Happy Halloween! (Almost, anyway)

I finally tried one of Bakerella's ( http://www.bakerella.com/ ) adorable creations. Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute. I may try for round two tommorrow.

A whole new world...

Tonight I took my first baby steps into the world of quilting... I'm attempting to make a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt using nine different patterns from Joel Dewberry and Amy Butler's lines. Here's a few pictures and easy description of how you too can make this quilt!

Disappearing Nine Patch

It starts off easy enough. I cut simple perfect squares to make the nine original pieces for this block. I am using "busy" fabrics with big designs, so i decided to make my squares 6" to try to capture the designs better. I've seen others doing mainly 4" blocks, but so far I'm liking my decision to do them bigger. (and it helps that the blocks end up bigger which mean less blocks to make over all!)

Once you've pieced together the nine patches, you do some slicing and dicing and will end up with this.

Now your block is in 4 pieces. "Why would you cut a perfectly good block into four pieces?", you might ask. It's so you can do this!

Or this!

Or even this! Which is how I actually sewed my first block.

So I'm 1 block down with who knows how many to go. I need to decide first if I'm going for a decorative throw, or actual bed sized queen or king quilt and then do some math to figure out how many blocks I'm going to do in all.

In other news, I started a new job on Monday! I'm working as a clinical manager at a large home health agency. It's a similar role to my last job, but is a better company that services many more patients with more staff and resources to make my job so much easier. Thankfully it also came with a bigger salary and most likely smaller headaches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out great!

Lastly, for all my crafty friends out there, I was introduced to a FABULOUS fabric shop online that has great sales! Everyone go check out http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/ and browse around their whole collection, but specifically peruse the sale fabrics! They've got tons of 54" home dec weight Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabrics on sale for $4.98 a yard! I've seen these in my local stores for anywhere from $15 to $20 a yard. I feel so much better buying a ton when I'm buying it for 1/4th the cost!

Their sale fabrics include great prints from many popular designers, tons of quilting and fashion fabrics and some pretty batiks; so if you have any fabric needs, I'd go there first!

New Fabric!

I love new fabric! My mom gave me a gift certificate to Fabric.com for my birthday and my selections arrived today!

Here's what I got:

Heather Bailey's prints I believe.

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

How convienient that I get all this before a 3 day weekend! I see crafting in my future!

Organized Craft Room....

I finally did much needed organization to my craft room. It was getting to be a mess. Now I'm going to work on decorating it a bit more, but here's some pictures of my room.

My main work area. I absolutely love this desk, got it at Target.com with free shipping. I also love the wooden sewing box, gift from my Mom. I need to get a better chair, currently using on of my dining room ones.

The brown table on the left is a new sewing table that Mom gave me. Pardon the guinea pig cage, it is a temporary placement.

Anyone ever tried to make an ironing board cover? I'd like to make a cute one, but not sure how to pad it right.

Finally folded all my fabric and fat quarters so I can find what I want when I want it.

My craft room luckily has a great closet for craft supplies. It wouldn't work so great if you wanted to use it like a regular closet though. The bag was made using Amy Butler's Birdie Sling pattern.


One side of the closet housing some fabric scraps, patterns, stuffing, etc.

The other side with ribbon and scrapbooking supplies.

Finally made myself a sewing machine cover with some cute fabric I also got from my Mom. (She gives me a lot! You should see her fabric stash! I could sew daily for years and not make it through half of it)

All the organizing and sewing made Ellie tired.

Dear little blog.....

I've not forgotten you!

We had a great (but horribly hot!) time in Orlando. Since I've been back I've been super busy at work and have been coming home too tired to craft, sew, or anything that I really like to do!

After a week of eating all kinds of goodness from some of my favorite restraunts (Pei Wei, Texas De Brazil, the list goes on....) and feeling like a sweaty pig walking around Disney I decided I needed to recommit to weight watchers so next year if we visit Orlando I can eat less at my favorite restraunts and walk around hot Disney like a sweaty smaller pig. hehe

I went for my first real meeting last Wednesday and weighed in at the highest I've ever been.

=(

Depressing.

But today was my weigh in after a week of being on plan and I lost.....

11 pounds!

