Stop staring and start sewing!

One step closer

Okay, the out of town packages were shipped yesterday!  They should make it in time but, to be honest, I'm done sweating (and swearing) over it.  Humbug and onward! 

We're having 25 folks over for Christmas dinner and I refuse to freak out.  I made a run to IKEA yesterday and it was surprisingly calm there.  And a lot of stuff is half off so I was able to get some napkins, cups, etc. at a good price.  I'm making good progress in my kitchen spruce up and have been busy with chair recovering, which I actually enjoy. 

Here it is before.  Ew.  I remember how excited I was to get that fabric for 4.00 a yard.  I don't hate it yet but it's time for a change.

I kept the same paint color because I really like this shade of mustardy yellow.  It made it so much easier to paint because I didn't have to primer everything first (and I'm in a hurry here).  In case you were wondering, I always cover my chair fabric with plastic.  No, I'm not Italian, it's just that I have 5 kids and don't want to cry over spilled milk (or spaghetti sauce, or anything).  Doesn't this look great?!  I recover my chairs about every 3 years because the plastic eventually gets ripped but by that time I'm ready for a change.

I did these too!  And only have a few glue gun blisters.  The old ones were so gross and dusty I'm too embarrassed to show them.  But aren't these fun and fresh?  Joey picked the shades up at Lowe's for me (4.00 each I think).  Home Depot no longer carrys them (boogers) and JoAnn's charges about 8 bucks each (crazy!) for theirs.  Now the 8 dollar ones are the peel and stick kind but I wasn't about to pay 40 bucks to re-do my cheap little IKEA chandelier.

And here's where it really gets going.  Joey's been making candy (divinity and candied orange peeels) and Olivia made these cookies yesterday.  The recipe is posted here.  These are a hugely popular cookie around these parts and the only reason I have any left is the fact that my mom has had 3 of my kids for the past 3 days (which is why I'm getting so much done around here!).  Must go find a cookie hiding place before they return.

Be sure to run over to Blue Nickel Studios because Scott is having a massive (seriously, tons of stuff) give-away to celebrate his 200th post and he even has a sneak peek of Jennifer Paganelli's newest fabric collection (he always gets to play with them first, lucky guy!). 

3 more days until Christmas!  Keep Calm and Carry On!! 

2009 A Sewing Year in Review

Are you done with your Christmas shopping?  I'm not.  That's what the weekend before Christmas (and priority shipping) is for.  Sigh.

Anyway, I don't have much time to sew and tell these days.  December has sort of freaked me out because the fabrics that were suppose to ship to me in September, October, and November all came in December.  At last count I've had 9 collections show up in the past 3 weeks plus lots of re-stocking so all work and no play make Jona a very dull girl.  Indeed.

But I decided it would be fun to do a Year in Review mosaic and now that I have I realize I've had a very productive year and so I feel a little better.

1. oh cherry oh pouch, 2. child's apron, 3. My new office, 4. Butterick 5439, 5. My new bag (I love it!), 6. New skirt for summer!, 7. swing5, 8. skirt re-fashion after, 9. evie, 10. DSC_0052, 11. new valance, 12. My new little table runner

Looking at these picture make me realize how quickly this year has gone by.  If you have a flickr account you should go ahead and make one of these!  If you don't have enough finished projects then commit to sewing enough to be able to put one together next year.  That's my idea of a new years resolution!

Voile-ah! A teeny tiny tutorial

I really want to make some blouses with this amazing voile fabric from Anna Maria Horner (this fabric is just as nice as Liberty of London and I can't stop running my hands over it) but I have zero "me" time right now.  Fortunately this little scarf took almost zero minutes!  My outfit needed a little spruce up and it's been a little chilly here (actually flippin' cold by Arizona standards but I'll be darned if I'm going to complain because I don't want comments from all you folks in the midwest!).  This was a great spruce up and it really does keep my neck toasty.

This fabric is 55" wide so it's the perfect size (your finished scarf will be about 54" long) and you only need 1/2 yard for a scarf.

