Mark’s brother-in-law likes MJ probably as much if not more … okay … who am I kidding? Nobody could like MJ more than me.

Anyway, I had a threadless shirt lying around and I decided to make him a pillow out of it. I like how it turned out. I think I like it better than if the shirt would have fit the pillow because I added some contrasting patchwork on the side.

[and it's envelope-back, so if it's too cheesy for him, he can easily change it out]

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I’ve got another great tutorial I’d like to share with you.  It comes from Sew Mama Sew — camera case/iPod cozy tutorial.

This is a great project for beginners.  It takes a little amount of fabric and a small investment of time.  I like this project because it takes me as much time to make one of them as it does to make 5 of them, so it’s great to make a ton of them for craft shows.

Here’s one that I made [there's a ton of these in this post as well].

If you make one of these, send me a photo of your finished project and I’ll feature it in a gallery of reader submitted crafts from tutorials I’ve shared.

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Hi. I’m chimes.  If you’ve been reading my blog and are just now figuring this out, well howdy. I’ve decided to try Craftzine’s 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 Profile questions.  Enjoy!

One Project You Are Particularly Proud Of

1. My musical flowers pitcher. And the resulting photos of it.  I really miss my little brick wall porch at my old place in Des Moines.

Two Mistakes You’ve Made in the Past

1. Not saying no when I should.  I’m to proud to admit when I can’t take on a project — I love being a jack of all trades. I recently took engagement photos of my friend’s little sister and her (now) hubby.  I really shouldn’t have.  I’m not a photographer.  And I said yes to taking her WEDDING photos too.

[okay, so they didn't turn out too horrible]

2. Using parchment paper to bake these amazing brownies.  The result?  What my roommate coined “reverse brownies” — gooey on the outside, done in the middle.

Three Things That Make Your Work Unique

1. I’m cheap — but in a good way.  I use EVERY scrap of fabric — including the selvedge edges — every discarded dish, every possible inch of batting and use cereal boxes for patterns for sewing projects. I’m currently making a map of the states quilt out of pieces of fabric that are less than 2″ big. Partially because I’m a fabric hoarder too.

2. Asymmetry. I hate symmetrical and being matchy matchy.  I will never make a quilt from a traditional pattern — it has to be wonky.
3. Obviously, I love handmade objects. And as a graphic designer in my professional life, I try to incorporate hand-done items into my work as much as possible — whether it’s my own illustrations, found objects, fabric or paintings created by a friend.

[album cover for a band I was in that never took off]

Four Tools You Love to Use

1. Rotary cutter. I have no idea why, but there is something so damn therapeutic about cutting fabric and placing it in neat piles.
2. Adobe Creative Suite (especially InDesign — use it daily at work)
3. Sewing machine — I sometimes think I need a fancy one with more bells and whistles, but the freebie one I got from my aunt has been kicking out great projects and working just fine. I actually got a new Janome in October and it has been rocking my world! I even completed a quilt last month using that machine with no blips in the fabric or dropped stitches. I’m saving my old machine for threadbangin’ more crafty projects.

4. Sketchbook + Prismacolors.  I don’t just do things. I think them through first and find several ways of accomplishing what my desired end result may be. It’s surprising what you come up with when you take some time to brainstorm.

Five Inspirations

1. Quilters like Fussy Cut and Oh Fransson!
2. Michael Jackson. Yes. I’m serious. If you’ve not read my blog before, then newsflash: I heart MJ.
3. Every DIY and craft blog out there. ever. I think I follow all of them in my google reader.
4. My granny — she left a TON of unfinished projects when she died and I’ve been randomly finishing them up in the past several years. Here’s a quilt I completed out of blocks she made from what we think may have been old clothing (she was also cheap and thrifty).

5. And I have to mention my boyfriend. He’s constantly helping me refine my work and offers up suggestions and critique as well as an incredible amount of support.

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We are moving again soon. And this weekend is the last weekend that I don’t have plans before the move, so I’m getting my last hurrah out of my system because all my crafty stuff has to go in storage as soon as possible.

I started going through my craft stuff and decided to finish off some UFOs this weekend.

