Red dress contest entry

Whew. Sewing with one leg is a challenge! It's not the actual sitting and sewing though. It's the pinning and ironing and finding where the seam ripper went that killed me. And yes, I am sweating in the photos...and clinging to the mantel so I wouldn't fall!

This is my official entry to the patternreview.com Red Dress Contest. If you like it please vote for it. If you don't, there are some amazing entries that you have to check out and vote for them!

Notice how well my neighbor cut my fancy new black boot out the picture? Notice just the tip of my scooter? She should be a photographer to the gimpy full time! I made a red Colette Peony out of a twill I got super cheap at Joann's. Since this isn't a difficult pattern I really focused on the insides of this dress.

This version fits a little better. I took out a horizontal dart on the back bodice and lengthened my back top darts while letting out my front bodice darts along my waistline.

Now the good part...

The entire dress has been French seamed. This is the front bodice. The sleeve and waistline as well as the side seams are French. I also finished the raw edge of the neck facing with a pretty lace.

Here is a closeup of the facing as well as the arm seam. Gosh, it looks pretty doesn't it?

As a matter of fact that is a French seamed pocket! How nice of you to notice.

And the waste line seam. I am really proud of this dress. It fits great, but more importantly I am very proud of the inside. This is the most care I have put into a garment, and I can't wait to wear it.

By the way, if you haven't made a Peony, you should. It is such an easy dress and so cute.

My best quilt ever!

I know, I say it every dang time, but I totally mean it! It's my best quilt ever!

It is just so darn happy looking!

Here is how I handled my cheap flannel backing that was only 44" wide. I made a thin stripe of the flower  fabrics down the back. I really like how it turned out.

For the binding I chose to use the scraps of flower fabrics. I mimicked the pattern on the inner border. I also used the same pattern on the back. Probably no one would ever notice that but us.

Here is an up close of a flower. I wound up quilting it by stitching in the ditch, but I also did a diagonal criss cross across the flower bits. I just wanted to make sure it was all secure.

I washed the quilt once so far to help the flower edges rag out a bit. I don't know about you, but people always say washing the quilt will make it crinkly and awesome. I admit, I have never washed a quilt for fear the washer will destroy it. Next time you finish a quilt and you two are cuddling on the couch and thinking about washing and drying it, but also thinking, "But me and new quilt are in LOVE and want to watch Glee and cuddle." Get yourself together and wash the quilt. It is amazing how much softer and cuter it got. The quilt is actually in the washer right now while I try to get the flower edges to fray more.

Finally, I love it. The French Roses pattern was deceptively easy. As for my friend, wait what friend? The nice thing about it being a surprise is that now that quilt and me and in love I might just keep her. Mr. Thinks He Can thinks I should hang it on my sewing room wall or sell it on Etsy for $500. Hehe, I like the confidence in my skills, but it is far from perfect. Any other ideas for what to do with a quilt?

I also entered this quilt on Craftsy's Project Cupid. If you like it, please go 'heart' the quilt.

French Roses quilt top completed

I am so pleased with how it turned out!

There is a weird mirror reflection on it, but it has turned out so darn cute. If you are interested in taking up quilting, this pattern is pretty foolproof. There is nothing exact about it other than cutting a few straight lines.

Here is a close up of my borders. The inner border is just my five flower fabrics in a repeating pattern. The pattern includes an ingenious way pf making them so it is quick and painless. The outer border  is just a long strip. All of my white fabric (and peony muslin) came from a really nice quality white sheet I thrifted. It has really held up well and has a nice weight to it.

It is winter in the quilt's new home, so I chose a flannel to back it. I plan on piecing the green flannel with a few scraps from the flower fabrics. I think I will bind it using the two red fabrics I have stacked on top there.

Isn't the green perfect and springy? It matched perfectly and was on sale for $2.50 a yard at Joann's. I love it! I am hoping to have it sandwiched this weekend, and maybe quilted. I plan to stitch in the ditch for quilting as the flowers will fray up when they are washed. I don't want to inhibit that by stitching over them. 

The start of a new quilt

I did it. I started a new quilt. This one is for a friend as a surprise that is really into shabby chic decor. I saw a version Little Miss Shabby did, and I knew I needed to make one.

This quilt is called French roses. I bought it off Etsy and had the pattern within three days. Love it! I have also been eyeing the Moda Bonnie and Camille Ruby line of fabric. I figured this was a match made in heaven.  I wound up mixing some Ruby with the past line called Bliss. My biggest concern is that it would look too juvenile.

I was concerned about cutting all the flower pieces, but it wasn't bad at all. I traced the outlines on my lightest fabric using my Frixion pen and then pinned it to the other four fabrics and cut them all out at once. It took about 45 minutes for the whole process. Why pin it?

My assistant likes to keep my fabrics warm whenever they are on the floor. This keeps me sane when she bunches up my projects. If you look closely you can see my pen markings.

