Goodie #1

First, I made an embroidered wall hanging of sorts.  I took my inspiration from an amazing canvas my best friend got for me that says “A Handmade Life.”  I thought a little change, a little embroidery, and a fun Ikea frame would make it a fun something for my swap partner.  I used spray adhesive to attach the linen to the frame backing.  I hope it holds up.

Goodie #2

Next, I made a 20 inch pillow cover using Crazy Mom Quilts Ticker Tape quilt as inspiration.  A little cyber-stalking clued me in that my partner might like this, and I used the Hope Valley line because I thought it might match something I saw in her Flickr feed.  The back is one of the striped fabrics from the line, and I used a flap closure.  And, the border is Kona Coal, which goes really nicely with the line.  You might see more of these!  I would love to make some for our bedroom.

Goodie #3

The last of the somethings I made was the one I was most unsure of.  It is a little pin cushion made out of linen and some Heather Bailey charm squares I had.  It is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I hope my partner likes it.  It might have particular meaning for her.

First, my wife, Alie, really liked the canvases that I made of my favorite scrapbooking paper.  These are the ones that I made for me a long time ago.   They worked really well in the old house, shorter ceilings.  In the new house, they need to be added to.  But, that is something easy to fix.

So, for Christmas, I made Alie a set of her own!  They came out really cute. I was very happy with them, and most importantly, so was she!

I also made a set of the rough edge letters I found on Sew Mama Sew and Happy Together for my friend’s little girl.  I thought they would be a cute way to play with spelling, etc.  If I make another set, I will make duplicates of the most popular letters, so they are easier to use.

To keep them all together, I picked up a little suitcase at Paper Source with the hope they wouldn’t just become more clutter.  I love the way they turned out and can’t wait to make more for other little boys and girls in my life!

I am looking forward to the crafting potential for next Christmas.  I have some big ideas!  And, I have some fun crafty stuff to share that we have been able to accomplish at our house too!  I have to get home to take pictures though.

Right now, we are in the midst of the great blizzard of 2010!  So funny that in eight short weeks, my son has seen two/three blizzards in an area that doesn’t normally get this much snow.  Crazy!

But, for now, I thought that I would share this….my virtual to-do list if you will.  I am an idea collector, and my friends send me ideas as well.  So, I finally set-up somewhere to collect them!  Check it out!

This is a quilt that I have already talked about a great deal in this space, so I won’t go through all the details again.  But, like my entry from last Spring, it was a quilt that had been saved.  This is how it started.

And, the reason I love it so much is that it is one of the most loved quilts I have ever made.  So, again, thanks Amy for giving us a chance to share all our pretties!  You rock!  And, everybody, please go check out everyone’s great work!

This is the Isabella Chair from Pottery Barn.  We love the one in red.  But, we didn’t love the price tag.  No way that we could justify spending almost $600 for four chairs for a table that was less than $75.  So, we headed down to the Virginia Bazaar to see what we could find. And, again, we hit pay dirt!

We found four chairs that look almost exactly like these that I found on this site (I was too lazy to go out to the garage and take pictures of ours).  And, now that I have seen these chairs, although they are in better shape, I am realizing that the $5 a piece we paid for the four we got made them an amazing deal.  They seem to be circa early 1900′s.  Like I said, ours aren’t in amazing shape.  They need some wood glue and new seats.  We are also going to paint them this color.

It is a great Behr color. And, it will really make the chairs pop.  What is the dilemma you might ask?  Well, the pretty blue gingham fabric on the existing seat covers isn’t going to cut it.  And, I have been looking for some fun fabric that will look great in our kitchen and allow us to pull in a lot of other colors in the same hue as the red above.  And, I have narrowed my choices down to these two.

The first you might recognize as Alexander Henry’s Mocca.  And, I have some of this downstairs.  It is a print I love, but I am concerned about how well it will hold up because it isn’t really decorator or upholstery weight.  The second is a specialty organic fabric from an awesome designer,Daisy Jane , that I have been eying for a while.  It is definitely pricey, but it is perfect, and I love it!

My dilemma is which one?  Now, I know what most of you will say.  With a baby on the way, expensive fabric that we going to be sitting on is probably not a good idea.  But, that is why it is a dilemma.  I am wondering if this should be our one spot to splurge on this project, particularly since we wouldn’t need a ton for the four chairs.

Update on the chairs can be found here!

My favorite quilt that I have ever worked on is actually not one that I made, well completely.  It is the generational quilt I posted about last summer that I made for my mother-in-law.