Cut the selvages off and fold it in half, right sides together.  Pin the edge on the 3 unfinished sides.

Stitch together, pivoting at the corners, leaving an opening about 4" long on the side.  Trim all of your corners.

Turn right side out through the opening and press well.  Pin at the beginning and end of the opening (so you can see where you need to stitch).

Stitch it closed.  You can hand stitch if you like that better but machine stitching gets the job done fast (and that's what I'm going for here)!

5 easy steps (and pretty darn inexpensive too!) and I've got myself a beautiful, soft voile scarf.  I'm going to do one in every color now.  And guess what everyone on my Christmas list is getting? 

If you looking for quick gift ideas (besides this one!) don't forget about my Apron in an Hour tutorial.  It's fast and I've never had someone cry when I gave them one (kits in the store too).  Let me know if you'd like a different fabric combo and I'll see if I can put something together for you.  More tutorials on my sidebar and I'm going to try to put together a fast gift idea that you can sew for kids.  Busy week ahead!  Keep sewing!

A fast little runner

Jenean Morrison's beautiful new California Dreamin' collection showed up last week and every time I pass it I can hear it scream "Christmas!!!" to me.  I finally couldn't take it any longer so I spent an hour this morning making this little table runner.  12 strips of fabric 3"x8" (6 different prints) went together lickety split and then I couldn't help but trim it with some "swans a swimming" from Lizzy House's Red Letter Day collection.  See?  Christmas!!

Yay!  The finished dimentsions are 32" x 11" and it was easy peasy Christmas Evey.

A winner! Weeee!

Holy cannoli people!!!  Over 900 comments (thanks Monica)!!!!  So what you're saying is...you like fabric?  Me too!  Well the big winner is Kerry who left a comment at 11:05 am on 12/2.  Congratulations Kerry!  This should keep you busy in 2010 (can you believe it's almost here?  Weren't we just stashing 50 lb bags of rice for Y2K??). 

I have to show off something I got last week from Genevieve Gail the fabulous fabric and jewelry designer.  I saw these new designs in her etsy store and knew I had to have one so here's my new brooch!  I'm wearing it proudly (with my Fabric Pimp button) and it's a great gift for sewing gals.  But I'm sure you've already finished your Christmas shopping, right?

And look!  I finally got two more (long awaited, ugh) blocks done for our virtual quilting bee.  The one on the left is for Sarah (I hope she loves it as much as I do!) and we will exchange ours in person since she's not too far from me.  Yay!  And the one on the right is for Katie and I loved adding a little French General too it since it seemed to fit so well with the soft, lineny look.  The fabric in the back is for Chris and it's all vintage sheeting.  I love it (hopefully I won't wait 5 months to finish it)!

Thanks for leaving so many nice comments for Give Away Day!  It was a blast and hopefully we'll get to do it again in May.  Stay warm and keep sewing!

Give Away Day!! Yay!!

Yay!  It's time for Give Away Day!!  A huge thanks to Beth at Sew Mama Sew for organizing this fun day twice a year!  Run over to her blog and look at the whole list of participants and join in.  You might end up with some fun goodies!  And don't give me that "I never win anything" whine because folks are trying to give you FREE STUFF here!!

Here's what I'm giving away (I think you'll like it!).  It a massive stack (5 yards total!) of totally awesome all your favorite designers fabric "scraps" (actually most of them are too big to be considered scraps but oh well), and a brand spankin' new copy of 100 Blocks Magazine.  It has quilt block patterns designed by some of my very favorite quilters and between the magazine and the fabric you should be able to make oodles of blocks.  Oodles!

Just leave a comment and be sure to run over to my store Fabritopia and look around because I've received tons of new stuff (5 collections this week and 4 more next week)!  I usually order complete collections so there's a great selection to make any project.  You can join my mailing list on the bottom of the front page there or on the sidebar here to stay updated on all the new things going on in the wonderful world of fabric.  

Good luck!  Oh, the drawing is open through Sunday, December 6th.  Fun!