Blogging, I have missed you!

I may have taken a break from typing, but my machine has been active as ever. I've been sewing for others here and there as well as working on a queen sized quilt (I am currently avoiding it).

I have crocheted for years... I might even be better at crocheting than sewing... not sure it's a fair comparison. Anyway, I finished an afghan for Silver Key and made a few scarves to sell. I also finished up another baby quilt to sell. Here are some photos of the newly listed items in my shop.




I'm really thinking I should use a human model rather than my old dressmaker dummy. It's got charm, but it's also wearing out in some places and hard to adjust. I really wish I had one of those fancy photography light boxes, but the big quilts won't fit in them anyway. It seems like the hardest part about selling something on the computer is getting the color and texture to show up.


This quilt is one of the annoying ones that just isn't the right color. It looks rather dull and bluish in this photo. It is super cheerful with the multiple shades of pink, and it will also be fun for the baby to touch. I tried to use many different textures in the blocks to add interest. I don't generally like being random, so making a quilt with all random blocks was rather hard. I cringed when I ended up with two blocks that were the same next to each other... it happened four times. But random is random, therefore I will live with it.

If you see something you like, check out my shop!

Pot Holders

I was trying desperately to sleep last night and thinking about what else I could make to sell. I remembered that I had some special heat blocking batting. I got it to make an ironing board cover, but it works well for pot holders. I also though about the fact that I had a few extra quilt blocks laying around. I bolted out of bed and started to sew.


This quilt block has been hanging around for at least 15 years. I can't take credit for the block; my friend, Lisa, made it when we were in college. I don't know why I ended up with it... maybe she was going to throw it away.


Yes, I still had blocks left over from the queen quilt I am making for Micah. I swear this is the quilt that never ends! Rather than putting the blue and yellow blocks together, I made each pot holder a solid color. I think it would be fun if they ended up in the same kitchen, but I will sell them separately, so we'll have to see!

Vintage Fun

I went around to some consignment shops last week in hopes of finding a local place to carry my sewing. When I was in one of the shops, the suggested going to a vintage store called Swish. When I went in, the lady of the store was very excited, and asked me if I could sew "funky" things from vintage fabrics. I said I could try, and she gave me a couple yards of fabric, a table cloth and a set of curtains.

I started with this little skirt. The fabric is a heavy woven cotton. All the red is flocked, which is also fun. One of the big things the gal stressed is to make things in "real people sizes,"
so this skirt is a size 14.




I made a purse out of this same fabric. The curtains and table cloth made a really cute skirt. I was a forgetful person, so I forgot to photograph them. I'll have to see if I can get a picture at the shop after lunch.

Pink Kitty Quilt

This is another version of the original kitty quilt. I wanted to try another color scheme since the blue kitties disappeared on the blue sky background.



I am still not happy with the eyes and nose. I used buttons for both which look nice, but I don't like having potential choking hazards on my quilts. I think the key will be not using chenille. It is very hard to embroider on, so if I pick something more like fleece, I'll have better luck.



I like how the butterfly turned out this time. I added lace to the design which I think helps make it look a little less like a bow and a bit more like a butterfly.

(Kitty & 9-Patch, 36"x51" Sept. 21, 2010)

Karli's Wedding Dress Part 2

I've been back from Canada for a week now, and I thought you might like an update on the wedding dress. I did end up having to put in a lot of work. Both brides maid's dresses needed alteration, as did the flower girl dress and the wedding dress.




As I was working on the wedding dress, I made an extra little dress for the maid of honor's 4 month old because she was so cute I couldn't resist. It turned out to be a very smart move. The original flower girl got sick on the day of the wedding, so the 4-month old got to be the flower girl. I never got a good picture of the original flower girl in her dress, so I am hoping I can talk her mom into sending me a photo.





I ended up having to redo the front bodice of the wedding gown. Everything else fit fine, but the dress was too low cut. The original flower girl dress wasn't so bad. It was about 2" too big, so I just had to take in each side a little bit. The brides maid dresses were ordered through a company and both were too big in the bust and offered too little support. I added clear straps and a lace up back to both dresses. I didn't get a good picture of the back of the dresses, but each black dress had a 3/4" red ribbon with 5 crisscrosses imitating the lacing in the back of the wedding gown.


