Anyway, the optimistic quality often comes through at times when it can be frustrating to others.  Case in point – when I’m 15 miles from the house (all suburban, not interstate, mind you) I’ll tell my husband that I should be there (home) in 15 minutes.  Considering that not a single road has the speed limit of 60mph, and that there are ALWAYS red lights, oh yes, and OTHER cars on the road, that “15 minutes” is actually 35.  Maybe even 40.  But its not that I’m trying to lie… its that I really think I can do it.  And I never give up 

When I started this quilt, much like every other quilt I’ve started, I’ve thought “I’ll have this one done in 10 hours”.   HA! Talk about the understatement (or most grandiose optimistic statement) of the year!!!  I think piecing the nine blocks took 10 hours alone.  Then piecing and adding the white sashing (2 hours).  Then cutting and piecing the quilt back (3 hours). Then sandwiching (30min).   Then {insert most idiotic quilt move to-date} creating grid quilting pattern with masking tape (2hours).  Then quilting (3 or 4 hours).  THEN THE TWENTY PLUS HOURS OF REMOVING SAID MASKING TAPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

****please, for those new to quilting, don’t ever eveR evER eVER EVER use masking tape to grid the quilt.  Now, after the fact, I’ve heard that plenty of people have used painters tape.  I’m scared to try any tape at the moment, because this experience was so traumatic!

Picture the horrific sight of me sitting there for, yes – 20 hours- with tweezers in hand picking off the left over sticky bits from the blasted masking tape.    Then, even after I got all the visible sticky bits off, after washing, it was apparent by the lint attached in certain areas that there was UNSEEN stickiness left!  So, for another 3 or so hours, I sat there picking off the stuck on lint and the rest of the stickiness with the tape-on-tape trick.

And finally, after … let me add this up… 45 hours… my dad had quilt in hand and was grinning from ear to ear.  It was so sweet to see him so moved.

Happy Birthday, Dad!  I love you!  And Dad, please don’t get the idea that you weren’t worth the 45 hours… it was that I had expected it to be 10.  haha…

(i’ll be uploading the larger pics in a few hours!)

At Discover Sewing, where I got my sewing machine, great classes are offered every month.  August I signed up for a yoke dress class and had no idea what I was getting into! I started out by picking an adorable lady bug fabric by fabric finders, and then started the cutting.  And cutting. And cutting.  The pattern is “Lee”  by The Children’s Corner.

This was not only my first dress construction, but also my first smocking project.  The night before I started this dress I bought a book on smocking and did a little “crash course”.   It was neat watching my friend, Amanda, pleat the yoke.  And from there we “blocked” it, or squared it off to be ready for smocking.  I’m grateful to have a friend that has smocked (and sewn) and truly ridiculous amount of young girls clothing.

So I went to work on the smocking.  It took me weeks to get there, because after only 45 min or so, my eyes would start to lose the ability to focus!  I probably should invest in an Ott light!

When the smocking of the yoke was finally completed, I was ready (and eager!) to get the dress constructed!  What a learning curve!  Most of the things were pretty straight forward, but the part that was the hardest for me, and the most time intensive was attaching the sleeves to the yoke.  They were just tiny holes and really hard to manipulate with a standard sewing machine.  Amanda was at my rescue, and when I had almost reached the point of yanking my hair out, she oh-so-politely asked if she could “just borrow the dress for a few minutes”.  She was so considerate because she knew that it was really important for me to do the dress “all by myself” (yes, like a 5 year old!), but I just couldn’t get this right.  So once the arms were attached, I was successfully up and running again.

The last few hours of the project were spent doing the handwork stuff, like adding in the buttons, sewing the sleeve edges in, and sewing down the 1/2″ lining thing that goes just around the neck (can’t remember what its called!).  The dress was finally completed, and both my husband, Matt, and I were truly amazed at how cute it was.   I had decided about 10 hours into the project when I realized that this might turn out somewhat acceptable, that I would give it to my neice, McKenna, for her 2nd birthday.  It was very well received by her parents, and they said as soon as it fits her, they’ll send me a photo with it – and they promised to neither give it away or feed her spaghetti while wearing said dress   All good things!

Curi and I have been friends since our then-boyfriends, now-husbands worked together in college.  I guess that means I’ve known her for over 8 years!  We’re fortunate enough that we live close to each other, and try to get together for coffee or lunch relatively often.  She’s a super busy SAHM of 3!

