Today's plan was to turn this quilt top into a quilt.  It's been sitting around for almost two months waiting for me to finish it up.  Procrastinate much, Erin?  Well, yeah, I do.  But I have been getting better.  Or so I thought.

This morning I pieced the back and taped it to the floor.  I unfolded the batting and smoothed it out over the backing.  I put the top down and gasped.

The batting is 1" too short.

One flipping inch.

And I could probably piece the batting, but I haven't done that before.  Because this is a gift, I am not willing to experiment this time around.  If the quilt were staying here, I might just cut some off the quilt top and call it a day.  But I can't do that - it'll ruin the design and again, it's a gift.

So to the quilt shop we go because our most fantastic babysitter goes to college in a little over a week and her quilt needs to be finished.  Good thing I didn't wait until the absolute last minute because then I'd really be screwed.  Or pulling an all-nighter.  And for goodness sakes, I am too old for that.

I've got lots of other little projects in progress.  Back with some show and tell soon.

I asked my brother-in-law to pick a number between 1 and 123.  He said 77 so the copy of Vintage Baby Knits by Kristen Rengren goes to....

Aprill!

Aprill, email me your address (hillroad at bellsouth dot net) and I will make sure the book is on its way to you shortly!

 

So, here's a quick glimpse of the studio....I'm still tidying a bit.  And I'm officially out of storage room, so I am going to go through those fabric stacks and weed them out a bit more.  I'm also wondering how to organize the scrap bags.  Should I do them by color?  Warms and cools?  Or a total grab bag?  Feel free to weigh in.  I'm feeling indecisive.

As promised, here's a little how-to on the fabric ranunculus.

First, cut your fabric into strips on the bias.  The width and length of your strips depends on how big you want your finished flower to be.  For this small flower, the strips are about 3/4" wide and around 10 to 15 inches long.  I used four strips here, but you made need a few more or maybe one less so cut as you go.  For a bigger flower, make the strips wider and longer.

 

Next, using a small zig zag stitch (about 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm), sew along one long edge of your strip.  The idea here is for one side of the stitch to catch the fabric - you really have to be on the absolute edge.  Going slowly will make it easier.

Along the other long edge, sew a gathering stitch (straight stitch, long in length).  Leave the thread tails long and gently pull one thread to gather.

Starting on the outside of the flower, pin the gathered edge into the shape of a circle.  Stop pinning when you complete a full circle.

Using a zig zag stitch, sew along the gathered edge of the circle.  When you come to the curves, leave the needle in the down position, lift the presser foot and rotate the fabric.  Continue until you finish sewing the pinned circle.  Back stitch and cut the threads.

 

Continue gathering and pinning the strip in a circle, slightly overlapping the ends in a soft spiral.  You can fold the end of the strip under if you want.  Sew it in place.  Back stitch and cut the threads.

Keep adding strips to your flower in this manner.  I varied the start and stop points of my strips and the direction to add interest - some go clockwise and some go counterclockwise.

When you get to the center of the flower, zig zag back and forth at different angles to ensure that all edges are sewn.

Before you stitch on a pillow or a skirt or a t-shirt, get out some scraps and try a practice flower.  It'll be worth the few extra minutes because you will get a good feel for how much you need to gather and how big to make the flower.  If you do this on a t-shirt, make sure you don't sew the back to the front.  Ahem.  Go slow, use lots of pins and have fun.

I'll answer any questions in the comment section.

I made my friend Marcia a set of five market bags.  Sorry for the bad photos in low light - it's been gray and rainy here and I couldn't do much better.  Anyhow, I used the Jane's Market Bag pattern that Alicia is selling over at Posie gets Cozy.  Totally worth the $6, in my opinion.  It's well written, easy to follow and the fact that I didn't have to figure out the dimensions, add seam allowances, etc. was a plus.  And they are really cute and don't advertise a particular store.  Am I the only one who feels weird shopping at one place with a reusable bag from an entirely different store?  Anyway, you'll look stylish carrying your groceries in these.

You could do some serious stash busting with these bags if you wanted to.  I didn't buy a single piece of fabric for these - it was all on hand.  I left the pocket off of one side of the bag so that saved some cutting and sewing.  I would like the handles to be a smidge longer, so next time I will add an inch or two.  They come together pretty quickly.  I'd say it's a day long project for the first one, but that is a total guess as I made mine assembly line style.  And after you make one, you will want to make more.  Think holiday gifts.  I am.

