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My new favorite etsy seller

Seriously, no longer than an hour had passed since the ups guy went rumbling down the street, when I had both of these fab designs from Dali Decals put up on my walls.

They couldn't go on easier, and a smooth wall is NOT necessary. My walls are 80+ year old plaster over lathe.

I think the hardest part will be refraining from getting one for every room!

They have tons of designs already at their original etsy store as well as their newer one, and they take custom orders as well. I love them! You should definitely go check them out.

I could sure use some design advice

on how to finish this quilt.

I have to say, I think I love it more than any quilt I've ever made. I think I love it so much I am going to pay a machine quilter to put it together for me.

The blue sky clouds, grass and sun that border the squares. The Dick and Jane text combined with happy pink polka dot bees in the pinwheel cornerstones. The penmanship fabric in the letters. If I were a person who named quilts (and thank God I'm not) this would be something like Happy Childhood. Anyway, clearly; the edge looks unfinished. The obvious choice would be to continue the blue/green/yellow strips around the outside edges, but the problem is I've run out of the text and pink bees that I used in the pinwheels. I can still find the Dick & Jane online, but not the pink bees. Liz at the quilt shop suggested pulling out that red penmanship fabric from the letters and do some kind of cornerstones using it. How do you see it as needing to be finished?

Thanks in advance...hope to hear from someone, or I'll feel pretty silly for having asked!

Marie Claire Idees

Have most of us heard of this magazine?

I saw photos on various blogs four times a year when the magazine came out. Always groovy or cute or inspiring. At almost $11 per issue (and a fat wait time from France), PLUS the fact that I can't read a word of it, well; I refrained from ordering it for a very long time. I think it was Monica who posted something back in April that made me bite the bullet and order it. And wait.... I got the current issue a couple of weeks ago and have loved leafing through it. Honestly, either due to the colors or the composition, even the ads are inspiring! And when you can't read the words you find yourself really looking at the pictures. I see a lot of people have posted pics of the pages over at Flickr. Just search Marie Claire Idees and you'll get over 500 photos. One project that I started last night is a direct result of seeing this in the mag:

Mine's not looking nearly that traditional...much brighter and more paper pieced blocks. Anyway, I woke up today thinking I should pass the mag on to someone else who hasn't seen it but would like to. Leave a comment on this post and I'll draw a name Monday morning and send to the winner.

In my ongoing efforts to fashion myself a *real* life, you know; the kind of life where people will notice if you died and then come to your funeral,  I started volunteering yesterday at The Discovery Shop, which is the 'thrift' store for the American Cancer Society. I worked the cash register in the afternoon and it is incredible how much money people spend on rummage! Even more amazing is that backroom where they sort all the donations. Every day of the week they have to plow through a mountain of clothes.  That's where I'll be working today. My fellow Americans; we have serious overbuying issues! I'm just sayin'....

Off I go. Later!

My inspiration nook

I only had one sure idea when we had the new studio built, and that was this back wall.

The four closet doors (two sets of two) slide all the way from one side of the room to the other. The amount of crap supplies those two closets house is amazing! I keep trying to whittle it down. Anyway, I also wanted the doors to serve as a design wall when quilting and that worked out pretty well, too.

 

(non-quilters: a design wall is covered in flannel so you can just toss your cotton quilt squares up on it when planning out the design of your quilt). I just put velcro on the sides of two outer doors (they're on the same track) and velcro on two ends of a piece of flannel and put it up when needed. Maybe it'd make more sense if I threw some quilt blocks up there...next time I'm using it I'll take a pic.

My really really favorite part of this back wall, the whole room, really; is my little homage to artsy craftsy people I have come across.

I at first wanted it to be like Monica's fantabulous 'ironing station' and clearly I fell way short. First of all, what was I thinking when I only made it three feet wide? Oh, I know. I was thinking I needed closets to hide crap supplies, so I guess even this 36" section is a sacrifice. I did buy a little 30" table top ironing board to squeeze in there I also set it up to be a little shipping station for etsy sales. Looks cute enough, but still; not big enough to be practical.

