Picture Perfect (A Snap Happy pattern)

When I saw the Pen and Paper Snap Happy pattern release, I had to have it! I was so excited about it. I love photography and I felt like it would a great quilt to showcase some fun travel prints. Or, to use her tutorial to print some of my own travel photos onto fabric and have a real memory quilt. I was so excited I bought the pattern at Sewtopia in Milwaukee, even though I had no intention of sewing it during the trip.

I quickly decided on using Rifle Paper Co fabrics, because their Bon Voyage line had come out just about a year ago. I knew it would be perfect. I opted to fussy cut the feature prints and I also added in a few prints from other lines and I really love all of them. Because I was so excited about this pattern, I made it pretty quickly, for me, anyway! I didn't manage to participate in the sew along, but within a year of the release is still pretty quick for me. I'm usually pretty late to the party. 

Curio Quilt

Every Christmas, our sewing gang has a favorite things gift exchange. There are only four of us, so we buy a favorite for everyone. Last year, Kat gave everyone charm packs of the Curio collection by Rifle Paper Co. I LOVE Rifle Paper, so I was really excited to get it and sew with it! Curio probably isn't my favorite Rifle collection, but those books are dreamy. I feel like Curio kinda had a bit of a retro vibe with the sunflower print; who wasn't obsessed with sunflowers in the nineties? They were everywhere! 

I don't use precuts often at all, but I really wanted to use this charm pack and show off the great prints. So I settled on recreating a quilt I had seen at Garden of Quilts at Thanksgiving Point. It offset half square triangles so they were sprinkled all over the quilt, and it I felt like it was a really fun, modern way to show off prints. 

I opted to use Essex linen for the background and the backing and the binding. I wanted the texture to really add to it, since it was such a background-heavy quilt. I went for a yarn-dyed seafoam green, and I think it's perfect. 

Using an entire collection can be hard because they usually include low volume and/or prints with white backgrounds, which make it difficult to pick a background color that will adequately show the quilt design. This green I thought worked great. I pulled it from some of the prints, but it's different enough from all the backgrounds of the prints that you can see the design well. 

It went together pretty quickly and I really like it! I swapped out some charms that weren't my favorite and added in some extra book fabric, because, hello, books. :)

And I took pictures of it using tips from Matante Quilts, who recently hosted a mini webinar about quilt photography while she prepares for her next workshop on photography. I can't believe how much better they are!

Sandhill Sling

I mentioned last time that in lieu of participating in the Super Secret Swap for Sewtopia, that I wanted to make myself a swap package, so to speak. I wanted to give myself permission to make something hard that I've wanted for a while in the pretty fabric. I intended to justify purchasing fabric if I chose, but in the end, I used fabric from my stash. I did have to buy a couple pieces of hardware, but otherwise, I had everything. I love being able to turn to my stash for most of the things I need. It's really fun to shop your stash and not be limited by what's available at the quilt shop. 

I decided that what I really wanted, what I had taken screenshots of most for a possible mosaic for the swap, was a sling bag. I purchased the Sandhill Sling pattern by Anna Graham of Noodlehead over Black Friday and settled on making it. 

Luckily, I have a nice selection of canvas in my stash, including a lot of Rifle Paper Co, and some Ruby Star. There are some really phenomenal canvas prints out there, and I settled on a floral Rifle Paper. It went great with a large scrap of Essex linen and I opted to line it with a postage stamp print by Rifle Paper, though I didn't have enough. I made the pocket out of a starry print by Rifle Paper, right? I'm pretty sure...

And, I used zipper by the yard for the first time. The pattern uses a double head zipper, and I found some YKK zippers at my favorite Etsy shop, Zipit, but then I realized that a lot of people are using zipper by the yard for their handbags because the manufacturer (not YKK...) are making nylon zippers with metallic painted teeth so you get the benefit of looking like a metal zipper without the difficulty of shortening metal zippers. I found a different seller with a nice variety and ordered a few different tapes with some pulls, but I went with the one I had originally planned, a gray and white striped tape with silver coils. I think it turned out so sharp, and I'm so glad! 

The bag went together pretty quickly and mostly easily, although I did break for a couple of weeks in the middle while I worked on the quilt top for my fabric challenge project. I managed to finish it, and the backing, and had a couple of days before I could get up to a different shop for the Aurifil thread I picked out for quilting (which I ended up going in a different direction, but that's another post...) so I finished up the bag. 

It was mostly easy until the very last finishing step, which is brilliant, in that it allows you to have a fully finished lining without binding or hand-stitching a hold closed, but it was tricky. I can't even describe it easily, but it's brilliant. I found a 505 glue stick at my local shop while I was buying batting for my challenge quilt and it helped a lot with basting for the final step. 

Now my biggest decision is whether I want to start using it now or whether I want to save it like it's a swap package for sewtopia. It's only about 5 weeks away at this point...

A Devon Pouch

I'm not a perfectionist, not really. I did tear the zipper out of the first pouch I made for the Sewtopia Swap, twice, but I'm not a perfectionist. And yes, if you were reading closely, you caught that "first" I put in front of pouch. Which strongly implies there is, in face, a second. And if you caught that, you would be right, but it doesn't make me a perfectionist, it really doesn't.

The thing is, I was just really questioning the pouch I made. It wasn't my best work. I didn't like it. I tried, and I thought I was making good choices, but it just didn't work. First, I accidentally cut the embroidered panel too narrow, so I had to make the pouch more narrow than intended. Well, the actual first was the fact that I chose the wrong color thread for the dark linen I embroidered. But, instead of redoing it at the time, like an intelligent person, I persevered. I reasoned that sometimes things don't seem like they're going to turn out until you're done and then they're fine! I reasoned that it was a gift for a random person I don't even know and it was very possible they would LOVE it. I reasoned that if I made a matching chapstick key fob, and filled the pouch with extras, it would make up for the deficiencies I saw in the pouch.

