7 Layer Studio

Basement Blahs Banished

I'm happy to report that the basement is (almost) finished! 

Just in time for us to move.  But we won't talk about that right now.

Here it is while standing in the kid's playroom, looking into the guest room.  I didn't want to close off the space entirely because of all the wonderful daylight from the sliding glass doors.  But I wanted to provide a sense of privacy to guests, which is why I opted for a partial wall and the drapes between the rooms.

Just to refresh your memory, here's the same space in the midst of the remodel.

Just a slight improvement, don't ya think?

Our only regret is that we didn't do this a lot sooner so that we could enjoy it more...we LOVE our basement now!

Here's a dresser I rescued from dump-dom (and yes, 2 of those knobs are a little different....I started painting them and wiping away the excess, but I'm not sure if I prefer the painted look or not).

Here she is before the makeover, all $25 of her.  Someone had started refinishing the top, but since that time the top had suffered extreme trauma so I decided to just fill, sand, and paint the whole thing.

The whole dresser was completely thrashed with scratches and dents, and the light colored "stripe" you see there is actually exposed raw wood from where part of the vertical corner piece was entirely ripped off.  Steve helped me a lot on this piece = he was really tired of it sitting in our garage (I lacked the energy/impetus to start the repair work on it) so he fixed the broken corner and helped me fill the millions of scratches.  What a great guy, eh?

 

Here's another rescue project...but unfortunately I don't have any "before" pictures of this one.

I decided to just go with all the dings and dents that were in this piece and distressed the finish to accentuate the "character marks". 

Here's another fun project, my darling armoire named Big Red.  Yes, I'm really good at stating the obvious.  Again, no "before" pictures of this one, but I'll just tell you it was blonde pine wood with a lot of knots showing and you can probably imagine what it looked like before.  I actually painted this one a long time ago, but I don't think I ever showed it to you.

The guest bed is another refinishing project I started long ago and finally finished this past month.  The initial layer is turquise, with white over the top and then distressed.

I made this pillow a few days ago because I just COULDN"T let that huge red bedspread sit there all alone without a single cute pillow to engage the eye.  I love the ruffled red ribbon in this pillow - and I love how easy it was to attach to the pillow front with fusible hem tape!

The bed skirt is another recently finished project - I swiped 20" from the width of 2 IKEA drape panels to make the skirt, then fused grey grosgrain ribbon to the (already hemmed!) bottom edge.  I put a center box pleat in the middle of each skirt for added interest.  The remaining drape fabric was then used to make drapes for the sliding glass door - I sewed the red and white polka dot fabric (3 yards of home dec fabric cut in half lengthwise) to the raw edge that I had just created by swiping the 20" for the bed skirt.  I love multi-tasking fabric!

I still have to paint the louvered doors which lead into the furnace room.  The previous owners had slapped paint all over those poor doors...you can probably imagine all the huge drips and globs that were marring the finish.  I spent quite some time sanding it down, and haven't had time to repaint them yet.  I can only paint trim and doors in spurts because it's not a task I enjoy...and after cutting, installing, patching, caulking, and painting all the baseboard and doorway trim in the entire basement, I needed a rest.

Here's a closeup of some little paintings I did a few months ago.

I hadn't painted any artwork for YEARS, and after finding out we were moving I had a sudden, very impractical urge to start painting again.  Not the best timing in the world, I know.  I think it was a reaction to all the stress of not wanting to move and being overwhelmed with everything that needed to be done prior to leaving this home.  Kinda like blogging about the basement remodel at 3:00 a.m. instead of sleeping.  Not that I would ever do such a thing.

Anyway, I did these little "practice" paintings to get warmed up again, before starting on the GIANT paintings that I was craving to do (big, door-sized panels like I painted for galleries before having children).  Needless to say, reality hit before I finished any big giant paintings, but at least I enjoyed a little creative outlet for awhile.  I'm really looking forward to resuming painting once I get settled in North Carolina.  No fair taking bets on how many years that will take.  :-)

 

 

 

The Official "Before and After" of 7 Layer Studio

Well, it "only" took a year, but my studio is finally finished!!!

Okay, I still have to put the doorknobs on the french doors, but I'm going to overlook that for a moment.  True to form, there's always some little detail that I can't seem to make myself finish before declaring something Done.  But at least the durn things are painted!  French doors, I've discovered, are a HUGE pain to paint.  Especially when one starts with raw wood, and 5 coats (including primer) have to be applied...with sanding between coats and a bazillion fun little angles to deal with around the glass.  I highly un-recommend doing it.  But back to this studio of mine!

In order to fully appreciate the evolution of this space, you must first see what it was like Before:

This was how it looked before we moved in.  Awesome.  Yes, that is a piece of plywood cut out in a tulip shape and painted red on the corner of the door...don't ask me why.  I think somebody kicked the door in and that was their fix-it solution.

The previous owners had slapped up a wall to create a bedroom space in here, but since there are no windows (which is illegal in a bedroom) they created one of their own above the stairs....

Which is still illegal but I don't think they were too concerned about rules or building codes...

Which explains why, when we were ripping out the plywood cabinet thingy, we discovered the foundation walls were not framed with 2x4 studs, but with skinny furring strips.  And the bare outlets were screwed directly into said furring strips with no plastic box around the outlet to prevent contact with flammable substances such as, say, wooden strips.

Which, of course, necessitated a full-on gutting of the space and a whole lot of extra work and (of course) money.

Here is Steve playing with toys, er, tools.

He ripped out the silly sliding doors and useless skinny shelves that were associated with the inconvenient water meter sticking out of the wall.  Can't do anything about that plumbing, but we built a smaller little closet to contain the thing.

I'm backtracking now...here's the little closet thingy before we demolished it.

We rented a large U-haul truck to cart away all the debris.  Thank you, thank you, previous owners, for such a fun activity.  :-)

Since the flooring now had gaps in it all over the place, and since that type of laminate is now out of production, it became necessary to rip out the flooring too.

Aahh, a clean slate at last!  I wanted lots of light in here due to the absence of windows, so 12 recessed lights did the trick...and then some!  Not many dark shadows in my studio now, to say the least.

Beautiful, is it not?

One more photo of that glamorous "window" that my kids jumped out of on a regular basis.