Really what it is is a showcase for some wonderful pieces I've bought from etsy sellers and received from friends.

And a couple things I made, too. I won't list all the awesome artists and crafters represented here, but if you have any questions just ask!

My mother's here this week and we're hanging out in the studio sewing (one can only shop so much!) so no more pictures for now. Have a great day!

Some tips on using old wallpaper

After a good long year of selling packs of vintage wallpaper, I sold my very LAST pack this weekend. NOW I'm thinking I should a)start doing some crafting with what I have left and b)share a couple of tips that some of you paper crafters may not have thought about.

HeatNBond is very close to being my best friend in the studio--both on the paper side and the fabric side. It's a great stabilizer as well as an adhesive.

You just iron it on to the paper

then peel it off. See how the adhesive that transferred to the wallpaper is shiny? Now, as the name would indicate, you Heat it (i.e; iron it). On fabric it works stupendously. For some reason, I've tried more than once to iron it to wood, and results can be unpleasant.

This is a drawer front on the sideboard I recently fixed up. The airbubbles will come out, but it'll require poking with a pin and lots more ironing. Maybe a little steam and a couple curse words, too. I don't know why I keep trying to iron it onto things...When I did the door and armoire in our bedroom I glued the pieces that were backed with HeatNBond and they turned out great. (applied the glue to the wood)

My next tip is also about glue.

The wet looking wallpaper you see above was applied over a year ago. Yep. Pretty heartbreaking

when you see where it was going and I had no extra paper. SO, the tip is, when using glue DON'T TOUCH THE FRONT OF THE PAPER WITH IT! I believe I used Yes! Paste on it...This cabinet was done before I thought to use the iron on stabilizer. It might've helped. Being more careful might've helped, too.

On a smaller scale, here's how I most often stick the old wallpaper to the receiving foundation.

A good ol' xyron. I have these in three sizes and swear by them. You send your cardstock, tag, whatever through the one side and they come out the other side like a sticker.

Then lay the sticky tag on the back of the brittle old wallpaper and voila!

No tearing or wet look or any other issues. If you were to send the wallpaper through the xyron, it would just tear the paper...you wouldn't get a clean separation of the adhesive. Some of these old paper are SO DELICATE...they can crumble just by looking at them. But if you'll carefully iron your piece flat and then stabilize it in one of the ways shown above you'll be good to go.

If you have any tips that I've missed I'd love it if you shared here. Thanks!

OH, and if you're still not done buying vintage wallpaper and you're not already aware of her, Donna has some super groovy awesome packs in her etsy shop. She also makes beautiful and inspiring things with them (concept!) that can be seen on her blog. Hah! This is funny. I go over there to get the link for her blog and she just today wrote about glue and old wallpaper too. eerie!

Everything old is new again

When Caleb and I went to the library a couple days ago I thought to look at the How To Make Soft Toys books from the 60's and 70's. Funny, how similar some of those crafts were/are to things we're seeing pop up as 'new' ideas today. I'd like to find a couple things that I could get good at making. I liked the idea of this round block stack both for the counting and the size sorting

but it really took too much time to ever sell for a profit. Darnit. If you have a sweetie you'd like to give them to however, it's a really fun way to mix and match your new favorite fabrics. These of course are my recently received Wee Play fabs from Moda.

 

That number 1 is 1.5" across.  It was very hard trying to sew it in the round. I'd suggest starting with a 3" circle (which would sew up as 2.5) and go up in one inch increments. The side strips are 2.5"...just what the jelly rolls come cut in. OH. And pay close attention to the messy skipped stitches on the number 4. That's what happens when you use a heavy duty do not sew version of iron on adhesive. Pays to read and heed directions. Anyway, chalk the above up to Prototypes I'll Probably Never Do Again.

