sonora jacquard pillow

January 29, 2015January 29, 201532 Comments

Pendleton Woolen Mills, a 150 year old family-owned Oregon company, seems to be having a real moment right now. i’ve seen the fabric recently in all the cool shops around town as pillows and recovering vintage couches/chairs, and it’s all over the blogs in ponchos and purses and in this book (affiliate link), of course. so after drooling over one too many super awesome Pendleton wool creations, i finally listened to the universe and got some to make my own.

i’d gone into the retail store (on SE McLoughlin) a few times, gotten overwhelmed, and left empty-handed. just too much amazing fabric plus a pretty high price point (this wool is over $80/yd normally). but on my most recent trip, i got a half yard sonora jacquard wool plus a couple apparel fabrics (on sale!) and forced myself to sew this into a pillow right away, rather than let it languish forever in my stash. Continue reading →

thermos toss changing pad cover

February 27, 2014February 27, 201429 Comments

hello! still enjoying settling in with baby but i felt like blogging, so here i am with the changing pad cover i made just a couple days before C was born. i had a major nesting/sewing frenzy there at the end!

this was on my to do list for months, and finishing it was probably one of those “final straw” things that let me go into labor. that’s what i’m telling myself anyway.

as i mentioned before, the “theme” of the boys’ shared room is Camp Ivanhoe, the Khaki Scouts’ base in the movie Moonrise Kingdom (affiliate link). my Pinterest board is here. i actually got the Camp Ivanhoe idea BECAUSE of this fabric! it was sent by the lovely folks at Dear Stella, who offered me some fabric at the end of last year. Em’s Christmas dress and Laura’s tote bag were both made in gold confetti sparkle, but this was my fun bonus choice – Thermos Toss flannel from their Take a Hike line (you can buy it online here).

i love these retro thermoses – i remember my dad taking a thermos to work in the wintertime, and the quirky plaid nostalgia grabbed me. it seems that the Khaki Scouts would probably carry these around in the colder months too. and the flannel is so cozy and soft for baby!

thermos toss changing cover

i figured out a pattern to cover our contoured changing pad myself after searching unsuccessfully online for exactly what i wanted. i made two end pieces that are elongated, shallow U’s, then i wrapped a long piece around the middle, matching up the centers and then turning sharply at the corners and sewing down the edges. i folded the bottom edge under and added 1/4” elastic and it fit really nicely. after stressing about how i was going to figure it out, it ended up working just fine. phew!

want to see a bit more of the room so far?

here’s a little peek – the brass bugle was a $3 thrift store find, and i made the troop 55 flag out of felt. my sister in law made the “Be Brave” pennant (inspired by one in this shop, different phrase sold here) as a Christmas present and i love it!

the garland was made by Cherie and the phrase in the middle says “here to make friends,” the opposite of the ubiquitous reality show mantra. i might change that out for a moonrise kingdom quote eventually and once he’s more mobile (and sleeping in the crib) i’ll rearrange the garland for safety. Cherie also made an perfectly campy divided basket for the room!

the National Parks poster is from Schoolhouse Electric as well, an awesome Christmas gift from my inlaws. it goes really nicely with the divided basket that Gail made (currently in our room for middle-of-the-night-and-every-day diaper changes) and the quilt Jess made! having generous and talented crafty friends is truly the best.

i want to hang some rustic-ish shelves, style a few more things, get more art on the walls, and then i’ll do a full room tour and show O’s bed too. the room is one of my favorites in the house already, though! kind of cool to have a design that looks better the more handmade/thrifted items that are in it.

confused geese pillow

January 24, 2014January 23, 201415 Comments

sometimes, you just gotta make a pillow.

my sister had a birthday a few months back, and due to some last minute party rescheduling, i couldn’t make her something like i’d originally planned. as time went by, i felt worse and worse that i HADN’T made her something…so finally i got down to business and sewed this pillow for her. i’ve been big on crossing things off my “to do” list lately (probably a nesting thing) so it felt great to get this done and finally gifted.

she had mentioned she needed more throw pillows in her living room, so i made the colors neutral to go with her existing white/cream/wood tone scheme. the flying geese are essex yarn dyed linen in leather (i got it at Bolt, you can find it here), and the background is a creamy bella solid that i also got at Bolt. you’ve seen it before as the bodice of Em’s Christmas Dress this year.

i used my friend Cherie’s awesome confused geese pillow tutorial to make the pillow. i went with the larger size (18″ x 18”). once i finished the piecing, i quilted it to a slightly larger scrap of batting, trimmed it, cut an 18” x 18” back, added a zipper, stuffed it, and done!

the insert is the IKEA FJÄDRAR, which is a pretty great price for a feather pillow and my favorite to use for these types of projects. it’s good to make the outer cover a bit smaller than the pillow insert (the insert in this case is 20” x 20”) so it lays nice and tight and keeps a puffy pillow shape. 18” x 18” may be a bit smaller than i’d normally go for a quilted pillow outer, but it still looked good once i carefully zipped it up.

i’m happy with how it turned out, and my sis put it on her couch immediately, so it was well-received. i think quilted pillow covers are a great “i feel like making a quilt but i can’t commit to all that time/fabric/effort” type project. you still get to experience the fix of piecing and quilting, but they can be made in a day. perfect to practice on, and especially fun to give as gifts!