Karli was very pleased with her dress and how the other dresses all turned out. I only have non-professional photos at the moment, so I may post again when I get the professional ones.

Lavender Eye Pillow

We forgot to go to Wal-Mart last night, and when I looked at dad's list, he had listed an eye-mask. He apparently forgot his in Arizona the last time he visited. I suggested instead of buying one, I could easily make one. I even teased him that I could put some lavender in it (I got a bunch on sale when I was doing soap making). I made the mask and started to think about how easy it would be to sew rice and lavender eye pillows. Here is the design I came up with:

I have noticed on other eye pillows that they are either too full, and therefore feel like an elephant is sitting on your eyes rather than a relaxing pillow, or they are about half full and everything slides down to the sides so your temples get all the rice. I designed this pillow to solve both problems.


I sewed the pillow into 4 chambers. The rice is then held roughly in place, with enough room to still have it conform to your face. It is also much lighter then the elephant-style ones.


As always, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added in some finishing details, including a little bow and some lace. The bow actually helps make the sides much more stable, so it serves two purposes by looking nice and adding strength.


I used white rice and lavender buds inside the pillow. It doesn't look like a lot of lavender, but a little goes a long way. My whole sewing room now smells of lavender!

Black Dragon Purse

I got a bolt of this fabric on clearance when I was working at Jo Ann's a few years ago. I was saving it to make an outfit, but I think it also works nicely as a purse. This one has the same lining and pockets as the burgundy one. One of these days, I am going to keep a purse rather than sell it. They keep turning out so nicely and my current one is falling apart from love.

Brocade Purse

Here's the latest variation on a theme. This is the same purse pattern as the "Teresa Purse," but this time with a satin oriental brocade. The lining is still cotton (mostly because I hate it when purse linings are made of satin and shred after the first use). The pockets inside have a metallic gold pain that highlights the design. I thing that this is one of the nicest key fobs I have made so far. This purse will be on sale on Etsy, but you saw it here first!

The Final Pattern

I made some changes to the "Teresa" purse, and here is the finished result:






Both of these purses are available for purchase through Etsy. This purse design takes about half the fabric and half the time of the bow tucks purse, so I can offer them for about half the price. I am also a stickler about copy right (maybe it's because I am a member of ASCAP), so I also love the fact that this purse is an original design.



These purses offer a bunch of pockets (10+) for everything you carry. There are special ones designed to hold pens and lipsticks as well as larger pockets to hold sunglasses, cell phones, black berries etc.

Check out my shop on Etsy to purchase these purses. http://sewhoneybee.etsy.com

Blue Kitties

This is a cute little baby quilt. The kitties are an original design and they are made of tie-dyed chenille. The bold colors are much darker than a typical baby blanket, which helps hides any dirty spots.


I kept the quilting very simple on the blocks, just a 1/4" line on either side of the blocks. I also stitched in the ditch around the borders and quilted on the line between the grass and sky on the kitty blocks.


When I fist finished the kitty block, my dad insisted that the butterflies looked like bows. I went back and added in the yellow bottom, making them look more butterflyish. The face on the kitty was hand embroidered. I used a thick rayon cording so the wiskers and mouth would stand out more. The eyes are dark green buttons.

(Blue Kitties, 45"x60" Aug. 15, 2010)

To Etsy or not to Etsy...

I started this quilt in April of 1999. I found it in a magazine, and fell in love with it. At that time, I had been quilting for only a few months and had finished maybe 2 quilts. I picked some of the most expensive fabrics I have ever used in a quilt, held my breath and started sewing. Then I got busy with college, then work, then my master's degree and work again, so after 11 years, I finally said I will finish this quilt and sell it on Etsy.


Unfortunately, as I worked I found my apprehension growing. I cut out all the pieces back then and did the lion's share of the sewing. Sadly, there was very little I could do to get the blocks to go where they should. My lack of skill 11 years ago permeates this whole quilt.


I should clarify... it is by not means awful. The color choice is very pretty, and it's truly lovely to look at if you don't look too closely. Even on close inspection, most of the points line up or are close. The edges of the quilt are ruffled a bit, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. This could be solved if the quilt was hung with pins stretching it to the right shape.