This was made from a quilt top pieced by my husband’s great-grandmother.  The piecing was by hand, so I decided to quilt it by hand as well.

Needless to say, it took me quite a long time to get it all done.  I loved the pattern, and it made for a really pretty back, which is warm flannel!

I love the way it came out and that I was able to add my own little touch with the binding.

The funniest part was that I really didn’t like the quilt top until I got it all quilted.  Taught me a valuable lesson about judging a quilt top before it’s finished!

So, thanks Amy for creating such a fun time to share our pretties!

I thought I would share the second installation of handmade Christmas.  Yes, I know Easter on Sunday.  Yes, I know that it is April, but I am slow.  This handmade gifting is still a little new for me.

So, without any further ado here are the gifts that went to the family from the midwest.

• Starting with my father-in-law’s quilt, this is truly a man quilt.  It is made with a cheater flannel for the blocks on the front, and it is bound, backed, and batted (wow, there are a lot of “b” words in quilting) with flannel.  After it was washed, it was this yummy, heavy quilt that would be perfect for a cold day.  It was hard to part with this one!  But, I did.  And, it is loved in its new home.

• The other quilt I “made” was for my brother-in-law.  I already posted about this one asking for advice.  Ultimately, I left it the way it was, and it was loved as well!  Now, I am just hoping that Sam will actually use it!
• Next, I made the my nephews crayon and colored pencil rolls.  And, as I posted before, I love these little things.  They are particularly great for little boys that want to draw.  And, mom is loving having a quick set of crayons to take to dinner.  I was most interested in the fact that the three year old put away each crayon after he used it!  That made Mom much happier with them too!

• To create a reusable gift bag for each kid, I just went to Hobby Lobby and got canvas and denim bags.  With a quick bit of fusible interfacing, I added a monogram for each child.  It was an easy way to gather up all their goodies.  And, I felt great that it wasn’t a huge tone of wrapping that just got thrown away.

• For my sister-in-law, it was a cute, cheater panel table runner.  There will be more of these in my future.  The pattern is super cute, and it was a great way to practice my stippling a little more.  (Sorry for the awful picture on this one!)

• And, finally, for my mother-in-law, I made a quick little apron to accompany her crafty gift card.  The apron is nothing overly complicated, but I really have fun doing these. It is the same pattern I used for my giveaway apron back in December.  They are just a dish cloth with a tie and some binding.  The colors on this one are pretty cool, and I was happy to be able to add a little something handmade with the rest of her gift.

So, that wraps up the midwest portion of the Handmade Christmas.  Now all that is left to show off is the stuff for my family!  I will post that soon, so I can finally get this all up and mark Christmas 2008 as actually done.

I thought I was taking a picture of the last snowfall of the year.  And, then we woke up this morning, exactly one month later, to this!

Can you believe it?  It will be April on Wednesday.  This seems like some sort of cosmic practical joke.  Last week, we were taking a tour of the yard looking at all that was starting to appear.  And last night, we wrapped everything that needed it in frost cloth, but we aren’t hopeful that all those cute little buds are going to make it.

Instead of just talking about the weird weather though I wanted to share what I forgot to add to my little blog list from the other day.

About a month ago, I tweeted that I had found a treasure.  It all started in January when Ali Edwards showed pictures of her new office space.   And, hiding amongst the pictures were those lockers!  I fell in love.  I couldn’t help it.  I started looking online and figured out pretty quickly that these little locker banks can be found if you are going for new ones, but they aren’t easy to locate otherwise, particularly from my current location in the middle of the United States, almost literally.

Then, I went to one of the “vintage” stores in town (really it is a junk store).  When the BGF and I arrived, we realized that the other true vintage stores in town had moved right next door.  It was awesome.  And, what did I spy outside but a beautiful set of lockers.  I called the boy and explained the situation.  I am not sure that he really knew what or why I wanted these little beauties, but he picked up on the excitement and said okay. He is so good that way. I don’t even think he knew that I had been looking for them.

I went inside immediately and claimed them as my very own.  The next day, we brought them home, borrowed a set of bolt cutters to get a few remaining locks off, and put them to immediate use in my office!

I can’t put into words how much I love them.  They are exactly what I was looking for and pretty reasonable considering I didn’t have to ship them to me. I love all the goodies I can stash away.

I haven’t decided whether or not I plan to paint them.  For now, I just content to have them here!  The cats even like them!  They are definitely my favorite junk store find ever.

But alas, the wife left for the next adventure last weekend, so I thought that I would share a little of what I gifted this holiday season.

