That person's trash is my treasure

Hooray for blue snowflake pyrex casserole dishes!

My views on used/vintage items are quite simple: disgusting. But there is one exception to the rule: kitchenware. This mostly because a lot of baking and dish items I like are no longer being manufactured, including blue snowflake pyrex casserole dishes and oddly large pretzel containers.

There is a flea/antique market that has had the same pretzel jars for $42.50. So when I saw this one for $13.00 I grabbed and hugged. Note to self: you lose all bargaining power when you're caught hugging things.

The pretzel jar will likely hold thread. I'm not too excited about having to reach in and dig around for the desired color, but I just did a strength test on my current thread box, and no, it does not support my own weight. 

Haute Couture

What?! This isn't haute couture?! It's hand sewn, made to order, and I altered it to fit me!

Huh?! "Hand sewn" doesn't mean on my cheap sewing machine?! But I did all the ruffles and gathering by hand and put on five buttons! (Although, the buttons were a mistake. When I was finishing the last one I remembered that I could have set the sewing machine stitch width to match the button holes and saved myself some swearing.)

Fine. It's Simplicity 2854 made out of charcoal gray Kona quilting cotton. 

The shirt comes with a four inch ease, which I tested with the measuring tape and it was crazy big, so I went down a size and gave myself a two inch ease. Have you spotted the problem yet?

Crappers. There is a four inch ease because the shirt has to be pulled on over my head and big ol' shoulders. Let's just say I won't be wearing this shirt to the gym or anywhere where changing in public is called for. But it looks good on, and it's the FIRST non-skirt garment that I've successfully made that fits onto my body. Now if I can only get the sleeve ruffles to head downward instead of straight out...

But otherwise, SUCCESS! I can now cross off, "make a shirt that fits" from my goals for 2008 list. 

The four hour bag

Aaron and I are heading down to Denver this evening to have dinner with his family and give his aunt her new quilt (shown in a previous post). At the last minute I decided that wrapping the quilt up in a used Amazon box didn't do it justice so I made up a quick bag to present the quilt in. 

The bag is made with extra quilt fabric. The solid blue is the same as the quilt's background, the honeycomb blue fabric is the quilt's backing, and the charcoal gray fabric is the same as the quilts connecting lines. The bag is fully lined and has an external pocket on each side. 

Aaron also put together a poster using the photos originally intended for the quilt. I put a snap on two scraps of fabric and wrapped that around the poster. 

Cutest wallet ever!

Or at least it's the cutest one that I own. And it holds valuable things like my popcorn frequent buyer card. The importance of this wallet cannot be stressed enough because I lost my previous popcorn card when I had one more stamp to go before getting a free popcorn. 

The pattern I made had whiskers that I forgot to stitch on before sewing on the pocket panel. Ah well, I guess my bunny shaves.

Once upon a time: Finished!

It took me a while to remember to ask Aaron to help hold up the quilt for a photo session. Unfortunately, Aaron had some issues with holding up his arms for any period of time which resulted in a lot of giggles and quilt waggling. Many of the pictures were quite blurry due to Aaron jiggling the quilt and whimpering and/or me laughing at him.

I am always pleased with the transformation of quilt top to quilted top. The quilting lines give it such a nice texture. The puckering that resulted from the washing and drying helped mask some of the bunching that occurred while quilting. 

Once upon a time...

This is a "Once Upon A Time" quilt from The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr and it is for Aaron's aunt. She's going to be spending some time in the hospital so this quilt is for her to take with her. Hopefully it will brighten the room and offer her some comfort while she is away from home. The original plan was to use family pictures. However, there were some problems with the iron-on transfer paper -- the photos didn't always transfer and the fumes made me sick. It was decided that it would be easier to use "fun" fabric instead of photos.

Here it is all ready to be basted. The first quilt I made I sewed into the carpet. It was pretty discouraging to have to cut it off the carpet and re-baste it... And this was at my old apartment where the carpet had a very short pile. Foreseeing that I was doomed to baste this quilt into the shag carpeting, I made a large cardboard "sheet" to put between the quilt and shag carpet. Worked like a charm!

I've finished the quilting and the binding so I'll post a finished picture in the next few days.   

Project put on hold

I finished up this quilt top last week.

I wanted a simple yardage quilt top because I really like the Amy Butler tree fabric so I didn't want to cut it up into tiny pieces. I started piecing the back, but really didn't like it. I was piecing the scraps into squares and it ended up much too complicated to be sandwiched with the top.

I am putting this quilt on hold to start a different quilt that has a more pressing "gotta finish" because its "gotta" get to its new owner as soon as possible. This will give me some time to figure out what to do with the back. The picture is a bit dark, but isn't washed out: there isn't much contrast on the top. I'll probably add some deeper colors to the other side.