretzel rolls

and used them for sandwiches with sauteed sausage and onions and they were delicious!  The pretzel bread was so easy, I want to make them all the time.

Having started them the night before, I baked  no-knead pumpkin rolls on Sunday morning that were so good.  The recipe made 17 rolls; so what if I ate two for breakfast yesterday and today and one for dessert?  There’s no time like the holidays to be a fat kid :)

For Christmas dinner I made garlic schmeared rosemary chicken, butternut squash risotto with sage and bacon, crispy parmesan asparagus sticks, Martha’s trusty baked macaroni & cheese, and garlic pull apart bread (based on this recipe).

The risotto didn’t really work, I think it just lacked seasoning and I wish the squash had been more finely cut.  The asparagus wasn’t very good either.  I didn’t get pre-seasoned Panko breadcrumbs, which might have made the difference.  But all in all, the deliciousness of the chicken, bread, and pasta made up for it!  And I was pretty proud of myself for making three yeast breads in 24 hours!

One of my goals for Christmas day was to learn how to crochet granny shapes (hexagons in this case).  I pinned this photo on Pinterest months ago so following the tutorial, I made a couple and I love them!

I’m just using some Bamboo Ewe yarn I got with coupons at JoAnn’s and I thought I would stick with these same four colors the entire time but I might throw in a couple more along the way, keeping the grey outer ring a constant.  Three down, only 78 more to go!

Remember the photo I posted of the wrapped books I received and were saving for Christmas morning?  Well I eagerly opened them and spent a couple hours just flipping through the pages.

My dad so kindly got me The Break Baker’s Apprentice, Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, and The Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt so I can join in on the quilt along next month!  I’m so excited about all these things.  I was really inspired by a sentiment Amanda talked about when we met at the Sewing Summit.  She talked of her desire to live a handmade life and I absolutely want to do the same thing.  Any small thing I can quilt to use around the house, making more of my own food, using my hands to knead bread and mend things; that sounds like such a rewarding life.

Oh and of course, how can I forget that I finally joined Instagram!  I love seeing everyone’s photos from there but hate that you have to have particular Apple products to use it.  I have a Mac but nothing else that would work, until Friday when Marcus brought home an iPad, a year end gift from his boss!  I won’t be carrying it around with me so I’ll only be posting things around the house but I still get to “like” and comment on other people’s things.  My name is @kaitcetera and you should follow me!

With new toys comes the creation of new things to use with them.  I noticed the hunching problem when using it while sitting down so following Betty Crocker Ass’ tutorial, I made a handy iPad rest!

The fabric was one of the only home dec fabrics I have in my stash (Amy Butler Imperial Fans in forest from Nigella), and definitely the least “girly” one.  Marcus and I have a bit of an argument about what’s manly :) I bought 5 or so yards of a wood grain fabric I fell in love with a few years ago and used it heavily in his quilt (and lots of other projects) but he insists it’s not actually manly at all. I want to make an iPad case but he said he wanted it to be black and purely functional.   What’s the fun in that?

So instead, I finally made a lined drawstring bag from Jeni’s wonderful tutorial!  It really was so simple and the fabric combinations are endless so I’m sure there are many more in my future.  I used fabric from my stash: an unknown floral print, the aforementioned wood grain, a yellow DS Quilts print, and an off-white twill tape for the pulls.

Krankies craft faire.

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This year’s craft faire was awesome!  There were 40 vendors and it was a huge success. I sold two quilts (this one and this one), an apron, and almost all my tea wallets, zip wallets, and tissue holders!

I also got more interest in teaching sewing classes so I’m going to try and do that in February or March.

The wishlist of things I’d like to get with my profits is long, but a walking foot, a roll of batting, and the makings for both a larger project wall and a light box are definites.  Oh, and a crock pot!  And maybe a stand mixer, finally.

Now it’s time to get cracking on some quilts!  I have 7 to finish by the end of March.  Can I do it?  I say yes!

Recap.

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I wanted to post a quick recap about the last couple weeks, including the visit with my mom Kerrie and aunt Reen.  They came to see me from California for almost a week and were so generous with their time (cleaning) and money; I’m glad they came!

We did a couple touristy things that I wouldn’t probably do by myself like go to the Reynolda House.  It’s the historical home of RJ Reynolds (a very attractive man, as it turns out) that houses both the original furniture and history, as an art museum, currently showing Modern Masters from the Smithsonian.  I really enjoyed the whole experience.  There are also beautiful gardens near the home that while not in season, are still well manicured and lovely.  The garden is surrounded in weeping cherry trees that are probably gorgeous in spring (future quilt photography site?); I’ll definitely be returning.

We drove up to Asheville for a day and it was a beautiful day with the perfect fall colors. I had never been to Asheville before and didn’t really know what to do with the few hours we had so we wandered around the arts district by the river a little bit, ate at the Early Girl, went into the Grove Arcade,

and lots of other little shops.  There’s a lot of really interesting history there (not that I know it, I just know it’s there) and so much art and busking. At only two hours away, and a lovely drive at that, I’ll definitely go up there again.

We ate a lot of good food while they were here including 6th and Vine, Mellow Mushroom, Breakfast of Course, and First Street Draught House, while I made steak tacos, mini broccoli pesto lasagnas, and chili.  Yum!  They were really gracious and bought me so many great things I needed like a bath mat, a Swiffer-like cleaner, an immersion blender (even though it was 4 times more expensive than thought!), a nice little cat perch for the window, dishes, soap, chocolate, and a massage!  They also mowed both yards, scrubbed my shower, mopped the whole upstairs, and did countless dishes.  I wish they were around all the time! :)

While it was great to have them around, I didn’t realize how much time I usually have to myself.  After I took them to the airport I spent the day laying around, doing pretty much nothing. I’m enjoying some alone time before Holly comes next week!

I finally finished a Swoon block!

Goodness gracious, this quilt is so labor intensive, especially when I’m trying to make two at one time and have sewn a few things wrong.  The coloring of this picture is off but this quilt is both a gift and part of the Habitat challenge in the Modern Quilt Guild (and I am using three different neutrals).  Unlike most people, from what I’ve gathered, I love this line and bought a half yard set and would like to get more.  I can already tell I’m going to love this quilt.

The weather has been lovely and wonderfully autumnal but today it took a turn for the cold this weekend.  (It was 74 yesterday and it’s more like 40 today.)  I turned the heat on for the first time and am making Herbed White Bean and Sausage Stew for dinner.

Tomorrow is the big Halloween party at work.  You have to dress up to get in, hundreds of people come, and all out friends play in amazing cover bands.  Last yea the boyfriend and I only stayed for half of it but we saw the Zombies which were amazing.  This year will be Weezer, Led Zeppelin, Dick Dale, the Buzzcocks, and Nirvana.  I’m working it and I’m really looking forward to it.  Pictures to come!

Tomorrow is also Marcus’s birthday!  Whoo!  I bought him a little something and I think we’ll go to dinner.  Nothing fancy but he (we) isn’t too hard to please :)

Hopefully I’ll have more crafty photos to share soon!