Wedding Quilt for Breanna

 Breannas wedding was now 2 weeks ago!!! Times flys during a rainy June I guess.  Her colors for the special day were purple and gray. From the second she decided on this I began finding and hunting down purple fabrics to make her this quilt I had dreamed up in my head. I was excited to work with purple so excited in fact that I ended up with 10 different purples!

 There are 360 squares on the front made up of 10 different purple fabrics, solid gray and a lacey sparkle fabric. After cutting all the squares I paried each purple with a gray or a lace gray and than randomly pulled the pairings out of a brown paper bag to make the rows. I wanted the design to be as random as possble to get a scrappy effect.

I think the plan worked out well. The colors mixed throughout the pattern and the lace sparkle mixed in randomly added some interest to the non purple spaces.

 After much debate I decided to do a simple quilting design with diagnal crossing lines. I love the affect it gave the quilt almost as if dimond shapes were individual quilt blocks.

 This quilt is huge. We had to take fence pictures because it was way to big to hold up. So sorry no moutain in the background pics. :(

 I put the tag on the frong this go around.
 Think it worked nicely with this design.

For the back I did large stripes with one gray stripe down the middle with M+B=Heart on the side.

I applicaed the letters on. Which came out very nice with this light purple metalic fabric.

 Here is a look at the stripes. I really like the mix. made it a little  more fun than just one back fabric. I choose my two favorates. Bought them out of the lighter one. Had to keep some for my stash.

 And in the end 360 squares lived happily ever after!

The Local Burger Tour

There was a time when burgers were really my thing. But I have to admit the love for burgers has evolved recently thanks to five guys and it sparked an idea. This summer my co worker Tyler and I will be embarking on a 7 stop tour of locally owned Burger joints on our lunch breaks throughout the summer. Old drive-ins mostly all known for there greasy goodness.

Now my vegan friends out there are probably cringing, but to all my non vegan friends who enjoy classic American food, I will be posting our reviews of the local places, what we have, and how it tastes. Maybe even some photos of these local places. I plan on ordering a single cheeseburger, with ketchup and grilled onions (if available) at every location.& Tyler will also be ordering a similar meal at every location.

Tour Stops Include: 

Out & About  - Located in a trailer on Puyallup's South Hill

Don's Drive In - Located across from the fair grounds in Puyallup

Dairy Freeze - Located in downtown Sumner.

Pick-Quick - Located in Fife

Wally's White River Drive In - Located on hwy 410 in Buckley

Frisko Freeze - Located on Division Ave in Tacoma.

Goffy Goose - Located on 6th Ave in Tacoma.

Other locations we are considering however they are a little more of a chain so we cut them out are,  frugals, five guys and fatburger....first we need to make it through these 7 stops!

Tour kicks off next Tuesday! Stay tuned for how our first visit goes!

MY favorite quilt

This is MY quilt that I selfishly made for myself.

I adore it to pieces and stole it from the guest bed in my sewing room and have been sleeping with it. After I made it I never took the time to get some pictures of the finished product. So this morning after waking up with it I decided to finally get around to it.

I designed the pattern after I bought a stack of fabric at the closing of a great fabric store. I used the yardage and also a white jelly roll. Funny thing about this quilt is I started the concept and cutting in February 2011 and finished it in February 2012. My skills grew so much in that time period through all the other quilts and sewing projects I finished that the ending product in 2012 was much better than I envisioned in 2011.

See these stacks? This is how the quilt sat for about a year...sad but true



 Than I finally took the time to make it into my favorite quilt....

 The backing fabric of this quilt is on of the main reasons I love it. Big vintage flowery design but in more modern colors. The entire quilt is very springy and reminds of a sunny day with a sudden rain shower like we are so accustom too this time of year.

What I am most proud about with this quilt is the actual quilting I did. I did a zig-zag design through the entire quilt which you can kinda see in these pictures.

 To bind this quilt I used the simple fold over technique. I wanted something very thin so that I didn't loose much of the design.

I went slow and steady and ended up with a very nice machine finish on it. Someday I may take the time to learn to hand bind but when I get to this point in the quilt I get so excited I just want it done!

As is with any sort of new quilt or fabric I buy the poodles love it. This photo was taken just minutes after the final touches were done. I was vacuuming up the threads on the floor and lewie claimed it.



Here Lew is posing with the poodle tag....He really does think this one is his I don't have the heart to tell him its really mine.

Wine Welcome

My front door was white. As white as the trim on my blue house. Nothing special, just a factory white door. In fact, my whole porch area was really boring. Really this porch area had been driving me crazy since we moved in because the original plan was to have a red door (and that didn't happen) and a little different porch entry situation (which also didn't happen thanks to the city's weird rules) Anyway, with the sun shining one morning this spring I decided it was time for a change. With some pinot noir colored paint and some vintage windows I gave it a little pick-me-up which I think has made a ton of difference. Here are the before and after pics!

              BEFORE Pinot Noir                                  AFTER Pinot Noir

BEFORE

AFTER

And now for the vintage windows. I bought these at a little store in Sumner and painted a quick coat of white to make them look a little fresher and Jason screwed them in to hang them up. I decided on windows without old glass panels partly due to our wind and because they were a heck of a lot cheaper!

 All done! (I love before and afters they make me feel like I did so much!)

BEFORE Pinot Noir & vintage windows

AFTER!!!!

Now I just need to find the perfect bench/chairs/swing/something so I can sip iced tea on the front porch with Jason and the poodles!

Bible Covers

Whoa! I have been a long time! Been busy with grad school and lots of projects though. Been sewing a lot, updating the house, celebrating new marriages and of course doing a lot of grad school work. Less about the grad school though and more about the projects. I started off this year by working a personalized Bible covers for each kid in my Sunday school class.

 This project took an unexpected turn when just as I was finishing my last few we found out that the Bibles we had been planning on ordering were no longer available. The problem with this was a size change in the covers with the new ordered ones making it so I had to go back through and adjust each cover individually. In the end I all got done and the best part is the covers are adorable and on the Bibles of all the kids in class!

This is the inside of the cross cover. Put some different fabrics on the inside to personalize them all for the kids.

 

 

Inside flaps hold the book in place. I love that cross fabric!

This one was for the class cougar fan.

All unique and fun. I am very happy with how this project came out and even more excited that the kids actually have been using them! I created the pattern using a few examples I saw online. The softcover of the Bibles was a bit of a challenge but lining the covers with batting seemed to be enough with strong seems.

Anyway, trying to catch up on my project posting. More to come tomorrow!

a desk for me

I love projects. Fixing things up, creating new things, whatever it is, I just love to have a project. I had been wanting a desk for about a year now and of course I only wanted one that could also be a project. Well my husband made my dreams come true(like always he would add). For Christmas he got me a desk that did not fit our style at all, but was big, sturdy and made the perfect project. Here is how this Christmas present project came together.

Here is the desk when we got it home from the antique store.

Ugly hardware, a stain that doesn't match my house, and as you can see below some water damage and scratch marks.

For the desk I went with my usual snowflake white but paired it with a yummy light green to give it a little vintage vibe and match the fabrics I have picked out for the space. I also got 2 of my favorite knobs for the drawers.

 You can see that the puddy, sanding and painting cleaned the top right up. The workspace is now smooth and pretty white. 

Loving the two tone and how great it fits in front of that big window in my soon to be sewing space. I found the sign on top the desk while cleaning out boxes. Almost the exact same green! and the saying couldn't be more perfect for this space. "I'm not messy, I'm creative"

So here to another fix-up-pretty project and is sure to last in our home!

Before:

After: