Her First Apron

As I was tidying in the kitchen this morning my little girl kept running by with pieces of fabric from my scrap bag showing me quickly and asking my opinion on how I liked the owls, or did I think the trees were a pretty shade of blue and to express her sheer excitement that she had found two pieces of matching gingham large enough for her project :) It's not often to find larger pieces in the scrap bag so this was a major find for her but she still wasn't revealing just what it was she was making *grin*.

I so wanted to go and peak in the doorway to her room and see just what it was she was up to but I didn't want to spoil her fun so I waited and watched her slip past with more fabric as she gathered and returned ones that didn't fit her needs :)

After a while she didn't return again and I could hear her humming softly in her room. When she finally reappeared she was grinning from ear to ear as she walked proudly out with her brand new apron that she had made for herself :) And what a magnificent job she did!

She had found strips of apple fabric long enough to be the sash and there were two large pockets along the bottom which she explained were for her recipe cards and her measuring spoons and she was ready to bake.

I just love her creativity. She had a vision of what a special apron of her very own would look like and she snipped and stitched until she had created it just like she had imagined :) I can't wait to do more projects together with her. I think that she may be just about ready to start learning how to use my sewing machine and use a real pattern! Oh are we going to have some fun *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Potholder Planning

I've been digging through my fabric piles looking for Christmasy prints so I can get right down to business working on my holiday potholder for the PP5 swap :) I happened to just purchase a charm pack of Moda's 12 Days of Christmas so that is going to come in mighty handy and I have the name of my secret partner and what she likes so I'm ready to roll *grin*.

Originally I planned to do something with cathedral window blocks for the top of the potholder but being my usual indecisive self I thought that maybe that just wasn't going to be creative enough for my partner so I got to sketching :) So far I've come up with these chubby birdies and some random shapes surrounding them with the heart on top which I thought was cute.

What do you think? If it's done in the Christmas fabrics and maybe some freehand embroidery to embellish the bird backs....

I haven't worked out all the kinks yet but I've got it started so that's one step closer to the mailing date at the end of the month *grin*.

Hugs,
Rosina

Birthday Girl Bunting

The countdown is on with only one more day until the birthday girls party! One of the larger projects for L's party that I needed to complete was making her special birthday bunting that she had asked for. True to form I left it to the last possible moment and hurried to finish it today *grin*. Actually I quite enjoyed sitting at my sewing machine listening to it whir along. There's something so therapeutic about sewing and it was probably the least stressful moment of my day :)

Armed with a stash of fun ginghams and summery fabrics I set to work cutting out flags, twenty-seven in total.

Now I know you might think I'm a total sucker for punishment or am just crazy but I decided to sew a backing onto each of the bunting flags. Twice the work but I was thinking about durability and washability when I came up with my plan *grin*. Knowing my daughter she is going to want to move and reposition this bunting multiple times and it may even end up outdoors in her tree house so I wanted to make sure that it will stand up to some heavy usage!

I always have tons of unbleached muslin on hand so I cut enough for each of the flags backing and then sewed each flag with right sides together along two sides leaving the tops open so that I could clip, flip, press and top stitch each of them before attaching them to the hot pink rik rak that I used for the string.

In case you are curious as to how to measure and cut your own flags so you can make a fabric bunting as well you can check out my previous birthday bunting tutorial which has photos and complete instructions on how to do it :)

Here it is all complete :)
I just had to sneak it outside and hang it in the plum tree for a quick photo *grin*. I just love how fun the fabrics and rik rak went together and from end to end it is roughly 20 feet long. I can't wait to give it to her.

~ Rosina

New Obsession

Okay I admit it... I am utterly obsessed with quilts and every time I see a new pattern I just want to try it out *grin*. I've had this bright and cheery stack of fabric waiting to be turned into something fabulous and Oh Fransson's great New Wave Quilt is just begging to be made with it! LOL.

Photo courtesy of Watch Meesh Run via Flickr

I think it's going to look fabulous with the strikingly bright pinks, greens, blues & yellows dissected by the white sashing. Oooh so yummy *grin*. I need to get my hands on some template plastic tomorrow or find something around here to use so I can get started!

What sewing projects do you have on the go right now? I'd love to take a peek :)

~ Rosina

On The Cutting Table ~ Party Favor Bags

It's so hard to work on Sunday when you just feel like lounging around *grin*. I can't rest just yet though. I've got 30 snack bags cut, pinned and ready to finish for orders that need to hit the post office tomorrow :)

One package is a mix of 24 snack bags that will be used as birthday party favor bags instead of the usual plastic ones! This is my 3rd party order and I am thrilled to help families go 'plastic free'.

So I was thinking that perhaps I should try and find some birthday themed fabrics that would be more suitable for party favor bags but I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to pick. There's cupcakes patterns, polka dots, perhaps pirate fabric for boys or just colorful solids....

What do you think?? What would you choose as a birthday party fabric? I would love to hear some suggestions and even links to photos of your favorite birthday type fabrics :) Can't wait to see what you all like!

