chimesblog

I’ve been reading the Denyse Schmidt Quilts book that Adria let me borrow and saw the heating pad project and just HAD to do it. I hardly make anything for myself, but it annoys me that I have my heating pad out in the middle of my living room and it’s so not cute. It had some weird 90s pattern on the cover.  Not a fan.

Well, now, it’s stylin’!  I used the original cover for insulation and quilted the patchwork piece to it. The original cover had a snap closure on it, so I didn’t have to mess with putting a closure on the new cover.  Pretty smart, eh?

My grandpa had given me a bunch of things that my granny (great grandmother) had left behind when she passed in 2002.  I’ve been using some of her materials (embroidery thread, fabric, pins, etc.) to create some of the things I’ve been making.  I’ve had 10 quilt blocks that I’ve been hoarding that she had made a long time ago.  The fabrics were impossible to match with modern-day or even reproduction fabrics.  The block pattern was too complex for me.  So, I’ve been sitting on them.

Last weekend my mom and I went to Valley Junction and found some really amazing vintage blocks that matched pretty well.  So, I finally got out the blocks and made a quilt top.

Here it is!

Again, going through my scrap box and found some scraps that Adria had given me from her Hello Betty quilt.  I had enough left to make a large block and I decided to finally cover the 18″x18″ pillow form I’ve had lying around.

I did another wonky log cabin block because those are just too easy and addictive.

Here’s the finished product. It doesn’t go with anything I own other than the chair in which I photographed it.

I’ve been working through my fabric scraps and I came across the Heather Ross Mendocino scraps that Adria had given me a while back.  She had leftovers after making a really cool mendocino quilt.

Here are a few of my favorite ones … They’re 5″x6″

I’m going to add 5-6″ of white fabric around each block to make it look like they’re floating and make a larger quilt out of these.  So excited! 

If you want to see all the blocks, I’ve got them posted on Flickr.

It’s been so long since I had a weekend of hermiting and crafting.  The cat’s away so the mouse will … be lame and stay indoors on a Saturday night?

This used to be my typical Saturday night: run, shower, laundry, movies, crafting, sleep.

Lately I’ve been doing things.  Like a lot of things. I went to a concert last night with Shelly (I will blog about this later once she gets pix/video up), I’ve been going out with friends to Welch Ave., Fong’s, The Lift, etc., we had prom last weekend … eeeeep! This is entirely too much stuff for me — it’s been fun — but I need a break!

So, I’m hermiting.

Tonight is going to be a craft-a-thon. I’ve had a request for 2 tea wallets and 2 market bags since posting on facebook that I was going to have a craft-a-thon.  I’ve got a Ziggy Stardust tea cup I want to finish, some potholders, a zip pouch and I have a couple of new hot projects that I’d like to crank out quickly to stash bust my scrap fabric.

Anywho — as I finish things, I’ll be posting pix here of what I accomplish tonight. Let’s hope I do a few more things so I don’t look like I spent the night thinking about crafting and not actually crafting.

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1. Two Bags for my niece

My mom requested that I make Emee a couple of bags for some of her toy sets.  These need handles, but I haven’t come across anything that I’d like to use for handles just yet.  I made these bags out of a skirt I had in high school that I never wear anymore.  It’s really cute purple fabric that shifts to blue in the right light and has a metallic silver brocade on the edges.

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2. Potholders

I started making a string quilt a while back with a bunch of random scraps, but I wasn’t pleased with what I was getting. So I decided to make the blocks into ugly potholders. The potholders have been lying around for a while awaiting the binding edge, so I’m sewing the binding on tonight.

Here’s what my potholders look like …

As you can see … I’m pretty excited that I finally finished these.

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3.  Lil Zipper Bag

Over the summer I’d made some little zipper bags with some fuschia and gold Heather Ross mendocino fabric that was given to me by my friend Adria.  I love this fabric sooo much, might I add. Definitely one of my all-time favorites. Anyway, for whatever reason I’ve had one little zipper bag sitting around unfinished. So I finished that off tonight as well.

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4. Ziggy Stardust Tea Cup

I made Mark a cute tea cup for our 2-month anniversary with the lyrics to our song on it … and I decided I wanted one that’s similar for myself. Yes — I said — FOR MYSELF. I never craft for myself. I wrote out the lyrics to Ziggy on a teacup last week … but decided that it needed to have a bit more pizazz, considering it *is* Bowie. So, I painted it up. I’m not too happy with the results, but maybe it will grow on me after I bake it. I like the one side, but I think if I would have left it a bit simpler it would be nicer … oh well. This can end up on craftastrophe I guess.

As you can tell by my face, this is the side I’m not too happy with. I dunno what to do with it just yet … Probably just bake it and hide it away in my apartment.

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I think that’s all I’m going to get to tonight, but I’m going to continue tomorrow and get 4-6 tea wallets done, possibly some dis-cards (Denyse Schmidt style) and maybe another craft for myself — heating pad cover.