I started with some bags …

(pink little zippy pouch)

(geometric little zippy pouch)

… and some more — 17 to be exact — quilted cards …

… but then I found a whole mess of white fabric, which I had no idea I had — my granny had left it in a bunch of unfinished projects she ultimately didn’t get to finish and her craft supplies were gifted to me.  So, I decided it was time to finish my vintage scrap fabric (courtesy of Adria) strip quilt.

I’m still in progress today. I could have finished last night but I really don’t have room in our tiny apartment to lay out the quilt, and this is one that I have to lay out and think about.  Here’s a photo of the progress. I’ll post a tutorial once it’s finished.  It’s really quite easy, but takes a bit of thinking.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Decided I wanted to do a strip quilt that kind of zig zagged with the scrap fabric Adria gave me — this, but without the border and with more variation in width and length of fabric.
• Cut all the fabric scraps to 2″, 1.5″ and 1″  wide pieces. One inch is probably too small, but to get the most out of this fabric, I had to go that small.
• Sewed all of the 2″ wide scraps together to make a really long strip, and did the same with the 1.5″ and 1″ scraps. Did this last year and pulled out the finished rolls of strips yesterday to start putting this together.
• Figured out that I wanted to make a 50″x50″ quilt. Originally I was going to go with twin size, but I realized I wasn’t going to have enough vintage fabric to do what I wanted to do.
• Cut 50″ wide strips from the long strip of each width I’d sewn together.
• Laid them on the floor to make 50″ wide — this required cutting the strips in halves and thirds.  See above — the bottom piece is the full length that I want and is used for measuring.
• Cut 2″, 1.5″ and 1″ strips out of white fabric and added them to the ends of the vintage strips to make up the width difference so they measure 50″ again.

Here’s what I’m doing today:

• Deciding where I want the vintage strips to line up in the quilt, then cutting the end of the white off (where it goes past 50″) and adding it to the OTHER side of the strip (so there’s white on both sides).
• Trimming everything to 48″ or so wide since inevitably there will probably be a math error on my end.
• Pinning 3 strips at a time together and sewing them into a wider strip.
• Repeating until the quilt top has been finished.

And that’s my day today! Patchworking and probably running 6-8 miles.  If I finish the quilt top in just a few hours (hoping so — I got where I currently am now with this quilt top in 3 hours yesterday), I’ll work on some more bags. I found the motherload of scraps I was saving of Wonderland …

… so I’ll probably be making some more zippy pouches out of that.  I’m loving the zippy pouches.  I need to make some more wallets, but I like to make the zippy pouches so much more.  I figure I’m doing this for fun and not for money, so if this stuff sells, great, if not, I’ve got Christmas presents taken care of.  Or maybe I can keep something for myself for once.

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Um, I may have gotten the t-shirts for this in the spring of 2009.  Like March 2009.  Regardless, I finally finished it.  It broke my sewing machine twice.  Twice.  Therefore, not making any more quilts (at least quilting them).  So if you want a quilt, I’ll make the top, but you’re on your own for getting it quilted.

I also hate t-shirt quilts. I think they’re boring and stupid and I am not sure why people love them so much when there are so many beautiful quilting fabrics or vintage fabrics out there to make a quilt from instead. I’ve made 3 t-shirt quilts now — but the first 2 were really deconstructed. And the first 2 were because I wasn’t sure if I was going to like quilting, so I didn’t want to BUY fabric until I knew if I liked it or not.

Anywho — the twist on the regular t-shirt quilt here is adding the lyrics to Lateralus by Tool on the back of the quilt.  I just quilted straight lines to make it easy.  And I used scrap fabric that coordinated for the binding.

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Did I mention that I make onesies?  I think I did a couple of other times.  I do, but I don’t sell them.  Just for gifts.

Check this cutie out! This is my friend Dani‘s niece.

She is TOO cute!  So cute, that I used the last of my wonderland fabric for her tie in the 2nd pic.

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I’m going to be doing Craft Saturday this month on April 30th, so I’ve been working on some crafts.

I made a rule for this show — I can’t buy any new supplies — only use what’s in my stash and scraps. That way I can reduce the clutter and save some cash.