We hired help to do the framing, some of the electric, and the sheetrock.  I did the crown molding and spent quite a long, long time painting (and repainting because I didn't like my first color choice) everything, including the ceiling (which had been retextured because I couldn't stand the existing fan texture and it got all damaged anyway when the lights were installed).

I patched all the gigantic gouges in the concrete floor to prep it for the new flooring,

and smashed my way through the bathroom tile so I could extend the flooring into the bathroom.  I ran out of time and steam on that project, and figured I should save that can of worms for another day.  So the new flooring only extends partway into the bathroom, which has yet to be gutted (and oh, does it need gutting).

Speaking of flooring, I installed a highly textured vinyl plank flooring called Allure Ultra (Sawcut Arizona is the color and style).  It's not as easy to install as they claim it is, but I was able to do it all by myself in a day or two.

I built the "counters" at the back of the room (the drawer units are from IKEA) and discovered just how crooked a wall can be...

...which required a new board because I had already cut that one to length (and had spent quite a lot of time sanding, staining, and varnishing it without doing a dry fit first) and I couldn't lose an additional 1/2" on the other side.  Grrrr....

So after Trip # 5,987 to Home Depot, I finished another board (after custom-fitting it to the space BEFORE the final length was cut) and the back wall was ready to go.  Do you like those 2 white tables?  I got them both for $50 on Craigslist...actually I got 2 identical table tops and 4 legs, but they were brown and damaged so I sanded everything down and painted it all white, then swiped some legs from a small farmhouse table with a dorky tabletop for the other, newly-painted tabletop.

And, eventually, my official 7 Layer Studio was complete...just a few weeks shy of a year after we first dug into that back wall.

Please excuse the unrealistic positioning of all my quilts and things on my tables...I was getting ready for my official Open House and so things are unusually clean and "on-display-ish".

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are you tired of seeing my fabric all over the place yet?

Sorry.  Maybe.  :-)

 

 

This quilt (it's for Hazel) was quite the project...that's all hand applique, because I don't have a machine that can do a blanket stitch or any other kind of fancy stitch.  Ironic, isn't it, that here I am with my own line of fabric and patterns and I have a bare-bones basic machine.  Someday I'll actually earn enough money to buy my dream sewing machine...

I built this large quilt rack shelf by using 2 decorative shelf holders (from Home Depot) and screwing through them to secure the wooden closet rod.  Then I glued 2 wooden tapered circles to hide the screw heads.  I added trim to a pine board for the shelf above.

 

 

 

My sister sends me the best Christmas cards.  She knows I love Norman Rockwell.

 

I wonder if other fabric designers panic at the thought of running out of their fabric line?  Probably not to the extent that I do...hence my, um, stash.

 

 

There's actually quite the crazy story associated with this china hutch, akin to the big black beauty I have in my dining room....

... It goes something like this:

Searched far and wide for small, cheap-but-good condition, old china hutch with good lines.  Found one in DC for $50, brought it home without much trouble.  Was in a hurry, didn't sand/clean it very well because I figured the spray primer would compensate.  Sprayed primer, then aqua paint.  Good to go, or so I thought. 

When I started painting the white on (with a brush), the paint was lifting and flaking off in numerous places, especially the cabinet doors below.  Upon closer inspection, I discovered the panels were PLASTIC.

Yes.  I know.  So I pried off the plastic panels, which damaged the door faces. 

So then I went to Home Depot (probably Trip #2,476 at this point) and bought tongue-and-groove beadboard to glue to all the panels, along with new trim.  Then I had to sand down all the places that had bubbled (the previous owner must have used a wax-based polishing product on the wood) and start all.  over.  again.

As my husband said, while grinning, "You know, for someone as experienced at furniture refinishing as you are, you sure do make a lot of mistakes!"  Touche.

At least I didn't mess up on my fabulous red dresser!

 

Or my super fun aqua and red chairs!

The first coat was red spray paint, then a coat of aqua over it with a LOT of careful sanding after it was fully dry.  Enough pressure to cut through the aqua, but not enough to blast through all the red at the same time.  I love these chairs.

Maybe someday I'll actually screw the seats to the chair frame so they'll be totally, completely finished...or maybe not.  Have I mentioned that I'm pretty sure I have adult ADD?  Hence the problem with finishing things before starting other things.

Hence the FOCUS sign above my photo board.  Hmmm...I wonder if it's helping?

Based on the huge amount of fabric that I have stashed and all planned out in my head how I'm going to use but will likely not ever get to, the Focus sign is probably a little less than effective.

At least Chunky Monkey and Friends are here to cheer me on...

...Even when a new quilt project is tempting me to drop EVERYTHING and make the gorgeous quilt I have planned in my head...in time for Christmas...so I can take cute pictures of my kids poking their heads out from under it.  Which I can then make into adorable Christmas cards and have something to send out that I'm actually proud of instead of the cards that didn't turn out and I refuse to send.

And you thought YOU had issues, eh?  :-)

Maybe that's why I love Toot and Puddle so much...that Puddle and me, we're a lot alike.

And so here we are, full circle, in my exciting new studio space!  I now get to enjoy it for a whole 6 months before we have to move to North Carolina.  No, I don't want to talk about that, especially because we still have the rest of the basement to gut and refinish (remember the wiring issue?) plus at least 2 bathrooms to gut and redo because of severe mold issues.  Quite frankly, I'm tired of guts, and issues.

But hey, at least I'll have a beautiful new studio to escape to momentarily when I'm having one of my inevitable upcoming gut-induced breakdowns...wish me luck, or better yet, wish for me not to have to move!  It's a nice thought, anyway - the not moving part - but somehow I don't think the Coast Guard cares much whether or not I just finished my studio, or that we are all quite happy living here in Northern Virginia.  Such is the life of a military family!  I really can't complain, we have been transferred far less than many people, but it still stinks.  And now I will stop complaining.  Hope you enjoyed my studio tour!

 

A VISUAL CHRISTMAS FEAST

Merry Christmas!!!

If I take the time to narrate these pictures, I'll never get them all loaded...

...So sit back, grab your favorite beverage, relax, and enjoy the wordless tour of my Christmas House!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can well imagine, I have spent DAYS putting all this together and photographing/editing everything...I know I should have my name on these pictures, but I'm too tired and too busy trying to get things together for some fundraisers for the Bulgarian orphans.  Please respect my hard work and link back to my blog with proper credit if you use any of my photos on your own blogs.  Thanks, and have a very Merry Christmas!

