fat quarter shop playing

Have you all seen those lovely Blogger's choice collections that select fabulous people have been asked to put together for the Fat Quarter Shop?  It's been fun to watch them popping up here and there and see different tastes and "collections".  Well, I have one of my own.  And not because I'm fabulous or select. (though I like to think that I am teehee).


Nope.  I put together a little collection to play along with the game/competition/general fun being hosted over Quokka Quilts.  The Fat Quarter Shop is sponsoring her competition and giving away a half yard cut of all fifteen fabrics that the winner has selected for their own collection.  The game is open for a while, so have fun and put together a collection of your own.  Hey, somebody's got to win.  It should be one of you!  All the details can be found over at Quokka Quilts.


Since I wanted to play too, here is my humble collection.  Yep.  I'm stuck in a color rut, but I sort of love it.  So I thought rather than fight it, I'd just embrace it.

Yep...I could live with a half yard of all of those. ;)

Winter Woolies

Well I just couldn't resist anymore. There was too much cuteness hitting the quilting internet world this holiday soon and it was all compliments of Kerry! Her darling paper pieced pattern for a hat, mittens, and scarf are so darling and I had to participate. So I coughed up the all of $3 or so I believe for the pattern (soooo reasonable!) and started off on my own variation of the pattern. Oh and when I say variation, I mean I tried to copy Kerry's as much as possible. ;)

I didn't start at with this color scheme in mind at all. I think all of the versions I have seen have been bright and sweet and cheerful. Somehow my brain was doing its own thing. Let's be honest. It usually does its own thing. And this fabric called to me from my scraps. Every fabric is from my scrap bin!! Woohoo!

I just love all the little details in Kerry's pattern and the beauty that is paper piecing and its perfection of points. I added a sweet button top and copied Kerry's fun embroidery. I think that the tiny text print would be such an awesome hat in real life!

Try to ignore my little floof on the scarf...I'm doing my best. That's the beauty of handmade right? Prints, dots, and stripes. Yum! I'm completely smitten with this mini wall hanging. The binding did give me some fits for a while, but I'm happy with my final solution...two fabrics!

I put in the little grommets just like Kerry and added some twine just like Kerry (I wanna be, I wanna be like Kerry!). And then I threw it up on my wall next to my new wall hanging from Kelly! I think they look fabulous together. And now I need to make another something for the other side to create a trio...Kerry has a candy cane pattern....hmmm....

Maybe it was the sentiment of Christmas, but I was feeling quite reminiscent while I was making this wall hanging. You see, each and every piece of fabric was given to me as part of a swap or bee from friends all over the world. There are pieces that came from England, Germany, Australia, the Western US and I know exactly who each piece is from. There's something pretty sweet about that.



I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas and are still celebrating with family and friends. My hubby and I are attempting to have a little vacation at home this week, so I'll be officially off the blog clock for the next week. But don't worry....plenty of sewing has been done and will be done....so there is much to share!

Savvy Season Indeed!

It feels a little quieter around the quilting blog world these days. I think everyone is busy in their homes whipping up last minute gifts (if you are like me!) and spending time with family and friends. But I'm still around, so I've got to think that there are others out there still reading too.


A couple of days ago I received a lovely package in the mail! My savvy seasons swap package! I was delighted to discover that Kelly/Scrapstudio had me as her partner. I had been admiring all of her creations as she posted them in the group but trying not to get my hopes up. ;)



It all started with this box that held so many scraps I was amazed at how many kept coming out. There are truly precious scraps in there I know so it was very sweet of Kelly to share them with me. And believe it or not folks I don't think I had any of the fabrics she sent! How is that possible? lol

This darling card (which I forced myself to open before diving into my goodies) is now hanging with all of our Christmas cards. So cute! I want to be one of these ladies.

Oh, but then the fun really began! There was this little handmade bag that was filled with a bag of peppermint hershey's kisses...but they didn't manage to make it to the photo shoot...hmmm....where did they go?! ;) The bag is another perfect Caitlyn sized container for storing "kitchen" food and tools. So off to her play kitchen it quickly went.

