Stitch Fancy

I haven’t posted in a few weeks—we’ve been through a couple rounds of illnesses as well as having Damon’s third birthday party, so while I’ve been busy (and busy doing some sewing, too!), I’ve been too distracted to post lately.  So, I’ll have a lot to catch up on in the coming weeks.  During my blogging break I joined another round of the Pretty Little Pouch Swap, and my partner was really difficult to sew for this time.  She likes lots of pink and Japanese fabrics, of which I don’t have very much.  The only thing close was this Hello Kitty fabric I had picked up to have on hand to make something for a little girl.

Personally, I think Hello Kitty is super cute, but I don’t have anything with her on it that I use since it feels too little-girlish for me to feel comfortable carrying something around.  However, I really hope my partner likes this.  I made it fairly large for sewing projects, and I put a divided pocket on the inside.

I printed the Hello Kitty image out to use as a template and then used the sketchy style to applique the face and details.  I used a stippling/darning foot with black thread.  While I normally love “thread sketching,” I’m not sure it works so well in this instance.  It has a more whimsical, sketchy look to it, and Hello Kitty is more graphic with sharp lines.  However, I think it looks better than a satin stitch would, and I’m happy enough with it to send it to my partner.

I used the Hello Kitty fabric for the back of the pouch as well as the inside.  This will be on its way to my partner sometime next week!

One of the members in my Traveling Quilts group hit a bit of a snag with life, so this is quite late.  However, I was able to make a couple of blocks quickly and send it on its way.  So, we’re still a month behind, but hopefully we’ll catch back up soon.  Instead of actually attaching these blocks to the quilt, I just sent them along with the package so someone else can attach them however they fit best.  The quilt is long and narrow at the moment, so I thought almost anything I did might look odd.  So, by leaving the blocks loose, maybe the next person can balance things out a little.

I used some of the fabric from a recent scrap fabric swap because I thought the colors matched well.  I think it will all look nice when sewn up together.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how good the quilts are looking.  I thought things might look kind of mish-mashed, but it’s really exciting to see how they’re turning out so far.

This is the swap package I received from my partner (Karen) in the Modernista swap.  Isn’t the pillow beautiful?  I love the colors and the style of the block.  These blocks look paper-pieced to me, and I can tell this took a lot of time and effort.

The yellow is a really good match for the room.  I also got this cute little pouch as my small item.  I’m not sure what I’ll use it for, but I’m sure I’ll find something.  I love the little forest themed fabric she used for the bottom part.

The pillow is at home and looking great on my couch—Thanks, Karen!

We still have a little bit of trim to install in the baby room, but I have a feeling that if I wait to post pictures until it’s completely finished, the baby will no longer be a baby anymore!  So, I’ve decided to go ahead and post pictures of our 85% finished nursery.

When I saw the Backyard Baby line, I absolutely fell in love with it, especially the tree print with the swing and the cute little dog.  I also loved the colors, so I used that fabric as my starting point.  I chose to make the crib sheets out of that print as well as use it on the back of the baby quilt because I think it looks better as a large piece instead of cut up in a quilt top.  After deciding on a quilt design, I moved on to the other details like the bumper and bedskirt.

I made both the bumper and bedskirt fairly simple using charm squares that I cut from yardage.  It looked more interesting to me than using yardage to sew them up—a bit more work, but I love how it looks a little more interesting, especially the bumper.

I also made the curtains.  I would have loved to use solid yardage of the orange snake skin print, but we live in an old Victorian with huge windows, and I would have needed at least twelve yards.  While I would have loved the look, I didn’t want to spend that much on curtains that we would probably change within a few years once he outgrows the baby prints.  So, I used white sheets and trimmed them with the orange print and made a valance.

I wanted something a little darker for the walls, and I tried to have the paint guys color match the darker teal color in the fabric, but the largest bit was a polka dot, and they needed at least an inch square to match it with the computer, so in the end I just chose a paint chip that was as close as I could get.  I ended up loving the color from the minute we rolled it on.  Usually I have to get used to newly painted walls, but this color was just perfect with all the white in the room.

