Scrappy Works for Me

 We finished a few quilts one morning for Project Linus. This was my favorite. I love scrappy randomness that has a bit of order to it. Just like life.




Make it a Wonderful Life!

Shibori, K, and Me

A few weeks ago, I spent a fun weekend with my college friends, K. She lives over an hour away- too far for getting together as often as we'd like. We have a great time going to see art, making art, and just hanging out. One of our activities this time was shibori. That's Japanese fabric dying with indigo. 

We prepared our cotton fabric by securing it with rubber bands or tying it with string- around stones, folded, fanned, scrunched, bunched…

We then dipped each piece in the bucket of indigo dye, moving the bundle with our gloved hands. (*Note, if you try this at home, make sure your glove doesn't have even the tiniest hole. My index finger was blue for a week! K used different gloves…her blue thumb lasted for days too.)

We strung up a make shift clothes line in our garage studio to let our fabric, t shirts, onesies, (and even a full-sized table cloth!) dry. And then we stood back to admire our work.

The one below was a gray t shirt- it took the dye a little differently…

We loved how each piece was a bit of a surprise when we opened it- with more practice, maybe our results would be a bit more predictable.

K had some onesies on hand- I dyed this one twice so the circles on the bottom half are more subtle than the larger one on the top.

I sewed my shibori squares to make napkins, complete with mitered corners.

And I found some napkins at a thrift store (Value Village) to add to the mix. I think they'll look great with my plain white dishes and some bright yellow daffodils for our Easter table.

Thanks K, it was a fun and productive weekend. :D

Make it a Wonderful Day!

Chicken Scratch Pillows

I love having my grands come to visit. The only thing better would be having them live up the street so they could come over to play more often. I know, I know. It's not gonna happen. A grandma can dream, right?

 

We've embroidered before, but this time we tried a little chicken scratch on pink gingham. Their initials were a good intro to this simple cross stitch. We drew a pattern on graph paper first, and then used pencil to draw it on the fabric. 

Macey decided to add some extra stitches to hers just for fun....

... And all the girls were pretty proud of their work!

Make it a Wonderful Day!

City Onesies

Kate and Jed live in New York City, so Beckham's a City Baby.

 

Some friends decorated onesies with ironed-on designs. 

Not wanting to assume his political leanings, he has both elephant and donkey logos...

Here are a few more, all on a variety of sizes.  

 When one of the husbands arrived after the get-together, he said he wanted to make one too. He's a scientist, so came up with the bubbling flask.

 Kate was 4 days overdue, so while we were waiting, we stitched every piece to make sure it was secure.
 It was a fun way to pass the time together. Oh, and the other thing we did was eat cake. Four pieces for the two of us at a cake shop called Lady M. Yes, we ate all four pieces. They asked if we were planning a party or something. We said  "um....no, we just couldn't decide which ones to get, they all looked so good!"

YUM...

signature12 layer crepe cake, mocha ganache cake

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Beckham agreed to pose in the laundry basket with the quilt I made for him. Kate says I can't leave the city without making a label for his quilt. Maybe this afternoon...if I can put him down long enough to sew a few stitches.

Make it a Wonderful Day!

Oakshott Cotton Giveaway

Check out the giveaway over at  Lily's Quilts



A Colourbox of 100 F8ths.
Oakshott shot cotton beauties.
I want to win, but I promise to be happy for you if you win and I don't. 


Make it a Wonderful Day!