But all the reasoning I could muster couldn't change the fact that I did not like the pouch I had made and I felt badly giving something I did not like in a swap. 

So, I made a new one.

Pouches really don't take all that long, I probably spent more time talking myself out of making another one than I did actually making another one. 

I tried to do better work on this one. I added tabs to the zippers on the top. I used good fabric (even though it was all scraps). I did all the right things. 

And I love how it turned out. If you did a blind swap right, you shouldn't want to give away what you make, and that's exactly how I feel right now. 

I have to keep telling myself, I can make another one. I can make another one 

I used the Devon Pouch pattern by Sotak Handmade and it went much better than the pyramid pouches. I used a Rifle Paper Co print for the focal fabric on the front, a natural linen for the exterior, and blossom fabric from Riley Blake in green for the interior. I have more of all of it, so I really can make another one if I feel so inclined. 

I'm so glad I went ahead and did it.

And now, I'm starting work on my Super Secret Swap project. 

Spoiler: I decided to make MYSELF a super secret swap project 😂

I was going to sign up, because I want to fully participate in Sewtopia. BUT, I decided that instead, I'd just make exactly what I wanted for myself. So I'm making a Sandhill Sling and I'm using the good fabric, including a floral canvas by Rifle Paper Co for the focal print on the front and a cute stamp print from the Bon Voyage line by Rifle Paper for the interior. It's going to be GREAT. And I'm going to buy myself the treats I would want as extras and take them for myself. Yes, it's fun to get surprises picked especially for you. But I wasn't sure if I'd be up to it enough when sign ups happened, and I didn't dare sign up. Of course, I'm doing loads better now, but I didn't want to risk disappointing someone else. Plus, when I looked through past hashtags, people have gone NUTS on their packages and I didn't want to spend $50+ on extras alone. 

So, I'm making a swap package for myself. :) I think it's brilliant. 

I'm in the first prep stage and I always remember at times like this how much I hate interfacing. It's my least favorite part of sewing bags. But, it gives good structure, sigh. Hopefully I'll have a finished bag to show off before too long!

Starshine Quilt

A few years ago, I picked up a couple of florals by Rifle Paper Co. that I loved. One had a lovely burgundy background, but I didn't know how to use them. They sat in my drawers waiting for a project. Last fall, I worked on a fabric Friday pull using them and settled on this. Even though I didn't have anything to tie in the burgundy, I thought it was still okay. And I really liked the colors together. So I kept it aside and thought about patterns I could use it for.

And then I remembered a quilt pattern I was given for my birthday from my oldest daughter. She had picked it out when we were at a quilt shop after visiting a quilt show at a nearby museum and had my husband buy it for her. It's called Star Shine by Modernly Morgan and I really like it. It looks like a simple pattern, one I would not buy for myself because I would think I could figure it out on my own, but I'm glad she picked it. Unfortunately, my colors look an awful lot like the cover quilt. I don't like remaking quilts someone else made, I really prefer to put my own spin on it, so this is disappointing, but I do really love the colors and how it turned out, so I don't mind too much.

When I was ready to make it, I had to pick out fewer fabrics than I had in my pull. Some were easy to eliminate because I didn't have a big enough piece. But I made sure to use the two Rifle prints that started it all. I'm really happy with it, I think it's a pretty quilt!

I backed it with a Ruby Star Speckled I picked up on sale, and I bound it with a Ruby Star Sprinkle that I got on the same sale. They don't match together super well, so I'm sure not going to brag about how great the back looks, but they both work with the quilt so I'm happy.

Terrace Dress

I've been sewing a lot more clothing lately. Loads of quilts, still, of course. Maybe I'm sewing more than is good for me, haha. I've been doing a lot of apparel though, for me and for my girls. We're all tall, so it can be difficult to find clothing that fits. It seems especially hard for tall, thin little girls. Dresses and tops are just not made for tall girls and it seems to make such a big difference when you're small. 

My twelve year old is starting to wear more women's clothing, but of course, it doesn't fit a tween's body correctly, either. Finding patterns for tween bodies is tricky, too, apparently! It's been rough. I made her this dress recently, and figured since it's meant to be belted and to be flowy, maybe the fit would work better. 

I used the Terrace dress pattern from Liesl and Co, and I found a picture on Instagram of the pattern sewn up in some Rifle Paper rayon that I already had. I asked if she would like that exact dress and she said yes! Of course, with my girls now, I have to drill them. Will you wear it? Do you really want it? Too often, I make them clothes and then they decide they don't actually like it and it breaks my heart. Of course it hurts my self esteem a bit that they don't like what I made, but I'm also disgruntled that I spent 5-10 hours sewing, and used fabric ranging in price from $30-75 depending on how expensive and how many yards I needed. It's discouraging.

And truthfully, the same thing STILL happened. 

I had her try it on before I hemmed it, and she said right then that she didn't actually like it. 

Grr. 

Apparently, she didn't love that the neckline was fairly wide and open. But it needed to be because it doesn't have any button closures or zippers, so it has to fit over the head. I tried explaining this, and she was still very torn. 

I finished it anyway, and hung it up in her room, and she put it on on Sunday, but complained, once again. She ended up changing into a dress I had just purchased for her, and I was so disappointed. Then she changed back. I try really hard to not emotionally manipulate them, and I tried to not act disappointed, but I'm sure she knew. Sigh.

But, I think she came around to the dress after she'd worn it for a bit. I think it's super cute, and the rayon is soft and flowy, and I'm sure it's comfy. Hopefully she'll like it enough to continue wearing it. And if not...at least this pattern is a relatively quick sew.