One of my favorite features in the room is the orange spray-painted chandelier.  It came with the house when we bought it, and I think it’s from the 30s or 40s.  It was blue with gold accents, and it used to have really ugly lantern toppers that covered the light bulbs.  I told my husband we weren’t going to use the light fixture, so he proceeded to tear down the ceiling while it was in place.  That broke the ugly lanterns, so at the end when it was time to buy a new light fixture, I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try spray painting it (thank you, Pinterest!).  I’m so glad I did—first, it looks fabulous in the room, and second, it only cost about $5 for spray paint.  Since it was so cheap, I sprung for fancy light bulbs.

My other favorite accent is the painting above the changing table.  I saw this picture on Pinterest, and I even used the same saying because I liked it so well.  Mine is on a large canvas instead of a piece of wood as in the original, and I had planned to use a vinyl stencil cut out on my Cricut, but in the end, I thought typing it out and printing poster size, and then hand cutting the letters might be just as easy (or hard!).  It was a little time consuming, but I do pretty well with a paintbrush as long as I have a line to follow, so after I traced the letters in pencil, it wasn’t too bad.  I love how the orange pops in the room, and Bennett still seems mesmerized by it, so it’s a good thing to have over the changing area.

I found a fluffy white rug at a garage sale for $25.  It’s a nice large one, too.  I’d like to have it professionally cleaned before the baby crawls around on it, but even with the cost of cleaning, it was an awesome deal.  I also have a glider in the corner.  This was a Goodwill find from my older son’s room, but we no longer need it in there.  I had this steam cleaned, too, and it looked almost brand new.

As wall decoration I added a few baby pictures.  The picture on the left is my favorite of all his newborn pictures.  I’m so glad we got a good picture of him in his baby quilt.  The room has fairly minimal decoration, but I really like it that way.  It makes it feel larger and cleaner.  I’m sure it will be strewn with toys in a few more months, but for now it’s a very relaxing place to be.

A couple weeks ago I joined another swap—this time for potholders.   It’s a much quicker swap compared to the ones I’ve been doing recently.  I have them all finished except for the bindings:

The theme is “spring,” but my partner requested something that wasn’t too girly, so I thought I should steer clear of all the springy flowery ideas that popped into my head at first.  She said she liked text fabric and blue and gray, so I pulled some fabrics and went with a wonky stripe pattern—pretty easy.  I used yellow for the back and binding for a bit of contrast.  I liked these, too, so I have a pair in the works for myself as well.

I’ve also been invited to a bridal shower in the near future, so while I was making potholders, I thought I would go ahead and make an extra set for the bride-to-be.  I checked her registry, and her colors seem to be green and brown.  I got a cute green glass bowl, some bamboo salad hands (thought they were so cute!), and I made a pair of potholders to match. 

I added a row of green hand stitching, which is purely decorative since the padding and insul-brite is way too thick to hand sew.  I tried out a new-to-me free motion quilting pattern—pebbles.  I’ve seen it everywhere but have been mostly stuck on stippling until this year, when I made a New Year’s resolution to branch out with quilting patterns.  Overall, I think it went quite well.  My circles are pretty tiny, so if it were a quilt that I’d want to be softer, I would need to make the circles larger, but I’m sure I could get the hang of it.  I started to go pretty quickly toward the end once I got used to the design.

I’m excited to give these away.  The colors turned out well, and I really think she’ll like them!

I recently received my swap package from my partner in the Super Swaps group.  We swapped zippered pouches, and mine is so cute!  These little hexagons are all fussy cut with little animals or pictures in the center.  It’s a large sized pouch, and my partner knew I recently had a baby and am carrying a diaper bag, so it’s meant for diaper bag stuff. 

The fabric on the left is a cotton laminate, and her idea was to use it as a portable placemat.  She also sent a bunch of kid-themed charm squares, and I just love them!  I’m trying to think of a good project to use them on.  They’re perfect for a little boy—I don’t think she knew I had a boy instead of a girl, but everything she chose was just perfect for me!

There was a lot of work that went into this pouch.  Those hexies are all really small and hand-sewn together.  I haven’t yet tried my hand at English paper piecing yet, mainly because I’m not sure I have the patience for the cutting, but I do love how they look!