Monthly Archives: January 2011

January 26, 2011 · 7:20 pm

WIP Wednesday #2

Yay for WIP Wednesday (hosted by freshly pieced)! I really love having the opportunity to keep track of all of the projects I have going on, and encouraging myself to check stuff off!

I met one major goal this week (it was also my One Thing, One Week Challenge): I finished the quilt top for my Project Modern 2 quilt! Here is just a sneak peek (I’ll post pics of the whole thing once it’s completed and I’ve sent my pictures to the MQG):

2. I also finished my Christmas ornaments. This wasn’t a sewing project, but I wanted to make it a priority all the same.

I decoupaged paper onto wooden blocks after I painted the edges of the blocks gold or silver. They look old and folksy – I love ‘em! I need to get an “H” for baby-to-be, but I’m leaving that for future Jenna to deal with next Christmas.

Those are my two completed tasks. Still to go are a couple of things I mentioned last week:

1. Alison’s Birthday Pillow Covers: I haven’t cut any fabric yet, but I did sketch out my patterns!

2. Christmas Sweater Pillow Covers: no progress

Then I came up with a couple of new project ideas:

1. One last Valentine’s Day pillow inspired by this picture from Better Homes and Gardens:

2. A quilt using these fabrics (I think) for baby-to-be. I love how bright, lime green looks with the deeper teals. It’s one of my favorite color pairings right now! And since baby will be living on a little blanket in the middle of the living room for quite some time, I might as well make something that jives with the house and makes me smile.

So in summary that is:

Projects Completed: 2 (well… I completed the *top* of the red quilt. Still have to make a back, baste, quilt, bind… <sigh>).

Projects in Progress: 4

See you next time! xoxo

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January 24, 2011 · 3:47 pm

One Week Challenge Completed!

Amy hosted another One Thing, One Week Challenge and I presented myself with a major task: complete the top of my monochromatic quilt for the Project Modern 2 Challenge. Challenges upon challenges, and I’m so happy to report that I did it!

So here’s a glimpse at the top: It’s not squared or pressed, and obviously it’s not quilted. It’s just a glimpse because I don’t want to spoil the whole thing before I submit it to the judges (dun dun DUN!).

I bought some variegated red thread at the quilt store this weekend and I’m excited to see how the quilting will enhance the movement of this project.

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January 19, 2011 · 6:58 pm

My First Work-in-Progress Wednesday

This is my first ever Work in Progress Wednesday, but I’ve been on a hot blogging streak, so I thought I’d join in! Check out the other WIP’s by hitting up the freshly pieced blog.

Here is my Project Modern 2 quilt pile: sea of reds ready to be pieced into blocks, squared, and sewn together. I bought my reds for the backing and binding, but this week I’m only focused on assembling the top (that’s my One Thing, One Week, Challenge!). I’m really nervous I’m going to hate this quilt, but I’m excited all the same. Here’s hoping it exceeds my expectations and even wins me some Kona Solids!

“But Jenna, this doesn’t look like anything!” … I know, right?!

As for any other projects I have going on…

1. Alison’s Birthday Pillow covers have been visualized in my mind and fabrics are purchased. They will be inspired by more Marca-Relli prints, like Grace’s Quilt I made for Christmas.

2. Sweater pillow covers for Christmas. I have the torsos left over from my Sweater Sleeve Wine Bags and I think they’d look cute as throw pillow covers for the holidays.

3. Another belated Christmas craft – I have a bag full of wooden, decoupaged ornaments that need hanging strings and some other ornaments that need full assembly. These are not really sewing crafts, but important to me all the same : ) I really want to get these done soon while I still remember where I hid the Christmas decorations!

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· 6:37 pm

One Thing, One Week Challenge

Amy (over at Amy’s Creative Side) is hosting another One Thing, One Week Challenge. It started on Monday and asks participants: what will you get done by next Monday?

I’m hoping to sew the entire quilt-top to my Project Modern 2: Monochromatic Challenge quilt. This is a tall order! I have all the pieces for each block cut and organized, but I still have to sew my blocks, square ‘em up, and then piece them all together. All by Next Monday! What a victory it’d be if I get all of that done. Wish me luck!

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January 18, 2011 · 7:45 pm

Wall Art and Parent Love

Before I started sewing, I worked a lot with paper. I’ve always loved quilts, but I thought sewing would be too difficult. So I left the sewing for my mother, and I cut and pasted little quilts out of paper scraps. My mom had made a couple of paper quilts, giving me the idea. In these pictures you’ll see the three large scale ones I made that hang in my living room. I’ve also given a couple smaller ones away, but they weren’t as nice as these, I’m sorry to say.

In the pictures I’m also including a close-up look at a little fabric birdie my mom sewed for me and my dad framed. I love my creative parents!

My dad made this frame, too – now that I think about it!:

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January 17, 2011 · 9:26 pm

Be Mine, Valentine

I finished my other two Valentine’s Day pillows!