In other news, I have not sewn a stitch this week and it is making me cranky.  It turns out that painting a bedroom with crown molding, chair rail, baseboard, four windows and three doors takes about 3 hours per coat.  It's all that cutting in.  Fun, huh?  I'm getting ready to start coat number 3 (tinted primer plus 2 top coats) - thank goodness for no VOC paint - and plan on rocking out to my new summer music mix.  Then the sewing machine is coming down to the family room where there is space and TV and hopefully a good DVD from Netflix.

Oh, and we got postcards from the girls.  So funny.  Kate wrote one sentence:  "I like camp."  Jane wrote a whole bunch of things mostly centered around dinner and the fact that she figured out there is a "vegetarian stand."  Awesome.

Fatty and I dropped the girls off at summer camp yesterday.  It's oddly quiet in the house this morning probably because I know that they won't be bounding down the stairs ready to fix a bowl of cereal or asking for a toasted bagel.  I didn't think I would miss them so much right away!  No matter - I am glad that they are at camp.  I have great memories from my own stints at summer camp and really want them to have their own camp experiences.  And they will be back here on Friday - I am sure five nights will fly by!

As we were going over the packing list yesterday, I realized that I had never made the laundry bags that they needed.  Up to the sewing room I went and after about 20 minutes I had two complete bags!

This is a super fast and easy project.  I took a piece of fabric (about 30 inches long) and sewed a seam up the selvedge side starting about 2 inches from the top.  I pressed the side seam open and then folded and pressed the top edge down to make a casing.  I sewed around that and stitched up the bottom seam.  To finish it off, I threaded a length of ribbon through the casing.  Easy.

If I had thought of it sooner, I would haved added their names to the bags - either by applique or embroidery.  I think this makes a sweet graduation gift or maybe a good birthday present for camp age kids.   Or maybe whip one up for your own kids so they can drag all their dirty clothes down to the laundry for you?

I'm off to exercise and then figure out what to do with my day.  I think there will be more sewing involved.  And definitely paint.  Jane's coming home to a surprise room re-do.  New wall color, new curtains, new pillows....

I have a feeling this week is going to be gone before I know it.  That's just fine.  I miss those girls.

My friend, Sarah, is an amazing photographer.  Many of you know this already.  Her use of light is wonderful and when paired with her polaroid, it's magical.  I was very excited when she decided to sell some of her prints.  I was over the moon when I found that they were all of ranunculus.

I had a hard time choosing because they are all so beautiful.  In the end, I went with the one above.  It arrived yesterday and I love it.  It's 8 x 10 and I love how it looks like a gigantic polaroid.  Today, I'm off to find a frame - I am thinking simple and white so the photo will really shine.  Stop by Sarah's shop and see the rest of them.  I bet you have a hard time choosing too.

And because I have been thinking about Sarah, I finally made my square for her month of the Virtual Quilting Bee.  Sarah sent the two darker solids and asked that we make something with texture.  I struggled with this assignment, mostly because both of my original ideas were used by other people in the VQB.   But in the end, I went with something I know we both adore:  ranunculus.

There is a high possibility that Sarah will not like this one bit.  She is not a ruffly kind of girl and I know that.  But she does like flowers and I had the idea so I made it.  I like it, but if she doesn't, that is fine.  I have lots of fabric left over.

Today is the girls' last day of school.  Yesterday we bought gift cards for their teachers and the girls wrote thank you notes to each of them.  And because a gift card in an envelope is a little ho hum, I came up with a cute way to wrap these small tokens of appreciation.

The girls helped me pick out fabrics for their teachers and I whipped up some coffee cozies.  I love these because they really take very little time to make and they are practical and cute.

We tucked the gift cards inside and each girl wrote their teacher's name on the lid.  Kate put her thank you notes in the cup and Jane slipped hers behind the cozy - both ways work well.  We didn't wrap them any further - the girls carried them in to school just as they are.

And that's it.  Another year gone by.  Time sure does fly.

Back here soon.  In the meantime, you'll find us at the pool.

Happy mail = happy Erin.  Looks like a recipe for a good weekend.  Enjoy yours.