Magenta Pink Summer Dress

I was looking at some clothes I made in the last few months and I guess I have been really drawn to deep pink or purplish colors. I made a skirt with similar color to this dress and a lavender color linen dress. When I found this magenta pink light weight fabric I immediately pictured a summer dress.

I decided to use the pattern Butterick 6451. I love relaxed flowy style to wear around house and I noticed that tiered style is back. This was a perfect pattern.

The original pattern showed sleeves with elastics in them, but I decided to leave it as is (I left the openings just in case I change my mind, I have an option to put elastic through).

I think it would be cute to cut the sleeves short to make a short sleeve dress.

Magenta pink is a bit of a strong color, but it sure is fun to wear! What are you going to sew this summer?

Purple Dress

I have been participating in a sewing challenge called "Sew that pattern now" during the month of March. Emi, Olga and Mijke encouraged people to sew with the patterns and fabrics that have been sitting in your closet or sewing room forever and just get it done. I am totally guilty of having such stacks and I decided to join the fun and knock some projects off my list. It is actually really motivating and fun to go through my stash of fabrics and patterns and finally do some. I made other garments, but this dress is the only one that I took picture of with a real camera and I decided to write a blog post. I promise that later I will upload pictures from my phone and share other clothing I made.

I used linen blend I bought years ago in San Jose. for the longest time, I couldn't decide what to make with it, but I am really happy with how it turned out. The pattern I used is from one of my Japanese sewing books.

I love the pleats and V-neck on this dress and I am thinking about making it with different colors (yes... I have more fabrics in my closet. This is what happens when you shop faster than you sew!).

I was suppose to have surgery done at the end of this month, but last Friday, the doctor's office called and they needed me to reschedule my surgery to the beginning of next month. To be honest, I was pretty annoyed about this at first because that would affect everyone's schedule around here. Also, I thought I wuold be recovering, I didn't plan our Spring Break trip, otherwise we would have been on the road. :( But, now I am thinking I can sew a little bit longer before the surgery and organize my house too. Do you think I can squeeze in some more projects??

Accidental Baby Quilt

Have you seen the cute fabric line Gretel designed by my sweet friend Amy Smart for Riley Blake designs? I had a chance to work with them and I made a quilt top a few weeks ago. What? the quilt up above? NO. That isn't it. The picture below is the quilt top I made first. For some reasons, my dog always shows up from nowhere when I start taking pictures of my quilt and gets in the pictures. Sorry if you are not a doggy lover. ;) It is not quilted yet, but I love how it turned out. I made it up as I went along, which is great, but because it wasn't planned nor did I follow a pattern, I had some left over blocks. I hate to waste so many blocks, so I started playing with them and kept switching things up to see the design potential... and pieced them together...

and ta-da! This baby quilt was born.

I was so happy how it turned out and got carried away. I hand quilted it, decided to do scalloped edges, and embroidered some red motif on it.

Sometimes you can come up with something fun and unexpected when you go with the flow and just let it happen. My baby sister is pregnant with her first baby and I am crossing my fingers that the baby is a girl, so this aunt can ship this quilt to Japan!

Daysi Do Quilt

This the is final post of 2018! I have been working on some hand piecing and EPP through out the year, but I finally finished this quilt!! This is a pattern called "Daisy Do" and designed by Jen Kingwell. This is one of the quilts that took my breath away and I had to make one. When I make scrap quilts, I go through my scraps first, move on to fat quarters and if I have to, then I cut in to bigger pieces. It was so much fun to come up with different combinations of blocks.

I am a hand quilter and usually if I spend so much time hand piecing a quilt, most likely I hand quilt it as well. But, a few years ago, I injured my shoulders and I was supposed to get surgery this year; well, that plan was before I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I felt that I needed to take care of that first and that put my shoulder surgery off. I finished the quilt top a while ago, but wasn't sure if I was going to be able to do hand quilting. I finally decided to ask someone to machine quilt my quilt and I asked my friend Audrey who runs a machine quilt company called the The Quilt Barn with her sister, Emmy. I couldn't be happier with the result!! She did such an amazing job! She even quilted each circle in the middle of the flowers.

The way she quilted really emphasis the design of the quilt top and that was exactly what I wanted. I pieced the backing and with her beautiful machine quilting design, I feel like I have two quilts in one. Thank you so much Emmy!

Last but not least, let me mention my middle son. I wanted to take some pictures of the quilt, but really needed help, he came with me and did above and beyond for the photo shoot. I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to him too. I know I am blessed with one of the best teens! I didn't use this picture at the very top of the post, even though I really love the look of the quilt hanging from the tree. He climbed up the tree and held the quilt while he was balancing and stabilizing himself on the V shaped tree. I spotted his foot sticking out from the quilt while I was editing the pictures. I thought to myself, "Shoot! Why didn't I see that?" But, this picture is very special because it reminds me of him and how sweet he was to help me out.

Well, everyone, 2018 was quite eventful for me both good and bad but, I am so grateful for all the experiences I went through and love I received. I hope I will be healthier and
able to do more in 2019.

I wish you all the very best and send my love. Happy New Year!!!