tiny art mini quilts.

new in the shop!!

i'm so excited to introduce a new selection of
mini (and i mean, so tiny!) art quilts!
the smallest one is only 8x8" <3
more on the way, but for now, check them out!

brand new for fall!

check out the new Echino "Chelsea" pillow
in the shop!

once i can get around to it, i'll be heading to the store for some new quilt batting and some pillow forms, to stock up for fall/winter. i'm doing two custom projects this fall (a car/truck quilt for a 4 year old boy, and a new baby's nursery quilt and two matching pillows), but still hope to get some new items up in the shop when i can. i have a Heather Ross Far Far Away quilt in the works right now (blocks are sewn up), and about five or six others planned out awaiting their turns (little red riding hood themed, heather bailey's fresh cut, and erin michael's lush ...to name a few!). so stick around. schoolwork & the custom work will be at the top of the list, but i can't wait to create some new things to share with everyone!

work in progress.

custom quilt (baby boy)...

<3

it was a nice sunny day so i opened up the curtains and enjoyed some time in my sewing room this afternoon...

working on a custom boy baby quilt:

and i scored 6 yards of this discontinued denyse schmidt county fair fabric this weekend, at a totally discounted price!!

a few charm packs that are just waiting to get made into quilts for the shop:

birthday present from my boyfriend:

our "garden"!!


<3

here's what we did instead:

so, this was supposed to be a somewhat easy project. we figured, how hard could it be to re-upholster our living room chair? initially we had wanted to just use the staple gun... until we found out there wasn't anything inside the chair to staple the fabric into (the faux leather certainly wasn't going to hold it..).

SOOOO... i ended up sewing the covers for the two large cushions, and we lucked out with the arms-- they had wood inside the edges so we got to staple those! but DAMN. the project overall took us about five hours from start to finish. we had to take apart the chair completely, and that large of a pile of nuts and bolts scares me to no end.. but luckily pat was there to do that part and put it all back together. i just had to work with the fabric. he did help measure and cut, though. by the end of it, i had a small mental breakdown, but i love the end result.

the chair was one pat had in his old apartment, and i had hated the faux leather and wanted something more modern looking to go with our black and white decor in here. we'd wanted to get a new chair next time we went to ikea, but we just saved ourselves some money since the fabric only cost me about twenty bucks on etsy! i'll be so excited when we get into a new apartment and have a great "new" chair to use! and i have just enough leftover to cover a pillow or two for our sofa (which is a whole other story and i can't wait to get something to replace our hideous brown plaid ;))!

anyway, onto the photos. they will tell the story better than i can. unfortunately, i didn't get any pictures of when i was freaking out, or when i stapled the fabric onto the arms completely backwards and had to re-do it. too bad ;) [pardon the terrible photos with the awful flash. click on each one to see it larger.]










and for reference, here is what the chair looked like before:


and here's the rest of our living room (these were taken before i re-did the mantle):

what i should have been doing today:

finishing the top quilting on this quilt for my shop:


i worked on it all last night with intentions of finishing it today, but instead we reupholstered our living room chair. more on that in our next post ;)

around the room(s).

i have a couple of projects brewing for this weekend... but before i get started, i wanted to share a few more photos from around my sewing room.

i got some amazing new art from a fabulous etsy shop. eventually i want to get frames for them, but for now they're just hanging off of my shelf, alongside some of my valentines day flowers which are getting dried out (on purpose).




on the sewing table, you'll find my stack of fabrics for my bedroom projects. on the left side, big squares for our bedquilt (fabrics from echino, anna maria horner, joel dewberry, amy butler, and more). in the middle, four new anna maria horner fabrics to be made into a set of pillowcases. above that and to the right, scraps and more fabrics (from echino, anna maria horner, joel dewberry, amy butler, and more) to be made into a set of quilted pillow shams and two or three throw pillows. i have a lot of work ahead of me! but i'm excited to finally get started, considering i collected some of this fabric for this occassion back last summer. whoops ;)


this isn't in the sewing room, but i have to share anyway! also, from etsy, i purchased some little perfume oils, and i've been having a hard time choosing just one to wear each day! they all smell awesome.... i wanted to keep them all laid out pretty, but with the cats thats probably not going to last long; so now they're in a cute little bowl in the bathroom.


and last but not least, my new door mat <3 you'll probably notice it in some of the new photos in my etsy listings! ;)


happy weekend everyone!! xo

progress.

i tried to get a bit of sewing done, some catching up on quilt tops i had started but left partially done. adding borders, grids, and just generally finishing up. i also got the remainder of the zig zags done on the mint & orange colored quilt, but i'm still trying to decide on a border.

[click each one to see it larger..]










next on the sewing table: red/aqua/white!

project #2 for today: sewing "room" redo

well, when we moved the living room around, we sort of just tossed my sewing area back together on the other side of the room. after spending a week trying to sew, and realizing that the space wasn't efficient or pretty, i decided today was a good day to fix it. eventually when we move and i hopefully have an even larger space to work with, i'll do more with the walls and add a cool lounge-ing chair, and buy a new work station table and chair. but for now, this will have to do. i organized EVERYTHING today, dug out some little bowls to hold small things like buttons and trims, and purchased a neato birdcage (and bird) to hold my ribbon spools. (pat won't stop making fun of me for buying the birdcage!) i moved the hanging lamp from the bedroom that we never used in there, and now i have sufficient lighting, which was a problem before.. i can't wait to get a new table, the one i'm using is an old dining room table that is my mom's that she won't let me paint because she eventually wants it back (good reason! ;))-- the only good thing about it is that it has leaves that fold up and down if i need them or want to tuck it away quietly. you can see the 2nd half of a quilt i'm in the midst of, ontop of it (the 1st half is hanging on the wall to the right...).

okay, onto the photos....
[click each photo to see it larger]

here's the before:

and here's the now: