Please Ignore the Dust

Please excuse the mess while I revamp the blog and learn a little (ahem, a lot) about HTML and whatever the heck I'm trying to do here.

And this is how I feel about that:


But seriously, my goal is to provide more valuable and organized content for my fellow stitchers and fabriholics.

And also, today is the first day of school (cue the fireworks and champagne cork popping!):



Beloved Middle Child in 4th grade, Precious Princess in 1st grade, and Responsible Oldest in 5th.

I hope your day was as enjoyable as mine was LOL.

The blog should be good as new in about a week!

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Several Small Finishes

I know many of you have mentioned this but being active on Instagram makes blogging sometimes seem redundant.  If you follow me on IG you've probably seen all of these, but I wanted to blog them anyway.

First of all, I have been loving Anna from Noodlehead's Open Wide Pouch tutorial.  This is a generously free tutorial offered in multiple sizes.  I even ordered some laminate fabric to line some pouches for leaky toiletries.

The first one is made with a hippo fabric in more of a home dec weight which meant that I didn't use interfacing.  I should have.  The bag is a little too floppy still.  It is lined with Nicey Jane laminated fabric (Nicey Jane is my all-time most hoarded fabric).  I had trouble with the zipper installation on this one.  For some reason I took this pic before adding the zipper pull fabric too.  Oh well. 



The next one uses the most adorable Michael Miller Prom fabric which I always call "Girl Spiking the Punch" fabric.  It is lined in a purple tiny dot fabric from my stash.






The next one uses a combination of Flea Market Fancy and orange tonal chevron.  Sorry for the awful lighting.  I finish projects at night and can't wait to take pics!



I also made one of Anna's Divided Baskets which is the perfect size for many things including two rows of pattern packets.  Right now I have my Fat Quarter Shop BOM pattern packets on one side and my Simplicity patterns on the other.



Finally with the Anna Noodlehead love, I made another 241 Tote.  This one was for my sister Carrie:




I also made a hippo from McCall's M6484 pattern.  This is the small size.  The large must be huge!



His name is Stuart the Girly Hippo thanks to my IG friends :-)

Inspired by Terri at Sew Fantastic and using the Zip Pocket Pouch pattern from Michelle Patterns, I made myself a little elephant clutch for vacation:



Finally, I fell in love with Amanda Jean Nyberg's Thread Catcher pattern and made some cute little buckets.  These go together very quickly and are a great way to show off those fabric pairings that just call out from your stash to be together:






I made my mom one for her needlepoint thread bits:




And when you make your mom a thread catcher, she's going to want a mug rug to go with it:



Thanks for making it through the photo gallery today!  For more photos of what I'm up to at the sewing machine, be sure to follow me on Instagram! 

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Salt Water Sailing

My sister Jenny is a South Carolina girl who grew up knowing that she wanted to live at the beach.  Unfortunately, the man she fell in love with is a die-hard Minnesotan!  She has a wonderful loving family who make it worth the sacrifice, but she still longs for her yearly vacation to the beach in the summer.  This summer, in celebration of our dad's 70th birthday, we planned a big family trip to the beach.  I knew I wanted to be able to give Jenny a bed-sized quilt and present it to her in person during our trip.

When searching for a quilt pattern to make for Jenny, I immediately fell in love with the Missouri Star Quilt Company's Sailboat block tutorial (presented by another Jenny!).  She has always loved to sail and even took a hard-core Outward Bound sailing trip when she was in high school.  I have many memories of being deliberately capsized on our family's Sunfish sailboat when we were growing up.  She thought it was hilarious.  I thought big sisters were monsters.

The Missouri Star Quilt Co tutorial was made using Tula Pink's Salt Water fabric line.  Light, airy and nautical, this collection was an obvious choice for a summer bed quilt to go in Jenny and Jeff's gray bedroom.




For the backing, I had some left-over layer cake squares paired with Moda Bella solid in Seafoam.





Here is a closer look:





The quilt is now in its new home in Rosemount, MN, with Jenny, Jeff, and my three nephews.  I hope it gives Jenny sweet dreamy memories of warm sandy beaches, cool ocean spray over the bow and the gentle pings of rigging in the wind.  I, on the other hand, will always hear the harsh bark of "JIBE-HO" before being dumped unceremoniously into the bay.

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New Finishes!

Here are a few finishes from the last few months:

Drunkard's Path pattern called Ornate by Christina at SometimesCrafter. 

 

 

Fabric Buckets from a tutorial by Ashley at FilmInTheFridge.

 

Crazy baggy zipper pouch created from my own craziness for my friend LizInProgress.

 

Layer cake quilt using the tutorial 1+2 Easy Quilt Pattern by Samelia's Mum.

 

 

 

A minky doll quilt with matching pillow for a last-minute girl gift.

 

 

A Noodlehead 241 Tote for my sister Jenny's Christmas gift.

 

 

A Turning Twenty quilt for my sister Carrie's Christmas gift.

 

 





 







 

A Jewelry Book for my sister Carrie's birthday gift.

 

 

Most wonderful cutting table ever.  Using Cubeicals from Target & top from Ikea.

 

 

A total of six flannel holiday pillowcases for nephews, charity and friends.

 

 

ScrappyTripAlong quilt inspired by #scrappytripalong on Instagram.

 



 

Pezzy Quilt top based on the ones done by Crazymomquilts and Tinkerfrog.

 

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Madrona Road MQG Challenge Quilt.

 

 

Repro fabrics Dresden Plate quilt top.  Still needs borders.

 

Ok, so there is the round-up from October through January.  Quick eye-candy that you've seen already if you follow me on Instagram.  Sometimes I feel really lazy so putting the finishes together in one place helps me realize just how much I've accomplished!  In addition to these, I also made bee blocks, quilted client quilts for holiday deadlines, folded laundry, ordered a new refigerator door handle, re-programmed the garage remote, did the dishes, cooked a few meals or a thousand, took kids to karate, swimming, chess, and the eye glasses place to replace broken frames.  Twice.  Fed the dog, cleaned up eaten Barbies, cleaned up colorful dog poop, cleaned up more eaten Barbies, and signed the dog up for Boot Camp.  Etc.  You know the drill. 

 

I hope the winter season has brought you as much joy as it has brought me.  There have been challenges but I always seem to find relaxation, inspiration and laughter through my sewing and especially my online sewing friends.  I am very excited to get together with several of you at The Stash Bash in April!

 

Chris





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