You may notice that bag was resting on a pretty table runner. Kelly used a lovely putty sparkly linen and a mod tree design to create a darling and oh so useful decoration. I, in my tiny space, hardly have room to put it out. But I managed to squeeze it in on one of the few surfaces we have. I'm going to show you Kelly's picture of it though so you can see just how beautiful it will be when I have the space to show it off. Oh and I totally need the pear candles that she has too!

(photo compliments of Kelly)

And then there was this beautiful wall hanging that Kelly made from Nova's pattern. Eeek! So precious. At first I thought it was a pillow because she had also made a pillow version at some point. But she sweetly told me that she deliberately did NOT send it as a pillow because I had mentioned how much my husband hates pillows. Isn't that thoughtful?! My husband laughed at that and was quite grateful for one less handmade pillow to toss on the floor. ;) I couldn't resist and have this hanging with pushpins on a lonely wall. I just had to put it up!

I can see us starting traditions of filling it with different items each year. I just love that fun pocket. And Sweetwater is one of my favorite group of designers. Such a win, win!


So I totally lucked out on this swap and am happily enjoying all of my new handmade items that I didn't make! lol Yay for fun swaps! Thank you so much Kelly!

Christmas is coming!

Oh it's looking like Christmas around here! I decided to wrap some presents today simply to tidy up the space where I had been stashing presents. It was getting completely out of control. This looks much better. ;)

I've been sewing and stitching and organizing and cleaning...and of course, as is par with the holidays, I still feel behind. But I'm trying to be reasonable about what I can accomplish. So far I've been doing pretty well. I whipped up a miniature version of the tutu that I made for Caitlyn for her birthday to suit a little doll.

Here's her Alice doll showing it off. Someday I think she'll appreciate that they have matching tutus.

I've been on a mission to make Caitlyn herself some clothes for Christmas. At some point, some sweet person in a swap sent me their pattern for The Sunday Brunch Skirt (and jacket) by Oliver and S. I'm planning on making Caitlyn's Christmas dress this week from another Oliver and S pattern, so I wanted to get an official clothing pattern of theirs under my belt before I do that.

Again, I'm having some mixed feelings on how this company handles waist bands. I had some issues with the tutu directions as well. I do love how they put the pockets in the skirt though...that's a tip I will use again.

The back has a little kick pleat that had some interesting construction on it as well, but I've never done that in a skirt so I'm not sure how it compares to other methods.

This back waist is the part that I didn't feel the pattern explained all that well. I'm not really sure why they didn't just gently gather the back of the skirt. Any insights from anyone who's made this pattern? I essentially had to gather by pinning carefully. Confusing...

You will probably recognize the sweet fabric that I used for the skirt. I had some left over from one of my Moda bakeshop quilts. It is a Hometown print by Sweetwater. Look! There's South Bend!

It turned out really cute and I was pleased in the end. And it fit Caitlyn reasonably well.

Only sneaking Mommy's wallet out of her purse enabled her to stand still long enough for me to snatch a picture.

And a fuzzier version on my phone at a party later in the day.

And I know I've inundated you with pictures, but you have to see my out takes from attempting to get a photo of her. Let's just say that she is definitely two and she wanted NO part in it! These crack me up!!



Wailing in protest

Flailing back on her chair in disgust

You would think I was doing something other than standing there with camera. Nope. She just REALLY did not want her picture taken. I hope she gets past this phase. Because she's too cute not to take her picture. ;)

Trying to Keep Warm...Brr!

It's decidedly more cold in Indiana than it was in Louisiana. No one will deny that. So I'm readjusting myself to the chilly weather. When I saw Kerry post a scarf that she made recently, I got on the Kerry train and made one for myself that afternoon. And I've barely taken it off since!


I'm a math geek, so I'll call this by its math name, A Mobius Scarf. But others may know it as an infinity scarf (also math!) or a figure 8 scarf (still math!).

I made it from the tutorial that Kerry mentioned on her blog. Super simple and so very satisfying. Just a 1/4 yard of 54" wide voile and flannel is needed to make it!

It's hard to take a picture of yourself with a camera! lol I tried again with my iphone but the picture quality is a bit different. ;)

These are so quick to make that I decided to make one as a gift for a party I'm going to Monday night where we are exchanging homemade gifts. I have no idea what other people are making...but not very many people sew so I think that I'm safe with this gift.

