Month: June 2019

Picked up some blank journals at the craft store a few weeks ago, and had a gorgeous day this weekend so sat outside and did some painting in the shade.

I painted some journals for gifts last Christmas and everyone really loved them. A bunch of women at work take them with them everywhere. So I picked up a stack of them thinking I’d paint a few now and then and have some ready for gifts.

It’s hard to find these blank journals that aren’t really pricey. So when I saw these at Michael’s for a decent price, I picked up a stack.

Got three done. Planning on doing a few more this week.

 

A friend of mine is hosting a friendly dog agility competition later this summer and has asked me to make zipper pouches for the main prizes for winners. It was a great chance to go through all my dog fabrics and put together some fun combos.

I’ll be making 15 pouches overall — 5 each of large, medium and small. I finished the five large over the weekend.

I have way too much dog themed fabric! i have larger pieces of the black and white paw prints and bone prints. I have smaller amounts of the other dog prints. So this is a good opportunity to clean out some of those fabrics.

The small and medium pouches will have some brighter colors in them. I’ll put some work into them this weekend. I want to make sure I have them done and don’t have to scramble at the last minute to get them done.

There are some really fun dog themed fabrics out there. I’m guessing I’ll buy more in the future!

We’ve got building renovations going on at work and we’ve been in a construction zone for many months. My office has been pretty much unscathed with the exception of new carpet, new lights and paint.

Each office got an accent wall… bright blue, darker blue, green, yellow or gray. Guess which color I got. Of course, I got gray. Me who loves vibrant color more than anyone I know.

So I pulled out this unfinished paper pieced wall hanging that I had planned on making for my sewing room, which will now adorn my gray walls at work. I started it nearly two years ago. It’s been sitting unfinished because I needed to make seven more blocks to get it to the size I wanted. It’s made from Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics and some batiks.

This was my first ever paper piecing project. My very generous friend Karin had me up to her place a couple of years ago to give me a lesson on how to paper piece. I learned a lot in that day that will serve me very well in my future paper piecing endeavors. She taught me how to do the actual piecing, how to use the “add a quarter” ruler, and how to manage my fabrics to be as efficient as possible.

I don’t know why, but I always dread sewing circles. But once I sit down and do it, it always works out well and the blocks go together so nicely. I have ambitions to do more circles in the future.

I played with A LOT of different layouts for this wall hanging. The small size really limited what I could do. I typically prefer a less symmetrical arrangement of New York Beauty type blocks, but there weren’t enough blocks in this wall hanging to make a nice random arrangement. It just felt too chaotic.

Here’s some of the many variations I tried. This is a good representation of my obsession with this process!

 

It’s really overkill. But it took a good deal of time to come up with the right arrangement. And when I would move one block to make an area feel right, it would create four other issues I’d have to deal with.

My friend Karin helped me with this process too. I’d make changes, message her a photo, she’d respond, I’d rearrange and take another photo, send her that photo, and on and on.

I got distracted and was snapped back to reality when my smoke alarm went off! I was boiling sugar water for my humming bird feeder and it boiled dry and smoked up the entire house! It’s going to take me a year to clean that pan!

I’ve been playing with some ideas for the border for this wall hanging, but haven’t yet landed on what I’m going to do. So it hangs on my design wall and I’ve been working on some smaller projects as I mull this over.  I’m thinking I’ll go simple with the border to let the blocks shine.

As I was pressing this piece, I held it up to the light and the effect of stained glass was so amazing!

I’ve had this flying geese circle template set for awhile now and wanted to put it in a pouch. The original pattern finished up at 12 inches, which is way too big for a pouch. So I shrunk the templates down to make an 8×8 block.

And it’s still to big for the pouch! I have a smaller version that will finish up as a 6 inch block, which will have much better proportions in a pouch. I’ll work on that some time later this week.

I wasn’t as careful with the quilting as I wish I’d been. Amazing how you can put a lot of work into something and decrease it’s beauty because of a little impatience toward the end. Most people probably wouldn’t see it, but it stands out like a sore thumb to me!

I used Kaffe Fassett Collective fabrics for the goose points, and a white on white that I’ve had for a couple years for the background. I like the texture the white on white gives this. And of course, I just LOVE the blue chambray that I used for the body of the bag.

Rather than doing a pieced panel for both sides of the bag, I put a zipper pocket on the back. it should be a really functional little pouch.

I just love how the details on the pouches come out in the chambray. It feels so tailored and structured. I just love it!