Not so bad if I say so myself. I know this is a bigger loss than I will probably ever see again (unless I lose a body part in some terrible accident, hehe) but I'm glad for such a sucessful start that will motivate me to make it through the next week. I've tried online WW before, but this will be my first time doing the meetings. Hopefully it will be easier to follow when I have to go let others see my weight!

My father in law will be visiting us from Tennessee this weekend and that usually means touring the good restraunts in Jacksonville, but not this time. We'll hopefully be doing most meals at home so I can be accountable and stay on track.

On to crafting......

My next projects are

1. making a wallet/sleeve/cover thing for my weight watchers weigh in book. It's a little paper thing that I'm supposed to use all year. I need to make a cute thing to help protect it so it holds up.

2. Making some new totes to carry my lunch to work in. It's gotta be more fun to take it when you're packing a cute bag, right?

3. I think it's time for a new purse. Now which fabric to use...

Heading off for vacation =)

I have time for one last post before we head off for a week of vacation in Orlando. We hope to have a nice, relaxing time and may go "see the mouse" a few times. I'll be looking around for inspiration all week, since i won't be able to work on anything myself.

Here's a few pictures of things I've recently acquired!

I found these at http://www.vistaprint.com/

They offer 500 business cards for free! I'm hoping to start seriously doing an etsy shop and maybe try to sell items in other places as well, so I was excited to find these cards for only the cost of shipping. They offer many different designs in color, all still free! You should go check them out if you have any card needs!

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a good day. My coworkers suprised me with cards, balloons, lottery scratch off tickets (I didn't win so I had to continue working, hehe), muffins, and then we went to lunch. My husband got me some sweet cards and made me a yummy cake and dinner. My Mom is a fellow crafter and shares my love of fabric and gave me a gift certificate for fabric.com and also sent me this awesome handmade coaster set and handmade cards and bracelet! I love them all. Thanks mom! (you can visit her at http://sewmanyprojectssolittletime.blogspot.com )

When I got home today I also had this waiting in my mailbox, my fabric order from www.quiltingasyouwish.com

I've got so many things I want to make! And to make it worse i'm going out of town and away from my sewing machine for 7 days! Their shipping was really fast. I was impressed!

And one last picture, here's my coffee sleeve (I showed it last week on my blog) in action. Perfect size! I gave this one away to someone at work. I'm looking forward to making many more! I may list some in my upcoming shop.

I hope everyone has a great week!

New Project!

Hanging Star Tutorial


Gather supplies:

-Metal Star

-Glue ( I used clear tacky gel, but I bet regular white glue would have been fine)

-Scissors or Rotary Cutter and Self Healing Mat

-Various Scrapbook Paper or Fabrics

This is the star I found on sale at Joann's. The project turns out better if you get a star on clearance. (OK not really, but it makes you feel a bit better about the money you spend on crafting!) My star had already been painted a pale yellow and then distressed. If I were a more industrious person I would have sanded it down to be totally smooth... I however was tired and just worked with what I had and it turned out just fine.

1. I removed the hanging wire to make it easier to manipulate and get my paper on smoother.

2. To make a pattern for your sides, take a sheet of paper and make an imprint of a corner, but keep in mind to cover all segments you will have to make paper or fabric sections with your pattern flipped on each side, as each segment is not the same directionally!

3. Next I cut out my paper pattern and transferred it to a piece of cardboard just so it would hold up for several tracings and cuttings.

4. Use your scissors or rotary cutter to cut out the paper/fabric sections. You can stack multiple pieces to cut at once, but remember that the pieces go different directions, alternating around the star.

5. Once you have all 10 sections cut out, arrange them how you would like them to lay on your star.

6. I found the best way to attach my paper with full coverage was to apply the glue to the star itself and them rub it all over one section at a time. Alternatively you can do the same to the back of the paper or fabric sections. Place the paper around all the sections, trying to avoid any gaps if you don't want your star to show through. Rub out any bubbles that form.

7. All done with the first round of gluing! Congrats! Admire your star!

If you like the look of this, you're all done! If you're like me and have been looking for an excuse to decoupage something, allow your star to dry completely from this first round of gluing.

Check back tomorrow for the second half of my star project tutorial! (Cause I'm waiting for my star to dry before I can continue!)