So here is the question. Do I try to sell it on Etsy? I am not happy with the quality, and I do not want other people to think that this is all I am capable of doing. But honesty, I could use the money. Any thoughts? Please post or e-mail me.

The Pines of Westcliffe

It seems like every project I make has a story. When I first started this blog, I was really more interested in posting a bunch of pictures. Now, I am enjoying telling the story about the project as much as I enjoy sharing the pictures.

This quilt has been a vague idea in my head for a few years now. The guest bedroom in my dad's cabin is often where I stay, and it is the home of an ugly electric panel. He accesses this panel at least twice every weekend because he turns off the pump to the well when he is not home (if the pipes burst, there will be less damage if the pump is off). I have been thinking that this electrical panel needs something to hide it, but also something that is easy to move out of the way. The obvious solution is a quilt.

When I gave the Four Seasons quilt to Rhonda, she said that she was going to get a quilt shelf to hang it on for her office. I mentioned it to dad, and I saw the light bulb go off. He has a cedar shelf with a bar on the bottom that he's been wanting to hang up. He thought about putting it in the bathroom, but the bar is really close to the wall, and he was worried that a guest might accidentally pull the shelf down while getting a towel (an unnamed brother did this to one of dad's towel bars before... you know who you are). So, we measured the wall, the shelf and the electrical panel and settled on a 30"x30" quilt.



I found this pine tree block on the internet, and with the help of Pythagoras, figured that I needed to make 3/4" finished strips to end up with a 30"x30" quilt with borders. I did alter the block a bit because I wanted it to be closer to a log-cabin block. The original block had 2 triangles with the trunk of the tree, so I changed it into 3 strips.


The alternating blocks are a modified log cabin block. With this block, it was easy to alter the colors to get the mountains in the background. I also liked that it made the brown background look a little more like hills and valleys.



The bear was not in my original design. I was guessing on how much fabric to get, and I miscalculated, but only by a little. I did not have enough brown to do a last log-cabin style background. So, I dug through my stash of fabric and found this almost black brown, and made an applique bear.



I tried to make it look like hills of grass while I quilted. I did some non-grasses hills as well, and outlined each tree.

Here is the quilt on the shelf. I had to use Velcro on the back, because the bar on the shelf is not removable, but otherwise it hangs like most of the quilts I make (with a long vertical pocket for the rod). We'll take it out to Westcliffe this weekend and hang it up then.

The "Teresa" Purse

I must admit that I am not a purse connoisseur. I have 2 purses total. One is small and the other is big. The one I use most of the time, I made for myself almost 3 years ago. Since I made it, I have not shopped for another purse. I am the last person in the world who should be designing purses!

While chatting with Teresa one day, I asked her, "What is the perfect purse?" Unlike me, Teresa owns a lot of purses and regularly switches between them. When I made her the rainbow purse, she tried to switch to other purses but found she couldn't because she loved the pockets too much. We put our heads together and came up with a look she liked, and I went to work designing.

I start by using muslin to make a pattern. I did the outside first, than pinned in the pleats where I wanted them. Once I had it pinned up, I could cut out the non-pleated liner. At first, I thought I wanted to bring it gathered up to an oval, so I also made a pattern piece for the top.



I then cut out the "real" fabric. Teresa really liked the "Skinny Mini Table Runner", so she wanted fabric like that on her purse. She also wanted pockets on the inside that stand out. It's really easy to lose stuff int he bottom of a dark purse, so I went with one of her favorite colors: bright yellow. Here is the lining before I sewed it into the purse.



Once I had trial one mostly sewn together I was not happy. The opening was too narrow to get things in and out easily. I left the project alone for 2-3 days and thought about it. I finally just ripped it apart and redesigned the top. Sorry, I did not take a picture of the original purse. I was so disgusted with it, I could not bring myself to photographing it, even for posterity. Here is the finished purse.


Teresa really wanted the shorter wooden handles, which is part of the reason the top wouldn't work. With my first design, I could not get the handles on and looking decently. I am much happier with this.



I really love how deceptive this purse is. It doesn't look crazy-full when she's carrying it, but the inside holds a lot, and keeps it organized. I am planing on using this purse design for future Etsy purses (in fact I already have fabric/handles/zippers bought for 2).


Here's the happy purse owner. Oddly enough, I did not ask her to match, yet she showed up with the exact shade of yellow that the pockets are.