Sneak Peek

Hello there! Just wanted to pop in and say hi. We moved about three weeks ago and we're still getting settled into our new place, so I haven't had much time for sewing. Our new place is smaller and I no longer have a sewing room, so I'm trying to figure out how to find a little sewing space for myself without making a mess that takes over our living area. It turns out downsizing is hard work! That being said, we love living near DC again, as well as friends and family, so we're very happy to be here.

I think I promised you a post about the Dr. Seuss quilt my mom made Lauren for Christmas. I snapped some pictures in a hurry before we moved, but the lighting wasn't good and I need to take some new ones next time we have good weather. In the mean time, here's a sneak peek-

Taking quilt pictures with a three-year-old is always fun :-)

I'll try to take new pictures soon. My mom did such a great job on this quilt!

And here's a sneak peek of a quilt I've been working on since before Christmas.

The fabric is Monaco by Monaluna mixed with some Mendocino by Heather Ross and Modern Meadow by Joel Dewberry.

I've been agonizing over what fabric to use to use for the binding, but I think I've finally settled on Kona Ash. Now to find the time to actually do it!

Happy sewing,
Mary

First day of preschool!

Lauren had her first day of preschool yesterday. She was so excited! I think we managed to get all of the obligatory "first day" photos.



Mr. PinSewPress is even going to make an appearance here . . .



I love my girl!



I think she's going to have a great school year.

Happy sewing!
Mary

Things I'm loving . . .

. . . Kona Color Card from Pink Chalk Fabrics

. . . the quilt-hanging wire my husband hung in my sewing room.

. . . my fabric for Bee Splendid!  

August is my month, and I'll be asking the lovely ladies in my group to make scrappy Drunk Love blocks like this.

. . . my little helper.  I love her the most.  Even if she makes huge messes in my sewing room :-)

Happy sewing!

Mary

Sew & Tell Friday: A little bit of sewing and little bit of telling

Well, after nine consecutive days of grandparent house guests (my mother-in-law and my parents, back-to-back), I haven't accomplished much in the sewing arena!


I did, however, make this grocery bag dispenser for my mom.  (Tutorial here.)  I finished it just in the nick of time before they had to leave!




My mom and I have very different taste, color-wise, so this one is really different than the first two I made. However, it was lots of fun to put together a color combo that was "out of the box" for me, and she really likes it!


While I haven't been sewing much, we have definitely been enjoying the great outdoors! I love spring weather in Myrtle Beach.

Be sure to check out the other fabulous finishes over at Sew & Tell Friday.


Have great weekend!
Mary

Monkey Business

Introducing . . . Molly the Monkey!

Lauren loves monkeys, and my mom was sweet enough to make this for her!

Molly was made using this free tutorial.  

Her clothes and socks are made from Heather Bailey fabric.

Don't you just love those shoes?  And the socks?  Adorable!

Thanks Mom!

Where's my mojo?

I have been a sewing slacker lately.  S.L.A.C.K.E.R.  For real.

Where the heck did my mojo go?

If found, please ship it to me immediately!

I have plenty of projects in progress, it's just that I can't seem to finish anything.  Hmmmmmm.

Well, I have to blog about something, so here are some cute pics we took over the weekend.  Our weather has been really nice, so we headed out to the park with our tripod and handy camera remote (no more messing with the self-timer, hooray!)

Lauren was so cooperative in our family photo shoot, it was amazing!

And of course we took lots of pics of the little one by herself:

Gosh I love that kid!

Well, my goal is to have something finished and ready to share by Friday.  I think I can, I think I can!

Hope you're having a good week . . . and hopefully it's more productive than mine.

Happy sewing!

Mary

Sew & Tell Friday: Director's Chair Makeover

Is it cheating if my "Sew & Tell" is actually something my mom created?

Even so, this project is pretty awesome and I want to brag about my mom's skills a bit.

To start, here's a chair my parents bought for me when I was a toddler:

Hey, no giggling at my middle name!

Last summer my mom decided to give the chair a little makeover so that Lauren could use it.

It took lots of sanding, lots of stain, lots of varnish, my mom's awesome sewing skills, and a little help from her fancy embroidery sewing machine.  (I did contribute by picking out the fabric and stain color!)

Doesn't it look great?  Totally modernized and re-personalized.

This is Lauren testing out her chair for the first time last summer.  She was so happy to have a chair her size!

Thanks for all your hard work mom!  

I'm linking up to Amylouwho's Sew & Tell Friday, so hop on over and check out the other finishes too!

Have a great weekend!

Mary

Pinwheeling my way to sanity

I really, really, really needed a break from the Mommyhood today.  I was just one whine away from my breaking point, and luckily my husband stepped in to the rescue.  And as a bonus, Lauren's Uncle C was in town today, so between the two brothers Lauren was thoroughly entertained and I had many glorious hours to sew and regain my sanity.  Phew!

I buried myself in pinwheel making and caught up on the last three weeks of Rachel's Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along.

We only have one more week of block making left, then we start to assemble our quilt tops.  Yay!

I've also been working on the Man Quilt this week, and hopefully I'll have a completed quilt top to show soon.

After my marathon sewing session I felt much better, so Lauren and I celebrated by making brownies.  Sanity regained!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Mary

Life's a beach

The weather was gorgeous here today . . .

. . . and the husband was able to sneak away from the grad-school-grind for a bit, so we enjoyed the weather together!

After our little trip to the beach, Lauren and I spent some time hanging out at home . . .

