Forest Fancy

I love fall. It is probably my favorite season. The leaves changing color and crunching under my feet while I walk the dogs just makes me smile. I also LOVE cutesy owls. I saw this quilt all done up in a local quilt shop and it made me smile, so I bought the kit. It only took about a week of after school sewing from start to finish to complete the top. I would have had it done sooner, but I ran out of thread while quilting it so I had to wait until I could get more matching thread to finish. I quilted it on my home machine using a meander. I am very happy with how the quilting turned out. This is the largest quilt I have attempted to quilt on my own using my free motion foot. I have quilted on other quilt this size but I used a zig-zag stitch and my walking foot and just did lines across the quilt. The only tweak I made was not putting the leaves on the pumpkins. I just didn't like the way they looked so I skipped them. Now that I have finished this one I am looking forward to doing some Christmas/Winter sewing. I have the stuff for a really fun festive apron and a quilt. I can't wait to share!

Farm Girl Vintage Runner

I created this fun and colorful runner using three 12" blocks from the book Farm Girl Vintage. It has actually been sitting on my shelf unfinished since last May. I had it all sewn and quilted...it just needed binding...then I realized I had no idea where I was going to use it. The colors were too bright for most of the rooms in my house and definitely didn't work in my kitchen. I lost all motivation to finish it. I cringed every time I saw it sitting unfinished on my shelf. I don't like to leave things unfinished but I refuse to let sewing feel like a chore. I don't want it to be something I have to do. Sewing is something I WANT to do. Last night I had a lightning bolt moment and a surge of motivation. I realized that I could hang it in my sewing room and it would actually work perfectly! I don't know how I hadn't noticed before. I found the coolest way to hang mini quilts using safety pins and command hooks. Check it out here.

If you have any other really cool ways to hang mini quilts leave it in the comments below. Also feel free to link any posts about mini quilts or runners in the comments. I am looking for other fun mini quilts or runners to work on.

The Dresser Project

Last week I went out to my parents house to get some wood for another project and I decided to snoop around a bit to see if there was any other "junk" I could use for my projects. I hit gold in an old shed.... although at the time it looked more like a ship wreck.

This beautiful dresser was barrier under old tires and the like. It took about 25 minutes of digging until I could get it out. Once I got it out I could see that it had posts on the back for a mirror (which was no where to be found), one leg had some damage and was shorter than the others, rats had at one point made a nest in the drawers, the handles were rusted, the top was cracked... the list of reasons I should put it back and leave it was never ending. There was NO WAY I could tackle this project. What a mess!

 

But it is summer break and I wanted something to work on and I have been looking for a dresser to use as a TV console for two years. If this didn't work I wasn't out anything. Here's the catch, I had planned on finding something to paint, but this is OLD and it was my grandparents. So, instead of making it more modern I decided to go the restorative approach. My goal was to restore this dresser to it's previous beauty.

 

 

First I brought it home and cleaned out all the yuck. Then I sanded it down. I loved the look as I was sanding it down. It made me seriously second guess my stain choice. I thought about leaving the sanded finish and just stain it. The variation was pretty. Then I thought maybe a lighter stain... but I stuck with what I already had. The stain I used was Dark Walnut.

 

I also spent a good amount of time scrubbing the hardware. I tried everything and I still am not happy with how it came out, but it is much better.

 

It looks almost as good as new. But the imperfections are what make this piece special. I am hoping to get better pictures eventually but I was just to excited to get this post up to wait.

 

 

 

 



My Urban Tote Bag

I can't believe I haven't posted since January. Life got busy. You'll have to excuse the lack of progress pictures in my next few posts because I shattered my iPhone screen and started using a different phone... the pictures are really no good on my new phone. Eventually I may buy an actual camera, but for now the pictures are what they are.

This winter I made the Urban Tote an Amy Barikman Design. The pattern is from Indygo Junction. I was easily able to make this bag in an afternoon.

There are two pockets on the outside and two pockets on the inside. The outside pockets are not very user friendly but add a little flair to the bag. The pattern also has an option to make a wonky log cabin center panel for the bag. It would be a great way to use up scraps from a favorite project!

I plan on posting more often... at least for the summer. I hope you all have a fantastic rest of the week!

Valentine's Day Table Runner

I have to confess that I am a little obsessed with these 10 minute table runners. I now have 4 of them. One for spring, fall, Christmas, and now Valentine's day. I just love making these!

 

 Here is a close up so you can see the fabric I used a little better. I got the fabric at Hobby Lobby. I searched for close to a month for some cute heart fabric and just came across this today.

