Fabric Friday Week 26: April 28

For Fabric Friday today, I went for a color combo with my Kona color chips. I have a bundle of fat quarters I bought last year at the Garden of Quilts from The Cotton Bolt (she's great at bundles!) and I was looking at it, really enjoying the tone. It's a muted, natural toned group, with grays and seafoam greens, and earthy tones. I'm also working on a trial block of a really complicated idea I have, and thought I'd try out the color combination I used in EQ in a more muted color way, and this is what I got. I like it! I'm not sure if I'll go with these combination when (IF) I actually make this very complicated quilt, but we'll see. 

Happy weekend!

Fabric Friday Week 25: April 21

This week I challenged myself to use a fabric that I've had a hard time with. The Alison Glass dot print been in my stash for years and I do like it, but the turquoise is just too bright for the other fabric I have and so it's never made it into a quilt, sadly. 

It was easiest to start by trying to pull turquoise prints to go with it, and surprise surprise, the ones that worked best are also Alison Glass prints... 

But I liked the addition of the pink and low volutes as well. This is definitely a "me" bundle and I could definitely see myself using it.

English Paper Piecing Star Blocks

I'm still plugging away at my EPP medallion quilt. I've got the center sewn onto a large square, I've got the churn dash blocks sewn onto that, and I've got 140 flying geese made. Next step is actually deciding if I want the border between the churn dash and flying geese to be 2" or 3", which doesn't sound like a big deal, but it's the difference between the flying geese going one direction, or having them meet in the middle of each section.

I've also been doing a bit of work on some hexagon blocks for a new EPP project, using up the blocks I had started making for the next round of the medallion. I've got some additional colors added and I like where it's going! I spent General Conference basting and stitching, and I got several more added. 

The stacked ones with the yellow fabric on the outside are the ones I made years ago, and the ones on the outside are the new ones. It currently takes just under 2 hours to stitch a whole block, so this project will definitely take a while, haha. We'll see how big I decide to make it and how many years it takes. 

Fabric Friday Week 24: April 14

I decided to go for a color palette today. I'm not sure why...I even thought of a fabric in my stash that is a challenge, but I was more tempted by my color chips. Maybe it's that spring is finally in the air, and color feels right. Who knows. 

I like the softness of these colors. They're not really pastels, not like we think of pastels anyway. But they are soft and kind and blend. And, I like all the different colors together. I mean, I like the blue and the green, but I also like the green and the yellow. Or the yellow and red, or the blue and the orange. I could go on...and I could see a block based quilt with two or three color blocks working really well with these colors. 

Have a great weekend!

Reading Pillow

Teacher Appreciation Week is happening at school right now and in the past, I've not given teachers gifts until the end of the year, but for some reason, I felt like doing it this week instead of waiting until the last day of school. I feel like it's kinda one or the other, right? Or am I really supposed to do both? I do give them Christmas gifts at Christmas (this year was a handmade embroidered linen kitchen towel and some homemade marshmallows), but it starts to feel like overload if we do teacher appreciation WEEK (when did it morph from a day into a week?!) AND year end gifts. It stumps me. 

So, teacher appreciation gifts this year. I had a great idea for my twins' kindergarten teacher and I'm actually really excited about it. I decided to make a reading pillow for her and include a picture book picked out by my girls. She has a preschool-age son, and I figured this would be something fun she could enjoy with him. So one day when I needed to stop by Joann's for thread, I looked at the canvas they had for something nice for a pillow. Joanns fabric is NOT my preference (I can't remember the last time I bought fabric there that I was intending to use for a serious project) but I didn't really want to wait for shipping. I found a perfect canvas print and a matching solid and I bought it so fast (well, as fast as shopping at Joanns can be--I always wait at least 10 minutes, often 15-20 to check out...so annoying!). 

I pitched the idea to my girls and they were...lukewarm about it. But I know it's a good idea, so they can just deal, haha. 

I spent a good hour picking a font and digitizing the READ embroidery design, and then got out my embroidery machine and got to work. 

Pillows are great because they really are decently fast as far as sewing projects go. I had a bit of trouble with the embroidery at first, but I got it all resolved and then spent another hour and a half sewing it all up. I'm really bad at invisible zippers. I find them incredibly frustrating, honestly. I have the invisible zipper foot, but my fabric always gathers anyway. It's like the foot is too tight for the zipper teeth, so it feeds the fabric on the bottom faster than the zipper can go? I don't know, it's really frustrating. But, I got it to work, and there's only a tiny little pucker that is more of a looser spot than a pucker, but it's hardly noticeable once the pillow form is in.

Let's talk about pillow forms, eh? A neighbor from my last neighborhood used to sew a lot and even sold pillows on Etsy a good 15 years ago. She turned me on to pillow forms from Crate and Barrel. I think they've gone up a bit, but they're still really affordable for what you get--a great down pillow. I order the 23" ones, that are now $18 but I could have sworn I paid $15? I bought 5 or so maybe 2 years ago and just kept them in a closet to slowly be used. I've now used 3 as gifts, I think? I made a monogrammed pillow for my cousin's wedding, and a Christmas pillow for a new neighbor who hadn't unpacked Christmas decorations yet. I'm out now, so I'll have to order more, but the quality is top notch and they're not much more than you pay at Joanns for crappy synthetic ones. 

