Dining Chair Redo with Good Fortune Laminate

I have been really busy with family here and am just not getting to my post about the chairs we finished on Wednesday. I'm in love! I finished just in time this being my ALYoF goal for August. The first few pictures are what my hubby dubs the "gross you out section."

Here's a before of one chair and an after of another. I bet I don't have to tell you which is which!

Ignore my foot and look at that awesomeness by Kate Spain! I love the good fortune line and it looks so great on my chairs.

One last nasty picture, I promise. I had no idea the fabric for our stool was that white! We've had it for ten years and it has oh so slowly gotten darker.

Even the boys love our new chairs! Alex loves the orange flowers because orange is his favorite color. Spencer sat on one and said, "I am sitting on Kate Spain and it's nice!" Miya said, "She is really good at designing fabric. I'm glad we picked this one." Amelia finished our fun conversation with, "I want to spill something on it!" She wanted to try out the wipeability of it.

They look so good in my dining room and they really brighten up the whole room.

The stool is so pretty now and it cracks me up because I keep wondering who left my nice fabric on the stool in the kitchen.

I'm linking up with my favorite places: Finish It Up Friday, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and TGIFF.

WiP Wednesday: Small Progress and Big Squishy Mail

My mom is coming for a visit tomorrow and to prepare I've spent most of my time cleaning the house - well, and fabric shopping. I may be addicted! My shop has picked up again with the nice fall weather and I've been enjoying the fruits of my labors. I'm linking up over at Freshly Pieced.

In order to prepare for my mom's visit we've also started recovering our chairs and stools. I'm really excited about this project! The Kate Spain Good Fortune laminate is really going to make these so much better. I hope to have a finish post on these either tomorrow or Friday because they are also my ALYoF goal for August.

I finished the most adorable Sleepy Owl hat for a Canadian Mommy to match her little baby for Halloween - and promptly mailed it out without a picture! So you'll have to trust me that it was cute. This is from my latest order. It's going to be another Crab Hat. My most popular one right now. She also ordered a matching diaper cover. It's going to be so cute!

Here's me all jazzed up about my new Miss Kate bundle. I'm so excited about this one and have to pick carefully what to use it for.

Miya also got a squishy package this week. She turned eight on the 25th and one of the things she asked for was some Daydream by Kate Spain for Moda. She loves bright colors and animals and was so excited about these prints. She wants to get started on this right away even though her other project isn't done yet. Typical quilter. ;)

Here's my happy squishy mail. Isn't it a lovely stack! There is still a bit more coming.

Here's a better view of what I got. The top left are for my upcoming BYU quilt (tutorial here) I literally had no low volume prints for the center so I had fun going around and picking someone that had mostly white with black, gray, or navy. Top Left is Mochi Linen Dots by Moda. I got a FQ bundle of the whole collection and don't know how I'm going to use it yet but it's lovely. Of course next in line is Miss Kate by Bonnie and Camille for Moda. There may have been some squealing when this one came. Last but not least is a full collection FQ bundle of the Cotton and Steel Basics. I love these!! They are going to become the Aviatrix Medallion. I will start cutting into this next month but couldn't wait to own this collection.

So that's it for this week. Lots of great things to come!

Eclectic Finishes

Miya and I both have finishes to share today. I made a hat, a zipper pouch, and 12 two-page scrapbook layouts. Miya made an adorable name tag for the guild meetings. I'll start with Miya...

Our guild meeting was last night and we finished her tag just in time. We didn't have time to make something for around her neck so we just used this piece of gold ribbon. She cut, appliqued, and top stitched this all by herself.

I'm pretty in love with how it turned out. I especially love her MQG member pin. I wonder if she is their youngest member at the tender age of seven.

I finished this adorable sheep hat that was an order from my shop. This is one of my favorite patterns and again it was an adult size order. I've been getting a lot of those lately - it's fun.

I also made this fun little pouch to match my tote bag. I'm pretty in love with this arrow canvas print from Cotton and Steel and love the metallic Dear Stella dot to match.

This cute pouch was made from the Ruched Happy Bag pattern. I won this pattern (and two others) on a giveaway but I was going to buy them anyway if I didn't win. I love how it turned out and it took me a little under an hour start to finish.

I've been further feeding my metallic addiction with metal zippers. I got this one (and several more) from my favorite shop for zippers - Zipit. They have amazing prices and a killer selection. This nine inch metal zipper was only $1 and their regular zippers run about $0.35 a piece when you buy a lot of them.

The bulk of my creative time has been taken up by my scrapbook project. I'm making an album for my mother of our trip to France. These 24 pages represent about half of the trip. They still need captions but are otherwise complete.

This is my favorite layout. I like how it has the cute metro paper and even a ticket stub.

Well, those are our accomplishments for this week. I'm linking up with my favorite places: TGIFF, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Crazy Mom Quilts.