~ Rosina

Modern Organic Fabrics ~ Giveaway

I just found out about another fantastic fabric giveaway and I had to share it with you all :)

Modern Organic Fabrics is one of my favorite shops to visit on Etsy and she has just opened up her own independent fabric shop featuring all organic fabrics which is awesome!! The more organic choices available to everyone the better and she's got some of my favorites like Cloud 9 and the new Circa 50 line that is due out anytime now.

So to celebrate the opening of her new shop she is giving away a $50 gift certificate! Now that's pretty sweet and it's open internationally which is perfect for those of us not located in the US :)

All you need to do is visit her new shop and then visit thelongthread.com and leave a comment sharing what your favorite thing in the shop is and your in! Just make sure you do it by this Sunday March 14th.

Just in case Sunday rolls around and you and I aren't the lucky winner of the gift certificate, I thought that I'd share a couple other places in Canada where you can find Organic fabrics online :)

Plum Project (awesome customer service & fast shipping)
Pink Panda Fabrics (always free shipping in Canada)
Tonic Living (love shopping here)

I'd love to know where you find your organic fabrics so leave me a comment and let me know :)

~ Rosina

Tutorial ~ Make A Felt & Fabric Birthday Banner

I'm so pleased with how the Happy Birthday banner I made for my son's birthday last weekend turned out that I just had to share it with all of you :)

You will need:

Printed ABC's
an assortment of colored felt
coordinating cotton fabrics and thread
cookie cutter, mug or something else round to trace around

I started by tracing 3 inch circles on my felt using one of my water glasses as a tracing pattern :) Then I found a 4 inch scalloped cookie cutter that was just perfect for the white accent underneath the colored circles and traced around it, then cutting both styles of circles out. Don't worry if you don't have items that are the exact measurements that I used, check out your cookie cutters & glass cupboard and match up sizes that you have :)

Next using my word processor program on my computer I typed in 'happy birthday' and adjusted the size until the letters printed out at a suitable size to fit on the top circle comfortably without being to close to the edges. I used the 'Arial' font at 200 points for the size :)

With all of your circles and letters cut out, stack them together the way that you want them to look and start by sewing just your letters on through all 3 layers of felt. This is much quicker than hand sewing and I was in a bit of a time crunch *grin*.

With all of your letters attached it's time to get your flags cut. You'll have to excuse my hodge podge assortment of measuring tools! LOL. I only had one ruler that was long enough so I had to resort to fabric scraps for the other side *grin*. Not a big deal at this point though, all you want to do right now is visualize how big you want your flags to be so that your felt circles are going to fit nicely and jot down your measurements for when you are ready to actually start cutting!



Now that I knew exactly what size my flags we're going to have to be to look good, I started to cut. I used a 10 inch wide strip of cotton cut parallel to the selvage along the width of my fabric leaving me with a nice rectangular chunk.

With my flags planning to be 7 inches wide at the top, I lined one end of my ruler up at one of the corners on the narrow end of rectangle sized fabric and moved the other end of the ruler diagonally across the fabric so that it stopped 3.5 inches further up the fabric on the opposite side. This first cut was going to create one side of one flag. Once that was cut I repositioned my ruler so that it stayed on the 3.5 inch mark on the one side and slid the opposite end of the ruler up the fabric 7 inches and made my second cut which then created my 7 inch wide triangle like in the above photo.

To continue cutting your triangles out of your rectangular piece of fabric you just alternate what sides you count up your 7 & 3.5 inches. Hopefully my photo is worth a 1000 words and helps clarify my instructions *grin*.

With my assortment of colored flags all cut, I laid the entire banner out so that I could alternate flags & felt alphabet circles around until I had it looking just like I wanted :)

As soon as I had my line up decided I took them to the sewing machine, positioned each circle 3/4 of an inch below the top of each flag and then edge stitched inside the colored felt circles to attach them permanently to the flags.

Since I never turned under any of the raw edges on my cotton I was a bit concerned that with all of the handling it was going to start to fray. So I took my pinking sheers and quickly cut down each of the edges tidying up any stray threads and giving them a fun finish :)

The last and final step was to attach some pre-made bias tape along the top, connecting all of the flags together :) Now if you're really industrious you can actually make your own bias and the thought did actually crossed my mind but I opted for the easy way out and used the pre-made stuff *grin*.

That's it! One fun and super colorful birthday banner :) These could be used for anything to, not necessarily just birthdays. They'll gussy up any festivities and you could personalize it with your child's name to! The only thing that I would have changed was to put on the number 4 with velcro so that I would have been able to remove it every year and update how old he is. Alas, hindsight is 20/20 *grin*.

Have fun making one of your own and let me know when you've finished it. I'd love to see what you do to make yours special :)

~ Rosina

Fabric Giveaway ~ So St. Croix

Need some new inspiration to add to your fabric stash?
Hop on over to Jennifer Paganelli's blog and get in on a fantastic giveway for 3 fat quarter packs in her new So St. Croix fabric :) Better hurry though, it all comes to a close this Sunday @ 5pm!

~ Rosina

Party Banner

I'm feeding my felt fetish again LOL.
I've been working on a happy birthday banner for my son's 4th birthday tomorrow and I've just about got it completed :) Last night I hauled out my jumbo bag of felt and started cutting up a storm. I love working with felt, it's so easy to work and forgiving of mistakes. Just a little tug here and there sorts out little imperfections *grin*.