Here is a sneak peek at how it should shape up. I haven't sewn anything yet, but I wanted to get a visual on how it would look. This quilt uses an applique technique that will allow the 1/4" seam allowance around each level of flower to fray. That will help set apart the colors some I think.

Here is a close up of one of the flowers. I am trying to think of binding. I want to see it all together, but I may use the aqua color that is used in some of the prints. That may help the kiddie-looking quilt situation. What do you think? Is it shabby chic?

That crazy squirrel quilt

It is finally finished and I love it!

I was torn on how to bind it, but I decided to just double fold the backing over and machine stitch it to the front. It doesn't look as nice as a hand stitched binding, but I won't worry about the pup catching her collar in the hand stitching.

Here is a close up of the binding. No, it's not perfect, which drives me nuts. It is more functional and sturdy this way I think.

Here is a picture of the back all quilted. You can see I machine quilted and went with a geometric pattern. Aren't the bones awesome?

I outlined here the quilting I did. I combined a cross hatch pattern with stitching in the ditch. I expect to wash this one a lot, so I wanted it to hold up.

Here is how each square wound up being stitched as well as the outline.

I used the same method over the squirrels. I had to think about it, because I didn't want it to look bad, but you can hardly see it. Again, I wanted it to hold up well.

The biggest challenge this quilt presented was any time any part of it touched the floor or I laid it out to take a look at it, my boss here hopped on top and tried to nap. I guess that means she likes it.

As I mentioned on an earlier post this was inspired by the Simply Spring quilt in the book Simple Choices by Abbey Lane. I am really a beginner, and this quilt was easy all the way through. Highly Recommended!

One last piece! Check out my January Block of the Month Craftsy blocks! I went with the blue and white theme and am very pleased with how they turned out. There is still time to sign up for this free course!

OK that is the last on quilting for a while. I know you guys are hungry for garments. I am too!

Quilt progress

I took a bad picture of my blocks laid out. The patterns are so busy if it weren't blurry it would burn your corneas.

I love how it is shaping up! I want to do two squirrel silhouettes to applique above and below the paw print. We enjoy chasing squirrels around here. That's all I have to say about that.

Check out my assistant gazing at the quilt in all its glory after stomping through it like Godzilla through a tiny fishing village. It's funny, but I think she likes it and knows it is hers.

Gratuitous sweet girl face shot.

Here is Godzilla in action tearing through my layout. Everyone is a critic!

I love how her name and the paw print turned out. I learned how to do this with my embroidery machine with Jenny the other day. Thanks Jenny!

I still have the squirrels to do, giant ric rac to apply and quilting and binding. I am torn on how to bind it. The traditional binding and hand stitching looks best, but I worry her collar may pick up the stitches and get tangled. I may wind up doing a cheat binding. Not out of haste, but out of love.

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve everyone.

Crimson and Clover

I have been sitting on these Clovers for a week. Literally, I've been living in them. I wore them to work. I wore them to class, and I am happy to report they are fantastic. I do have to admit, I bought this red sateen, Viking Red sateen technically, from Joann's. It was cheap, and the last time I made pants I wound up doing a billion alterations and still don't care for them much. I figured this would be a wearable muslin if anything.

Sorry, they are a bit wrinkly, but like I said I refuse to take them off. They are a bit stretched out too from being worn and not washed yet. And they still look like a pretty good fit!

Here is the amazing part...my butt. Made you look! No really, my awesome teacher Jenny had to teach me how to make an almond shaped butt dart from under my butt cheeks on my last pair of pants. She had no idea anyone could be so bottomless. These pants actually fit my rear quite nicely if I do say so myself. 

Check that out, there is a lump back there where most women keep there butts! I was hoping this would happen. A lot of reviews I read of these pants mentioned there were a lot of sway back adjustments or alterations so the pants would fit in the rear. When I read that I thought to myself, "Ah ha! All those women with the hour glass shape that look cute in everything have nothing on my apple shaped wonder body!" I bought the Clover pattern and just as I hoped, they did indeed fit.

I did make one alteration. Based on the pattern back I cut a 16 in the waist and graded to a 14 in the hips. I also left them a bit longer than the pattern directions stated. I am 5'5, and if you are any taller than me and want regular length pants I recommend you add a couple of inches to the length.

Lets talk guts. I finished the inside facing as well as the hem with black double fold lace that I had in my stash. At this point I had tried the pants on and knew they were keepers, so I wanted to kick it up a notch. I also added my new customized label I got from Jennifer's Jewels on Etsy. It matches my blog!

Here is the hem of my pants. I covered the raw edge in lace and folded it up about half an inch. I was really short on length for a proper hem, but it worked out.

Here is my top stitching around the waist. Isn't the color Christmasy?

