Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Today's projects and a new tab

Perhaps I'm not quite out of the dreary scatter-brained fog
but I did manage to get a couple of little projects finished this morning...

So I added a projects tab if you care to see how these two thrift store finds
turned from these:


Into these:

















Looks like the sun will come out and stay a bit today.
Heavy rains and thunderstorms all afternoon and evening yesterday
made for a rather unproductive mood.

Last week,
though I still had very little ambition to meander over to the sewing room and try to get
things done, I changed the scenery by bringing my machine into the dining room to sew
a new pair of simple surged edge curtains for my kitchen.

They came out pretty decent and I'm now rearranging the walls etc to fit my style.
I'd made the mistake of trying to dress the walls, floors and windows of my bare farmhouse
kitchen on a dollar store budget - with an Italian chef motif....  Ughhhh....

After spending about $30.  that I really didn't have to spend and placing the matching
chef items on the walls, counter tops & floors - 
within about 8 days I was absolutely distressed over my obscenely tasteless choices.

I could not get this stuff out of the kitchen and into a goodwill box fast enough!
(I'd foolishly trashed the receipts so there was no returning them for cash at that point)

Anyway, just as well - another lesson learned, another booster shot so to speak.

Grabbed some Lecien with roses and pale aqua blue
 and stitched these up super quick:


My mother had won some old Table Talk
pie tins off eBay last year.
There were about 7 of them, s
o I hung 3 up on one wall and it tied right in
with the old charm of this kitchen
and the curtains
which have a 50's appeal to them (imo).

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Sewing Slump...How long do these things last anyway?!

New Day, new chance to get past the sewing slump I have found myself in for well over a couple of weeks now. 

The biggest thing that upsets me about this odd lost feeling I'm swimming in is that I am disappointing myself. 

I know I want to sew.
I am not suffering from a lack of fabrics by any stretch, even searched the internet to find others who have posted about this same situation and am glad that it is not an uncommon phenomenon.

I tried to sew for Mother's Day and then again yesterday.
Didn't like anything I made or how they turned out.
Completely uninspired.

As one of my phone friends up in Chicago would say:
"Girl - You are a HOT MESS!"

So a little more coffee, some venting to you and I believe I've set my sights on a rag purse with a
zipper lining.  (and perhaps an outer pocket that snaps shut)
Maybe another tutorial....

Anyone else in a slump lately?

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

And the sun shines once again...

I've been avoiding the sewing machine and blog for over a week now as my favorite friend, my buddy of 14 years, my best pal & feline companion passed away on Friday last.
My heart was utterly and completely broken but I am very sure that he is sniffing lovely flowers,
nibbling on delicious blades of grass and marveling at the most beautiful butterflies that eternity has ever offered.


So coming nearly almost out of my solemn stuper, I find today some great news, my rag purse tutorial was featured on totally tutorials :)
I'm ready to start my mother in law's Mother's Day gift along with some bunting (first attempt)
and another quilt this week.  I want to demonstrate how I close my binding around quilts and table runners so look for that little gem of information in the tutorial section soon. Hopefully it helps someone starting out like me :)



In keeping with the strippy pillow theme, about 2 weeks ago, I finished (and sold on Etsy! :)  a strippy quilted table runner.
I wanted to show it off. The lighting is just never "right" enough...


The backside was completely done in the lilacs on black fabric seen above.  I don't have a set number of strips I use or a pattern so my runners have always been different lengths by a few inches more or less.