Basket Makeover

I am feeling a lot better today, which means... I am back in to sewing! I am working on this quilt and I have another project I want to do.

I made this baby quilt for Rachel, when I was still pregnant with her.



In fact, I start working on this one rignt after I found out that I was having a girl. The fabric I used is one of my most favorite lines from Moda, designed by "Three Sisters" called "Sea Side Roses". In fact I love these fabrics so much that I named the quilt after the line.



I sewed this tag on the back of the quilt, and was going to write the name of the baby when I decided her name but forgot about it. My first two were boys, and I made them a bunch of quilts and blankets. I was so excited that I was finally able to make a quilt for a baby girl! I went to a quilt shop and when I saw these gorgeous fabrics, I almost fainted. They were exactly what I was looking for, delicate flowers, soft colors of pink and greens...sigh

Anyway, I finally decided what I am going to do with the left over fabric. I found this fantastic basket at DI about six month ago. I took off the old lining and cleaned it. I was going to get back to the project when I find the perfect fabric for the lining. Ha! I had it all along.



The summer is half way over but I don't think it is too late to have a sweet basket to go out, right?

Moda Scrap Bag Quilt

I finished piecing this quilt top! Again it is a simple design but since I love these fabrics I am very happy with the result. This was a scrap bag project and I don't know if all the scrap bag contains the exact same thing, I am not going to do a complete tutorial on this. Still some of you might want to make something like this, I will give a few mesurements and tips. Note: The light green and ivory fabrics for the sashing and the border were not in the scrap bag. I added them from my own stash.

1. First I made 24 nine-patch pieces. Most of the strips from the bag were 3 3/4" wide X 33 1/2" long. A finished nine-patch was 10 1/4" x 10 1/4".

2. You will need 12 pieces of 4" x 4" squares (light green fabric), and 38 pieces of 4" X 10 1/4" strips (ivory color) for the sashings.

3. Assemble 1 and 2 together and attach borders. For the borders, I didn't have enough light green fabric, so what I decided to do was to use leftover peices from the nine patch and made scrappy borders. I actually like it this way.



It is fun to make a quilt without a complete plan sometimes. I just went with the flow and decided on the design as I made the quilt. If I see another scrap bag that has cute colors (well, of course they will all be cute, they are from Moda!) I will buy it in a heartbeat.

Simple Is Best

I was going through my old magazines and found a recipe for citrus salad. Basically, you peel and slice a grapefruit and an orange and drizzle it with honey and then refrigerate. The picture looked so good and it was such a simple recipe, I tried it...

Well, the grapefruit was good, but the orange tasted funny. I don't think orange and honey go well together. I didn't say anything at first, hoping that my family's taste buds weren't as delicate as mine and that they would eat it up. (Hey, I don't want to waste food. It was part of an experiment!)
Right away, my hubby said "The orange taste funny." and stopped eating it. Then the others followed. Dang it!

Well, eventhough the recipe was simple, sometimes the simplest form is the best way to eat food.

Today, I simply peeled the orange and the grapefruit and placed them on a plate. They loved it.

By the way, I finished the quilt top from the Moda scrap bag tonight. When there is nice sunlight, I will take a picture and post it here.

An Earthly Angel Visited My Home

Yesterday afternoon, I heard a knock on my door. I was not expecting anybody, so I was wondering who could that be? I opened the door and there stood one of my neighbor friend, with some fabrics in her hand.

She said, "I found these at a garage sale and noticed that these are moda fabrics and thought of you!"

She handed me the fabrics.

"Really?! Wow, thanks! How much was it?", I exclaimed excitedly.

Also thinking that, wow there are actually people out there who sell MODA fabrics at a garage sale?! Bring it on! One of the fabrics I had bought a few years ago and really liked it; you can always use simple red like that one. The other one was a pattern that I have never seen before and I FELL IN LOVE with it!!

I was eager to pay and claim them as mine. Then she said, "Oh no, it's a gift!"
I asked her a couple times but she insisted that I needn't pay to recive a gift.

I was very touched by her kindness and the fact that she thought of me while she was out having fun at the garage sales. She not only gave me fabrics, she also showed me how to be kind and make someone feel so special.

Thank you! You totally made my day, and I want you to know that you are one of my earthly Angels. :)

What am I up to now

A couple days ago, I went to Pine Needles in Gardner Village to drop some of my patterns off and desided to look around the store. Since the boys were in school it was so hard not to; and I found this:



I knew about jelly rolls and charm packs but this is new! It was in a brown paper bag and looked like some goodies were inside. Inside the bag there were 40 color coordinated strips of fabric from Moda and it was only $9.99 +tax. I was so excited that I couldn't resist picking one up for myself. There were a few packages each with a different selection and I picked this one up.



On the way home I kept thinking about how I am going to use this unexpected treasure. I have several differnt ideas, but also I have many projects waiting at home. How should I prioritize... Oh, forget about it; this is so exciting! I will let you all know what I end up doing with it in a future post. Hopefully soon.

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Lately I have been in a bag-making mood. I created several in the last few days, and this is one of my favorites.



I used oil cloth by Michael Miller, and this one is slightly smaller then what I usually make but it will be perfect for holding a wallet, cell phone, etc. It will be available on my etsy store soon. Please check it out!

Well, I am off to do mommmy duty. I am going to get the kids in bed. Have a nice weekend everybody!