We always try to exchange birthday gifts, and this year, Curi had said she would love an apron – and her only requests were pink and brown.  After a lot of digging around, and not much that made me thrilled, I decided to go with a Sandi Henderson print that had a lot of pink and brown, but also touches of cream and blue – and a coordinating polka dot print to further bring out the brown.  I used the pattern from Indygo Junctions “Ruffled Chef”.  I’m tempted to go purchase the Amy Butler apron pattern now – I can see how easy it is to get addicted to these!

I hope she’s thrilled with it!  I certainly love the way it turned out – maybe she’ll let me take a picture of her in it so I can post here!

My friend, Jennifer W., has the nickname of “BFF”.  Since I have about 400 friends named Jennifer, the concept of nicknames was so that when I am talking to Matt about one, it was clear which one I was referring to.  I think we were joking one day about being BFF’s, and that we should get matching necklaces, etc, and BFF just stuck.  BFF is a huge Georgia fan.  Probably the biggest one I know of.  (which is good.. cause I don’t want too many of them around, and I happen to really like her)     So I saw this fabric, and thought it would be perfect for her to use as a purse. 

I started with an Amy Butler bag – the Swing Bag (see below).  It turned out great!  But.. I’m a sucker for the boxed edges.  I just love the fuller look it gives the bags, and I’m not one that’s much for pointy edges.  You’ll never see me wearing those high heels or boots that have a point that sticks out 3 feet past the toe.  I would certainly break both ankles.  Not good.  Instead, I wear the stubby toe shoes, like mary janes!  Hence.. my bags have the same look

I also didn’t bother with the sash (big poofy ribbon).  I really thought that it detracted from the bag, and I wanted that pretty fabric to stand out!  The interior is a really pretty coordinating red.  I did the handles reverse of the bag, and wish I had the fabrics stay on their respective side.  All in all a really nice bag that I’d be happy to make again.  Did I mention that it requires ZERO interfacing or stabilizer??  A very rare thing indeed, for an Amy Butler pattern.  I was quite happy with that! 

With the boxed edges, the bag has a really nice depth to it!

I love the way the black zigzag reinforcement looks – I wasn’t sure how it would turn out… but quite nice 

This came from her book “little stitches for little ones”.  No, no babies on the way for me at the present time, but a ton of my friends are pregnant and/or with little ones at home.  This is meant to be a full body baby wrap, that is then tied to keep them all snuggled and secure.

My very close friend, Karen, gave birth to Laura Catherine on July 4th, and I thought that this would be a super cute gift for her.  I made this in size 3-6 months, knowing Karen would get more use out of it in the winter, rather than now, at the peak of summer.  She and her husband, Matt, were waiting to find out what they were having, so I was on the edge of my seat waiting as well!  Would I get to sew up cute girlie things or cute boyish things??

I apologize for the coloring of this – the lining of this snuggie wrap is a gray/brown fleece, but here it looks like it has a much more yellow hue to it.  I was so happy with how quickly this came together.  It was really a nice, easy project to get done in the weekend that they baby was born.  The only difficulty came with opening the buttonholes.  I accidentally snagged one, and had to use some stabilized and over-sewing to fix it. (Thanks, Diana, for the save!)

I wanted to go ahead and get my feet wet regarding interfacings, stabilizers and embroidery.  I sure did with this tote.

The sweetest little girl, Sarah, lives across the street from us, and always takes care of our animals when we’re out of town.  She’ll come over to just chat, and often brings us fresh baked cookies, just ’cause   A girl after my own  heart, indeed!  Well, she leaves for sleep-away camp in about a week, and I thought that this, filled with goodies to take with her, would be a nice send-off.

Aside from the enormous mistakes that I’ve been able to (mostly) hid, the bag came out pretty well.  I because well-acquainted with some of the different interfacings, as well as stabilizers.  And best of all, I finally got to make use of my embroidery unit! Yay!

The brown ribbon at the top was used to cover up some mistakes, but it turns out that I really like what it did for the bag.  It definitely gave it a little more flair, which is always good!

Here’s the pattern front:

The fabrics used for this were purchased at Wee Scotty in San Francisco.  The dots and stripes go so nicely together, I think.

UPDATE: Sarah adored the bag! I was thrilled!  Until I told them that  I had made it, they thought I had purchased this bag and simply had it embroidered at the store.  Nice compliment, indeed

I wanted to start small enough that I would be able to accomplish, but cool enough to keep me challenged. When I was in San Fran last week, browsing sewing machines at Wee Scotty, they had this apron on display. Its the “ruffled chef” by indygo junction.

I loved the ruffles, and that I had the option of the full or half apron.

Whatcha think?

I decided I’d send it to my Mom – she always supports me so wholeheartedly, and I thought she’d like to have my very first-ever sewing project.

Next project – Amy Butler’s Chelsea Tote.