CRUUUUUUUUUUISE!!!

well, my boyfriend surprised me today by booking our cruise!! we had been talking about it for a while now, but he went ahead and did it!! we'll be going november 28-december 6th, on royal carribean! leaves from puerto rico, ges to aruba, dominica, curacau, and st thomas! OMG! i can't even put enough exclamation points to convey my excitement!!! plus, you know this is a great excuse to shop for things like carry on bags, bathing suits, and cute summer wear! right at the peak of summer sales! eeee! so, needless to say we're so excited and now can't wait for the next five months to fly by!! :D

here's the link to the ship we'll be on, check out all of the awesome things to do:
voyager of the seas

if you have any stories or advice on cruising, please feel free to share! xo i'm sure i'll be posting more about this as time goes on!

summertime sunshine quilt.

new in the shop! :)


i also spent the afternoon working on my custom order, and the top is finally done.. now to add the borders and backing, and to figure out how i want to top stitch it! since the onesies are stretchy, i don't want to shift it all out of whack. hmmm....

can't believe the weekend is almost over! :(

score!

well, we made the trek up about 45 minutes in the half-sun half-rain morning to go to the slummy surplus store that for some reason carries discounted fabrics (of my dreams! seriously!). i only make the trip up every six months or so, but its always worth it (if you can ignore your surroundings and focus on the search at hand). last time we went, i scored 6+ yards of denyse schmidt's flea market fancy sprouts in yellow (you can see a bit of it in my blog banner!), which is extremely hard to find since it is out of print, and can be very very expensive (i won't tell you what i paid, but it runs $20+ a yard on ebay, and i paid under $5 a yard!). i had wanted to buy the entire bolt but didn't want to go too crazy since i had some other things to buy. today we went up with the sole purpose of finding more, and i got THE LAST TWO YARDS. omg. i also got some other goodies, mostly to use as quilt backings. but i got about 20 yards of fabric for under $60!! regularly priced, it would have run me probably close to $200!

so, now that i've gotten a good bargain this weekend, i'm ready to lock myself in my sewing room tomorrow and work on some projects!!! first on the list, my custom order. second on the list, topstitching a quilt for the shop!

inspiration.

i'm dying for some inspiration here on this stormy rainy day (though it seems to have let up a bit since i got out of work...)! here are some things to make it all a little brighter around here :) enjoy your weekend!!

switch-eroo!!

recently we decided (due to noisy neighbors) to switch our bedroom and sewing room. ...i was hesitant at first, because that meant a smaller bedroom, but now that i get a larger sewing room its all good! ;) here are a few photos of the new setups, you can see the before-s if you scroll down a bit to some previous entries...

bedroom:







sewing room (& upstairs lounge area!)--

CELEBRATION!

tomorrow marks my 3rd year anniversary of selling on etsy! littlelegwarmers has been very successful and so much fun.. and i can't wait to continue creating and sharing with you! to celebrate, all items in the etsy shop are on sale! new items, of course, to come in the next couple of months! thanks for all of the support, and take advantage of this sale while you can! here's to another three years!
xoxo

brooke

hex's.

so even though my current stack of work looks something like this:
--1 custom quilt (cut out only)
--3 small/crib quilts (top sewn) that need borders, backing, binding for the shop
--1 flying geese quilt (top only 1/4-1/2 sewn) for the shop
--1 log cabin quilt (in the process of making the blocks) for the shop
aaaaand i'm trying (not as hard as i should be, obviously) to beef up the stock in my shop for the summer...

i still sat down this afternoon and started paper piecing some hexagons for a grandmother's flower garden quilt (for the shop). its going to be a lot of work since its almost completely hand sewn, but i had the itch to start the hex's and see how quickly (or not) i could do them. i am using a Swell charm pack (by Moda) for some of the hex's, and once i get those finished i'll just have to see where i need to go from there (30's repro?).



i'm the queen bee procrastinator, unless i have a super new project i can't wait to try. its just like when i was in college-- dying my hair was way more fun than writing papers! papers waited until the night before they were due! ;) that being said, no more hex's for tonight, and if i do any more sewing (we're supposed to be going out to the movies in a couple of hours..), then i'll be working on my custom order. and after that i'll be working on either my log cabin or my flying geese. the hex's...well....i'll just have to work on them while i'm watching tv or something.

because i'm kind of addicted.

east end beach.

pat and i got up early this morning because it was just too beautiful outside to sleep in.. we walked the two blocks to the Front Room restaurant, and sat outside for breakfast. ate way too much :) afterwards, we walked the next three blocks or so down to the eastern promenade, and went over to the east end beach to bask in a little bit more sunshine, before heading back home to be somewhat productive (i spent a couple hours cleaning up, putting away laundry, and meandering back and forth on some sewing projects).

onesies quilt..

sneak peek of the custom quilt i am making from onesies and great modern designer fabrics! i got all of the squares laid out this week, ready to start sewing! still deciding on border, backing, and binding fabrics. i chose to do just simple square blocks since the onesies' fabrics are stretchy knit and can be a bit more difficult to work with... but i think in the end its going to be perfect!