Make-a-List Monday 03-29-16

Tags

cats, embroidery, Make-A-List Monday, Othello, Pasco, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing, Wade Park, Washington

Nature Refuge in Othello, WA

Make-A-List Monday is an idea that I borrowed from Sarah Craig over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and I thank her for inspiring me to try it!

A little late, but still in there swingin’!

Let’s see how I did on my list from 3/15:

• Top priority:  make my sister’s birthday present. 

Done!  Took about forever, but look how cute these cat coasters turned out!

Somebody posted the link for these on one of my Facebook sewing groups a while ago and I just KNEW I had to make them for my sister.  She just got new furniture for her living room, so I made them in coordinating colors.  The fabric is hand-dyed wool felt from the stash, and the picture doesn’t do it justice–it is gorgeous stuff.

Lots of TINY bits of felt here; I used Tacky Glue to hold things in place, then used a blanket stitch on the larger pieces, running stitch on the tiny ones (the instructions just say to “stitch” without specifying how).

• Make the Kaffee Fassett dress. 

Almost done–just need to attach the bodice to the skirt, sew hems, and do buttons and buttonholes.  And I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.  Might have been better if I’d used the collar??  Hmmm . . . .

• Do a Make-a-List Monday post, hopefully on Monday. 

Well, I got to it eventually.

• Stretch goal:  do last few bits of spiffing up in my sewing room and take some pictures.

Nope.  I usually clean up the sewing room after I finish a project, and I’m still in the middle of working on that dress, so it’s a bit scary in here right now.

 

Goals for this week are mostly to tidy up unfinished business as the quarter is ending and I’ll need to link up my finishes.

• Finish the dress.
• Do a post about it.
• Do a post about the cycling jacket (still don’t have pics!)
• Work on some more Splendid Sampler blocks.  I’m really longing to get to some of the blocks that have applique and embroidery!
• Test at least one of the circle skirt tutorials I’ve found online in preparation for next month’s class at SCRAP.

 

In the meantime, here a little bit of what’s been happening here:

New fabric!  I did some house-sitting for my mother and sister while they were in Oregon last week, and they brought back this Kaffe Fassett jelly roll for me.  According to my sister, she had to talk my mother out of getting the pastel cabbage rose fabric–TOTALLY dodged a bullet there.

I also got this lightweight border print (well, it’s actually embroidered, but you know what I mean) denim at SCRAP the other day.  I saw this post and knew this fabric would be perfect for that pattern. It’s a little wrinkly in this pic, but not bad considering this is after two days sitting in the dryer (hey, I’ve been busy).

I went to the Sandhill Crane Festival in Othello the other day, thinking I might learn something about the local birds.  What I actually learned:  birders are very nice people, but I will never, ever be excited enough about which sparrow is which to be one of them.  Also, you get some pretty premium swag when you go to the Sandhill Crane Festival.

And spring is here!  With the accompanying allergies and gale-force winds!  Here are some tiny flowers I found in Wade Park, next to the walking path.

Have a great week, everybody, and I hope you’re getting some spring wherever you are.

 

STH

Make-a-List Monday 03-15-16

Tags

clothing, Make-A-List Monday, SCRAP Tri-Cities, sewing

Taken at Howard Amon Park in Richland, WA

So it’s taken me 3 weeks or so to finish my 1-week goals.  😛

Needless to say, I am feeling a tad bit sluggish and unproductive these days.

But I am pulling hard on the old bootstraps and we’ll see if I can do a little better this week.  It helps that I have a firm deadline that I need to meet.

Goals from last time–

• Finish the jacket.

DONE DONE DONE!!  W00t!

I don’t have pictures yet, but will definitely get that done soon so that I can do a post and count this as one of my finishes for the quarter.  The good news?  My partner loves it and wore it the other day to ride his bike to work.  The bad news?  He came home with his head full of plans for THE NEXT JACKET he wants me to make him.

Sweet Jesus, give me a minute to recover from the stress of this one first, will ya?

Luckily, he wants another wool one and suggested I wait until some suitable fabric shows up at SCRAP for it.  So that should take a while.  Whew.

• Cut out my Kaffee Fassett dress.

Done!

If you recall, my plan is to make the long version of B6760, but incorporate the angled pockets (love them SO MUCH) from B3569.  After the challenge of the make-it-up-as-you-go jacket, I was really tempted to skip the pockets and just make B6760 as is, but then I read the instructions on how to do them, and decided they were just too easy.  I didn’t even have to move the pleats on the skirt.

I am so deeply in love with this fabric that I cut the dress facings from a plain black cotton so that I would have more bright, beautiful pieces of the dress fabric to use in future scrap quilts.

Goals for this coming week–

• Top priority:  make my sister’s birthday present.  Needs to be done by Monday afternoon at the very latest, and there will be a fair bit of hand sewing involved, so I need to get on this ASAP.
• Make the Kaffee Fassett dress.  I need to get this done while it’s still cool enough to wear it.
• Do a Make-a-List Monday post, hopefully on Monday.  😛
• Stretch goal:  do last few bits of spiffing up in my sewing room and take some pictures.

I actually have SO MANY things I want to get done this week, but these are the ones that feel the most urgent at the moment.

Have a productive week, folks, and take good care of yourselves.

STH

ETA:  Make-A-List Monday is an idea that I borrowed from Sarah Craig over at Confessions of a Fabric Addict and I thank her for inspiring me to try it!

Sunday Sevens 03-14-16

Tags

Bellevue, Bellevue Botanical Garden, Heidi, Howard Amon Park, Oregon, quilting, Richland, sewing, Splendid Sampler, Sunday Sevens, Washington

Sunday Sevens is a weekly (or occasional, in my case) series in which we share some pictures from the parts of our lives that aren’t covered in regular blog posts.  The ever-fabulous Natalie from Threads and Bobbins is the one who got it started.

Been getting out a little bit here and there, so I have some better pics this week.

Will you just look at this plump little guy!  I took a walk in Howard Amon Park the other day and a couple was sitting on a bench surrounded by birds and squirrels.  This one ran off with his treat and ate it sitting in a tree nearby.

I was having a particularly bad day recently and decided I needed to buy myself a present.  Quick trip to Tuesday Morning for some fat quarters ensued.  Happy colors!

Which then went into some more Splendid Sampler blocks.

My partner and I drove the route for the 300k ride coming up this Saturday.  This is in eastern Oregon, but it looks a bit like Scotland to me.  We saw many cattle, some sheep and deer, but very few cars or people that day.

This past weekend, my honey had a 200k bike ride in the Seattle area, so we headed up on Friday evening and I got to spend a lovely Saturday with my friend Heidi.  This is the Bellevue Botanical Garden.

Ferns growing on trees!

And flowering trees!

Have a great week, everybody.

STH