Dear habibis,
I’m just popping in to let you know that I’m taking a blogging break. I’m making official what my lack of posting recently had unofficially indicated.
Our wedding is rapidly approaching (it seems like only yesterday it was months and months away!) and while I can carve out a little sewing time, blogging is low on the list of priorities right now. Hopefully I’ll be back in a couple of months. I know you’ll understand.
Habibis, between work and wedding planning I haven’t made much time for blogging. I’ve done a bit of sewing, but some of it I’m not ready to share yet. However, I’m going to a quilt retreat this weekend with Mama S and I’m very excited! Here’s what I hope to work on:
– Two paper pieyed blocks for our guild’s raffle quilt for next year
– The shopping cart cover needs to be finished
– I’d love to make some progress on my Quilt of Valor, which fell by the wayside this spring
– A special secret sewing project
We’ll see how much I manage!
My cousin C just graduated with his PhD. That’s a huge deal! I decided to make him a pillow three days before we were leaving to attend the ceremony. His sister consulted on design options.
I had a 12″ x 16″ pillow form. Perfect size!
I chose 10″ dark blue and light blue squares for the pillow. I embroidered the dark blue square with white thread. Then I cut up the light blue square to make a border. That got me to about 12.5″ square. I had chosen a coordinating book print to go with the solids – I love this print. I love the look of it, and C loves books! I used that print to add 2.5″ borders to the left and right and I also made the back from it.
The finished pillow looks great, and he loved it.
At our May guild meeting we had members’ market, where people can sell fabric and wares. I wasn’t supposed to shop…but I came home with four books, two patterns (one from our presenter), and about six yards of fabric.
Oops?
I got this gorgeous blue fabric. I love it. I can’t wait to use it.
Flannel with little sheep on it? Who could resist!?! This is going into my stash for future baby quilts.
These batiks looked great together. In my defense, I cut into these right away. I spent my Sunday (when I should have been working on other projects) playing with my pink scraps to make blocks for doll quilts. These batiks will form parts of a doll quilt top and back. As for the teal, I figured I could always use that.
Maybe in June I won’t buy any fabric…
Here are some pictures of the scraps:
It’s still Tuesday, so this isn’t late, right? Right?
I finished the last two napkins. Again, the quilting is simple. I know they’ll be washed a lot. I’ve got nine finished napkins now, four small and five large. At the moment I don’t think we need more, but it’s a good way for me to use up stash, especially fabrics that I’ve struggled to fit into my past quilts. So maybe I’ll make more.
I still need to quilt these two. The one in the foreground will be with a golden yellow thread and I’ll quilt the other in green.
I decided we needed more cloth napkins, for when some were in the wash. Z thought some of the others I’d made were a bit small, so I decided to make bigger ones. These are made from 20″ squares, so they’re quite large.
The two cream-based florals are quilted in cream thread, and the brown print is quilted in light pink. I’ve got two more napkins that I still haven’t finished.
I took some old towels from my aunt’s house after my grandmother died, to use for dog beds. Here are two I’ve made.
I sewed several towels together in a couple of layers. I added fabric right sides together, sewed all the way around, then flipped them right side out. Simple quilting to hold them together. Working with so many thick layers wasn’t easy. I don’t think I’d use this method again.
Habibis, I just barely used up more fabric than I purchased this month! And for the rest of the year, my fabric purchases should be minimal, so I’m pretty excited to get back into shape.
I purchased six yards of fabric in April and I used 6.73 yards, on the following projects:
Tablet cover (actually two – there were two attempts) – 1.5 yards
Cloth napkins – 1.2 yards
Drawstring bags – .8 yards
A gift for my niece that I haven’t posted yet – 1.15 yards
A couple of dog beds that Ihaven’t posted yet – 1.28 yards
This means my incoming total for the year is 85 yards and my outgoing total for the year is 25.48 yards. My net for the year is 59.52 in. That’s still so much. I’m confident that it’ll keep dropping as the year goes on. Maybe by December I’ll break even!
I tried to make us a tablet cover, but I decided it was too large. I wanted to make a second, smaller one that would be the right size. I figured since I was making a second one I’d choose fabrics I knew Z would like, and I’d make it with two layers of batting (because I’m so paranoid about the tablet getting damaged).
I chose a solid royal blue and a print I knew Z liked, because I’d considered it for the Ships at Sea pillows but hadn’t had enough. I sewed the print to enough royal blue fabric to make the inside, and used the rest of the royal blue for the outside. I layered them with two pieces of polyester batting (still leftover from my improv charity quilt).
When I turned it right side out, I quilted horizontal wavy lines using royal blue thread.
Then I folded it in thirds, making sure the print was at the top so that you’d see it when it was open. I positioned the Velcro, unfolded the case to sew that down, then folded it back into position and sewed the edges of the bottom two thirds closed.
This one fits the tablet way better. I’m very happy with it.
Habibi Homemade 