Tomorrow I'm signed up to take a four hour machine quilting class with Pat Durbin. I sure hope I can get good at that... Honestly, at this point I'd settle for mediocre. We're instructed to bring several 18 - 22" fabric 'sandwiches' (backing, batting, top fabric) and I can't tell you how hard it was to put my hand on a piece of fabric that I didn't mind wasting for practice sewing! I really just couldn't do it. Luckily I remembered a stack of older pretty sheets I've bought occasionally at the thrift shops, so I cut one up and made a few. We're also told to bring a 'pretty' fabric for an end of the day stitching and I thought this 17" square might be interesting to do some creative freeform stitching on

I have several rainbow sets cut out and ready to make into 'something'...not sure what. Maybe just little wall hangings. What studio couldn't use a color wheel?

I went to the mall a bit ago to find something appropriate for a pudgy grandma to wear to church on Sunday. I just wanna know who the hell took over my body and how come I wasn't lookin'?! Dangit. The patheticness of it all made me pull into Rite Aid on the way home to get booze...it IS Friday night after all. ;-) Anyway, here's what came home in the bag and I really had to laugh (while getting the camera)

I ate the egg within seconds of taking the photo and am about to finish the cocktail. Think I'll read the book? And where can I buy the energy and desire to actually DO what the book tells me to do?

The REST of the story (and some new fabric!)

I was running long yesterday so I didn't finish The Rest of the Story regarding our dessert auction last Friday night. So; I gotta get out of there before they bring my pile o' crap to the auctioneers podium, right? I tell John, "Look. We want to donate the money but Lord knows we don't need the calories so just bid on somethin' pretty, make sure you win it, then go give it to the person who had bid just below you." He liked the idea very much and soon came the perfect thing; a gorgeously decorated lemon cheesecake on a big blue glass pedestal plate. He wins it for $100, and it is brought to our table.

Me: Oh. I think that pedestal is Fire and Light glass!
John: So?

Me: Well, that stuff's expensive! We can't go givin' that away! I know. I'll go get a paper plate, slide the cheesecake off onto that. You go give 'em the cake and we'll keep the glass.

John: No. I can't do that. It'd look lame. It's all or nothing.

Me: {grumping with arms crossed that he won't "mind me")

John: Well, I guess we can't agree so let's just take it home.

Two days later, after eating two pieces each, giving some to the kids, and freezing the other half, I look at this blue cake plate still sitting on our kitchen counter (I have since realized it is NOT Fire & Light glass) and holler to John in the living room; "What the heck am I supposed to do with this cake plate?! I have no cabinet space to store it and we don't even DO blue for cryin' out loud!"

So, while it really is hard bein' me sometimes, I've a hunch it's even harder to live with me. ;-)

Got some faboo fabrics from The Fat Quarter Shop recently. Thanks again for the share, Doe!) Here is a collection of 27 Lecien (Japanese) fat quarters.

.

As soon as I opened the box yesterday I ran to the thrift store to snag a little Easter basket to hold them in. Sweet, huh? I haven't gotten an Easter basket in ever so long. How thoughtful of me! ;-) I just checked the shop to give a link and it seems they're currently out of the fat quarter offering. I also bought a hot new-on-the-market rolll of Wee Play . OH SO very cute!! I really wanted them to make this quilt

but as you can see I just couldn't wait and made it up with strips I already had cut. But I do have enough of those panels (they're from American Jane's line of last year) to make another one with the new strips, and I think I probably will go ahead and do that. Why? I really have no idea. Just to be makin' it, I suppose.

I'll close with a tip I've been meaning to share. We all know about and probably use computer printer fabric sheets. Not long ago I decided to start doing embroidery in the evening (something to do while sitting next to John watching TV at night) and even tho I'd bought a light box, I ran the sheets (I always use my JoAnn's coupons on the packs) through the printer using those Hektograph pages I had scanned and shared a couple months ago.

I thought I'd just stockpile the pieces for future use on bags. Or something. I don't know. Can't have idle hands, dontchaknow!?