 

On Giving Thanks

There are already some houses with Christmas decorations up around here.

Now, you know how much I LOVE Christmas and all that goes with it...but it seems like Thanksgiving gets more and more overlooked every year. 

Well, I'm not even hosting Thanksgiving at my house this year (gasp...I KNOW!  This is the first year in probably a decade that I haven't hosted Thanksgiving) but I couldn't let the one holiday that focuses on gratitude go unrecognized in my house.  Okay, I can hear some of you saying that Thanksgiving is about eating an insane amount too.  And I guess it means watching football games to some people, but certainly not to me!  :-)

But hopefully we can all sit back and recognize all of the incredible blessings in our lives, regardless of the (often silent and private) struggles we all try to work our way through.  None of us are starving to death, we probably all have roofs over our heads and somebody to call family or at least friend.  Any of us who have the time and the means to sit around and read eachother's blogs and pursue things like decorating, design, and crafts are so very blessed.  Billions of people in this world do not enjoy even the most basic of earthly comforts, and millions of orphaned/abandoned children in the world do not have a single soul to call family.  They have no sense of belonging, no sense of being loved and cared for. It rips my heart out.

So yes, I have a LOT to be grateful for.  Sometimes I feel guilty for pursuing such "frivolous" things as, well, pretty much everything you see on this blog!  I wonder if I'm using my time wisely.  But I also know that the talents that I possess are from God and I'm supposed to develop them and use them to accomplish good.  Creating a beautiful environment is important to me, it feeds my soul and brings me joy - I just need to be careful about balance, and I need to make sure I'm giving back to others. 

Which is why this is as far as I got on the fabulous new quilt I was planning to make and hang on my Wall O' Plates wall instead of the plates that you see.  It'll have to wait until next year, because I'm Mommy to 3 beautiful kiddos and I'm doing my best to help those nearly invisible, so very fragile Bulgarian orphans on the other side of the world.

I still had time to "Thanksgiving-ify" my china cabinet a little bit. :-)

Speaking of my kids, here they are being swallowed up by a giant, child-eating pile of leaves!

They don't seem to mind.

Can you believe that all of these leaves came from our small front yard?!  When it's Fall here, it is REALLY Fall!  I love it.

You've heard of Snow Angels, but what about Leaf Angels?  Now you have.

Okay, these pictures have nothing to do with Autumn or Thanksgiving...I just wanted to show you the skirt I made Hazel recently - I've had that fabric for at least a year, and have procrastinated big time.  This week I've been back into Skirt-Making-Mode due to birthday party gifts and fun things for the cousins.  Hazel was feeling left out, so I squeezed this project in.  Plus a matching skirt to the one she was bringing to her little friend's birthday party, which I don't have pics of.  Yes, she's spoiled...but that's what babies of the family are for, right?  :-)

Raaawwrrrr...she's a dinosaur...or a tiger....or something!   You can tell she doesn't have any idea how cute she is, can't you?

One more thing I wanted to give you a sneak peek of...another quilt!  I'm planning on making a downloadable pattern for this one - I just haven't had time yet, imagine that.  Hopefully in the next week or two.  I'm also ALMOST done with my studio!  Which means that, after about a year's time, I'll finally be able to take a bunch of pictures and show you the big dramatic Before and Afters.  Woohoo!  Very exciting stuff. 

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Not sure what I'm looking forward to most...the turkey, the stuffing, or the pies?  Hmmmm....

Halloween "I" Candy

 
Who needs chocolate when there are so many fun things to do to decorate the house for Halloween?

Okay, that's a stupid question. 

I, for one, cannot survive without chocolate.  Especially at Halloween time.

But a close second is all this fun stuff you see adorning my house in October.  Yes, I decorate for the benefit of my kids, but I have to admit that it's just as much for me as it is for anyone else.

I just can't seem to help myself.  I NEED eye candy.  The cat agrees.

I suppose it's a bit of an obsession, and it's surely not the most "important" thing on my gigantic, HUGE list of things to do, but it's a top priority for me nonetheless.

After all, I can't let Mr. Spooky Ghost salt shaker stay boxed up forever, can I?  That would be cruel, too cruel.

And what's a stack of dishes without a purple tarantula?

Oh - do you notice anything different about my dining room?  Besides my "new" china cabinet, that is.

Why yes indeed, I painted the walls a fantastic grey/blue color (which my sister has in her house and I loved it so much I copied her).  AND I finally installed some crown molding, which I'd been wanting to do for 2 years now.  It's actually 2 different parts:  some baseboard trim that I turned upside down and nailed onto the wall so that the bottom edge is 5" down from the ceiling, and then I installed the actual crown on top of it.  So you get the general look of big, expensive crown at a fraction of the cost.

The only trouble is that the baseboard looks wimpy and off scale now.  I'm planning to do wainscotting (sp?  I've never figured out how to pronounce that word either) all along the bottom 1/3 of the wall eventually, so when it's all done it will look proportional.  But that's way down on my priority list, so for now I'll be happy about the crown molding.

I know that pillows aren't typically a design element in the corner of a dining room, but I had to put them SOMEWHERE, and all my new pillows I made this year are covering my sofa now.

They're quite satisfied with their new home.

 

I discovered that spiders have an affinity for lamp shades when there are tiny loops of blue painter's tape stuck to their bellies.

This spider was a bit too big to fit on the chandelier.

Of all my decorations, that huge spider was the one thing that made Hazel squeal with delight and a touch of panicky abhorence.  I wish I had captured her reaction on video. 

All of you loyal blog followers will surely recognize these characters from years past - those 2 pumpkinheads are among my favorite Halloween things....so ugly they're positively cute!

And of course you've seen the Girlie Ghosts from my tutorial.

How 'bout my Halloween quilt, eh?  I love how it turned out, sorry I don't have a pattern for it yet.  Just not enough hours in the day. 

I didn't have a blank wall to display my quilt on, except my Wall O' Plates wall....should we pause for a moment of silence to pay our respects for the absent Plate Wall?  First time in 2.5 years that I haven't plastered that wall with my dishes according to which holiday it was.  But hey - now I have a fancy china cabinet, so they just got moved over a little bit.  And I love looking at that quilt - I worked hard on that thing!

