Back to Babies

Currently, I am back to sewing baby gear for our new grand baby who is due this coming fall.  This time around I am working with soft, cuddly printed flannel, I just love working in flannel since it is easy to use and irons up nicely at the finish of each project, not to mention keeping baby nice and warm.  All these prints are just darling, some of them are geared for a baby boy or girl and some can be used for either one.  I will probably make my projects out of both prints and put away which ever one I don’t use for this baby and save the others for the next one.

My newest baby projects are newborn kimono jackets, I made them when both my children were babies and used them all the time after a bath and over their little pajamas and nightgowns for extra warmth; the cotton versions are great for summer playtime or sleeping in on a warm night.  While digging through my patterns, this cute jacket just jumped out at me as something I should make for our new baby, it is not something you see new mom’s using these days, maybe it will make a come back this year when I re-release the pattern and jackets later this fall.  The pattern is simple to read and easy to use, they make up pretty quickly using the flannel, bias tape and printed ribbons.

This little top can be worn by either a boy or a girl but leans slightly towards a baby boy with the darling blue elephants and the orange trim.  I made another jacket in the same fabric with a matching green trim and a pale yellow bow before going on to work with the other prints; each one will be totally unique with different trims and ribbons, no two will be alike.

Thanks for letting me share my newborn kimono jackets with you, there are going to be lots of baby projects mixed in with all the other painting and craft projects over the next couple of months. I hope they inspire you to create some baby gear of your own for your baby, grand baby or as a shower gift, happy sewing. 

See you soon.

Laurette

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The Red Door

I wrote a big impressive posting about the red door and the family room/kitchen makeover, edited it a million times, saved it all the way, chose lots of photos and promptly lost the whole thing through some kind of computer or user error (sigh).  Boy was I mad at myself, I am sure it was some dumb thing I did but I lost three hours of hard work.  So…… I am only going to tell you about the red door today and break it up into two different posts, since I cannot remember everything I wrote the first time, this one will be a short one.

Our front door started out a kind of light brown/mocha color which was surrounded by a creamy white trim and tan walls, kind of a neutral non-descript looking home, basic curb appeal but no real pop of color to draw the eye in, totally not my kind of house.  We just were not ready to re-paint the whole exterior of the house since it was painted less then two years ago by the investors we purchased the home from.  The best way to give it some new curb appeal was to paint our front door red so it could be seen through the white screen door.  I originally wanted to paint the door a nice glossy black but decided to go bold instead, because as most of you know I love color, it does not have to be super bright but it does need a bit of bling to make me happy.

I chose Ace Hardware Exterior-Latex paint, semi-gloss, Dried Tomato; the color is not an orange red more of a deeper darker red with a black base.  No matter which red you use it will take more then one coat, mine took three to get a nice even glossy coat of full coverage.  No matter how careful I was when applying the blue painters tape, some of the paint came off around the door handles and the glass when I pulled off the tape.  I will have to go back and touch it all up to cover the primer coat and the original mocha paint color, one of the hazards of doing a DIY project instead of using a professional painter, not a big deal just a bit more work, good thing I like to paint, more lessons learned.

Thanks for letting me share my Red Door painting project with you, my door came out a really beautiful, rich, red which pumped up our homes’ curb appeal and brings a smile to my face every time I open the front door.  I hope my little curb appeal project will encourage you to make some small changes (painted flower boxes, rod iron accents over windows and doors, painted shutters or a new rich front door color) to the front of your house so you can smile every time you arrive home.  I have more painted projects headed your way, keep reading you never know what I am going to paint, sew or craft next.

See you soon.

Laurette

Sewing The Blues

The forecast for spring and summer colors introduced by the fashion and interior design industry called for tangerine/oranges, citron/lime, yellows and blues in every shade imaginable.  Tangerine made a huge splash on the runways and in the home interior previews early this spring.  Right behind the oranges were strong colors in greens and blues; the trend seems to have continued right into the summer lines of clothing, indoor and outdoor furnishings and accessories.  I absolutely adore the fact that blues and greens are making a huge comeback this year; hues of blue have always been my favorite colors since I was a pre-teen and I am very happy to be using them again.

My personal moodboard in a variety of blues and greens, which sits above my desk, was inspired by Pink Chalk Fabrics’ blog, Pink Chalk Studios, featuring textiles by Maasai Mara from dear Stella and Ellen Luckett Baker for Moda.  I use moodboards to collect colorful images to inspire my fabric, paint and project style choices, this one encouraged me to go blue and green in my next project.

