New Year Print-out Craft

I found a great printable desk calendar at the vintage glam blog and now I finally have a desk calendar to go along with my outlook calendar, my gmail calendar, and my pile of scrap paper with to-do lists on them. Maybe this year I'll be able to keep dates straight!

More Presents

I seem to do most of my sewing right around the holidays, but not necessarily in time for Christmas. This weekend, I made placemats for my old roommate, Mindy. She bought a condo in Chapel Hill a few years ago and just bought dining room furniture for it. I'm thrilled for her since she no longer has to eat her meals on the couch. I'm also jealous because we still don't have dining room furniture and therefore eat all our meals on the couch!
We found these great fabrics at Whizbang Fabrics in San Francisco. One side has a print of old cars, which I really like and speaks to Mindy's love of cars. The back has fair-trade fabric from South Africa, which we picked up for 1/2 off. I made them smaller than Mom's placemat pattern because I didn't buy enough fabric for 20x16, so I made them 18x13". They seem pretty big, though. I put one layer of felt in between for some bulk and hopefully the ability to absorb liquid better than two layers of cotton alone.
I'll mail them this week and will update later with the answer to the question: Do people use placemats anymore?

Scrap Bag Project

Emily was home one evening and decided to raid my scrap bag to make some gifts to give her friends that she would be visiting in the area over the holidays. She started piecing together scraps and making them into potholders.

My scrap bag was bulging so she challenged herself to use ONLY pieces from the scrap bag for the potholder tops.

These were the first two completed, and they inspired me to get into the act, too!

These are a few pieces in progress on the design board. You can see my fabric choices lean heavily towards the blues and greens!



These are a couple that Emily made for Brian's step-dad, who is a professional chef and does most of the cooking in his house.

A couple more finished potholders got sent out before they even got photographed! We managed to use up some of my batting scraps, too. Still, my scrap bag is still bulging!

Homemade Gifts 2009

This year, I made only a few gifts. One of them was this apron for my friend Jen. Jen has a food blog that makes me hungry every time I read it and she is a great cook and hostess as well. For the apron, I used an Amy Butler pattern (because I'm still completely in love with her stuff) and some of the brightest fabric I could find at our rather ho-hum fabric store here.

The apron is a bit long, so I suggest modifications if it is intended for anyone shorter than 5'9".

Christmas gifts

These are a few little things I made for Christmas gifts this year.
Two little pear pincushions for me and Emily. I got a free pattern for them from a fabric shop, Peapod Fabrics in San Francisco, and since I need some new pincushions anyway, I made them. On each of them, I used wool felt for two of the panels, and cotton prints for the other two. Mine has already been well-used.

The shoe bags we've made in the past were such a bit hit that this year I made shoe bags for Zac, and draw-string laundry bags for all of us. Zac's were put into immediate use for his trip to Seattle, but these are the laundry bags I made for myself and Emily.






And for Emily, I made another one of Amy Butler's Chelsea Bags. I adjusted the pattern to make this one wider on the bottom so it sits more like a basket. She's going to use it in her guest bathroom, so it's holding towels and shampoo!

Modified J.Crew

I bought this silk top from J.Crew on super sale a couple of months ago. It is a gorgeous color but the shape is kind of boring and matronly. The neckline accentuates the gathering at the waist and the overall effect is like a potato sack. But it cost money and I lost the reciept, so why not try to alter it? As you can see on the top right, it is also a little big.

So I tried to redo the neckline and take the sides in just a bit. The finished result is imperfect, but at least I'll probably wear it once now to try it out. Better, right? The neckline is not as
smooth as it could be, but it's okay.











Update 1/9/09: I'm wearing the shirt at work today. This confirms that the project is a complete success because I never would have worn it otherwise. Also, Brian said I looked nice and he probably doesn't even remember hating this shirt the first time around!

My group quilt project

I have been quilting lately with a group of 6 other women who also belong to the San Francisco Quilt Guild. Our guild is having a quilt show next March, and we decided to enter a group quilt in the show. We debated a bunch of ideas for a group quilt and decided on this one: we are taking this landscape image, which is from a calendar that one of the women had.

We printed a large copy of the image and cut it vertically into 7 sections. Each of us will make a quilt panel 10" wide by 46" long depicting our "slice" of the image. Then we will hang them all side-by-side to reassemble the image. We are all going to aim for the same size panel, and the general color scheme in the picture, but otherwise are free to make the image with whatever techniques we want. Hopefully when it's hung up, the picture will be recognizable! I've never even seen a quilt done this way, though some of the women have. It sounds like a fun project!

At our last meeting, we cut up the photo, and here is my "slice":

I think I got a good section, with a little bit of everything in it. I haven't started yet, but have been looking at books and magazines for ideas, and I have a pattern printed out on a big sheet of paper to use as a guide.

I will post progress as I make it. The whole quilt has to be done by Feb. 1 so I think I'll get busy on it once the holidays are over.