Another birthday...

...another pillow! This time, it is for one of Little Bear's preschool friends who just turned 3:

The pillow is yet another iteration of the awesome Personalized Name Pillows pattern from Kimberbell Designs. I have made this pillow many times, and it is always very well received. On this one I tried something a little different and made the outside border slightly wider. I really like how it frames the center and shows off the prints a little better.

On the back is a super-soft Moda cuddle fabric (brown is one of Charlie's favorite colors... can you guess the others?). And look-- you can also check out my mani! I seem to spend a lot more time on my nails lately than on sewing. (Lately I've been thinking I'd be posting more if I had a nail blog rather than a crafty one!) But a finished project is typically a good motivator for me, so hopefully I'll find myself doing more stitching. If nothing else, another friend is having a baby-- so a baby quilt is on the agenda. Woo!

There has been a lot of talk lately about the demise of Google Reader. As it was my blog reader of choice, I am sorry to see it go. I recently switched over to feedly, and while it is definitely not the same as Reader, it isn't too bad. (High praise, right?) Ugh. Change is hard. LOL!

It seems that a lot of peeps are putting their stock into Bloglovin'. If you are one of those, you can also Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

My new toy!

For my birthday last month (39!), my husband gave me a Kindle Paperwhite. I decided I needed to make a cover for it.

Not long after purchasing my first Kindle (second generation), I found the "Padded e-reader cover sewing pattern" by BirdfulStitches on Etsy. I never actually made one though, because my husband gifted me with a fancy leatherette one with a built-in book light. So the pattern just sat in my stash until I received my latest toy. I went back to BirdfulStitches to see if she had an updated pattern that would fit the smaller Paperwhite. She did indeed have one, and she actually sent it to me at no charge. How friendly is that? Yay!

The pattern is very straightforward and requires only a few basic supplies: 3 coordinating fabrics (she calls for fat quarters, but you could get away with large scraps for the Paperwhite cover as it is so small), interfacing, batting, thread, and a button.

My only criticism is that the pattern includes only pattern pieces. As all of the pieces are square/rectangular, I really would have preferred measurements for easier cutting with rotary tools/rulers. I understand why the pattern is done with pieces-- to ensure that it is usable without any special tools-- but it would be cool if designers would include the information so sewists could just choose what works best for them. I went ahead and measured the pattern myself and then used my rotary tools to cut.

Other than that, the pattern was straightforward and very easy to follow.

I decided to finally use some of my Castle Peeps fabrics. Happy!

I actually ended up making a couple of dimensional changes, as I felt like maybe it would be a little too loose, and the corner triangles potentially could cover the screen. I cut 1" from the width of the cover, and 3/4" from the length. If I had it to do over, I would have only cut about 1/2" from each, as it is definitely a little tight now. I cut the corner triangles down by 1/2", which seemed to fit pretty well. (Or rather, I should say I tried to cut the triangles this way... I was anxious to get the cover done, and evidently didn't pay attention as well as I should have, resulting in some mis-matched triangles. But they still work!)

I had this button in my stash. It just seemed to work with the castle theme.

Here is a gratuitous shot of my new Kindle with its new cover under my lovely stained glass lamp (made by me, before children, when playing with cut glass was an acceptable hobby to do on the kitchen table... ha!).

And I totally LOVE my new Paperwhite. The built-in light is awesome and perfect and I love that the screen still feels like paper to my eyes. LOVE!

Something small

I'm not sure how I managed to blank on this, but on Saturday morning I awoke realizing that I had a baby shower to go to that afternoon. Fortunately, I had all the supplies I needed and was able to put together a tag blankie in short order.

I didn't have enough of any one color of minkee so it ended up a little scrappy, but I think it works. If nothing else, I don't think baby will mind. :)

The mojo is not exactly back, but pure necessity got me going at the machine. That's something, right?

Not-so-instant Gratification

The last few weeks have pretty much been a bust, craft-wise. At the end of January, I got a virus that put me out for nearly two weeks. Ugh! And since then, I'm still dragging and lacking motivation. So I've been spending my time trolling the blog-o-sphere looking for inspiration to kick-start the creative juices. I finally found it in the form of a dress: Cake Patterns Tiramisu.
Ooo... after seeing it made up in different fabrics on widely varying body types, I decided I needed this dress. Need, I tell you! And I did NOT want to have to wait for the pattern to ship from Australia... who knows how long that would take? No. I wanted it NOW. And, lo! I found that the pattern is available as a pdf (for less $$$ too!) and I snatched it up.

