Completed!

Now that the wedding madness is over I finally have time to come back and blog a bit. The t-shirt quilt I have been working on is finally finished! Now I'm buried in shiny blue fabric to get costumes for the samba school done. 

Back in Action!

Now that both my sewing machine and I are back from Thanksgiving vacation it's time to get sewing! I finally finished my batiked potholders!

The quilt top to the t-shirt quilt is also finished. Now it's time to quilt it! 

Thinking on My Feet

I started working on a free motion landscape project. Remember the hand-dyed fabric? Well, I added a windmill. 

After I added the windmill, I looked at the stitching and notice that my straight stitch was more of a zig-zag stitch. I played with all the settings on my machine and came to the realization that it was time to take the machine in for a tune-up. Of course, this was a hard realization for me since I was starting a free motion project and am still working on the t-shirt quilt. 

I took machine in on Saturday morning as soon as they opened and I was told that it will take about 2 weeks to get my machine back. TWO WEEKS!? What!? But I have a quilt to work on and I can't free motion by hand! I've accepted the fact that all projects are on hold at the moment...except the windmill. 

What did I do about the windmill? Well, I reevaluated the situation, went home, and pulled the stitching. I guess it was a blessing in disguise because I found that it was a perfect opportunity to advance my hand embroidery skills. The only embroidery stitching I knew how to sew was a blanket stitch. A blanket stitch is commonly used to reinforce the edges of thick materials, i.e. a blanket. After researching the internet and encouragement from my mom, I embroidered the windmill instead. I am much happier with the final windmill.

I originally had dark brown ground/grass to contrast with the sunset, but after the windmill came out so dark, I had to change the ground/grass to black. 

Here is the final product. I'm incredibly happy with how it turned out. I am in love with the sky! 

Sunset Sky

I went to the fabric store yesterday looking for some pretty sunset fabric for a landscape I am going to make. No luck. I decided that I would go to another fabric store tomorrow to look for for fabric in hopes that they would have what I was looking for. Well, driving home today the lightbulb went on. I have white fabric at home and fabric dye. Duh. I'll just dye the fabric myself! I sat down today and painted a gorgeous sunset sky. Oh dear...I think fabric dying has seduced me like quilting has! 

Nothing interesting to blog about, but I just want to let you know that I haven't fallen off the earth. I've been sick the past week, so a whole lot of nothing has happened sewing wise. I finally was able to catch up on things this weekend.


I ironed interfacing on over half of the t-shirts I'm going to use for the t-shirt quilt.

I also am still buried in blue shiny fabric! 30 vests cut and 2 skirts completed! 

New Onesie

I had a custom order rock climbing shirt to make, so why waste the dye on just one t-shirt? I made a really cute turtle onesie too! 

This n' That

I have been a seriously busy lady these past couple weeks and have had zero time to blog. A project first for me was pillow cases. When making the custom quilt, there was lots of left over solid scraps as well as Pinocchio fabric. Of course I had to do something with the extra fabric and pillow cases were the obvious choice. 

Making pillow cases gave me a great opportunity to practice using my serger! 

I took a nice trip to Maryland with my fiance for his 10 year high school reunion. I found this great purple fabric a while ago, but didn't know what to do with it. I decided to make a sweater for the airplane ride. It's super comfy and I love it!

Next, I have a wedding reception to attend and I can't go to one empty handed. For a couple that has no registry and is very outdoorsy I decided to make a fabric mountain landscape. It's framed and detailed with free motion stitching. 

I'm also in the process of making my first t-shirt quilt. It's a custom order and I'm really excited about it!

Oh yeah, and one minor sewing project I'm doing at the moment. It's that time of year. Blue shiny fabric everywhere!!! I'm working on costumes for Carnaval for the 48 person samba bateria I play with. You can find out more about the Austin Samba School here.