I had half a mind to get rid of ALL of my crafting supplies when I moved last month, but I decided to keep some of it. I might have gone insane without it, but I was getting kind of burnt out. I needed to find something new and interesting and fun. No more crafting for OTHER people. It’s okay to craft for yourself. Sometimes. And the stuff you make doesn’t have to be useful (these are actually useful things I learned from Amy Sedaris’s book).

I present to you — little zippy pouches.

These cute little pouches are perfect for makeup bags, emergency kits for your purse, travel crafting supplies and many more uses. I’ve had one that I made a LONG time ago that I used for my makeup in my gym bag.  They were also a great project for scrapbusting. I’m a big fan of wonky asymmetrical patchwork and I made myself use ONLY what was in my scrap bag for these — so no cutting any new pieces.  There are 3 here, but I’ve got 5 made and will be making a few more. They’re kind of time consuming, but I enjoy making them, so I’m going to have a few for the show at the end of the month.

And yes, I’ve also decided my label is going on everything. It will go on the inside of most of my stuff, but I thought it made these pouches look a bit more finished and since they’re scrappy to begin with, I thought it was a nice touch.

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A long time ago I created a TON of blocks for what was going to become my ugly string quilt. I quickly realized that entirely too much work goes into making a quilt for me to purposely make an ugly one. And my blocks weren’t turning out as nice as I hoped (ie. nothing was lining up because I have no patience). So instead, I used the blocks I’d made to make potholders using this tutorial.

In case you’re extremely curious as to how to make string blocks, I used this tutorial to create these blocks.

EDIT (December 2011): If you’re going to make potholders that work, be sure to use Insulbrite instead of regular batting.

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wow. I don’t remember the last time I did a giveaway, but I think it’s high time I do another.

What am I giving away? Well, how about a camera case (which can also be used for phones and iPods)?

Gotta love the cute little birdies fabric. One of my favorites!

How do you win, you say? Well … it’s easy.  Sort of anyway. It really is just the luck of the draw.

TO ENTER:

1. Comment on this post with your name (be sure to leave a valid e-mail address in the comment box— don’t worry, it’s not published), and what’s currently spinning in your CD player/iPod/record player
2. For a 2nd entry, tweet about this giveaway (be sure to mention @chimes so I know you’ve entered again)
3. For a 3rd entry, blog about the giveaway — post the link to the blog post in the comments box so I know where to find it.

Thanks for playing, and I will announce a winner on August 1 by using the random integer generator.

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I’m still working through Denyse Schmidt Quilts and I’ve decided to make one of the actual QUILTS instead of one of the mini projects.

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m kind of in love with square blocks created from strips (mendocino, wonky log cabin and repro fabrics). They’re easy. They’re fun. They’re practically effortless. Just cut the strips and go.

There’s a quilt in the book called What a bunch of squares which isn’t quite as effortless, but it’s a very clean and modern quilt. It caught my attention because it isn’t too far of a venture from what I’ve been doing, but it’s different enough that I won’t end up with yet another set of wonky log cabin blocks.

I’m also stepping out of my comfort zone by using colors I don’t normally use (blue, beige and brown) and by using mainly solids. I’m big into patterns, and I haven’t really delved into solids just yet.

I began this project last Friday night — the night I had set aside to finish a bunch of other WIPs (the boy was at a bachelor party canoe trip all weekend and I like to be a hermit from time to time). Of course, as per usual, I managed to start YET ANOTHER project instead of finishing all the ones I had intended to finish.

I think I got a bee in my bonnet when a co-worker mentioned that she might ask me to make a baby blanket but she didn’t know if her friend was having a boy or a girl. I realized that I haven’t really made anything that looks “boy-ish” and I thought I’d try my hand at it.

I’m making 25 blocks — then I’m going to put a 3-or-more-inch border of white around them and sew them together. Not sure what size the final blocks are going to be, but the idea is that each of the inside squares are a bit different so that they look more like they’re floating when the quilt is put together.

These aren’t too exciting yet, but I wanted to post what I’ve got going just to show colors. Seriously guys. No pink.

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