WiP Wednesday: Little by Little

I have mostly worked on crochet things this week. I got three orders in two days and it's been fun working them up. I also got thirteen two-page scrapbook layouts finished for my France trip but it's been raining and indoor/flash pictures don't work well with scrapbook pages. I have a zipper pouch in the works too. I'm linking up to WiP Wednesday.

My first order was another adult-sized crab hat. I'm loving how popular the adult sizes of my hats have been lately. Nearly all of the hats in my shop come in adult sizes.

Look at the cute baby shark!! I also got an order for a toddler/preschooler shark hat. It seemed pretty perfect for shark week.

And from the side.... still adorable!

Even the baby is in love with it.

Kids heads grow more slowly at this age so it fits the baby who just turned one and my little man who is just over four.

So it's back to school time here in Iowa. The kids just left for their first day this morning. My middle girl just started kindergarten and needed a nap time pillow. We went to my LQS and found these two cute prints and I whipped her up a 12" square white pillow with two pillow cases.

I love how well the alphabet comes out on my new machine. I got her name all over those pillows without any mistakes. The red heart fabric is shinny metallic and I'm loving that right now.

Last this week - I cut out the fabric for my Ruched Happy Bag. I won three patterns from the awesome shop During Quiet Time a few weeks ago and I'm finally getting to them. This will match my tote from last week. My metallic zippers should come in the mail today and then I put this together. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

Well, that's it for me. Hopefully the weather cooperates and I can get some pictures of my scrapbook pages soon. I also have one more order to fill for my shop and then the cute pouch. It's going to be a great week!

Tote Bag Finish

I finished my tote bag up yesterday and I'm in love! I used some awesome Cotton and Steel canvas and a metallic Dear Stella dot. I found a great free pattern here.

Isn't it lovely?! I am going to carry my quilts in this to guild meetings. I think I'll also use it for Cub Scouts. I'm the new Den Leader for our local scouting program and I'm so excited!

I lined it with the metallic Dear Stella print too. The photos don't do it justice - it's really an awesome print. I used Peltex for a stabilizer and this stuff is intense. The pattern told me to fuse it to the lining and it was an adventure sewing with it and even more exciting trying to turn it around through the little hole. There was some punching and grunting involved but I love how the bag is so sturdy.

A closeup of the fabric loveliness. I may be over-the-moon about this bag.

Here it is a perfect size for my most recent Kate Spain Quilt finish.

A great size for me. I did a double layer of fusable fleece in the handles so they're extra cushy to support the weight and not dig into my shoulder.

I'm so happy with how it turned out and I'm linking up at my favorite places: TGIFF, Finish It Up Friday, and Fabric Frenzy Friday.

WiP Wednesday: Cut and Scrap

I have been soaking up the last two weeks with my kids until they go back to school so I haven't worked on much but I do have a few projects to share. I'm linking them up over at WiP Wednesday.

First off I finished up my Supernova blocks for the month. I was so early with these that the writing assignment wasn't even posted yet. We make two blocks a month, one for us and one for a friend, and we send them off with a letter containing an assigned topic. It's been a fun swap and I love seeing the quilt come together. Once I get my partner's block for this month I'll share them together. We have six of the ten blocks done so far.

I have the pieces all cut out for my first, of probably several, Cotton and Steel bag. I found a free pattern here that seemed like a great fit for carrying around my quilts.

Miya has her quilt all ready to sew together. There are 22 strips for the main body of the quilt and then it gets a border. She wants the main part sewn by her eighth birthday in 12 days. We'll see how that goes.

I've also got all my pictures sorted and ready to scrapbook my France trip from 13 years ago. I am so excited about this project now and my friend even found and emailed me an itinerary for our trip so I can get them all in order.

That's it for this week. I hope to have the bag finished to share on Friday because I'm really excited about this project. The rest of the sewing this week will hopefully happen by Miya and I'll try to stick to my scrapbook. Thanks for stopping by!

Kate Spain Finishes

I finished two of my Kate Spain projects yesterday and I'm in love!! The quilt was on my Q3FAL list (found here) and the little pouch came together so quickly in just one evening. The quilt was even more impressive. Start to finish was only ten days. It shows that when I'm really jazzed about a project I can crank it out really quickly. I really love the color and scale of her prints and both projects finished up so well.

When I finished the quilt it was raining. I wanted to take a picture of the quilt anyway because rain was on the forecast for every day this week. I think the picture turned out okay but the quilt was awesome!

Here's a fun angle on the quilt also in the rain. While trying to get this picture I stepped on the quilt with my muddy shoe (!!!) so the photo session had to stop.

I washed the quilt last night and it wasn't raining this morning so we had another photo shoot. I really love how this quilt turned out. I followed the Charming Stars pattern but I made it bigger at 5 by 6 squares. It turns out being about 81" by 95".

I did straight line quilting on this one about every inch. I am so happy with it! The look and the texture both were better than I imagined.