You'll recognize this wreath I made last year too. 

It's one of my favorite handmade things.

Well, I guess it's not 100% handmade - I bought the bead garland on clearance after Halloween 2 years ago, and wrapped the garland around a metal wreath base.  I made loops of ribbon, grouped the loops, wrapped them with wire, and hot-glued them onto the frame amidst the berry garland.  Then I made the giant flower bows (see my tutorial in the left sidebar) and hot-glued those onto the wreath = Voila!  Super fun, spunky wreath just perfect for Halloween.

Okay, now it's your turn to go brighten up your place with eye candy...and don't forget the chocolate.

How to triple the cost of a Craigslist Bargain and other such craziness

Okay, are you ready for a funny story?  It's one of those so-not-funny-at-the-time-but-now-that-it-all-turned-out-fine-we-can-laugh kinds of stories.

Once upon a time there was a really beautiful vintage 1967 Drexel solid wood china cabinet available on Craigslist for a GREAT deal = $100.

The problem was that it was pretty far away, only accessible by braving awful traffic through the city.  And since it's a one-piece unit, it wouldn't fit in our minivan...and we don't own a truck.

Since moving to the DC area, I have learned the hard way not to even bother with any Craigslist furniture in or near the city - it's just not worth the stress and hassle.  Rule #2 was not to consider anything that couldn't fit in my minivan and/or I couldn't handle myself.  Especially if it's far away.

Well.  You've already figured out that I broke both of those rules for this piece. 

On a Saturday, we discovered that trucks are very hard to come by.  Our friends' trucks were being loaned out already, and not a rental truck was to be found anywhere.  So Steve, trying to be supportive of my crazy infatuation with this china cabinet, went down and rented a cargo van (not a full-sized moving truck, but a large van) because it was the same price as a truck and the inside dimensions would accomodate the large size of the cabinet.

I drove separately in my van with our kids so we could both be there to load it up.  It took an hour to get there, and I was blessed with the melodious sounds of my kids whining and bickering the entire way while I was trying to navigate through unusually thick traffic on the Beltway due to an accident.  Sidenote:  I can't stand driving on the Beltway, and I can't stand my kids fighting....and they can't stand being dragged around in pursuit of CL deals.  So you know that I REALLY wanted this piece of furniture!

We finally arrive (phew!) and go to load it up.  Except the back doors of the cargo van are about 8 inches less wide than the belly of the van.  You guessed it = IT DIDN'T FIT.  Not even sideways or at an angle.

Deflated but not defeated, we labelled the $80 it cost to rent and pay for the gas of the Uhaul van as our "Stupid Tax" and made arrangements to come back on Monday with a friend's truck.  Because, after all, $180 is still a great deal for such a good piece.

Monday came, the kids were in school, Steve had a day off, and we picked up the cabinet without much trouble other than dealing with traffic and a long drive (for the second time). 

That's when the yellow light turned red as we were going through an intersection in Maryland.  Maryland, the state ranked #1 in loss of freedoms for its residents, the state with Big Brother cameras at intersections to send tickets to split-second runners of short yellow/red lights despite the fact that it would have been dangerous for us to slam on our brakes at the last second with a big piece of furniture in the back of the truck.

The next week, our friends (the truck owners) get a friendly $75 ticket in the mail from Maryland's automated (and very busy) ticket distributor service.  Sigh.  This china cabinet is becoming less and less of a bargain every minute.

Anyway.  I very carefully sanded down the entire piece, and used 6 cans of black satin spray paint (Valspar brand from Lowe's) to paint everything black except for the back, which was in such good shape I didn't have the heart to paint it.  When it was all dry, I realized that the 4 cans of paint that I made a special trip to the store for weren't just producing shiny results when the paint was wet...the paint was mislabelled and was, in fact, glossy and splotchy all over the place even when dry.  It looked AWFUL.  I almost cried.  And I had to take a break from dealing with it for a few days.

Then I went out and spent $5 per can to get the good stuff, the paint that has never failed me - the brand I should have used in the first place = Rustoleum indoor/outdoor satin.  Not to be confused with Home Depot's Painters Touch paint made by Rustoleum!!  Lots of pretty colors in that line, but they changed the paint formula and it can bubble and wrinkle on previously finished furniture, as I can attest to.  But the regular Rustoleum brand worked beautifully = huge sigh of relief.

So in the end I spent about $50 on paint.  Which brings the grand total of my dear china cabinet to over $300, not including the gas in the other vehicles we used. 

But despite all the insanity, I'm still in love with this china cabinet!  Especially after I cut some skinny masonite to fit in the back and wrapped it with some of my favorite home dec fabric (a nubby, linen-look print called Amsterdam by Premier Prints...sold at Fabric.com). 

I'm so excited to have "showroom" space for my favorite dishes with plenty of room for off-season dishware to be stored compactly in the lower cabinets.

And everyone lived happily ever after.  The End.

Scrap-Busting Strip-Pieced Pillow Tutorial

I'm not sure what I had more fun doing....making the Crazy Triangle Quilt (you can peek at it here, but I'm still working on the pattern) or making use of all the leftover strips of fabric afterwards!

They're beautiful even just sitting in the trash can...but I didn't actually throw very many of my awesome Halloween fabric scraps away.

I used the tiny scraps to cover buttons for different pillows....

 

and I promise I'll post tutorials for these cuties soon.

 

For this one I sewed long strips together and then cut the strips into triangles, which I pieced together into a whats-its-called-agon.  Not a pentagon, not an octagon, but a hexagon...and yes, I had to look that up to make sure.  :-) 

Again, a future tutorial-to-be.

In case you hadn't guessed, I have had a LOT of fun playing with these strip scraps!

But I'm getting way ahead of myself....

 

Time to start the instructions for the pillow in above photo.

Gather your strip scraps and organize them according to width.  I used strips which were 2" and 1.5" wide.  The width can vary quite a bit, this is just what I had on hand. If you have super long strips, cut them into rectangles varying from 2" to 10".

As shown in photo above, start pairing up the strips which are the same width and run them through your machine, one pair after the other, without stopping to cut the threads in between.  Use a 1/4" seam throughout this project.  Try to pair contrasting fabrics for best results.

