Here’s a sneak peek at whats going on behind the scenes.
I’m making molds! I haven’t worked with silicone in almost 2.5 years. I was kinda worried I’d forgotten all the tricks and secrets to perfect molds… but no, It was as if no time passed. I’m excited!!
Oh, and as you can see from the photos above, I FINALLY found the awesome app that is Instagram. How did I not notice all the photos everyone was taking? and then posting? I guess I’ve been in my own little world these past few months… maybe even years… Anyway, It’s making me love taking photos again. I’m taking pictures of everything. CT even loves photos taken of her now!
Do you use Instagram? What’s your username? I’d love to see what everyone else takes photos of.
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Ah, the front door, the beginning of your house, sorta. We don’t actually use the front door much. We prefer to use the back door, where the cars are kept.
Anyway, currently this is one of my favorite spots of our house. We’ve only lived here for little over a year, so I may change my mind soon. But for now this spot makes me the happiest.
I’m not much on white walls, or off white contract color walls, and we are surrounded by them now (were thinking light grey, everywhere). To break up the white until we had time to paint everything, I decided to paint our front door a dark plum. I still think it was one of the best things we’ve done to the house so far. I smile every time i look at it.
oh and that chair, is our best thrift story ever…
I don’t believe it is a real Eames lounger, but it looks very close to one. It’s super soft and comfy, so I really don’t care. We found it at a thrift store about 8 years ago. It was just sitting there for $200, which at the time was just a little too much for a used chair. We were about to walk away from it when over the speaker we hear “half off all furniture”. Apparently $100 wasn’t too much for an old chair, so we swooped it up and somehow got it home.
It’s been dragged all over Maryland with us, sometimes it fits the appartments we were in, sometimes it was just too big. I think it’s finally found a perfect home in our library. oh and CT LOVES it! as you can tell, it’s basically her chair now.
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I know I said I wouldn’t be showing much sewing projects for a few weeks, but I just couldn’t help myself with this one.
Before I started CT’s plus quilt, I wanted to test out the process of sewing so many plus signs! I didn’t want to go too crazy, size wise, so I started with a 20″x20″ floor pillow. I wanted it to be a little off center and, well, wonky. I like things a little off.
It’s completely pieced together and even all ironed flat! However, sadly, it also has to be pinned on the inspiration board until I have free time to work on it.
It seems the creative juices start flowing, or gushing in my case, the most when I have no time to actually make anything! Is this just me? Does this happen to any of you? If so, do you ever get around to the new ideas?
I’ve also had this compulsion to learn 3D rendering so I could get some ideas printed up. I’ve dabbled in it a bit here and there and watched way too many tutorials on youtube. Of course it all comes to me this week, when I have prior commitments.
I did find a few free minutes Saturday morning to fiddle with things, it was the most productive minutes I’ve had in weeks!
I finished up THREE new jewelry designs, so far. I ordered prototypes, and hope to have an all new jewelry line ready to go by spring. I’m am beyond excited about this. New necklaces, new rings, new earrings, and even some bracelets!!!All my very own designs!!
I can’t wait to start showing the progress of this last minute venture.
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Today I updated a few new designs in my Spoonflower Shop.
Well, some are new, some are older designs updated in a better buying format.
Now you can buy FOUR fat quarters of FOUR different designs on ONE YARD! its like instant matching fabric for quilts or other sewing projects!
While I was putting together those little sets, I also came up with a new matching polka dot pattern…
It’s available in the above Blue, Girl and Black and White.
If anyone goes ad buys some of these designs, I’d love to see photos of the finished projects!
I woke up this past Sunday morning with the plan to spend an entire week working on “me projects”. aka: sewing or crafting projects that only benefit me and no one else but ME.
I wanted to work on a zig zag quilt that I’ve been dreaming about for weeks. I wanted to play with some clay and maybe make some tree’s. I wanted to make a skirt. A huge list when you also factor in that CT’s second set of molar’s are coming in and she’s in her clingy stage. I’d be lucky to finish one project.
By Monday I finished cutting out and sewing the blocks of the zig zag quilt, and sketching how to put it together. I’m good at laying out patterns, but I’m not that great at putting it in piles and remembering how it all goes together. I need a visual aid.
I also like working with squares way more than triangles. So I was super excited when I found this great tutorial on Pinterest… “How To Make a Zig Zag Quilt (without piecing triangles)“. It makes a decent sized quilt. It took up all the free floor space in my bedroom to lay this thing out.
I was beyond excited to start piecing this thing together, it was going to be awesome when it was done! My very own chevron quilt!!!!
Well… Tuesday rolls around and I get this awesome email about a huge opportunity for Art School Dropout. Great News… I just had to put all my “me projects” away for awhile. 2 months to be exact.
So I piled up all the squares of the zig zag quilt and put them in baggies and pinned them to my inspiration board. I’m hoping it’ll inspire me to finish them when I’m done actually working.
Wednesday and Thursday were crazy with spreadsheets, supply shopping, researching and trying to find some family to watch CT every so often (so I could work while my husband was at work).