Here's the back. I found this awesome Good Fortune print when I was at an amusement part in Missouri that had a fabric store in it. We're not even going to get into how strange that is. So, I bought what they had. It was a little small for the back but I love the purple stripe on top to make up the difference.

Here's a closeup of the back and binding. This purple Cuzco print went so well with the Good Fortune flower print. I love it!

My other project was much smaller and also finished yesterday. This adorable Kate Spain Cuzco pouch was made following the Quilted Patchwork Pouch tutorial. The pattern calls for a 1/2" D-ring but I could only find a 3/4". It's my only complaint about this one. I really love how it turned out. I may be overusing the word love in this post.

I did diagonal quilting making little Xs in the blocks. I've never tried that before and really like the look of it. It would be fun on a patchwork quilt. I usually go on either side of the seam but with 2" squares it seemed a little much.

I used more of that purple Cuzco print for the lining. As much as I love fun quilt backings I adore fun bag linings even more.

So those are my awesome finishes this week. I'm linking up at my favorite places again. TGIFF, Fabric Frenzy Friday, and Finish It Up Friday.

Kate Spain - and A Few Other People

I have a deep and abiding love for all things Kate Spain. I took part in a Kate Spain charm swap this Spring and wondered what do to with my collection of fabulousness. Then I got just the push I needed from Ms. Midge and her Kate Spain Charm Along. She organized it for her fellow Aussies who participated in a charm swap of their own. The purpose was to motivate them, with prizes, to finish something with their charms. I asked if I could play along, even though I'm from Iowa, USA, and she happily obliged. I started as soon as I finished the Wedding Quilt on Monday the 28th and it's now over halfway quilted. In between the crazy sewing I've spent probably too much time and money shopping. So you'll get a preview of the great things to come.

So, after that crazy long intro...

Here it is! It's huge! This quilt top finished at about 81" by 95" and followed the Charming Stars pattern from the Moda Bakeshop. I made mine bigger though with a 5 by 6 layout instead of a 4 by 4. I used my 112 charms from the swap as well as three charm packs I had on hand and a few other charms I had sitting around. There are 270 squares total (including the gray).

Here's my favorite block. I love how as a surprise on the swap we got two charm squares from the new Horizon line. I'm fairly certain that every line (other than her Christmas ones) are represented in this quilt.

I love this angle and can't wait for the whole quilt reveal! I was thinking about doing random at first and then decided to do groupings of warm and cold then alternate them in the layout. The setting squares were a purple Cuzco print that I happened upon in my quilt shop. I'm binding it in that same one.

The quilting is going really well. I adore straight line quilting and these are really adding to the quilt. I did them 1 1/8" apart. It's kind of a crazy number but I wanted to divide the blocks a certain way and that's how it worked out. My awesome Juki came with a quilting seam guide and that thing doesn't wiggle at all so I can just set it where I want it and go! I've been checking every few seams and it's right on every time.

To continue on with the Kate Spain theme I'll be recovering my dining chairs in the awesome Good Fortune Laminate. This is my ALYoF goal for August. I didn't actually set out to do this all Kate Spainy but it was the best and cheapest laminate I could find. I don't even need to tell you why this had to happen. It's only been a few years since I recovered these last time but I used some home decor from Joann's and the stuff just won't come clean. With five kids eight and under they are just not going to stay clean and the laminate is so wipe-able.

Okay, one more Kate Spain project coming up and then I swear I'll move on. I'm doing the Supernova Friendship Swap with the amazing Izzy of Dizzy Quilts and she sent me this adorable Cuzco mini charm. She may have picked up on my favorite designer. So I'm going to pair it up with my awesome purple Cuzco print and this cute teal zipper to make an awesome Quilted Patchwork Pouch.

I also had to jump on the Cotton + Steel bandwagon. I've had a revelation that I should only buy fabrics I love and not the whole line if I'm not obsessed with it. I could save so much money and come out with only stuff I love. Thus these three picks. The middle one is actually a Dear Stella but it went so well. The arrows are canvas and feel so great! These are all going to be combined in different ways to become bags and zipper pouches.

Speaking of only getting stuff I love... I adore most things Bonnie and Camille. There are a few prints and lines that I let pass me by. It honestly never crossed my mind until recently that I could just pick and choose which ones I wanted from a line. So, when I thought of that I instantly thought of Vintage Modern. I loved about half of the prints but the others were really not my style. Now I have the ones I love in the colorway I like. I have no idea what I'm going to make with this yet but it's pretty to look at.

In other news I'm going to start spreading myself around a bit more. I adore scrapbooking but all of my free time has gone to quilting lately. I went to a CTMH garage sale and picked up these lovelies to get me back in the scrapbooking groove. I can't wait! I just want to finish my Charming Stars quilt first.

So that's me: past, present, and a hopeful future. It should be exciting times around here and I can't wait to create and share! I'm linking up with WiP Wednesday and am so glad it's back!