Clip the paired strips apart and repeat process of pairing the new groupings together, repeating until you have ended up with one big, giant strip.  Press seams to one side.

Repeat process with other strip widths.

Decide how big you need your pillow to be, and cut all the big long strips into shorter sections that are that measurement + 1/2" (for seam allowances).

(I apologize for a lack of step-by-step photos for this, by the way...I really thought I had taken more pictures along the way but apparently not.)

Arrange the strips however you would like, paying attention to the most dominant fabrics and making sure that they are spaced the way you would like.  Stitch the strips together until you have enough to create the dimension you're aiming for, + 1/2" for seam allowances.  In this case, I made a square.

If you would like a flanged border around the pillow as I have done, sew 2 strips on either side, press toward outside and trim even with pieced square.  Then sew 2 more strips on the other two sides, repeating the pressing and edge trimming.

For the back of the pillow, either use a zipper closure (not shown) or do what I have done with the two pieces of backing fabric:

Cut 2 rectangles that are the same width as the pillow front but the length is determined by adding about 3" to whatever the half point is on the pillow.  In this case, the pillow front is a 15" square.  I cut 2 rectangles at 15" x 11" (11 = 8 + 3).

Press under 1/4" of one of the 15" edges on each rectangle.  Press under again to hide the raw edges.  Stitch along that "hem".

Place pillow front face up on table.  Place the 2 rectangles face down, aligning outer raw edges so that there is about a 3" overlap over the middle of the pillow.  Pin in place all around outer edge of pillow.

Stitch 1/4" all the way around, clip corners to reduce bulk.  Turn right side out, press edges.  If no flange is wanted, insert pillow form now. 

 

 

If you're sewing a flanged edge (like mine), "stitch in the ditch" all the way around the dark border fabric.  Insert pillow form.  And now you're done!

My Plants Runneth Over

I have a new favorite plant since moving to Virginia.  Can you guess which one it is?

Okay, NOW can you guess?  Why yes, it IS the mass of brilliant green spilling prolifically out of my planter!  Called the Sweet Potato Vine, it is, in a word, spectacular.  The plant comes in a striking deep purple color too, but since I already had spiky purple in the pot I went with the acid green.

Throw some red geraniums and purple petunias in the mix, and boom.  I love walking up to my front door with these beauties greeting  me with such abundance. 

Except right now the poor things are most thoroughly waterlogged...we've had heavy rain since Monday, and no end of the rain and thunderstorms until Saturday.  Sigh.  I actually like storms, but not for an entire week, especially when that week coincides with the first week that my 2 older kids are back in school. 

I have a whole line-up of furniture refinishing projects ready to work on now that the weather is (was) becoming less humid and spray paint actually has a fighting chance to dry well.  Our garage has been insanely crowded all summer, and I'm anxiously awaiting the chance to finish all my furniture projects so we can get our garage space back.  Just in time to get it all messy again as we dive into ripping out the rest of our basement and finish my studio.  You haven't heard about that whole adventure?  It started with this post here and the last you saw of it was here. 

Here's a picture to engage your visual sense of the divine.  Or not.  That was what my studio looked like during demolition - isn't it pretty? 

Long story short, a previous owner had installed the sheetrock without properly framing the walls with studs, so there was nothing to attach the electric outlet boxes to.  So they just screwed the outlets into the wooden furring strips, sans plastic housings. You can see one of the cute little fire hazards peeking through the rungs of the ladder.

Which means we have to demolish our entire basement to fix it.  My studio is largely finished, but the rest of the basement needs "The Treatment".  We've got to start now because we'll likely have to move in a year (military wife) and it's got to be done before we rent or sell the place.  Don't talk to me about moving.  Not a good subject.  :-)

Anyway, hopefully by the end of September I'll have all sorts of exciting progress to post about, at least in the furniture refinishing category. 

Here's a quick peek just to get you started.

So I've also got to get cracking on new patterns and a bunch of other stuff that I'm in the middle of.  There is SO much behind-the-scenes work to be dealt with, it's really hard not to throw my hands up in the air and go sleep for 15 hours instead of chipping away at everything. 

And this darn economy isn't helping either.  Maybe in another 2 years I'll actually be making enough money to cover expenses.  It's a good thing I love what I do, because right now I'd be much better off (financially) working at McDonald's.  You think I'm joking.  Let's just say that I keep thinking I'm turning a corner, only to find another gigantic hill ahead of me.  Momentum is pretty hard to maintain after so many years of uphill climbs, but at this point I have too much invested both emotionally and otherwise to call it quits.  Believe me, I have considered many times whether or not I should continue trying to make my way in this highly competetive industry.  It's very exciting and emotionally rewarding, but it's also a LOT of work and makes it very hard to balance all of my roles and responsibilities as a wife and mother.  But despite the cons, I keep feeling like I need to press on.  I am determined not to fail, despite all the setbacks...as long as my gut keeps telling me I'm supposed to forge ahead, that is.  Yes, guts can talk.  Too bad my guts can't be my secretary, or accountant, or art agent, or pattern maker...

Well.  Speaking of guts, I sure spilled mine more than I had planned to.  Sorry 'bout that, sometimes it just happens.  Who reads photo-less text on a crafty blog anyway?  But hey - at least my SPV (sweet potato vine) can still brighten my world!  Even when it's raining.

The Outlet

My 14 year-old niece Marion asked me to do a mural on her wall when we were visiting in Idaho.  She wanted it to coordinate with the fabulous new bedding her parents bought her from Pottery Barn Teen.  Well, you know me - helping with a room remodel (especially a kid's bedroom) is too fun to resist!  Especially since I was itching to make something, and all my projects were lying neglected in my studio clear across the country.  I really do start going crazy when I'm not able to create things, so I appreciated the diversion on the road to insanity.  You think I'm kidding.

One thing led to another, and by the end of the week I had transformed her entire room!  Sorry, I don't have any "before" photos...just think Bieber Shrine: Marion had taken down the dozens of Justin Bieber poster that plastered her walls and ceiling.  I started by painting her bedroom 3 different colors; the light violet you see here, a darker shade on the window wall, and grey in between to prevent the feeling of being inside a grape Hubba Bubba bubble. :-)  I suggested doing a wind-blown, bonsai-like tree as a platform for the flowers copied from her duvet cover.  She wanted a smooth, clean-lined look to the branches so this is what I came up with.  Not very realistic, but it fits the style of the room.