I’m about to spend the next 3 to 4 weeks casting and assembling loads of pieces. I decided that today (Friday) I would sew a little bit more before I didn’t have actual time to do so.
What came out of the sewing was a few more pouches for the site. They may be the last ones for a few months, unless I find time here and there.
I also apologize for the fact that I probably won’t have too many tutorials or DIY-Book-A-Holic posts until I’m finished this massive order. But I will post progress shots here and there, you all can finally see what goes on behind the scenes in my “casting dungeon”. HA!
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I think I did the smallest shop update ever today! I had these huge plans to have loads of new pouches, earrings and rings…
but all that ended up in the shop was one pouch, three rings and a few earrings. They all happen to be very brightly colored too, a nice theme.
More coming later next week!
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In my last post I said I wanted to quilt, well I kinda got cold feet. Kinda. I wanted to test out all the new skills I’d been researching, but I was afraid of ruining hours of patch-working (is that a real word?).
So instead I made my first quilt using cheater quilt fabric. More accurately, my own cheater quilt fabric. I designed it last year for one of Spoonflower’s fabric contest. I had it printed up will the full intention of making some simple, no binding, blanket. But as usual, I never got around to it.
The quilt measures 36″x36″. So it’s only one yard of the Cheater fabric. I then used some of my Monsters on the Loose fabric for the back. I quilted around all the triangles, white thread on top, dark pink on the bottom. I used some purple Kona cotton I had lying around for the binding, along with a small patch of my purple Monsters on the Loose fabric for some variety and to test out how it would look.
I used Red Pepper Quilts machine binding tutorial. She made the whole process very easy and painless. I really wanted to do traditional binding where half is hand sewn, but sadly I have bad arthritis and it’s pretty much impossible. I love how the whole quilt came out, and I’m already planning my next one.
If your interested in making your own Cheater Quilt, you can find all the fabrics I mentioned here in my Spoonflower shop. The cheater quilt fabric above fits onto one yard of quilting weight cotton and comes in several color combos, including the rainbow one. You’ll also need some batting and fabric for the binding.
I’ve taken on a new hobby. I’m going to quilt!
I’ve always had a thing for quilting and patchwork books, but I was never sure I could actually pull it off myself. After making that potholder not too long ago, I realized it may actually be possible for me to quilt larger items. Maybe even an entire full sized quilt.
During my “winter vacation” I started practicing my sewing skills on different patterns. I now feel very comfortable making a texas star, a wonky cross, intersecting crosses and geometric 45 degree triangles.I may be wrong on the names, I get my information from the internets.
I made a few pillows, pouches and a runner. I kept a few for myself, but I plan on adding the rest to the shop. I’ll show pictures when the light is better.
I now feel comfortable enough to make an entire TWIN SIZED QUILT! yep, I said it, a real life quilt. The whole process is overwhelming me, but I really enjoy a challenge. I really enjoyed sewing the intersecting crosses pattern, so I thought that would be a good design for me to start out with.
CT just moved to a big girl bed, so of course my first quilt would be for her!
I absolutely love Lizzy House’s 1001 Peeps fabric collection. I ordered a fat quarter of the entire purple collection, 8 patterns total. I also ordered about 6 Kona solids to match too. I did a paper mock-up of the quilt, that way I could move the crosses around to get exactly the feel I want. I don’t know what fabric I’ll be using for the back yet or the binding, any thoughts?
I’m still waiting for the Kona solids to arrive, once their here I’ll start showing my progress!
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Were back on for the weekly Book-A-Holic Posts! The holidays set me back a bit, but I’m all ready to go again and have a list of things waiting to be made.
Today’s project is from a Martha Stewart book. oooooh, aaahhhh. It’s a fabric covered bulletin board from Martha Stewart’s Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts.
In the book she talks about covering an entire top half of a room with a bulletin board and frames the top and bottom in molding. That’s not something I have a huge use for. Maybe it would be neat in CT’s room one day? Maybe.
I just wanted a HUGE inspiration board, something that would cover an entire wall in my sewing room, a wall that really doesn’t have much use otherwise.
I looked at buying a commercial cork board, but the prices just weren’t for me.
The way that Martha Stewart says to do it only cost me $25! and I ended up with a 4ft tall by 6ft long board! Super Awesome.
If you would like to learn more, continue reading.
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I thought it would be better to split my recap into two separate posts. So it wasn’t too overwhelming, and I won’t feel as bad about posting more photos!
Here’s the rest of what I did during my winter vacation…
- I ended up sewing loads of pouches for my family. I found this great tutorial on Pinterest.
I had never sewn a lined pouch before, for some reason they always scared me. This tutorial made me feel very calm about it all, and I dived right in. I was even able to use supplies I had accumulated over the years, win win. I also used some scraps to make these skinny headbands for one of my cousins. I wish I had a photo to show, they came out so neat.
- I whipped up a wood-grain quilted pillow for my sister and brother-in-law.
- I bought more sewing books, so now I have more projects to add to my “to do” list.
- We finally visited our newest twin nephews, Jack and Drew.
- I caught a few colds and spent the rest of my vacation catching up on tv and hanging out with my family. It was pretty sweet. I might make this an annual thing.
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