Ugh.

An hour of printing (to say nothing of the time I spent fighting with my printer to attempt to scale the pattern pages to the correct size).

About 120 pieces of paper.

Two rolls of scotch tape.

2.5 hours of cutting and taping.

40 minutes to trace (having to dodge the cars and trucks the boys were racing on the hallway floor where I was tracing may have affected the timing here)

I still haven't managed to cut any fabric.

But, through all of this I have definitely learned something: pdf clothing patterns are definitely NOT for me. Next time I shall go ahead and spend the extra couple of dollars (well worth it!) and wait for the printed pattern.

Volcano Party!

Last weekend was the big event: Big Bear's 6th birthday party!!! He had a great time with family and friends.

The hit of the party was the lava rock toss into the paper mache volcano we created:

Seeing Little Bear attempting to get his lava rock out of the volcano kind of gives you a sense of scale. It was a fair-sized mountain!

I made some special bean bag "lava rocks" to toss. I just used some rock and lava-looking fabrics from my stash. Some were traditional square shapes, others were more irregular (rock-like!). They are filled with a mix of poly-fil and dry red beans.

For prizes/favors, I ordered some custom-created cotton candy through etsy seller, Sweetopia. She was even able to color it grey-- to mimic volcanic ash! It was awesome!

And of course, there was a volcano cake. I took inspiration from a tutorial I found for making an erupting volcano cake and used a bundt pan and a bowl to create the cake stack. Since I knew we wanted it to be sturdy (as opposed to spongy), I used a recipe for Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake that was nice and dense (though it was also a little on the dry side; still tasty though!). We used a glass to cut out the center of the bowl cake and then stuck it down the hole through both layers, just as in the tutorial. Then we used some dry ice to create a foggy/eruption-effect. It was actually pretty darn cool in person. Big Bear loved it!!!

Happy Birthday, Big Bear!!!

Making of a volcano - Days 2-5

And then the great volcano sat. Dormant... waiting for its time to erupt! (In other words, lots of waiting around while the giant mountain dried.)

Day 2:

Definitely drying on the outside, but the inside was clearly still on the very wet side. Big Bear worked the blow dryer to help it along.

Day 3:

Hmmm... dry on the outside, but still way too wet on the inside.

My husband decided to try drilling some holes on the sides of the bucket to see if allowing more airflow to the inside would help. There was some blow dryer action after the holes were drilled as well.

Day 4:

The venting holes worked! The inside was definitely drying out. Yay!!!

Day 5:

Dry!!! Time to prime...

...and paint!

Ready to erupt party!

"Shades of Beautiful"

Finished just in time for my friend's baby shower:

Woo!

I used a mix of pinks/fuchsias and greys to coordinate with the baby's nursery colors. The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman (of Oh, Fransson! fame). One of her free designs, this one is called the "Birthday Cake Quilt." It is a great pattern-- the instructions are clear, accurate, and easy to follow. One thing I can say about Ms. Hartman though is that she does NOT waste fabric! Beware if your fat quarter does not measure at least 18" in width. Other than that, the pattern was awesome. I really love the look. And it was so fun to work with some super-girly colors!

Ms. Hartman has been posting some finished quilts lately featuring quilting inspired by the book, Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: Choose & Use Quilting Designs on Modern Quilts. After seeing those quilts, I immediately went and got a copy of the book. And the quilting design I chose for this quilt is from that book-- the design is named "Paisley." I knew I wanted something curvy and feminine to balance with all of the straight lines in the pattern, and "Paisley" fit the bill perfectly. It was a lot of fun to quilt, and I am over-the-moon with how well it turned out. I used a Quilter's Dream cotton batting and Aurifil Mako 50/2 thread in a light grey color (#2600).

Time was short, so I ended up doing a machine binding (following the fabulous Red Pepper Quilts tutorial). It turned out really nicely.

At the time of baby's conception, her mama was very much enjoying the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E.L. James. And the quilt has a lot of grey. Many shades, in fact. So I went ahead and named it "Shades of Beautiful." I'm not sure if mama will make the connection, but maybe that's for the best. LOL!

This quilt was a lot of fun to put together. I hope mama and baby both enjoy it as much as I enjoyed its making.