. . . and some quality time reading the Pottery Barn Kids catalog (which is full of quilting inspiration!)

I absolutely love this time of year - it's warm but not hot, the bugs aren't out yet, and there are enough tourists in town to make things seem lively, but not so many that it's crowded.  I love spring!

I had the chance to test-drive this camera case while at the beach today, and I loved it so much that I started cutting fabric to make three more . . .

As you can see I didn't manage to keep myself inside long enough to do any actual sewing.  How can you pass up good weather, anyway?  :-)

Let's hope I can get these done in time for Sew & Tell Friday!

Happy sewing!
Mary

Sew & Tell Friday

I missed last week's Sew & Tell Friday due to major frustrations with a zipper at the 11th hour.
So this week I was determined to make a comeback!

I didn't have patience to deal with the zipper again, so I started with something in my comfort zone.

Coasters!

These aren't just any coasters.

They're the new cousins of the potholders I made on Tuesday for the Potholder Pass 2.

See?

They were meant to be together.

And I'm really grateful that these turned out well, because this next project . . .
not so much . . .

Don't you hate that when you spend a bunch of time working on something, and then it doesn't turn out well and you feel like you wasted your time?

We'll just call this a learning experience.  No more sewing while I'm tired!

At least the fabric is pretty - Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane.

On a happier note, today is my husband's birthday!

Happy 29th birthday to my best friend and favorite person ever :-)

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Be sure to check out all the other finishes over at Sew & Tell Friday.

Mary

I heart half square triangles :-)

I swear I've been sewing.
Really I have.
I just don't have a lot to show for it at the moment . . . just lots of half-finished projects!

You see, the problem is that the weather has been AWESOME, and we've been doing a lot of this . . .

. . . and a tad less sewing, and certainly much less time spent on the internet.

But I'm still here!

And that brings me to my new love of HSTs, or half square triangles.

It all started with Rachel's Pinwheel Sampler Quilt Along, especially this super-easy half square triangle tutorial. 

Now that I've been doing the quilt along for three weeks, I can't seem to stop making HSTs!

Here are my blocks for the week . . .

And then I just couldn't stop making HSTs, so I made these . . .

. . . which I'm not completely crazy about . . . but I think if I make future blocks with some white mixed in, I'll like it much better.  The fabric is called "Eva" by BasicGrey.

And finally on my HST-craze, I made these . . .

I'm so proud of my little pinwheels!  And the zig-zag is kinda fun too.  These are for the Potholder Pass hosted by Amy at During Quiet Time.  I used leftover bits from a Hushabye jelly roll to make these (leftover from this quilt and this quilt.)  I really hope my secret partner likes these!!!

And now that I got that out of my system, I can move onto some half-finished projects I have sitting around.  Here's hoping I'll have some finishes to share for amylouwho's Sew & Tell Friday.  If you haven't already joined in the fun, you should really check it out.  It's great motivation to get those unfinished projects finished already, and meet some new people in blogland!

Hope you're having a good week . . . happy sewing!

Mary

you've got mail!

Today was a great day for mail . . . new sewing goodies!

First, 50 beautiful zippers from Zip It Zipper Supply:

I heard about this shop from Anna over at Noodlehead.  I used to buy my zippers one at a time from Walmart for about $2 apiece.  Then I discovered Zipit and I got this pack of 50 8" YKK zippers for $24 (including shipping.)  I'll do the math for you . . . that's 48 cents per zipper.  Awesome!

Jennifer, the owner, even included some cute little goodies from her other shop, KungFuCowgirl Kawaii Goods and Supplies.

So cute, and of course Lauren thought these were just for her.

Then, another package with my very first yard of Japanese fabric!

I got this great Kokka patchwork print from Hawthorne Threads, which is probably my favorite online fabric shop.  It's definitely the most user friendly and visually appealing online fabric shop I've visited.  They even feature customer creations that show each particular fabric in use.  I find that really helpful for estimating the scale of the printed fabric.  Oh yeah, and the owners are very friendly and provide excellent customer service.  And did I mention they do a weekly giveaway?  (Nobody's paying me to say this, I swear!)

Last, but certainly not least, is a tiny little package (envelope, actually!) that I received last week:

My very first quilt labels!  I ordered these from Sweetwater Street.  You may already be familiar with this company through their awesome fabric lines "Authentic" and "Make Life".

I'd really like to make a habit of labeling every quilt I make.  There are some great tutorials out there for making your own labels, which I might attempt in the near future.  Rachel has a super easy one here, and Julie has one here that uses Photoshop and Spoonflower.

Well, it's time for me to log off and head out to the the gym, because unfortunately sewing just doesn't firm and tone, you know what I mean?  :-)  (If sewing were exercise, I would be one fit lady!)

Happy sewing!
Mary

cabin fever and a new pattern

It's been a bit cold and rainy here in Myrtle Beach, and the little one and I are getting cabin fever.

She wanted to play in the rain . . . 

But I thought it might be a better idea to play with water inside, where it was warmer.

The good thing about cabin fever is that it makes me want to sew!  I downloaded Keyka Lou's newest pattern yesterday (only $5!), and since it's quick and easy I was able to make it while Lauren took her nap today.

Keyka Lou's Easy Reusable Grocery Bag

The apple fabric is from the Metro Market collection by Robert Kaufman.

And I didn't really mean to advertise Cheerios, but I didn't have any "Generic O's" handy.  :-)

I've never taken my own bags to the grocery store, but with a cute bag like this I might have to!

What are you sewing this week?

Mary