little fish

a last minute costume choice for my three-year-old was an orange fish. orange. no other colors, just orange.

given that i had a week, of course i searched the stores and internet first. no luck. so one monday afternoon we made the drive to town and prayed for fabric luck. i found some cozy orange fleece that made me smile and most importantly, made the three-year-old smile. passing down the isle some glints of shiny blue caught my eye and i thought it needed to be incorporated. yes, i broke the monotone orange rules. just a teensy bit though.

i went without a pattern and just made a sample from some muslin i had in my closet. it took me less than 5 hours to do the entire costume and i was really pleased with it. gage looked (and felt) awesome!

the trickiest part for sure was attaching the lips to the rest of his head. i ended up hand stitching that part but even that wasn't all that bad. i have this burning desire to make more and try different colors and fabrics.

anyone want to place an order for next year?!

lap quilt giveaway

would you love to win this oh so lovely lap quilt?

well you can!

just go visit my happy nest...

a no sew

where have i been you ask? or maybe you don't- but i will tell you anyways.

i have been sewing i promise. hopefully soon i'll be able to show you exactly what i've been doing. but for now i thought i would share a very simple project i made for halloween. good news :: it does not involve any sewing!

all you need is coordinating fall crafting paper, yarn, string or ribbon, a hole punch and black vinyl or paper.

Cut your paper into 6"x4.5" blocks. Next, mark the bottom center (2.25") and cut from that point to your upper corners, creating triangles. Punch the corners with your hole punch. The next step I did using my cricut. I cut HAPPY HALLOWEEN out of black vinyl using a 4" size which worked perfectly. If you don't have vinyl you can use black paper and just glue the letters down. If you don't have a machine that will do the cutting for you, simply print it out in a font that you like on your computer and cut it out, stamp it if you have large enough stamps, stencil it, or if you are artistic- paint your own letters on. Once you have all the letters on, string them and find a happy place to display it.

it was so easy and fast but it adds a lot. and you can change it up any way you would like. even for christmas or other holidays. have fun with it!

and for another banner variation that i found tonight go here. love it!

a couple of stacks

i love to sit and sort through fabrics. even when i don't really need to. just to feel the different textures of the cotton and draw inspiration from the colors and patterns. it's almost therapeutic i think.

here are some of the lovely fabrics i will soon be quilting with. i think i am in love.

the majority of these fabrics are from heather ross. underwater sisters, seahorses, swim class, octupi and kelp forest from her mendocino collection. i have had a crush on these for a while now and will finally be using them. the pretty aqua fabric is pearl bracelet from lizzy house. i can think of a million things i would like to do with that fabric.

i can't wait to piece this quilt. the colors all just make me so happy.

i also love the colors in this stack. it's much softer but still cheery.

the first three as well as the stripes are from michelle engel bencsko's new line my happy meadow. it is organic cotton and oh so soft. this will be a fun one to make. i'm still working on a pattern decision.

and this has to be one of my favorite recent purchases. i love love love this fabric and am dying to get my hands on it in red. japanese imports are my favorites to browse through right now. the colors are just so beautiful and different. and the patterns are just plain fun to me!

do you have a fabric crush?

couture headbands

i fell in love with this headband as soon as i saw it. but in what lifetime will you find me spending over twenty dollars on a hair garnishment?

not this one for sure.

so i decided to try it out for myself. behold the finished product:::

i would definitely make some changes the next time around. but i must say that overall i am happy with it. and it cost me less than five dollars to make. can't argue with a price like that can you? the flower takes some time for sure. it involves a lot of manipulating and handstitching but they turn out oh so pretty.

you can find several tutorials online for flowers like these. i wasn't very happy with any of them entirely so i just kind of went at it myself. but if you need a little help, looking at a tutorial will definitely give you a good start. then adjust it for yourself and you can do many cute things. just have fun with it!

binding and baking

this morning i have been trying to squeeze some hand stitching into every spare minute i have. should you have peeked through my kitchen window this morning you would have seen me flipping pancakes and stitching on binding in hurried intervals. quite the spectacle i am sure.

while i give myself room for a little imperfection throughout my quilts, i think that the binding should look flawless. i have yet to achieve a flawless bind of course, but i get better each time. this is the best tutorial for binding that i have come across. it's from miss heather bailey and i can't imagine that there is an easier way of explaining it.

for this quilt i cut 2.5" strips and then pressed it in a centerfold. at first i started kicking myself that i hadn't just stuck to 3" strips which has been my favored size, but now that it's almost complete i am really happy with it. thank goodness because i have three more quilts to finish after this one and i don't like starting things off on a bad note.

black and write

i made this journal with vintage houndstooth fabric. one of those things that happens by accident. i really love it though.

notice the stretch lace? (or journal girdle if you will.) i've become kind of addicted to it lately. i can think of a million things it could be used for and i think it's so pretty. don't worry i'll be over it soon. i'm that way with most things. i go crazy with one thing for a while and then move on to my next obsession. just another part of life for me.

pacifying the stitch itch

i love to quilt. being a mother to two small boys makes it hard to do. but i crave it sometimes. everything from finding the perfect fabric to seeing the nicely pressed seams once it is pieced to hand stitching that final few inches of binding down. the best part- pulling it out of the dryer fluffy, soft and puckered. definitely the best part.

i went a few months without a sewing machine and that was certainly rough. i had the stitch itch bad. but i am finally back in business and have been piecing children's quilts during every possible nap time.

now i am anxious to get to quilting them. i do my own machine stitching. i love the way it looks and it is just so expensive to have it done elsewhere. believe me though, i do think they turn out beautifully. maybe one day i will splurge. or perhaps if some ancient and obscure relative should pass on peacefully in the night and leave me their fortune i will finally invest in my own longarm. wouldn't that be lovely? and it would indeed require a small fortune.

what's your technique?