Monday, August 31, 2009

I love my serger

When I was new to sewing and only making pillows and pillowcases, I didn't know anything about seam finishing. This weekend, while doing laundry, I spied some nasty unfinished seams on my gingham pillowcases and immediately serged the ragged edges. All better now.


Monday, August 24, 2009

Hold please

Elizabeth is tired of logging on to the SkitzoLeezraStudio and seeing my sad quilted blanket and wonders why I don't post something new but have been busy lately visiting HER to fix my laptop computer and contending with washer flooding issues.

Anywho, take a look at these photos I snapped in NYC 2 years ago.

Working to get my mojo back,

I am,

SkitzoLeezra





Monday, August 10, 2009

Quilting for the hard headed

After completely failing on my first quilt endeavor, no way was I gonna throw away those pieced fabric scraps so sewed them together to make blanket binding and attached it to my semi-quilted blanket. I kinda like it because the color combos make me happy.
Knowing that I would hoard the scraps, it became priority for me to use every last piece. Here are the remaining pieces attached to diaper burp cloths.



Here baby, spit up on the quilted fabric
that took a week to construct and destruct.

Baby gown from recycled shirt


Remember this shirt?

Cut off the sleeves and used the remaining fabric to make a baby gown from a tutorial by This Mama Makes Stuff.


Saturday, August 8, 2009

Learning the lessons the wrong way

But having fun anyway.

My great grandmother quilted and so did my mom. And I have always wanted to but just didn't feel ready for the commitment for classes, instruction, and the mess.
When I read the Gee's Bend book, I decided that when I did get around to trying a quilt, I would just wing it and play.

First attempt: a baby blanket

Tried quilt piecing with random scraps and cut those to hell and learned that curves are not for beginners. Decided that all that work would not be for naught so cut and pieced it into binding strips. If ever you gave me a piece of fabric, it is probably here in my very scrappy mixture.


Forget the pieced quilt. A fabric blanket might be better for first attempt. Tried to quilt in triangle type patterns but the fabric was too unwieldy in weight and size so quickly decided that random lines in various thread colors would work. Bored after only color, I stopped quilting.

Last night, I ironed and pinned the super long strip of binding.

Next step: sewing it on the faux quilt.

Am I gonna look for instructions for attaching binding to a quilt? Nope.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Diaper burp cloth experiment


Got on a roll last night in the SkitzoLeezraStudio and stitched a diaper burp cloth with my endless supply of blue and white polka dot fabric. It looked good but I thought it would look better with a little personalization.

Because I am so incredibly blessed with craft supplies of every ilk, out came the letter stencils and disappearing ink pen.


Easy machine sewing on the line and looka, a nice quilted and puffy "C"!


(Next time I will stitch in a brighter contrasting thread.)

Whatchathink?

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Necktie eyeglass holder



Looka what Trixie gave me!

It's a neato eyeglass holder made from a man's silk necktie!

And check out the button detail, it is the same stacked button/bead thingie I did on my purse swap a couple months back. The buttons even look the same.
Are Trixie and I psychic?
Did we think of the same thing?
Or did we both see it somewhere else and store in our little tin foil lined brains?

Thanks Trixie!