Monthly Archives: November 2011

November 26, 2011 · 9:23 pm

Reindeer Pillows

The blog might get a little dead for a couple of weeks here at howtobejenna. Too many of my upcoming projects are Christmas gifts!

I did make these pillows (there are two of them) recently for a housewarming present and they have already been gifted. All you can see is the pillow case, resting on a green pillow, because the gift recipient has already received pillow forms from me in a past present.

It’s a reverse-applique embracing frayed edges for texture. I’m VERY inspired by the work of THIS ARTIST. So cool – definitely a technique I’ll be working on.

I should have snipped some of the unruly threads before I took this picture, but… you know….

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Filed under Holiday, Pillow

November 18, 2011 · 2:38 pm

Halloween Quilt – Right on time!

Woops! This quilt would have ideally been finished a month ago. Whatever, I have all of my future Halloween seasons to enjoy this blanket.

The tree is needle-turn appliqued onto a strip-pieced quilt.

I made a variety of… challenging choices when it came to this project. For one, this was a LOT of needle-turning, but I needed the practice.

For another, I chose to do a sort of scribbly pebble quilting which I have never tried before. Something about quilting circles really stuck on me. I think I was thinking about cauldron bubbles…

Anyway the quilting wasn’t perfect and of course it was much more time and thread-consuming than a simple stiple. However, after this quilt came out of the wash I was immediately elated with my efforts.

Ok so making the tree piece was a little tricky. I found a clip-art image of a spooky tree I liked, made a couple of alterations using photo-shopping software, and printed it out as large as I could. Then I drew a one inch grid on top of the image. I wanted my tree to be pretty big so I made a ratio of 1:5 and made each one inch square on my grid equal a 5 inch square on my gigantic pattern paper made out of taped together grocery bags. I think originally I had planned on doing a 1:6inch ratio (hence the numbers on my grid sheet below), but ended up thinking that’d be too big…

Can’t wait to pull this out next year and every year after!

Side note: Just a minute before I took this quilt outside to photograph I realized that I had turned the oven on to cook dinner, but had forgotten to empty the oven of all of the messy kitchen appliances I hid inside in a desperate quick-cleaning attempt. So I melted my rice-cooker steamer basket. C’est la vie when you’re Jenna.

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Filed under Holiday, Quilting

November 17, 2011 · 10:57 pm

Etsy Store

So first off I’d like to tell you all that I’m going to try and sell some stuff on Etsy. My store is called “Ethel&Wayne” and will hopefully one day be a whole line of fun stuff made by me. Dare to dream!

For now the store just features one quilt, my Gate at the Lake blanket, that is very affordable, and was recently featured on a treasury ! So there’s that!

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Filed under Quilting, Shop

November 16, 2011 · 6:15 pm

Fur Vest

Hey Gang! Libby the Bat got a new present from yours truly, an adorable (if I do say so myself) faux-fur vest. I used this pattern from living with punks, but I made it a little longer and I used a wooden toggle button instead of ribbon.

Isn't she the cutest?!

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Filed under Clothes

November 15, 2011 · 7:02 pm

Wreath

My husband re-painted our front door a gorgeous blue. In celebration, I made a wreath.

I bought a wire frame and some fake leaves and berries and secured everything with some wire and just sort of went nuts.

It’s purple and orange, and looks lovely against the blue, although I wish our wreath holder was a bit longer so it could be more centered on the window.

Still good, though…

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Filed under Crafts

November 12, 2011 · 7:27 pm

Swoon-vember!

I am pretty much obsessed with the thimble blossoms SWOON pattern. I got mine from pink castle fabrics.

I have three Swoon-rific swoony projects in the works:

A pillow for my friend’s baby bedroom. Two pillows for ME and another quilt for ME. I have all my fabrics (I think!) and have already cranked out one pillow:

I had to use my skull-meat to covert the block-size, as this is a pillow-cover going over a pre-existing pillow form. But I did it!

This will go in little Irene’s bedroom. You may know Irene as Princess Leia or a Unicorn or the girl who got this awesome quilt.

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Filed under Pillow, Quilting

November 10, 2011 · 7:13 pm

Fall Leaves Table Runner

Flipping through a Crate & Barrel catalog the other day and came across this table runner:

Click on the image to purchase from Crate a& Barrel

Super cute!

But I knew I could make something similar…

So first I shaped some store-bought bias tape on a piece of homespun cotton. I cut some of the strip in half and re-folded it for the skinnier branches…

Then I folded some fabrics right sides together and sewed circles (berries?) and leaf-shapes. I sewed all-around each shape using a very small stitch length and then cut out each shape with a scant 1/8inch border. Then, pinching just one layer of fabric for each shape, I cut a slit and turned the unit right-side-out. This resulted in many almost-perfect circle and leaf-shapes with nice edges. Easier than needleturn for me, and I like the look more than raw-edge applique (personal preference).

I hand-stitched each piece in place. Then I sewed on a backing (right sides together with the runner-top, left a gap, turned right-side out, top-stitched around the border).

Cute acorn fabric for the back.

I think this cost about $3.00 total for me considering the only things I purchased were two fat-quarters for the leaves. A lot better than $40 + shipping and handling : )

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November 7, 2011 · 6:51 pm

Happy Wife, Happy Life

My friend Marti is making an awesome, colorful, fun quilt and asked me to sew her a little embroidery pattern to fill in a square. My pleasure!

Here’s what I came up with:

sorry for the crappy picture!

The dots are all french knots. Super fun! I was glad I took the time to pre-thread a bunch of needles before sitting down and getting started.

I’ll be sure to post how the whole quilt comes out once it’s all put together. I’m anxious to see, myself!

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Filed under Embroidery

· 6:10 pm

Costume Party is Over

Time to kick everyone out gracefully, sweep up the cupcake crumbs, collect the empties and pour myself a glass of wine. The costume party is over and Halloween is behind us once again.