I made a padded, tufted headboard out of faux suede that I'm really excited about...it's probably my favorite thing in the room.  I sketched out various headboard designs and Marion chose this one.

I used a jigsaw to cut the shape out of inexpensive 3/4" plywood, then used 2" thick, very firm upholstery padding (not the foam kind -- this comes in a 27" wide roll you can buy at Joann's) and covered it with quilt batting and, finally, the suede.  I used a heavy duty stapler to secure everything to the backside of the headboard.

Then I hammered 4 nails with heads into each "tuft" so that there's much less chance of it pulling through the fabric and/or coming loose from the plywood backing.  The padding is so thick and firm that upholstery tacks couldn't get a grip into the plywood at all.  Then I hot-glued the fabric covered buttons into place, and saved the extra fabric I had bought to make the buttons to use in some pillows.  I LOVE the look of the random fabric buttons on the headboard!  Such a fun twist to the glam Hollywood Regency style.  I got the random button idea from a gorgeous grey linen chair I saw at World Market.

One of Marion's many nicknames is Magnus, and she loved the idea of putting random letters above her bed that spelled it out.

It was quite a bit of work to find all the various letters and coordinating scrapbook paper, then paint the letters, decoupage the paper onto the faces, let it dry, carefully trim around the shapes with an Xacto knife, and coat with another layer of decoupage, but it was worth it.  She loved how it turned out.

I spruced up her 2 existing bulletin boards by painting one and using quilt batting to pad the other before wrapping it with the fabric (I used a strip of purple fabric to connect the 2 scraps of aqua fabric I had left over from the drapes).

Speaking of the drapes, I found 2 white tablecloths with a nice thick texture (so they didn't have to be lined) and added the aqua fabric to one edge of each, and then I sewed on the giant purple ricrac.  I used the hidden tabs at the top just like I explain in my tutorial in the lefthand sidebar.

Please excuse the poor appearance of the bottom of the drapes... they were just pinned at this point because I hadn't hemmed them yet.

I used the suede and padding scraps from the headboard to make the little ottoman, which started out life as a leftover wooden crate.  There's a spare fabric button on top, but I wasn't able to "tuft" it yet at the time this picture was taken.  It looks better now!

The grey linen-look chair was a bargain-priced steal I found at Ross...it was begging to be a part of the room, so how could I refuse?

 

I love how this pillow turned out - I had scraps leftover from the buttons I covered for the headboard, and this is what came of them.  Plus the square pillow and the slug on the bed, of course! 

Marion was thrilled with how it all turned out, which made me feel great, and since I was able to make most everything myself, the total cost was significantly less than what it would have been otherwise.  For under $300 she got a mural (the paint for the room was about $85), a fancy headboard, the chair, ottoman, drapes, pillows + slug, letter decorations, and spruced up bulletin boards.  Not bad, not bad at all!  I got to play decorator for a week, and the kids had a fabulous time playing with their cousins, aunties, and grandparents = win/win all the way around.  I'll post more soon with other aspects of our trip "out West" (having grown up in Oregon, that is a really funny thing for me to say) but it's late so TTFN!

 

Patterns To Go

At long last I finally have all 7 patterns ready to sell!

As can be expected, there was a huge learning curve with these, and of course it took much more work and time than I had anticipated, but it feels great to finally have them in hand and ready to go.

There are 4 quilt patterns to start with, as you can see.  Each one has full-color yardage, cutting, and assembly instructions and charts.

 

 

 

 

Here's a peek at the inside:

They all have very detailed cutting instructions with charts depicting time-saving strips that can be sewn and pre-cut to save time in block construction/assembly.

These quilt patterns are designed for the beginning to intermediate quilter; although as you might have guessed, a beginner would do well to start with one of the more basic quilts rather than the Argyle - that one is solidly in the intermediate category.  If you have made a few quilts before, though, you could handle it.  The Argyle just takes more time and precision than some of the others.

I also have these 3 non-quilt patterns, which are kind-of hard to see in these pictures.

 

Here's a better picture of the Eliza Skirt.  It's made up of 4 different fabrics, but they're strip-pieced like a quilt so it's not as time-consuming as it may look.

 

 

 

 

 

...and here we have the Hazel Skirt.  Boy, was it fun trying to take a picture of this one!  Hazel was leaping off rocks, bouncing around, and generally having a great time...as all 3-year-olds should be doing, right? 

Just not when I'm trying to take a good picture of her skirt!

This is the Infinity Tote pattern that I also sell as a PDF file on Etsy, except that for the hard copy version I made all the bags in my own fabrics and completely revamped the design layout of the pattern.  So it's the same information, but a different format and all-new photos throughout.

...and we mustn't forget our dear garden friends, the Huggable Slug and Sir Snake!

The slug is my favorite, although I have to say I think my kids prefer their snakes = all the better to whack eachother with!

Okay, time for details about where you can get these patterns, if your heart so desires...

After much thought and deliberation, I have decided NOT to sell these individually through Etsy or by creating my own website.  They are only available wholesale.  Let me repeat that in big letters in case any of you are breezing through without reading the text...

I'M NOT SELLING MY PATTERNS AT RETAIL PRICES TO INDIVIDUAL CONSUMERS.  I AM ONLY SELLING WHOLESALE TO QUILT SHOPS AND DISTRIBUTORS.

The reason?  I do not want to spend the bulk of my (already small amount of creative) time shipping out small orders and making umpteen trips to the rather inconveniently located Post Office.  I'm a one-woman show at this point, with no plans or resources to hire an office slave anytime soon, so I need to be very careful how I budget my time between my family, this business, my church and social life, and the never-ending list of house projects.  Not to mention household chores (ugh).

This obviously means less money for me, but more free time and less stress = totally worth it.

IF YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO BUY WHOLESALE, PLEASE ASK YOUR LOCAL QUILT SHOP OR ONLINE FABRIC STORE TO CARRY MY PATTERNS.  THANKS!

I know that the Fat Quarter Shop will be carrying all of my patterns, I'm not sure about anyone else yet.  If you are a shop and would like to carry my patterns, please email me via the button at the top of my sidebar and I'll send you the details!