I hope that they love it as much as I love mine! I'm serious when I said that I rarely take mine off now! lol

Cupcakes Anyone?

I just realized that I hadn't yet shown you all the hysterical cookie monster cupcakes that we made for my daughter's second birthday last week. Her favorite sesame street character is "Cookie" so when I saw a photo of these online, I knew what needed to be done. Then I just had to sweet talk my husband into helping me (he was going to bake a cake). But it didn't take long to get him on board because really these are just so fun to make!!

Oh to be two and have such a fun birthday treat! These are so effective and really not that hard to make. There are tons of tutorials out there in the online world. I even watched a couple of videos on Youtube to see some done in real time. There are a number of variations, but we were definitely happy with ours.

So obviously you will need some cupcakes. We thought that the larger cupcakes looked the best in the end, so double up those scoops and make some big cupcakes! I went to the store and bought some royal blue food coloring by Wilton which for the record did NOT stain anything. Other people were worried about that, but I think paying for the quality dye did the trick. I bought some icing bags and a tip for "grass". I can't remember the tip number off the top of my head but I just looked at a nearby decorating book for a similar style and bought the tip they used for that.

My husband whipped up some buttercream frosting which didn't need to be too stiff. Somewhat...but the joy of this cupcake is that you can be sloppy and it almost helps the look. ;) The eyes are made from white melting candies and chocolate chips. We used a small bit of the white candies in melted form as a "glue" for attaching the chocolate chips. And the oreo cookies we used were a standard size but we cut them in half.

Cookie monster is very distinctive due to his wobbly eyes. So you want to make sure that you deliberately set the eyes askew. One of the youtube videos I watched said that you put one eye faving down into the frosting and one looking up....Instant presto fabulous cookie monster! And I dare you not to laugh out loud when you put them in! He's so cute!!

I am NO expert on cake decorating. I've always wanted to take a class but have never managed to make it happen. And I've tried! But I digress. One of the things we learned quickly was that it would be a lot easier to give all the cupcakes a quick layer of blue frosting as a base so that we weren't trying to fill in every tiny speck with the decorative blue technique. That made life a lot easier. I'm sure that's no news to someone who's decorated cakes before but this is what you learn when you do it for the first time.

She was admittedly a little baffled by us turning down the lights and singing to her with a plate of cupcakes and some candles but for the adults it was super sweet! And though I was a bit worried, she had no problems eating her beloved Cookie!

It's good to be two.

O Christmas Tree!

So as you know if you read my blog regularly, I am the proud mother of an official two year old. She's lovely and adorable, but let's face it....a little feisty too. In our teeny tiny temporary living situation it just did not seem practical to put up a Christmas tree. All of our decorations are in storage and I'm not ready to battle her constantly with not touching the tree. Sooo not worth it to me. So when I found a picture on Pinterest of a Felt Christmas Tree for a toddler, I knew I had found the perfect solution.

I've been itching to do another felt project ever since I made this wreath. I have the felt bug! It's so very crafty! So I bought a yard of green sparkly felt (so that the tree would look like it has lights). The felt is 72" wide, so I cut it in half and then made a triangle from the square of felt I had.

I used some of the extra green felt to make some more felt roses. I did them the quick and dirty way and wrapped them up and just hot glued the back in place. Super quick and cute!

I put them along the top of the tree for some dimension...but just out of reach of little hands. ;)

Inspired by one of the pictures I saw on Pinterest, I opted to add some presents to the bottom of the tree for extra interest and color! A rotary cutter and mat, a little hot glue and some ingenuity later...a bunch of gifts under the tree.

They are hot glued together and then hot glued to the tree. So they are not going anywhere!

I broke out the accuquilt cutter and my circle die and cut out a bunch of circles in all three sizes. A little more felt and hot glue and I had an assortment of ornaments all ready to decorate the tree.

The felt sticks right to the felt with no extra adhesive making the ornaments perfect for little hands to move here and there. I was worried that the sparkly felt might not hold the felt ornaments as well as a non sparkly one, but they have stayed up beautifully!

For the star at the top of the tree I just searched on line for a clip art star that I liked. Saved the image and printed it. Then I used it as a template for the felt. A little more hot glue and there is a perfect Christmas tree all ready for a two year old!

She's been enjoying it!