I just may never bake again

Hi all-- I've let too much pile up to tell all in one post. I think for today I'll unload my recent horror story re: baking. Maybe then I'll "get over it". Last Friday was Caleb's little school's last big fundraiser for the year. A spaghetti feed and then a dessert auction afterward. The cheesecakes have been known to garner $350 bids. It's all for a good cause, dontchaknow. This year I thought I'd bring quite the spectacular dessert. EVEN THOUGH I've known for my whole adult life I really do suck when it comes to baking. This excuse and that excuse...bottom line is I just never got the baking thing going on. Well, I've got a new Cupcakes book with a recipe for white chocolate cupcakes. How can I go wrong? Two hours and lots of real ingredients like butter and eggs and milk and sugar white chocolate bits later I had 16 hard dry little...lumps is all I can call them, really. Of course they tasted good, you know; dunked in a cup of coffee, but people want them to look good as well. Cleaned up the whole mess, went to bed and slept it off. Woke up the next day with renewed vigor. This time I started with a box mix. Added white choc flavored syrup (like they add to coffee drinks) and chopped up bits of white chocolate. Made cream cheese frosting. Bought a white cardboard three tier cupcake display stand. Applied 24 glue dots all around the three layers. Attached decorative paper cupcake cups to the glue dots. Used a piping tool to frost the cupcakes (shoving said tool full of cream cheese frosting 8 times, because when full it only frosted three cupcakes, was a whole 'nother fiasco), artfully placed 1 white chocolate disc on top of each cupcake, sat the cupcakes in their outer jackets which were glued down and waiting on the display stand. Went to the dollar store to buy a roll of clear celophane and a couple of helium balloons which matched the cupcake papers. Enclosed the whole three tier stand in a celophane tent, clipped it off at the top with the balloons and curly ribbon. Voila! Wouldn't it just be the showpiece of the evening? Here's the part where I should admit I've recently read A New Earth, and I know all about the ego...I guess 50 years of being one way is kinda hard to just stop overnight. Okay. Melissa and her family pull up and honk. It's lightly raining. I teeter out to the car holding this thing, somehow get in the car, sit next to Caleb, ask him to hold the thing while I get out of the car (the school's one block away. I shoulda walked!) and somewhere while he's handing it back to me, my butt stuck out in the rain so I'd really like to hurry, all 24 cupcakes flop over and out of their outer 'jackets'. Some roll further than others. ARGH! Of course, I have to fix them before I take them in and anyone sees them, so there I am in the rain, shoving my hand in this little side slit of the celophane, trying to upright 24 cupcakes from all over the place, getting frosting up to my elbow, cursing up a storm.  OH the confused looks I got when I presented this frosting smeared rain dripped mountain of a mess to the dessert table. I couldn't even stay and watch it be auctioned off. It was just too humiliating! Poor John. He arrived from work later and had no idea that all had gone on. Thought I had a black cloud over my head during dinner 'cause I was mad at him or something. Not until he heard me telling the story to our friend Bonnie over dinner last night did he finally 'get it'. LOL! I think next year we should just give them a check!

Well, I can't hardly stand to post without pics, so I'll share this of our sweet Caleb and Madison, who is now four months old and looking so much like her brother did.

I did a whole series of shots with them a couple days ago. Changed the quilt out a couple of times. Never once thought to move the IKEA cardboard boxes that are stored behind that chair, so whatever pics we choose to save and print will have to be tweaked with for twenty minutes in Photoshop. OH it is SO HARD being me sometimes I can't even tell you....

How many quilts can you get

out of one jelly roll?

Okay. For my non-quilting friends; a jelly roll is a group of 2.5 x 44 inch fabric strips...one strip of each fabric in a coordinating line. Between different colorways, etc; there's often upwards of 45 different pieces! When I saw the Celebrate Spring line by Sandy Gervais for Moda Fabrics last year I just had to have it all! and jelly rolls make it affordable to own the whole line.

Ahhh. Those colors just make my heart sing! Luckily, I was thinking ahead and I bought a charm pack (one five inch square of each) as well. The downside of so many groovy fabrics being designed these days is they don't have very long runs. Once they sell out they're gone! Well, after just enjoying looking at the roll for nearly a year I decided to crack it open and see what all I could make from it. First I made this baby quilt.

I had 42 five-inch squares which I used as the centers combined with the 2.5 inch randomly cut strips to make seven inch squares . I backed this quilt with yellow dot Minky (super super soft!) and hand tied it. Next I had to come up with a strips-only pattern.