Invisible zipper...meh. It could be better, but I had a zipper in there originally that the pull came off of. I wound up having to deconstruct and reconstruct to get a new zipper in. You can't tell when I wear them.

One last look. I love them. I already have some charcoal colored sateen in my room waiting to become a pair of Clovers. Maybe today!

Tree Pants update

OK, I am declaring an October redo. I blew October for various reasons, mostly beyond my control. At the beginning of October I cut out a billion little pieces for the Christmas Tree sew-along on Sew, Mama, Sew.

Check me out I finally made some progress!

The sew along really lays things out for anyone making tree pants. I did not know it, but I have stumbled along my most intensive quilting project on this one. As you can see it is not perfect, but I'm pretty darn proud of the results.

This tree skirt is make of more Moda Countdown to Christmas fabric, so it matches my Christmas Crazy quilt. I don't have enough of this fabric to bind the tree pants with the same, so I may use plain black. If you have a brilliant idea for a binding please let me know. I am game on this one.

For more fun news, I got my Colette Book last week and have been reading through it all. It is very well written and beautiful. I have a trip to High Fashion Fabrics with my awesome friend and sewing teacher Jenny this afternoon, so I will be on the hunt for some fabrics to try a few of the projects with.

I am off all this week, and am hoping to be able to get several projects done. That will help make up for all my slow times lately. Thanks for hanging in there as a reader and for all your support in the last month. Even though most of us have never met, your kind words really mean a lot to me. Stay tuned!

A look inside the Houston Quilt Festival

I am lucky to live in the city of Houston because for one week every year we get to hold the International Quilt Festival. After last week, it is great to have readers with such kind words for me (thank you so much for your support everyone) and friends like my best sewing buddy Holly to get me out and going again. We spent excessive time exploring the quilt festival this weekend. It takes place in the George R. Brown Convention Center downtown and is massive! It consists of two parts: the award winning drool worthy quilts I can't even comprehend how are made and the crazy marketplace in which you buys tons of stuff you didn't even know existed and get totally inspired.

The winners:

OK, these aren't the actual winners, which you can Google. These are my personal winners.

The above quilt features Swavorski Elements. What they lack in cuddle appeal they make up for in sparkle. They really added to this very beautiful quilt.

The above quilt looked very simple with the Chicago skyline featured. I love the Chicago skyline. I grew up there, and when my family moved to Dallas I cried because when I saw the Dallas skyline I had been tricked. I thought I had moved to a city, not the country! The bead work on this quilt was beautiful and made this simple quilt fantastic.

Did you think there would be a post without a dog? Heck no! This was an award winning quilt featuring an "American Dingo" I read that to mean mutt dog. You know how I love me some mutt dog.

Here we got into the market place. This quilt was made of minky and cuddle fabrics. Minky and cuddle fabrics were everywhere. It was so soft and cuddly. I may need to back my next quilt with minky.

Giant rick-rack was also everywhere. I love the idea of it in lieu of an actual binding on a blanket. I'm still working out in my head if it is workable for a quilt.

This was a cute gift bag that I was inspired by that would be the perfect size for w wine bottle gift.

I just liked this pillow. It is simple, but the felt balls in the middle are just fun.

Turns out Holly and I are actually secret hipsters that both love all things owls. How cute are these potholders? I plan to dissect the picture and create a tutorial on this soon.

Check me out on the long arm. Le sigh...

So cute! It is a Christmas decoration, but notice some more giant rick rack being featured? H.O.T. Hot I tell you!

 The two pillows above are made of ribbon with fabric just framing the ribbon on the sides. Love it!

Remember my crazy zipper love? Well Ghee's, the company I wrote about, was there. I was star struck to meet Linda, the head zipper guru.

Check out her self embellished sweater featuring a great zipper decoration. The ladies at the booth were amazing and the zippers are even better in person!

Above is an example of crazy zipper love going to far. Just kidding! I totally get it! This is a fellow zipper lover at Vogue Fabric's of Evanston, IL. Holly and I did go a little crazy here getting cuts of beautiful fabrics at reasonable prices. Expect to see a pretty floral Violet out of me soon! I think I may do more shopping with Vogue in the future as their web site looks pretty comprehensive.

Spoiler Alert: The above pen is magic! It is a Pilot Frixion pen. I wrote a self promoting message above.... scroll down below....if you think you can handle it....

Here I am ironing half of it.....

And the self promoting message is gone! The secret is this pen has ink that goes invisible at 140 degrees. Friction (Frixion) = heat! Get it! Instead of friction you can use an iron to make the ink invisible. If you accidentally iron your marks, you can make it reappear by placing your fabric in the freezer overnight (disclaimer: I haven't tried that just yet). To remove the ink simply wash it as normal after you are done.

So far I have used it on cotton, polyester and satin and it has worked on all three. I bought two and can barely contain my excitement over them.

Oh, we made a hat too. More on that this week! Happy Sunday everyone.