These guys are felt letters hand-appliqued to shot cotton pillow fronts. The shot-cotton is bordered in sparkly red strips because I didn’t have enough of the shot-cotton to fill the front. I’m nothing if not resourceful, dudes! The backs are the same faux-tweed envelope enclosures I used on these guys.

Obviously I was heavily inspired by this pillow I showcased earlier and found on etsy. I used a font called Abbeyline that I downloaded for free HERE.

Yay for finally introducing some color into my living room!

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· 9:06 pm

Bloggers Pillow Party: January

Here are three of my five Valentine’s Day Pillows:

I’m sorry these pictures look a little funky. You can zoom-in by clicking on the images. I’m trying to take better photos of my work, but it’s just not happening what with my incredibly dark den of a house, limited opportunities as I’m on toddler-time, and the general ineptitude of myself and my camera.

These pillows show a patchworked strip of red scraps attached to a faux-linen front and faux-tweed envelop enclosures for the pillow-backs. The faux-tweed was purchased 100 years ago at a store-closing blow-out sale. The faux-linen was an interesting adventure. I went to Jo-Ann’s intending to buy real linen, only to find it priced at approx. $12 a yard. Then I went over to the burlaps and found these homespun unbleached cottons hiding on the bottom shelf. They looked incredibly similar to the linens, only they cost $3.50 a yard! So that was an easy shopping decision, especially considering I want to make about 50 pillow covers for my house : ) My mom says the unbleached cotton will also be easier to care for than linen would have been, so there’s another little victory.

Although they are rather simple, I cannot help but go ahead and enter them in the Bloggers Pillow Party over at Stitched in Color. There are many wonderful pillows being showcased over there, my favorite being this one. Flickr Pool is over here. Check ‘em out!

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January 15, 2011 · 12:42 am

Seeing Red

Hello there! My Valentine’s pillows are almost done (pictures upon completion). They are taking up more fabric than originally predicted but that’s because I want them lined and sturdy.

Perhaps it’s my work on these pillows, or maybe it’s the abundance of red in my fabric stash, or maybe it’s the new red curtains we hung in the sewing room/office that make it look like an opium den but I am living and breathing red red red. Maybe I can wax poetic and say it’s due to the fact that I am very pregnant and red is the color of life, fertility, and uteral goo.

So I’m going to make an all red art quilt for the Modern Quilt Guild’s Project Modern 2: Monochromatic Challenge. Wahoo! This will be my first artsy art quilt. There’s a 30% chance I’m going to hate it, but let’s be optimistic. I’ve cut out all the pieces for my top and am hoping to get a good go on it this weekend while hubby works on the upstairs bathroom remodeling project and son #1 is playing at Grandma’s. I can tell you that it will be called “Whirlwind Romance” (I think) and is utilizing the liberated quilt technique of inserting strips.

Also - Fat Quarterly’s new color theme is “Rich Reds”. Flickr group HERE. Red red red!

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January 9, 2011 · 7:46 pm

Valentine’s Day Pillows

My living room is a study in beige. My carpet is beige, the couches are beige, the curtains are beige, and the walls are beige. Also – our two main pieces of art are paper quilts made mostly out of neutrally neutral colors (more on those some other time). I am sort of afraid of colors, I’ll admit it. However, another piece of reasoning behind my ode-to-beige house was the hope that I would make fabulous quilts and pillow covers that would transform the house with every season/holiday. So far that’s been a bit of a bust.

But not this Valentine’s Day! I’m making pillow covers. Here are my pieces of inspiration:

Yellow Love Pillow by HoneyPieDesign. Available on Etsy for $38. Click image for link.

Love Amour Burlap Pillow by YellowBugBoutique. <br>Available on Etsy for $37. Click image for link.

Burlap Love Pillow Cover by Wrapitupllc. <br> Available for purchase on Etsy for $18. Click image for link.

I’m going to make two applique pillows inspired by the above, and then three pillows inspired by this beauty.

I joked with my husband that i should really be focusing on my Martin Luther King Day pillows. Was I really kidding? Hmm….

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· 7:43 pm

Christmas Stockings

Although Christmas has passed, I am still a little bit stuck in the season. There are a couple of holidays crafts I want to finish-up so that I can enjoy them next year. The most important thing to get done was to make a stocking for future baby boy, due March 31ish (or April Fool’s Day, perhaps?) 2011. Who knows how much time I’ll have for sewing when I have two little boys in need of mothering!

This one below is mine. With the boys’ stockings I did free-motion quilting (very broadly) in shiny ribbon threads, but for mine I did hand sewn detailing in gold thread around the stars and snow-flakes in the fabric pattern. Lots of french knots, which are fun. It was a little gift to myself to do this special detailing as, let’s be honest, I’m the only one who really cares about that sort of thing ; P

These stockings are not “perfect” – they have raw edges exposed on the inside from the two “quilt sandwiches” of front fabric, bating, and lining sewn together to assemble the sock. The hanging loop is a little wonky, too. However, they look pretty cute if I do say so myself. The letters are each of our initials cut out of felt and hand appliqued. I love hand-appliqueing felt (see my advent calendar’s numbers) because it doesn’t fray and looks nice and neat.

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