What’s life without a good apron?

Coming soon to a store near you (if you just happen to live in the Tennessee Valley)! My aprons, picnic quilts, and other odds & ends will be available at Harrison Brothers Hardware Store. They claim to be “better than a museum”, but I happen to like museums so I can’t get on board with that phrase. However, every time I’m downtown I make a point to visit Alabama’s oldest operating hardware store where they sell everything but the kitchen sink, although I did see a vintage wash-basin on my last visit.

Stay tuned for a quick tutorial.

Let me tell you, since I became serious about starting a side business my life has changed. All my free time is accounted for. I love it, but I also want a good nap!

My sewing machine is churning out 6 handmade aprons like a champ. Here’s an idea of what they will look like:

 

The moment you’ve been waiting for. How to Coffee Dye:

Step One: Purchase absurdly large stock pot (also good for making dog food in bulk).

Step Two: Brew 2 pots of coffee (not a problem for a former barista).

Step Three: Boil apron.

 

[Kitchen: a place sometimes used for cooking.]

Step Four: Rinse in cold water and hang to dry.

[Drying Rack: item sometimes used for laundry]

Step Five: Take pictures and blog about frivolous things.

School Days

“What do you do when the babies are sleeping,” you ask? We create masterpieces out of paper, of course!

Complete with 3-dimensional flowers and papier-mâché beehive! As any good Reformer, I had to throw in a few TULIPs.

I would say the real thing is really darn close to our preliminary sketch!

Happy Spring-time from Infant IB.

 

Get Stitched

The quilting is finished now (in fact the binding is almost finished!) but I figured if you’ve been following this quilt’s story you deserve to know about the quilting thread color palette. It is a big deal after all.

For this project I want to marry hand and machine quilting for two reasons. One, I love the way hand quilting looks, at least in my head it makes a quilt appear more valuable because you know those stitches came from a living-breathing-human’s hands. But more importantly, hand quilting takes a lot of time- so if I have any desire at all to sell this thing I need to keep my cost of labor low.

The pink strip in the quilt was hand-outlined with the pink thread, likewise the blue floral with the navy thread. When your quilt top is this busy I think it is best not to complicate matters with a lot of busy quilting. So I opted to use the lovely gray thread pictured above to stitch-in-the-ditch wherever it was needed to provide structural integrity and visual balance.

See that? It’s the biggest sewing hoop ever I’ve ever seen. It attaches to a metal stand to make quilting more convenient. Pretty nifty, I say.

Gorgeous Spring Day!

There comes a moment of truth in the making of every quilt that is truly terrifying. Time to square off those pesky edges.

I don’t care how many times you do it, it never feels right to cut into a quilt.

I worried for nothing though, it turned out great (this time)!

I used a spray adhesive made just for quilt basting and opened a window for ventilation. Instant “help”.

Welcome, Spring

I wouldn’t mind if it would stop snowing ASAP.

What’s a Day Job?

I intend this:

to look like this:

Regrettably, that’s all the planning I could muster after spending a week in the Toddler room at work. It’s really a wonder that I accomplish anything at all, but flying by the seat of my pants has served me well thus far so I’ll stick with it.

Pattern Play

It’s been a while since I’ve quilted and I sure have missed it! So today I locked myself away in the studio and pinned/sewed/ironed to my heart’s content (Seriously, someone please find me a way to do this full-time).

The lighting is pretty terrible, I know.

Below is my favorite “moment” of the quilt so far. You know what I’m talking about. Look at the chance meeting of these two fabrics– where the dark floral meets that slightly psychedelic teal pattern. It’s delicious, admit it.