Fall Favorites

The past two weeks and the next few weeks are the only autumn days we get all year (and that weather is really only in the morning and evening), so I'm soaking it up.  I carved my first pumpkin (I know!), and it's quite pitiful.  Carved isn't the right word--more like drilled holes into it. All over. Sadly it's already moldy and I'm liking the idea of painting pumpkins more and more.

Lots of people are getting tired of Pinterest, and sometimes I have to agree.  It's as if people cannot even fathom creativity without copying something from Pinterest!  Inspiration can come from all over--like these sweet burlap pennants I spotted in Atlanta.  They will be darling in a little girl's room!

Other than the nice weather and fun projects, my most favorite thing about fall is my birthday!!!  I have secretly been loving this Ex Voto Vintage necklace.  I really want a thick silver toggle chain with a vintage silver locket or charm!!  Philip, are you reading this?  Of course not.

(borrowed from Simply Seleta)

On another random note, I joined a book club!  It's my first one, so I still don't really understand why I was one of two who actually read the book.  By the way, it was one of the worst books I have ever read. The major themes were AIDS, poverty, drugs, and Buddhism.  Really. Maybe that's why no one else read it... Our new book is Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.  There were 235 holds on it at the library, so I broke down and bought it.  The next meeting is at my house in two weeks, so I better start reading!

Lovely Onesies

I just love little applique onesies, but I don't have an embroidery machine.  Or a baby.  But I do have a friend with one, so I always use her to try out my baby projects.  Following Ellison Lane Quilt's applique tutorial and Daffodil Disign's template (who also has an adorable giraffe!), I made these two darling onesies.  The onesies were $5 each from Old Navy, but I saw the cute ones with puff sleeves at Wal-Mart for $3.  The fabric used is leftover from other baby projects.  No embroidery machine necessary--the tutorial calls for a zigzag stitch around the designs, but my friend really wanted a straight stitch.  It was SO easy to trace the pattern, iron the Heat-n-Bond for two seconds, cut the pieces, iron them on, and stitch.  And, they're SO cute! I can't wait to see how they look on the baby!

Hoppity Hooray!

I have been waiting for my sewing fatigue to fade so I could make this sweet softie bunny from Sew4Home, so I finally bought the chenille dot that I didn't have.  That was all the inspiration I needed!  By the way, Chenille Magic has the best clearance section, AND they let your order just a quarter yard.  That is nearly impossible to find!  I got the cotton yellow dot to go with the Amy Butler leftovers from Selah's quilt and a mint dot on clearance to go with my baby bedding for my future children (that's another story).

This was a perfect Saturday morning project because I could catch up on all the Olympics news and cut the pattern pieces.  It took me about 3 hours--4 if you consider the fact that I am terrible at slip stitching and had to watch like 15 YouTube videos and start over twice before kind of figuring it out.  This is a wonderful, simple pattern that is perfect for gifting.  It's just too cute!

Perfect Pinwheels

Well, almost perfect! This is my first attempt at a real quilt (sorry, Margaret, I had no idea what I was doing with Selah's!). I would rate this design a 4 out of 5 stars on the difficulty. I probably should have started out with something much simpler, but I am so proud that I made it work! (Typing that makes me remember all of the times my machine came to a screeching halt, and I would look up at Philip with my most pitiful WHY-does-this-only-happen-to-me-when-I-want-to-sew face, and Philip would do his best Tim Gunn impression and say, "Make it work.") By the way, in the last post on this quilt, I was getting wildly irritated by my machine not wanting to sew through four thin layers of fabric. Thanks to my dear friend who happens to be a sewing genius, Mrs. Rush, I realize I had the needle in backwards--so yes, it does matter which way the flat side is facing. This quilt is made of four main pinwheels each with two coordinating fabrics, plus the white cotton. Fabric.com has a Design Board that makes it easy to pick fabrics you like, narrow it down to what goes together, and easily order.  Plus, they always have online coupon codes for free shipping and 10-15% off.

 

The back is a floral pattern of green roses.

This is my favorite quilt square, which happened by mistake! I originally had a white fabric with tall pink flowers called Dandelion. It's hard to tell online that it is giant, making my 2 1/2" triangles pretty much just white with a random pink line somewhere. I had another "make it work" moment and used the back side of the stripe fabric from Margaret's quilt.  Her quilt was much brighter, so the "inside out" side worked just fine.

The actual "quilting" part of the quilt was the hardest for me since I hand quilted the last one.  I used a cardboard template to cut four stripes and a pattern marker to make tiny little scores in the fabric as my guide.  I quilted every other square in a left to right, top to bottom pattern because it would have been madness to do every square.  I pretty much would have died without the Diary of a Quilter's Beginner Quilting Series.  This girl is brilliant, and so very patient to explain so much confusion!

It's a Charmer!

So I wanted to try my skill at quilt making, and I quickly became obsessed with Amy Butler quilts on Etsy [like this one here]. Side note: just buy one... it's probably worth it. Anyway, I figured a baby quilt would be the most manageable, but since I didn't have any friends who were expecting, I thought I'd put that off for a couple of years. Then Margaret announced she was having a baby!!! So, in honor of the upcoming arrival of Selah Grace, I completed my first charm quilt.

I'm pretty sure Margaret was not 100% on this color palette when I bought all of these fabrics!

The hardest part was cutting the strips that formed the outside frames and the inside squares.

(My favorite picture!!!!)  I sewed each square, pressed the seams, sewed each row, pressed the seams, and then sewed the rows to each other. After sandwiching Warm and Natural baby batting between the squares and double sided minky, I stitched it all the way around.

The last step was the real quilting part: hand stitching the quilt squares to the batting so it can be washed without losing its shape. I love this quilt, and I can't wait to see Selah playing on it on the lawn! Ok, maybe not outside with grass all over the bottom but maybe in the living room under a play mat.

The Flat Forest

So I'm loving collecting nursery inspiration from real (read: not designer) baby rooms for my friend's nursery. Such fun to pretend!  What I am not loving are all of the highly rated photographs on Rate My Space with those awful wall decals.  Other than the fact that everyone has their child's name or monogram plastered on a wall, I am beside myself with these trees.  Who knew?

This example from RMS has 3-D objects (I am guessing birds) actually glued to the wall.  Love the lavender, but nurseries have so much potential.  And they don't have to be redone after one or two years if the decor is tasteful.  Since commoners, like myself, have not found a chic way to display this "art" I turned to Etsy.  Ha, I found 5,703 tree wall decals.  Very cheesy.  Surely at least one could look right?  Well, after about 15 pages, I gave up.  But I was happy to see some of them being offered in matte finish. The only thing worse than putting an 8 foot tree sticker on your baby's wall is putting a shiny tree sticker on the wall (or maybe putting the trees in your living room, as many Etsy sellers are advertising).  Just say no to wall stickers in the bedroom.  Maybe a playroom with tons of natural light.  Maybe.

Life as We Know It

Just when you think everything in life is slow and unchanging, something happens in someone else's life and changes yours. I get so bored with my [thankfully] uneventful life full of home-cooked dinners and daily this and that. My very dear friend is expecting her first child. Of course I'm thrilled/shocked/excited, but it's strange how much my friend's 4000-mile-away life is making me realize how unready I am for so much change. I am trying to find peace in the mundane and simpleness of life before an 8lb. persons changes everything. Wishing her only the happiest moments parenthood brings, I am committed to volunteering for decorating, pampering, babysitting, and helping her find the best maternity jeans available. :) And Merry Christmas!!