As I have mentioned several times already, I was a little slow with Christmas this year.  I have been getting things done in “phases,” and the 25th of December was not, apparently, a good deadline for me to have.  I have two phases done, and one more still to complete.  Unfortunately, the gifts I still have left to do are for my family.  But, the good news is that in just a few weeks we are going home, so I am going to have them all done to take with me.

Until then, I thought I would share a few of the other goodies I made.  This is phase one!

First, I have a new favorite baby gift, thanks to Maya over at maya*made. In November, she posted about a simple gift that she has made for her own children and for others, and I have made quite a few of these since then.  This one is for my friend’s little boy that will arrive in just a few weeks.  And, I have a few others that still need to get to their recipients that I won’t post here quite yet.  I followed her idea to just use two pieces of flannel.  Sewn together, it is the perfect weight for a little receiving blanket.

Side note: I am a little bummed because I forgot to snag a picture of the one of these little blankets I made this season that I liked the best before it got on the plane last weekend.  So, I will have to see if I can track a picture of that one down still (hint..hint..)!

But, in addition to the little blanket above, I had a few other handmade goodies for my friend, Bonnie, and her family.  I posted a sneak peak of this table runner back in November.  Now that it has been delivered, I can share the finished product.

This is my spin on a little Hanukkah table runner.  (And, as everyone else is experiencing, pictures are hard in the winter, so please excuse the lighting of all these pictures.)  I thought it was holiday-ish without being overwhelming.  The candles were really fun to do!  And, the back is pieced as well, so you can always flip it over.  In hindsight, I probably would have actually quilted this one, but I wasn’t exactly sure how I wanted to do it, so I skipped it.

And, my favorite thing I made for them was also for their table.  I already posted a little bit about them here.

They came out so much better than I expected though!  And, that Lizzy Dish fabric couldn’t be more perfect. I used it on the back too, so they would be more versatile as the kids got older or if Bonnie wanted to change things up a little.

I know that more of these will be made as more and more of my friends are having kids.

And, last but not least, I got pretty good at the crayon rolls this  season.  These seemed to be a big favorite around blogland.  And, I know why.

They are so fun to make, and they are really useful to throw in your bag and take with you to the restaurant, etc, which I witnessed firsthand with my nephews over Christmas.

So, there’s phase 1 of Handmade Christmas 2008!  I will be back tomorrow with phase 2!

What do you usually sew? I am a quilt kinda girl.  But, lately, I have been breaking out into other areas like crayon rolls, bags, and most recently a set of place mats that I can’t wait to share.

When you shop for fabric, what size cuts do you usually buy? (i.e. If you see something beautiful, but you don’t have a use for it right away, how much do you buy?) If I have a purpose for it, I try to buy what I need, but if not, it depends how much I love it.  I tend to want to hoard fabrics that I love even if I don’t have a purpose for them.

Do you buy on impulse or do you go out looking for something you need? Most of my buying is with a purpose, but I have been stash building quite a bit recently.

Are you a pre-washer? If you are, do you wash your fabric before you need it, or only when you’re ready to use it? I should prewash more than I do.  Maybe if I just washed things as soon as I brought them home, I would be more consistent.  I am completely inconsistent with my prewashing.

Do you iron it? I always iron!  I like to have things pressed.

How do you sort it? (color, print size, collection, etc.) I did some reorganizing recently, and I tried to organize by color.  I think I really just grouped things by tones though.

Do you have any special folding techniques? Yup.  I read about it first on Crazy Mom Quilts.  And, she links here.  It is awesome and actually makes things easier to cut when I need them.

How do you store your fabric? Right now, I am using a really cool bookcase.  But, I am coveting this because the other one isn’t big enough.  It likely will become part of my new craft room wherever we move next.

What tips do you have for building up a well-rounded stash? I don’t know.  I don’t really feel like mine is well-rounded yet.  I have some stuff in there that I don’t love and would like to find a new home for.

When do you say enough is enough? I am not sure there is an “enough.”  But, I do know that I go through ebbs and flows as to whether I buy anything.  The neutrals are what I buy the most of.

What are some of your favorite stash-busting projects? Really, it would just be to go through my to do list and knock things out.

Do you have a current favorite print in your stash? Let’s see it! No specific favorites.  But, I have been loving the new basic grey lines and some of the Amy Butler stand-bys, particularly Daisy Chain.

What’s your definition of the perfect stash? For me, I think it would be a bunch of fabric that I would love to use.   Right now, I am getting closer to that, but like I said, there are some prints I need to weed out.