I know I saw something real similar to this somewhere recently but right now it's escaping me. I'm saving this top for when I want to try machine quilting again. I guess I'd call this a toddler quilt. I still had a few pieces left and when I saw this yellow 'leaves' quilt mentioned on SewMamaSew's blog I knew I had to make one, too.

I have a Sizzix die for those leaf shapes so it came together super quick. Each square is 5 inches. Since taking this pic I backed it in the yellow dot Minky as well, and edged it with the green dot border. This is the smallest of the three quilts. I love how that green dot fabric from JoAnn's matched the line so nicely! And I love LOVE LOVE the blanket stitch on my new Bernina

I swear; I'd have bought the machine for that stitch alone!  So, with what very little I had left I pieced the strips together to edge the first quilt I made (with the squares) and that's that. I'm now on the lookout for a new jelly roll that I love so much I just have to have it, and then have fun coming up with different ways to use it, too. :-)

Make New Friends, but keep the old...

My mother gifted me with a sewing machine when I got married in 1975 at the age of 17. Luckily she knew it would provide me a great source of usefulness and outlet for creativity for a long time to come. Soon after, we got pregnant and I set about making a quilt for my unborn baby. I can't stir it up at the moment to photograph for you, but it was crib size and sewn from hand cut 1.5 inch squares. Many more quilts and blankets followed, for both cribs

 

and big girl beds

And ultimately comfy blankies for my grandbabies

Of course one of the most fun things about having girls was being able to sew dresses for them

 

and suitcases full of outfits for their Cabbage Patch dolls

(Yes; I am a nut. I even made the cabbage patch head emblems)

When Erica was one I made her a Raggedy Ann doll and matching dress, and I've tried very hard to keep up that tradition for all the new baby girls that have come along since.

It wasn't long before I started sewing curtains for about every room in every house we lived in.

 

I didn't mind having to move every two or three years because that meant I could redecorate all over again!

 

I think for me it's always been more about the DO-ing of it than the final outcome

Which probably explains why (even tho most of my family doesn't understand it)  I put as much thought and care into things I've made for online friends whom I'd only met once

Or in some cases never met at all.

As long as I had a reason to sew (ie; an outlet for it) that was good enough for me.

My constant companion, my vehicle of creativity for the past 32 years was a good ol' Sears Kenmore. Reminded me of a 60's VW bug. As long as you keep it oiled and clean it once in a while, it'll just go and go and go. Well, recently I started thinking I could probably handle an upgrade in the whole sewing experience, so....long story short;

Ta Dah!!! Meet my new friend Bernie!!

You see how fickle I am? I didn't even bother to take a picture of my old machine before I whisked her into oblivion for the new and improved machine. OH I tell you what. Just like a person might shouldn't go from a chuggy ol' VW to a 500series BMW, I'm kinda wondering if I should've worked may way UP to this machine. It's a wow. I set it up Saturday night, scared to death quite frankly, and decided I'd wind a bobbin. I went through all the steps, and then said, "Well, why isn't it working?!" Ahem. It WAS working. Purring along so quietly I didn't even hear it! In the past when I wound a bobbin I'd get yelled at from both ends of the house, "My God, do you have to be so LOUD!?" Last night I sat here and watched the 90 minute video on the basics of how to use it and the embroidery component. I think this will keep me busy at least another 30 years. I am very VERY happy about it and just wanted to share. :-) And yes, I will def keep the good ol' Sears Kenmore. I want to start teaching the older grades at Caleb's little school how to sew and it will be perfect for that.

I photographed the machine with one of the final squares of my FreddyDotCom quilt that I will soon put together (I plan on machine quilting it now that I CAN!) and also a little box of pins that Freddy highly recommended...they're the only ones she'll use because they are SO thin yet SO strong. You can pretty much sew right over them and not even notice. They are called Little House pins and are certainly not cheap at 100 for $10 but that's still plenty of pins for any given project.

Well, if you don't hear from me for the next few days you know where I'll be!

Have a great week. xo.