Apparently last year I was way ahead of the curve with my Paisley Crazy Room Makeover where I featured lime greens, blue and turquoise as my updated color scheme.  I constantly study, watch and read about fashion and interior design so I can stay up on what is new and fresh each season. I had an inkling as to the coming color changes and chose them for my guest room/office even though some people thought I was nuts for putting them in my home.

I am at it again, in the early spring I picked out some beautiful blues and greens for my outdoor patio makeover project.  Large prints, geometric patterns and stripes are all the rage in outdoor fabrics and I have them all in complementary colors, a great way to spruce up my dull patio cushions and add some tropical bling.  I already started sewing up several cushion covers but decided to hold off finishing them until the big tree next door finishes shedding sticky pollen and leaves all over my patio; I plan to get back to  sewing early next week so everything will be done in time for a party in mid June.  Once I finish them I will write a before and after post so you can see the difference the new blues and greens made, should be a good one.

Thanks for letting me share Sewing The Blues with you; I hope it inspired you to perk up your indoor and outdoor rooms with some of the new bright and cheerful colors of the summer season.  See you soon.

Laurette

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Happy Mother's Day

I want to wish each and every Mother, Grandmother and Mommy-to-be a wonderful and Happy Mother’s Day, I hope each of you has a very special day with your families. 

I will be spending the day with my daughter getting manicures and pedicures, having lunch out and then some shopping, no children or spouses.  We will return for a dinner prepared by our husbands and the kids, it should be a fun meal.

I wanted to share with you some of the beautiful roses from my garden, just in case you are allergic and can’t have them or don’t get any of your own. (I don’t usually get roses since I grow my own.)  Enjoy!

I have just about every color you can think of and a few unusual colors as well; I even have lavender, several shades of pinks, reds, yellows, peach and white.  They sit up on the hill in the warm sun all day long and bloom about nine months out of the year, I am very lucky to have the perfect spot to grow roses.  They were neglected for several years until we purchased the property and I began giving each plant regular trimmings, rose food and plenty of water.  This is our second summer and we are finally getting most of the plants to bloom on a regular basis, they should get healthier each year with lots of tender loving care.

Thanks for letting me share my rose garden with all of you; I hope you have a spectacular Mother’s Day.  Hugs to each of you.  See you soon.

Laurette

All About Babies

Today’s creative project is baby burp cloths, with an 8 month old granddaughter and a new baby arriving in the fall, I thought it was time to get sewing for the little ones again.  I felt it was appropriate to begin with all those necessary little generic layette items since we don’t know yet what the sex of our fall baby is.  Burp cloths were up first, with baby kimonos, bibs, blankets, toys and quilts to follow as time allows.  I love to sew for babies and toddlers the fabrics are so much fun to work with; you will be seeing quite a few projects over the next couple of months as I gather together my completed projects for the baby shower.

I had a great time shopping in my fabric stash for the retro prints I used on most of the burp cloths.  The fabrics remind me so much of the ones I used to make things for my children when they were babies, except the prints then were the originals, these are replicas of those.  The retro fabrics I chose are not gender specific and can be used for either a boy or a girl.

I played around with different kinds of fabric mixes with printed cottons for one side with either flannel on the back or terrycloth toweling.  On one of them I used the same flannel print on both sides. I sent one of each kind over to my daughter’s house to try on her 8 month old to see how well they work and wash up; they are still in the testing stages, so far so good.

These six will go into the basket of goodies for the baby shower; they are a mix of cottons, flannel and terrycloth toweling. As soon as I find out the gender my projects will get much more specific, but for now I get to sew for the baby as my creative spirit speaks to me.

Thanks for letting me share my baby burp cloth project with you.  I have several summer patio sewing and painting projects coming up very soon as well as the kitchen/family room makeover posting, I misplaced some photos which is putting me a little behind on that one, but it is on the way.  See you soon.

Laurette

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Project Progress

I thought I would share with you some of those pesky little unfinished projects I managed to complete, they were just hanging around in my project boxes collecting dust, now they are finished and ready to be sold or given as gifts.

First up, some cute little zipper bags made in a few fun animal prints, etc… I just love making these; they sew up pretty quickly once you get everything cut and pinned.  I already gave away several zip bags as gifts; I guess I will just have to make more.

I made this sweet little light weight pink blanket for my newest grand-baby, her Mom thought she needed something to cuddle with in the night which was soft but not very heavy.  The blanket is made from two layers of super soft embossed flannel without the traditional batting sandwiched in the middle.

These flowers were not in my project boxes but they were hanging around my studio waiting for me to do something with them.  I finally found the time to create some floral arrangements for my Mom’s grave site for Mother’s day.  I did not need to do very much with them since they were already very pretty.