* * *

P.S. get ready – a new film petit is coming on monday!!! it’s also the first day of Kid’s Clothes Week but we figure we’ll sneak it in before KCW really gets going. trust me, it’s inconceivably good. 😉

P.P.S. teepee print from this awesome shop.

camp quilt for the husband

July 2, 2013July 2, 201339 Comments

i tried to buy something for my husband for father’s day, i really did! i went to our favorite home / random cool stuff store, schoolhouse electric, with the full intention of getting him something there. problem is, that place is a bit spendy, and everything i wanted to get was out of budget. what happened next is what usually happens – i get inspired, and decide to make something instead. so i went home and knocked out this quilt mostly during naptime (with some sneaky finishing touches the next day).

the vibe they have at schoolhouse is sort of a arts & crafts era meets midcentury modern meets industrial meets summer camp, which is what i tried to recreate in my quilt. the reason i made a quilt for him is he tends to fall asleep on the couch most evenings…and he’s a taller guy, so i thought he needed something to keep his feet cozy as well as his shoulders, ya know? it’s always a bit frustrating to watch a person try to cover themselves with a too-small-of-blanket.

i’d also wanted to make a quilt that looks like a pendleton national park blanket for a while (still plan to eventually make a quilt for O that looks like the crater lake blanket), and decided this was my chance to practice. it was really tough picking “manly” fabrics from my stash, but i stuck to mostly linen and it worked out.

the quilt measures 43″ x 66″ finished – sort of random, but that’s what i had, fabric-wise. the fabrics are a navy linen (from JoAnn i think), red canvas from Bolt (most famously used on little red), natural linen (from fabric depot), with essex linen yarn dyed black center panel. it’s a strip quilt, which came together really quickly. i omitted batting, both because i didn’t have enough on hand, and because i wanted it more summer blanket-weight. the backing is Denyse Schmidt for JoAnn from last year.

the binding is two packages of store-bought double fold bias tape (sent to me by Cherie, thanks girl!) and the non-matchingness of it gives it that extra “summer camp” element i was looking for, plus takes it away from flag territory a bit.

i quilted it with mustard thread on both sides of each stripe, and zigzagged the binding to finish it.

the center of the quilt also has a quilted concentric diamond shape which doesn’t really show up in photos (or real life for that matter) but it subliminally ties in with the backing.

my husband seems to really like his quilt/blanket and uses it almost every day, and when i surveyed him for his favorite project of mine for Sanae’s blog, he said this! i don’t sew for him much, but i really should do it more often. look how happy his two fingers are there, peeking out from the side! 😉

GREAT SUCCESS.

feather pillow for a sewing friend

December 19, 2012January 3, 201311 Comments

sorry guys, another quilted pillow. last one for a while (maybe? maybe not? they’re just too fun!).

this one was for my sewing buddy, Caila. the girl is a ray of sunshine, i knew she was working on decorating her house, and i had so much fun making this pillow for her!

i met Caila once when she was in town, and we had a fun lunch talkin’ blog stuff, sewing stuff, kid stuff, Portland stuff…you know, the usual. i also got to meet her littlest adorable towhead Stryder – such a cutie pie! it was actually right around the time i discovered Caila’s blog in the first place, but i saw right away that she has a really bright, happy, colorful style. i also trolled her pinterest boards to find some specific fabrics that she might like to see in the pillow. pinterest is so helpful for gift-giving!

i pieced the feathers out of my most color-saturated scraps and fat quarters using anna maria horner’s (free) feather bed quilt pattern. this is actually one quilt block and it turned out to be perfect pillow size, though i kinda wish i’d narrowed the white space between the two just a bit and added a little to the outsides to bring them together. they were super fun to make though – i really enjoyed picking out the fabrics and learning the piecing method, which is different than anything i’ve done before and very satisfying. i even have a few extra feather sides for possible future pillows!

the back is AMH and a kona solid and it closes with a zipper. this project is an amazing fat quarter / scrap user upper.

recommend!

so i’m sewing a bunch of gifts for Christmas and realizing that i’m not going to get to blog some of them! one already went in the mail without being photographed (maybe i can talk the recipient into snapping a few pics), and i’m making some teacher gifts that i doubt will see the light of day (LITERALLY) before i give them away. this annoys me – sometimes it feels like a project isn’t “done” until it’s blogged. anyone else weird like that? guess i should’ve started sooner, eh?