Shopping

I was in New York over Memorial Day weekend and go to go visit Purl Soho in person. I love their blog and they had very cute fabric. It's a small place (about the size of PeaPod, Mom) and they have great Japanese fabric (some of which I could not afford) along with adorable prints (many of which I could afford). I never know how much to buy when I see something that I think is cute but for which I have no project in mind. I went with 1/2-yards. I love my purchases and will definitely be back!

My New Crafts

Here are some pictures of my latest creations. The tote bags are from the book Patchwork Style, which is one of those Japanese sewing books, but this one's been translated into Engish. It has the greatest little projects in it. I borrowed it from the library, but I'm going to buy it - it's a keeper.

The other bag is an Amy Butler pattern, which I bought when SUSAN AND I MET HER at a local sewing and yarn shop.

The pillow is a shameless knock-off from Anthropologie.

I'm also posting pictures of the quilt Pam and Reenie and I made for Diane and gave her last month. Pam made the best label for the back.

Wish I knew how to arrange the pictures and text on this blog so it looks prettier.

FAIL

My mom sent me to BurdaStyle a few months ago and it's pretty great. All kinds of cheap or free patterns and advice about sewing and lots of project inspiration. I downloaded the pattern for the "coffee date" dress pictured at the left. Isn't it adorable??? I like the ruffle but it's not overpowering. It looks a little bit like you stuffed a napkin in your collar, but not overly so :) I bought a soft blue-gray linen to make the pattern and here's what I got: Obviously, I have not been styled--do not have cute shoes on and am not posing in a cactus garden of some type, but even if I were, this thing would be hideous. The waist is a critical 1.5 inches above my natural waist. The fabric is too soft and gets lumpy at the seams (see the waistline) and the ruffle looks awful. Luckily, I think I can make the skirt work on its own. I'll keep you posted.

FAIL

I made a really cute dress that came out really ugly. I'll post pictures if I can convince myself that it will work as a cautionary tale.

UFOs

One of my resolutions this year was to finish some of the un-finished objects in my basement craft stash. Last week I finished these 2 quilts.

The first one was from a class I took that used Marti Michell templates to make stars. I made one scrappy star in the class, and the instructor took my idea and made a whole quilt out of similar squares. So I bought her pattern and made the quilt. Somehow, I think there was a missed opportunity for me to make some money there.

The red and white quilt is my "garage sale" quilt. I bought all of the red and white fabrics at a garage sale at the home of a woman who obviously had a lot of fabrics in her stash. I used a pattern from one of the quilt magazines that Kathy had on her coffee table. It's a pretty big quilt, and I'd like to put it in one of the kids' rooms (guest rooms), but need to do some painting and floor refinishing first.

Baby Booties

After a short hiatus from baby stuff, I came back to make these really cute and easy kimono booties from homespun threads. They're made in 2 pieces each and they fold over one another like a kimono. I accidentally made the sole upside down on the one on the far left and I think it's even cuter that way, though one on the right is a better example of how they're put together. I'll give these pairs to Danny and Sarah for their little one due in July and if they use them (do babies ever wear shoes?), I'll add these to my repertoire.

New Dress

This dress is one of the many projects I fell in love with in Midwest Modern. And of course I had to get Amy Butler fabric to make it. I bought the fabric ages ago and thought I could get it done by Easter, but didn't start cutting out pieces until last Monday! Luckily it was an easy dress to sew and I got to test out my sewing machine's zipper foot and hem foot. If it warms up a little bit, I'll wear it to church tomorrow morning. Happy Easter!