He's turning 4 and thought that I'd surprise him with a special birthday bunting with 'Happy 4th Birthday' on it. All that's left is to sew a string of bias along the top to tuck all of the flags into and it'll be ready to string up tomorrow afternoon :)

We just finished putting on a big shin dig for big brother's 11th birthday so we're going a little more low key tomorrow with cheese & crackers, salami and landjaeger from our favorite German delicatessen and of course one jumbo ice cream cake!

~ Rosina

First Blocks Done

I started cutting my first blocks today for the paintbox quilt :)
I had to do a little improv with the instructions as they call for 2 1/2 inch strips of the solid colors but I only had yardage in the solids and the patterned fabrics were supposed to be 10 inch squares but of course mine happen to be in strips so I'm working all the blocks in reverse *grin* It's all working out though :)

I decided to go with the classic blocks since they are the easiest to assemble and sew together in just a couple of minutes.

So here are the very first two in contrasting colors. I can't wait to get some more sewn up! I just love the bright color combination :)

~ Rosina

A Paintbox Quilt

I've had this great jelly roll of quilting fabrics stashed away in my craft cupboard for a couple of months now just waiting for some inspiration to hit me with an 'aha' moment and I've finally had it!

As I was doing some craft blog surfing the other day I came across a quilt called a 'Paintbox' quilt and I love it. It actually looks like the the scrappy version of it is put together very similar to a log cabin quilt but I have to delve into the instructions a little closer to see if I'm right or not :)

So I hit the fabric store this afternoon and picked up some quilting cotton solids in fun bright colors because you know it's all about fun! *grin* I'm not sure if it'll be enough to finish but I definitely have enough to get started.

Set 1, originally uploaded by Little Bluebell.

Above is a sample of what the classic squares look like with 2 of each block created to contrast each other. This is going to be fun :)

~ Rosina

Sneak Peak ~ New Organic Sandwich Bags

They're here!! The first batch of certified organic fabric has arrived and I just finished sewing up one snack and one sandwich bag out of each of the four fabrics. I just love the fun polka dots, mushrooms & flower prints!

I shared in a previous post some of the requirements that need to be met in order to be certified organic and am super excited about getting these and being able to share them with you to. I'm working on getting all of the photos together for them and will start to list them in the shop in a couple of days, so make sure you check back for them!

~ Rosina

New Certified Organic Fabrics

I can't contain my excitement anymore and I've just got to spill the beans *grin*.

I just finished splurging and purchased some fabulous *certified* organic cotton fabrics. Did you know that cotton is one of the most chemically treated crops grown and uses approximately11% of all pesticides and 25% of the insecticides used worldwide each year? Yikes!

Thankfully certified organic cotton increases soil fertility and biodiversity, reduces water pollution, and has a low impact on the environment making it good for the Earth.



I am really looking forward to their arrival and making my cloth snack and sandwich bags with them :)

All of the fabrics I purchased meet either the GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) for farming methods benefiting farmers, processors, the earth and consumers by using natural, non toxic means to control crops from seed to harvesting, milling to finishing

OR

SKAL certification which tests and verifies international organic farming standards and consists of visits to farms, processing and importing units, but also examination of soil, crop or tissue samples and administrative assessments. When the production process fully meets the requirements, certification can take place.

So exciting! Soon everyone will have the choice as to which materials they want their bags made with :)

~ Rosina

Man Fabric

I just love having a good excuse to buy new fabrics and since my shop is seriously lacking in the manly fabric department I just knew I had to have these!

The outdoorsman in your family is going to get a real kick out of this one :) The comic strip style pictures have the funniest little sayings to go along with the graphics and are bound to please any hunter or fisherman *grin*.

Fabricland was conveniently having a sale on these manly gems so I also picked up a fish one appropriately named 'The Daily Catch' which I know my boys are going to really like. It's a win win situation for everyone *wink*.

I've got them all pre-washed and cut so tomorrow I just need to whip em up, take photos and get them listed in the shop :) Can't wait to see them in sandwich bag size!

~ Rosina

Cute Spotted Owl Fabric

Oh my goodness this new Spotted Owl fabric from Alexander Henry is so cute. Don't you just want to get this?! There are only a handful of fabric shops on Etsy carrying it and apparently supply is limited and hard to find. Oh the fun things I could make with it :)

~ Rosina

Fabric Eye Candy

I received my secret swap partner's name from Holly for her apron swap and thought that I better get my butt in gear and pick out some great fabric and hurry to so that I can get it mailed to me in time to leave me at least one day... maybe two to get it sewn up *grin*. I don't know what it is but I get a totally absurd mental blockage when it comes to matching colors! I must have clicked back and forth through the pages of Amy Butler fabric over at Fabric Supplies etsy shop more than a dozen times before I finally made myself a little collage of my favorites to help me sort out my thoughts :) I'm pretty happy with the ones I decided to go with so far. Now if only I could walk to the mailbox tomorrow and they would all be waiting for me.

~ Rosina