My girls picked Sophie's Squash for the book.
It's really cute, one of their favorites!

Also, while we're talking pillow forms, let's talk about sizing. When we moved into our house, we bought some pillows from our interior designer's storefront (I hadn't yet tried making my own) and they were so luxurious. So full and firm, and great fabrics. One of my kids spilled on one so I took out the pillow form so I could more easily spot treat it or machine wash it, and I was amazed to see that inside the 18" or 19" pillow case was a 23" pillow form. No wonder they didn't look saggy! I follow the tutorial for pillows at deepthoughtsbycynthia.blogspot.com, and she says to cut your fabric no more than half an inch larger than your pillow form (with a half inch seam allowance) but I find even this too baggy. 

Unfortunately, I made this reading pillow a bit larger than I should have. With the additional pocket, I didn't want it to be too snug, and some of my pillows I've made are REALLY snug. So, I cut it 22", figuring that 21" finished would be snug enough. I wish I'd made it just a tad snugger. It's acceptable, but I would prefer a bit more full. Oh well, c'est la vie. But, if you are reading this and wondering how to make your handmade pillows really stand out, this is the trick and don't make the same mistake I did. Cut your fabric at least 1-1/2"-2" smaller than your form. 

Hopefully, our teacher loves it, because I think it turned out so cute. I'm really happy with it, and I think it's the perfect kindergarten teacher gift. 

Fabric Friday Week 23: April 7

When I set out to pull a bundle for today, I wanted to do something a lot different than I've done before. I'm not sure I succeeded, but I did try. I settled on starting with orange. It might have helped that I am wearing my orange linen joggers today, which I adore. But orange is a harder color for me to use, it's really not my default. So I started there, with the great Carolyn Friedlander print. Then I pulled the mustard and forest green and thought it looked great, and different from my normal ranges. I don't usually stick with analogous color schemes, but this was great.

But. I thought how navy would really add that necessary contrast, and I pulled some navy prints to add.

It's funny because I had just been thinking how I ALWAYS use navy. Not always, but it sure shows up in a lot. Even my scrap boxes are really low on navy, because I use them up. And even in my efforts to avoid navy, I fell back on it just the same. 

I guess old habits die hard.

Or you can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Or some other cliche that isn't really true but certainly feels true when we're falling back on the same things we always do. 

It's okay. It's just fabric. 

Fira Top

I think it's pretty common to work on clearing things out during the first part of the year. One of the things I decided to work on was clearing out some old linen scraps I have from other projects. I love the linen from fabrics-store.com, but they only sell in full yard cuts, which means that I often have a lot left over, but not quite enough to do a lot with. And, I've also been thinking how nice it would be to use cloth napkins at the dinner table. Jeff's aunt uses them and just has a drawer full of eclectic cloth napkins, and a friend we stayed with in New England last fall also had a drawer full. They were so much nicer than our traditional paper towels, and I figured they'd be a great way to use some of this fabric that is crammed on my shelves.

But, I didn't want to use it for napkins if there was enough to use for something else, AND there were a couple linen items I wanted to make before the summer, so those items shot up the priority list so I could make them first and use any leftovers for napkins. 

First was my Fiore Skirt. I was short even, and had to use some scraps in a slightly different color. But I love how it turned out, and it cleared a piece from my shelf. 

Next up was the Fira Top, a pattern by Liesl and Co. I love that it's casual with interesting details. The cover photo is a top in linen, and it looks perfect. And I thought a linen top might just be the thing for our upcoming summer trip.

I made a muslin first to check the bust since it comes in different cup sizes but I am not at all comfortable measuring my high bust. I tried, again, and I think I'm an A/B cup in most patterns which really surprises me because so often shirts (RTW, mostly, but even some handmade) pull at my bust. What was annoying was that I sewed very quickly and not carefully because I thought I was just checking the bust, so the darts looked HORRIBLE in the muslin and I couldn't tell if it was the stiff cheap muslin fabric, or if it was the careless way I sewed the darts, or if it was the actual dart and I needed to adjust it. I asked a friend, and we decided to leave the dart placement, but shorten them by about an inch. I decided to just go for it since otherwise it fit, and hope for the best, which is not generally a wise strategy, but it worked out this time!

I really love how it fits and I think the color and fabric are great. Because of the nifty assembly, the yoke is double layered, which means it's a bit heavier than the rest of the top and I'm worried that might get a bit hot. Additionally, the neckline facing is lined with interfacing, and I always have problems with interfacing (maybe I should move away from SF101?) after the wash and find it ALWAYS needs pressing. So, we'll see how this one does. If it has to be pressed after washing, it probably will not make it on the trip, since I can't guarantee an iron will be available, and that's disappointing because I think otherwise it's a lovely top. Aside from pulling the dart back an inch, I didn't need to make any other fit adjustments. It's nice and long for me, which is unexpected since I'm so tall, and the neckline didn't plunge too low, which often bothers me on shirts. I find I get cold if the neckline scoops too low. The instructions were great, like all Liesl and Co patterns.

And, I had enough leftover fabric to make one napkin. Slow and steady!