Last but not least were some standard size pillowcases in fun girly prints.  They were so quick and easy to make, about an hour, each one has its own personality. Check out my Paisley Pillowcases Tutorial from the October 2011 archive file if you would like to make your own pillowcases, you can also join the One Million Pillowcase Challenge, details and the website are also listed on the tutorial.

Another unfinished project was the painting of our kitchen/family room and our front door, which we managed to complete this last weekend, multi-tasking all they way.  It felt great to finish the project we started last spring, now it looks more like home; just three bathrooms, the laundry room, the hallways and two bedrooms left to paint, yikes, that’s still a lot, oh well, progress is still forward movement.  I should have the posting for you in a few days as soon as I take the after photos and format everything, watch for that one probably early next week, Monday, I hope. (The fabric shown here was the jumping off point for the kitchen and family room paint colors)

Thanks for letting me share my completed projects with you, maybe it will inspire you to dig through all your UFO’s (unfinished objects/projects) and make some progress of your own.  See you soon.

Laurette

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Finding Fabrics

Last week during a visit from my oldest sister, who lives in the mid-west, she and I spent lots of sister time going to all our favorite places together.  One of our outings was fabric shopping at my favorite quilt shop, Homespun Harbor, during their close out sale.  We both were able to pick up quite a bit of beautiful fabrics to fill in some of the missing elements of our individual fabric stashes.  A good fabric stash is now very important for me because there is not another local fabric store, I will have to go one town away to shop for quilt fabrics and two towns away to shop for garment fabrics and notions.  No more popping into the shop to pick up thread, elastic, zippers or more fabric when I am in the middle of a project, now I have to plan a day trip instead.  

Anyway….. back to our shopping trip, fat quarters were on sale for $1.00 each (for those of you who don’t know what a fat quarter is, it is fabric which measures 18”x 22”, a regular ¼ yard of fabric measures 9”x 44”, quilters use them to make quilts and other small projects, there are whole books dedicated to sewing with fat quarters) they were a fantastic price, they usually start at $2.50 and up depending on the shop.  I don’t use as many fat quarters as my sister, she bought more of those then I did, but I did manage to pick out a few of my own which I like to use for children’s Christmas stockings, table napkins and wine bags, at a buck each it was a real steal.  I also purchased some basic solids at a wonderful price as well as some retro print fabrics for dressmaking.

I was thrilled to get these retro inspired fabrics at such low prices, some as low as $3.00 a yard for very high quality cotton fabrics, the average price is normally $10 to $12 per yard.  Some of these prints will be made into dresses, tops, aprons or purses, scraps will be sewn into zip bags and other accessories, no wasted fabrics here.

My sister purchased these classic fabrics for me as an early Birthday present.  The set tied with the black bow is a kit which includes a pattern for a table topper and a table runner, the table topper could also be used as a wall hanging.  The other set is the complementary fabrics to the kit which would allow me to complete a wall hanging and a table topper, one for each of us.  I love those fabrics and can’t wait to work with them; they are already on my cutting table ready to be made into some fun projects.

Our day was filled with a whirl of colors and fabrics but it was bittersweet in the loss of such a great shop.  To cheer me up we went on an exploration of a newer shop which opened, one town away, in San Juan Bautista.  The shop, Family Treads, is a darling place with some of the same types of fabrics and notions I like to create with; I think I will probably visit there often as travel time permits.  It was great fun to explore the lovely fabrics and chat with the other ladies about their projects, we both had a really good day and we were all shopped out by late afternoon.

Thanks for letting me share all our fabric finds with you from my visit with my sister.  Our trip inspired me to get back to sewing and creating more colorful projects, look for those to begin in my next posting.  See you soon.

Laurette

A Farewell to Homespun Harbor

After many years of owning a successful, thriving quilt shop in Hollister, California, the owners, Dennis & Ghleanna recently decided to close their shop and retire to sunny Florida.  Our much loved couple has been in the business for over 20 years and they are now finally ready to slow down life and take it easy for awhile.  Even though they are closing up shop this week they are not leaving the business altogether, they will continue their on-line sales probably some time around September with a website re-vamp featuring fabrics, kits and other goodies, I will let you know when they have it up and running so you can check out their site.  I am sure I will continue to purchase fabrics from them on-line; Ghleanna has such a fantastic eye for picking out just the right line of unique, bright and cheerful fabrics, I know she will have just what I need.

Dennis and Ghleanna, I will not only miss your fabulous store but I will really miss your warm, kind and caring friendship, you both always perked up my day when I entered your shop, you will truly be missed by all your loyal customers and friends.  I wish you the very best in your new life, keep in touch.

Laurette