Block-a-month

I finally finished my center blocks for the block-a-month quilt I started last year. As you can tell, I am a pretty big fan of fall colors.

a note from Ethan

Ethan, my lego-obsessed son, left me this note last night.

Just about finished

I am finally almost finished with redecorating Riley's room. I finished these ribboned curtains Saturday night. I think they turned out quite nicely and were very easy. I started out sewing on the ribbons, but have a few issues with thread tension, so I switched to using fabric glue. This was very quick and very easy. I let Riley choose the ribbons (which I had been gathering for several months) and their order. Simple and cute!

Truffula Tree

With the ending of school fast approaching (tomorrow), Riley decided she wanted to make a special gift for her kindergarten teacher, a Truffula tree (from Dr. Seuss's The Lorax). After brainstorming awhile, I think we came up with something pretty good.
Materials: Styrofoam ball, fuzzy feather boa in your choice of colors, 3/8" dowel, sculpey (yellow, green, black), wooden platform, craft glue, sewing pins.
To start with, we poked a pen into one end of the styrofoam ball to make it easier to handle. Then we covered the ball with craft glue. Next we poked a pin through one end of the boa and stuck it in the top of the ball. next we slowly wrapped the boa around the ball, keeping the rows as close together as possible. when we came to the end, we put in another pin. (anywhere that I worried about how well the boa stuck, I used another pin to reinforce). Then I cut 2 4-5 inch pieces of the dowel. I rolled a piece of sculpey (color didn't matter here) to match the width and attached it to the end of the dowel. I then rolled the dowel/sculpey combo with some smooth and flat yellow sculpey, smoothed it out, then added some small thin slices of black sculpey to try and get that scribble quality that is found in the book. I bent the "trunk" to match the trees in the book, baked it, and put the dry boa ball on top. I covered the wooden base with green sculpey and baked it. After it had cooled, I drilled in two holes for our two trees and used screws to attach the trees (screwing into the dowel) to the base. We did snap one tree while trying to get it attached, but that is what super glue is for. I will make a Lorax this summer when I find the right materials. Riley's teacher loved it.

Kitchen Towel Apron

I came up with this pattern as a gift for my daughter's friend's birthday. Very easy. I found some cute kitchen towels on clearance after valentine's day. I cut off the top corners of the towel to give it an apron shape (you could use another apron as a pattern), leaving the rest of the sides, top and bottom alone. I then took a package of extra wide double fold bias tape, left enough tail on one end for tying, sewed it to the cut edge, left a large enough loop to fit over a child's head (measure this), sewed tape to the other cut edge, and left an equal tail on the other side. DONE! I added a contrasting pocket on the first one I made, just for some extra fun.

Twilight

OK, so I am a closet Stephenie Meyer fan. I just saw the trailer for the "Twilight" movie, and am pleasantly surprised. Now, if only the 4th book would come out...
Here is a link to the movie trailer: http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.fullscreen&videoid=33429578

Fabric Book Covers

I wanted to make my son's journal more appealing, hoping that he would be more likely to write in it when I came up with this idea. For his I used a pair of jeans he had torn out at the knees, lining it up so I could keep the pockets, which are great to keep pens, pictures, and other momentos.
The general instructions are:
1. measure the outside of the book you want to cover ( I measure with the book closed). Add 1/2" to both the horizontal and vertical measurements.
2. measure the inside flap of the book, add 3/4 " as above, cut 2.
3. Press one side of inside flaps under approx 1/2" and stitch.
4. Line up inside flaps with outside edges (raw edges together) of outside cover. Stitch outside edges on both sides.
5. Trim corners, turn right side out, and press.

For the white cover, I quilted a small sunbonnet sue for a bit of added interest. I also added a piece of ribbon to be used as a page marker. To finish the edge around the binding I cut a rectangle of fabric about 2"x 3", turned under the bottom edge and stitched it, then placed a piece of ribbon on the top edge between the two layers and stitched it along with step 4, above.