One of my favorite blogs, a la mode fabric, just turned one. She’s having a fabric giveaway of absolutely adorable fabrics (what else would you expect?).

My favorite, of course, being the blush mendocino set.

Anyway, go here for details! Contest ends February 28.

I took today off since I had to take my mancandy to the airport at an obscenely early time and wanted to sleep/clean/catch up on crafting the rest of the day.

Needless to say, I didn’t get a whole lot of cleaning done (I did put the dishes away!), but I got a little sleeping and a LOT of crafting done.  I finished off both sets of wonky log cabin blocks I’ve been working in — one with my repro fabrics, and the other with Wonderland and Amy Butler fabrics that I’ve been hoarding.  I have 17 of the repro block and 24 of the Amy Butler/Wonderland blocks.  I’m going to make a queen-sized quilt with the AB/W blocks, but not sure what I’m going to do with the repro blocks.

Here are some of the more fun blocks from the repro log cabin set (8″x8″).

And here are some cool ones from the Amy Butler set …

Eventually I’ll make these into quilts, but until then, they’re just pretty patchwork pieces.

Since I’m feeling sassy, I’m having a February $5 off sale on all my wallets on etsy!  Also — if you follow me on twitter or if you found this sale through my blog, convo me and I’ll give you free shipping on your wallet.

Check it out!

Oversized Clutch Wallet — $35

Funky Patchwork Wallet — $25

Wonderland Patchwork Wallet — $15

Funky Patchwork Wallet — $15

Funky Patchwork Wallet — $15

Large Park Slope Patchwork Wallet — $20

Large Park Slope Frog Closure Wallet — $20

Medium Echino Wallet — $15

Enjoy!!

Once again I’m attending the fabulous charity prom put on by Sigler Companies in Ames.  This year’s theme is Night of the Living Prom.  So, you can go as a zombie or as whatever you want. So really, the only difference from last year is the zombie part. Last year’s theme was Revenge of the Prom.

Anyway, Mark is going with me and I kind of fed his ideas for what he was going to wear and let them snowball into something really cool.  So originally he was wanting to wear an old-school tuxedo t-shirt with weight-lifting gloves and a jacket, but I suggested we go to the Atomic Garage in Valley Junction to see if they had any cool vintage attire.  There, we found an epic PBR t-shirt, which is perfect because him and all my guy friends are notorious for drinking PBR since it’s the cheapest pitcher you can get. But it was too small. I bought it anyway assuming I could craft it into something.

Today I tried on my black dress that I’d bought last year that has never quite fit (it tapers to the top — which makes no sense, but whatever).  I decided that it was too cute with the electric blue and black lace tights I had on and that I HAD to make it work.  Coincidentally, at the same time I tried the dress on, I got a text from Mark saying that he was going to tuck his jeans into his boots, old-school punk style.

*idea!*

So we’re going punk.

I’m going to add a hook and eye closure where the zipper stops zipping on the dress, and add loops so I can lace the rest of it up like a corset so it will fit.  There’s only about 6 inches where it won’t zip, but I figured it’d be an easy fix and I won’t have to take the zipper out to do it, so if by some miracle of God or if I lose some ribs then MAYBE it will fit someday and I can un-frankenstein it up.

The PBR shirt is getting cut up and patched onto a charcoal grey t-shirt along with some electric blue accent fabric.  Also — safety pins.  He’s wearing the gloves and jacket along with the tucked in jeans. It’s going to be awesome.

I already made the corsage and boutonniere for the event, including some awesome houndstooth fabric, sequins and of course, safety pins, with a little bit of electric blue ribbon. AWESOME.  I hope it’s not too girly for him to wear.

I’ve been hoarding fabric for far too long, so before I’m allowed to buy any more, I must start going through and using it.

I’ve had these two pre-cut rolls of 2.5″ strips for about a year now and I’ve been waiting for the perfect project to use these on. These fabrics are dear to me because they’re reproductions of fabrics my great grandmother used when she made this beautiful wedding ring quilt that my mother has (and refuses to give me).

Anyway, I found a tutorial for a fun and easy block on QuiltDad.com.  It’s a Wonky Log Cabin Block.  My friend Adria follows QuiltDad and I’m pretty sure he’s on craftster.org as well and they’ve done lap quilt swaps together (actually, I’m pretty sure my Amy Butler sampler quilt that Adria gave me has one of his blocks).  Anyway, he has some reallllly cool stuff.

I thought I’d try this block with some fabric that was pre-cut so I didn’t spend a ton of time cutting my fabric and then having a block that didn’t work out (just in case the blocks didn’t work out … ).  But I love making this block and I’m definitely going to be making a couple of quilts out of this block.  I’ll be cutting some fabric for this very soon.

I’m planning on using 3-4 inches of white (or oatmeal) sashing between the blocks and possibly a polka-dotted backing. If I can find a white/cream fabric with brown or black mini polka dots, I’d love to use that.  Definitely a red binding strip.