 

 

I also sewed this block. It is the Winter Star Block from the book Farm Girl Vintage. I have two other blocks using similar colors already cut out ready to sew. I think I am going to sew the three blocks together to make a table runner, but if I really love them I may just go out and buy some more fabric in similar colors and make a throw.



 

 

So, I am a bit of a napper. When I watch TV I am pretty destined to fall asleep for at least part of whatever I am watching. The other night I fell asleep at 6:30 and my dear husband just left me sleeping... so I woke up at 2:30 AM. I had gotten my 8 hours and there was no going back to bed. You may be wondering, what do you do at that time of night?! I don't know about you, but I made pie.

 

I splurged and bought a food processor last weekend and have been using it for everything. I made biscuits first. They turned out so much better than when I have tried making them before. The food processor cuts in the butter perfectly!!! So, of course I had to try making a pie crust! I used this recipe. It calls for shortening, but I just used butter. It turned out great. I also tend to over mix my crumb topping, so I thought I should probably just make that in the food processor, too! My husband thinks I am crazy to be this excited about a kitchen appliance... but it really is so handy!

I hope to do some more crafting/baking this week so stay tuned to see what I share next.



A Wintery Table Runner and a Comfort Food Recipe

Hello...I am still here... I have just been lacking inspiration for a while. Today school was cancelled due to very cold (-25/30 degree wind-chills) weather. Yesterday was even colder. Needless to say I didn't exactly get outside much.

Yesterday I spent the day cooking. I made this excellent Baked Chicken Alfredo. I found the recipe on Gimme Some Oven. I used a canned sauce because I have never cooked with Alfredo before...I am kind of ashamed to type that! I also doubled the cheese in the recipe, because who doesn't LOVE cheese?! I look forward to trying a homemade Alfredo sauce sometime. I also turned on the broiler to brown the cheese. It tastes as good as it looks! I promise!

 

 

I also took advantage of this extra time and spent a couple of hours in my sewing room. I had "NOTHING to work on" or at least that's what I have been telling my husband since Christmas. Truth is I had bought the stuff to make a fun wintery table runner and it was just sitting there because it was not what I wanted to work on. I also have a partially finished quilt with solids that I am just not loving but should finish up. The last project I have going is a queen size sampler quilt I finished in May, but haven't quilted or taken to be quilted. So, I have decided I will finish these things before I do anything else. Today I tackled the winter table runner and even though it wasn't what I thought I wanted to do I had a lot of fun and it felt good to be back in my sewing room.

 

 

 

I used a 1/4 yd of the snowmen print and an 1/8 yd each of the green, red, and white. I cut (7) 4 1/2 in squares of the snowmen. Then I made (8) pinwheel blocks. I started with 2 7/8 inch squares cut diagonally for the half square triangles to make my pinwheels. I quilted it using large circles. I thought it would be cute if they looked like snowballs. This is really a little short to use as a table runner, I will put it on one of our many side tables. If you want to use it for a table runner I would suggest using 10 snowmen blocks and 11 pinwheel blocks. You should not need to buy extra fabric I had enough left over I could have made it longer.

 

Have a great week and hopefully you'll hear from me soon!

 





Thrift Store DIY

Happy Wednesday...I think. I always lose track of time over breaks. Today I had some errands to run and decided to stop into the local thrift store. Lately I haven't had much luck finding any fun projects, but today I found a few frames I really liked.

Here are the before pictures...

The oval pictures aren't so bad, they just aren't my style and wouldn't have had a place in my home. These were 25 cents.

 

 

This rectangle frame took me a minute to see the potential. Again, nothing wrong with cross stitch, but it is not my style. Then I realized that it was just in there like a picture and could easily be removed. It got even better when I realized the mirror could also be removed. It made from some easy painting. This frame was $1.

Now for the after pictures...

For the oval frames I just replaced the pictures with some fun scrap paper that matches my sewing room décor. So easy, but oh so cute!

 

 

The rectangle frame took a little more TLC. I first removed the mirror and cross stitch and painted on three coats of acrylic paint. I just used a paint brush. I started with foam brush but with the details a paint brush was much easier.

 

Once the paint dried (I am impatient so I helped the drying process along with my blow dryer) I started playing around with fabric I could use for the top. The first one was a great neutral but I decided I wanted something that would pop a little more. This frame has to wait for Christmas decorations to come down before I hang it, but then I have the perfect spot for it!

 

Speaking of Christmas, we have one celebration left. Which gave me the perfect excuse to make one more batch of sugar cookies. I think they turned out pretty. :)

 

Wishing everyone a safe and happy New Year!