Okay, moving right along...

I experimented with the whole floating flower thing in my wide-mouthed vase the other day.

It was actually supposed to be an underwater flower thing, but those hydrangea blossoms were just too persistently bouyant.  And my vase was too short.

 

I suppose I could have tried harder to weigh down the blossom clusters, but I kind-of like the way they hover at the top of the vase. 

The leaves, however, stayed put nicely due to all the glass beads. 

Stay, leaves, stay!  Good boys.

I was tired of my Christmasy picture on FB, so I tried to get some springy shots a few weeks ago...but of course since I was using a tripod+timer most of them turned out blurry because the camera didn't have my face to focus on when I pushed the button.  (Gotta get a remote!) I got lucky on this one.  Never mind that I'm all hunched over with my shoulder in the bushes in an attempt to get the greenery BEHIND me rather than BESIDE me.  My eyes are in focus! So that's the one I kept.

 

I kept this one, too, even though my eyes are not in focus.  But hey, the flower is!

 

 

This was also the day that I tried photographing my new spring skirt (yes, that's my fabric...I must say that I REALLY love this skirt because of the colors).  The rocks are very sharply focused, but not much else is!  Ah, well.  It gets the point across.

Please disregard all the wrinkles in the skirt....it had already been through an entire Sunday of Hazel and Hyrum taking turns squirming on my lap at church!

Did I ever post about this?  Just a little baby dress for a friend.

Okay, for my friend's BABY.  It would be a tad too small for my friend.  This fabric is from my stash, it's an older version of Joel Dewberry's Aviary line.  Love it.

Well, I think that officially ends tonight's Show-and Tell session.  Next on the docket is a big update on the Sewing For Orphans project, which (thanks to a LOT of wonderful people) is just about ready to ship to Bulgaria!  The first box, that is...there are thousands more orphans to sew for, so don't put away that sewing machine yet!  I'll share all the details, photos, and thank-you's in the next post.  TTFN!  (for those of you who don't speak Tigger, that's TaTa For Now)

 

Oh, Say Can you See...

...that I've finally posted something new?

Hard to believe, but true. 

I won't bore you with details, but suffice it to say that it's been pretty challenging to come back to "reality" after focusing on nothing but QuiltMarket for so long.

I haven't wanted to let myself do anything "fun" until I get all my sewing patterns finished (a MUCH bigger project than anticipated) and all my ducks in a row for starting my pattern-selling business (a MUCH, MUCH bigger project than anticipated).

Let's just say that I'm a much better creative person than I am a business woman.  But I'm determined to overcome my weaknesses in that area and face my fears/aversions to the whole red tape issue regarding starting a business, keeping records, dealing with credit cards, shipping, etc.  Plus my husband is doing a lot to help me figure it all out - thanks, honey!  Not exactly his cup-o-tea either, but he's working hard to help me along as best he can.

Add that to the fun and excitement of no air conditioning in our house for almost 2 weeks in stifling, record-breaking temps, plus preschool being over so I have my rambunctious 3-year-old Hazel at my side at all times, and all the end-of-the-year activities for my other kids, plus a bunch of errands to run, and you can begin to imagine how much time I've had to actually focus on getting my work done!   Oooops.  I forgot I wasn't going to bore you with details. 

 

I'm on the verge, though, of getting all of my patterns out the door, I promise.  And to celebrate my last pattern's content being finished today, I took a break and decorated my house for 4th of July!

Nothing fancy, just a bunch of stars I created on Illustrator and printed onto cardstock, then cut out and taped to things.

I can't believe it's almost Independence Day!!  This year is completely flying by.

Of course I had to put my red and white polka dot drapes back up for 4th of July.

And of course I just had to buy this GORGEOUS blue hydrangea at Costco.  Yes, it was an impulse purchase, and I love it.  After it's finished brightening up my front porch for Independence Day, I'll plant it in the backyard where the darn burrowing rodents (Ground squirrels?  Voles?) destroyed the root systems of my rhododendrons.  Grrrr....  Hopefully my hydrangea will have better luck.

You might recognize this banner from last year - I fused double-sided interfacing onto blue fabric, then cut the letters out with pinking shears and fused them onto the striped fabric.  Easy peasy!

And this little sign has been used for many years now.  I made it back when we lived in our first house in Hawaii, which was probably 7 years ago.  Wow.  I can't believe it's been that long.  Okay, now I'm rambling....

I'll post again soon - I have a bunch more stuff to share with you (plus that carrot cake recipe that I keep forgetting about....sorry!).  It's way past my bedtime though (actually I don't really have a bedtime...although I should!) so I need to stop now.  Goodnight!

 

 

Fuzzy Bunnies

 
There were little green bunnies leaping all over the place yesterday.

 
They were, of course, excited about it being Easter and all.

 

Can you tell?

No, I didn't make these darling little things.  They came from Pier1.  Aren't they adorable?

I love them so much I went back to the store this morning and bought the 4 that were still in stock, only this time they were half off.  Sweet.

Now I have a whole "litter" of them.  What's the term for a bunny family, anyway?  It's not a pack, herd, gaggle, or swarm, and I don't think it's a litter either.  Or is it?  Anybody know the answer to that burning question?

 
We had a lovely Easter dinner with friends yesterday.

 

I love an excuse to set the table all pretty.

I only had 3 of these gorgeous blue plates (snagged at a thrift store) so I mixed and matched all the plates on the table.

The other patterned dishware at the table (with the exception of my Japanese sheep plates - also snagged at a thrift store, but in Japan) is Villeroy & Bosch.  It's my wedding china, and I love it but don't use it enough because of the no dishwasher restrictions.  Time to start changing that, I think.  The using part, not the dishwasher part.

 
You'll recognize my blue eggs, of course.  I had to use my elevated cake plate for my carrot cake (shocking, isn't it, that I use a piece of dishware for its original intent?) so I changed the centerpiece around a bit.

 
Mmmmmmmm....if I do say so, that was a very. good. carrot cake.

 
It's adapted from a recipe my mother-in-law gave me a long time ago, and it is the most moist, tender, yummy carrot cake I have come across.  Probably because of the crushed pineapple, coconut, and buttermilk in the recipe in addition to the carrots.  Let me know if you'd like the recipe and I can post it for you.

 
I also made this yummy chevre cheese log with chopped chives, thyme, parsley, and toasted pecans....I thought it was wonderful, but the kids wouldn't touch it (surprise surprise). 

 
Here are my little munchkins, all dressed up.  Yes, you've seen those dresses before - Mommy didn't have a chance to make new Easter clothes this year.  I had been stalling, hoping my fabric would come in time to make their dresses from my fabric, but by the time I knew it wasn't coming for awhile, it was too late with all our other activities this past week.  It's okay - I love the dresses they have on.  And my little boy is all dressed up in a blazer!  Awww....that really tugs at my heartstrings.  Yes, Hazel's lips, teeth, and tongue are blue, compliments of the blue sucker she had in her mouth 2 seconds before this was taken.

 
Time for the Easter egg hunt!  That's Hazel's 7th outfit of the day, by the way.

 

I love this shot -my friend's boy was so excited about his eggs!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend! 

Because Tulips Won't Wait

 

Tulips don't care if I have a million other things I should be doing.

 

 

They bloom when they bloom, and in a matter of days, **poof** they're gone for another year (or forever, depending on whether those evil moles/voles discover more of my tulip bulbs underground!)

 

So when my tulips begin unfolding their velvety petals, I must act.

 

Make bouquets while the tulips bloom, isn't that how the saying goes?  Okay, maybe not, but it sounds better than hay and sunshine.

 

I'm laughing at myself because, when Steve saw the new bouquet on the table and my camera nearby, he asked if I was going to stay up tonight and post these pictures.  I assured him that I was far too busy for such frivolity, but he knows me too well...

 

...and here I am doing exactly that.  My brain is too tired to work out the final kinks in my patterns, and my fabric STILL has not come, so this is my fun activity for the day.  Aren't they just so incredibly lovely?  I should have been a floral designer, I love flowers so much.  Hmmmm....I just might have to add that to my bucket list.

In the meantime, I'll just heed my tulip's calls each spring despite my ever-present To-Do list.  Because life is short.  Especially if you're a tulip. 

 

A Brief Peek

 
So I thought I'd better post at least a few pics of the current state of my studio, even though it's not totally done (and may not be until I have more time after QuiltMarket).

 
Because some of you just aren't able to sleep at night due to the suspense I've inadvertantly created the past 3 months about this silly room of mine (har har...never fear, I'm not so full of myself as to think that for half a second).

 
 

Later on I'll post a bunch of pictures, plus the "before" pics so you can see how drastic the change has been all in one post.  No time for that tonight though.

 

See that adorable postcard of The Three Bear's chairs?  It's from the incredibly talented Sarah Jane - so very fun.

 
Lori T, do you recognize that Christmas card?  I love it to pieces, it's one of my very favorites.

 

A most important mantra for me, especially this month!  I bought the print on Etsy, then framed it up.

 
 
Stacks and stacks of my favorite fabrics...hopefully very soon I'll be able to add my own fabrics to the pile!

 
I bought these gorgeous, hand-printed copies of the famous prints you see here while in Japan 3 years ago.  The originals were made in the 1700's, I think.  It's a little painful to look at the tidal wave one now, in light of the heart-wrenching devastation the Japanese people are enduring due to the earthquake/tsunami.  So very, very tragic.

My drawers were bulging with my, um, extensive ribbon inventory, so I made this wall-mounted system to help alleviate the space-gobbling problem.  Besides, now I can look at the pretty colors all the time!

I used inexpensive IKEA spice rack shelves, added a bit of wooden trim around the front and sides, then painted them and mounted them on a sheet of thin plywood.

I made the frame by cutting the back out of lengths of brick molding to create picture frame molding (which is a 2-person job on the table saw, actually - thanks, Steve!)  When the molding was all made, I then cut the pieces to size and glued+nailed the mitered corners.  And of course the paint came last.  I went a little crazy with those dots, but you know me and polka dots!

 

 
Okay, well, that's all I have time for at this point...I'll post a bigger, more complete photo gallery later on but this should at least satisfy a bit of curiousity for now.  Just in case any of you out there were, indeed, curious!
  

There's Nothing Cheerier

 
 
I challenge you to think of anything that gladdens the heart and lifts the spirits more than spring flowers after a long and cold winter...

 
Okay, so I know that winters in other climates are a LOT worse than ours (I hear it's still snowing in Utah, for example....I'm so sorry for you out there.  And of course the northern states and Canada have a long time before the great thaw) but these spring flowers are still a very, very welcome sight for my sore eyes.

 

Hopefully the flowers from my garden will liven your spirits too, even if they are just images on a screen.

 

I love, love, LOVE muscari!  I don't know what it is about these tiny, preciously fleeting little blossoms, but there just is.  Have I mentioned that I love them?

 

 Such a perfect counterpoint to the cheery, sunny yellow of daffodils.

 

Yellow and purple are complimentary colors for a reason...

 
... a fact perfectly illustrated by nature and the non-coincidental, synchronized blooming cycles of daffodils and muscari.  Yes, God knows what He's doing.

 
Spring fever has hit my front door too, but in a faux way.

 

I made this wreath a few years ago, and although these blooms are all fake, they still evoke that fresh, exciting aura of S*P*R*I*N*G. 

And it's very nice that they never die.

 
Nor do I ever have to water them.

 

All very good qualities for a girl who is up past her eyeballs in things to finish in the next month.

My neglected vegetable garden is crying for me, and the snow peas are still trapped in their paper envelope on my table...but I just don't have the time to spend a couple of days weeding, hoe-ing (how on earth do you spell that?!) and planting my precious garden yet.

 
So these pictures will have to suffice for now.  I'm still finishing up my studio and all the props for my booth at QuiltMarket (a mere month away....ack!!) while awaiting the arrival of my fabric, which still has not made its way to my door (obviously, or I'd be showing you pictures of fabric instead of flowers).

 
The only thing that's preventing me from having a complete heart attack about that is the vast amount of work I'm dealing with right now.  Hopefully in the next few days I'll be done (enough) with my studio to photograph some of it.  Still waiting on a few doors and some things on the walls, but at least it's fully functional at this point.

 
And my flower friends are helping me cope too.  I thank my lucky stars for the cheery, glorious signs of spring all around me - hurray for that!