no stash allowed! pillow cover

Last week I had a lot of fun mixing an orphan epp-ed ferris wheel block with foundation paper pieced flying geese, while adding only scraps to make an improv pillow cover.

I was not sure how this whole thing would turn out but I think all that mix of different techniques and colors makes for an interesting finished project.

I used scraps for the back of the pillow, too. I did not have enough of one fabric so a two-colored backing it is. I then installed a zipper closure (tutorial here), and finished the pillow off with a scrappy binding. 

Very satisfying, I tell you. I should do these improv-use-what-you've-got things more often.

Hope you all have a very lovely rest of the day. Svetlana

britain's best {plus a giveaway}

Hello, happy Friday to you all !!!

I'm excited to be over at Benartex blog today sharing a tutorial for these fun notebook covers.

I used Britain's Best fabric to make my covers and I must say I so very much love the fabric in this collection. Wouldn't  that top fabric be perfect for fussy cutting? Oh, the possibilities!

Would you like to win a bundle of this loveliness for yourself?

Here's how to enter the giveaway. 
The giveaway is now closed!

Dawn Frisch is the winner!!! Congratulations, Dawn. Please send an email to this address sewinlovewithfabric (at) gmail.com to have your winnings sent to you.

My rules are very simple:  leave a comment on this post (please make sure I have a way of contacting you in case you win)

            

Benartex rules:  follow Benartex blog (either by email of GFC, both in th right hand sidebar)

                          like Benartex on Facebook for an additional entry

Good luck everyone and thanks for reading. Mr. Random and I will choose the winner on Oct. 1st. Hope you'll stop by Benartex blog and check out the tutorial.

Svetlana

my favorite quilt

As soon as I read Mary's post sharing her most favorite quilts she made, I started thinking about my favorite quilt. I thought it would be hard to choose just one, but surprisingly it was not that difficult.

I came to realize that my #1 all time favorite quilt I made is this Granny Square quilt I made way back in March 2012.

Funny thing is, this was not a very complicated quilt, it didn't take forever to piece, it's not ginormous or anything like that. I just love all these pretty colors together, and the granny square block (tutorial here), and the fact that I backed it with voile which makes for a perfectly soft quilt. And, we use it all the time. In fact, this is the one quilt my children fight over constantly :)

Now it's your turn. Won't you join Mary's linky party and share your favorite quilt? 

Wishing you all a very lovely day. Svetlana

a pillow collector

Last night I started making a new pillow cover. Because, you know, I really need yet another pillow for our house :)

It's a little bit of EPP and foundation paper piecing joined together with some improv piecing. It really seemed like a great idea last night, let's hope it does not disappoint. Plus, I'm using only scraps, no stash allowed this time.

And, in case you wonder about why I don't need another pillow, here's the proof :) As you can see, I've become quite a pillow collector over the last few years. Most of these pillows were made by me and some were received in different online swaps.

Makes me want to run and jump into this pile of colorful softness :) Oh, and no, this is not what our couch looks like all the time, we usually  keep only 8 pillows on it.

pinkie pie {a finish}

Hello, I am so over the moon happy to share my finished Pinkie Pie quilt with you today. Isn't she the sweetest?

It all started in July when I volunteered to make my middle daughter a pixelated Pinkie Pie quilt. You see, I came across this needlepoint pattern for Pinkie Pie and thought how fun it would be to turn each and every one of these cross stitches into a square. Piece of cake, right?

Well, not exactly. Somehow, only after I was deep in the whole process of cutting and piecing all those 1" squares did I realize that I needed to piece 4410 !!! of them to make this quilt.

I will not lie. This was a tedious kind of quilting and I got bored with the monotonous piecing a lot. But, I'm extremely glad that I persevered (thanks to many reproaches of my daughter who let me know in no uncertain terms that it was my idea to make this quilt and she was just going along with my "brilliant-ness").

Once the quilt top was finally finished, I had no idea how to quilt it, what color of the thread to use, how to make sure that quilting will not overwhelm and overtake the whole picture ??? At the end I decided to go with what I know best - straight line quilting and I used 50wt white thread all over the quilt. I think it worked out pretty well and I love little puffy squares that formed after the washing.

I used this pretty light gray chevron print for the binding. I think it frames Pinkie Pie so well and adds just the right finishing touch. I got in the habit of hand stitching my bindings lately but I decided to machine stitch this one on. One of the reasons was that I really, really wanted to be finished with this quilt and, as we all know, machine binding is sooo much faster than doing it by hand.

Also, this quilt is going to live on my daughter's bed (which means it will spend a lot of time being crumpled on the floor) which in turn means it will need to be washed a lot, and thus machine stitched binding was definitely a better option. Win - win :) much quicker, plus a lot more durable.

Finished size of the quilt is about 65" x 70" and I used Kona white, bright pink, camelia pink, candy pink, and medium pink to make this giant version of Pinkie Pie.

This was definitely the most time consuming quilt I have ever made and piecing it drove me insane at times, but my daughter loves it and that's what counts.

Thank you so much for reading. Svetlana

Linking up to AmandaJean's Finish it up Friday.

winner, winner

Hello everyone!

As promised, I'm here to let you know who the winners of my Zakka 2.0 sew along giveaway are. 

So, without further ado, here are the winners:

• both Fiona and Kat win 2 Aurifil thread packs each

• Sarah (thriftstrorecrafter) wins  F&F fabric bundle as well as 1 Aurifil thread pack

• Sarah wins Pellon charm pack

******UPDATE******

Since I have not heard from Sarah after sending her a couple of emails, Mr. Random and I had to choose a different winner of Pellon charm pack.

dirtyard designs is the new winner !!!

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Congratulations, ladies. I have already contacted you through email. 

Thank you so much, everyone, for participating. I loved reading all your comments and look forward to seeing many wonderful projects you make using Ayumi's amazing book. Svetlana

patchwork, please! zakka along 2.0: ipad cover {plus a giveaway}

Hello, happy Monday to you all!

Welcome to my stop on Patchwork, Please! Zakka 2.0 sew along. I love all the wonderful projects in Ayumi's amazing book Patchwork, Please! and I'm so excited I get to share my version of I-Love-My-iPad Quilted Cover with you this week.

As usual, Ayumi's  instructions for this ipad cover were well written, clear, and easy to follow. My main problem, I must say, was to decide which fabric I wanted to use.

At the end, I decided to go with some of my very favorite scraps and made a small patchwork surrounded by Essex Linen in gray for the front of the cover.

 I also added some hand quilting to outline the patchwork and used a patterned linen for the back of the cover.

 Oh, I do so like the combination of small patchwork, linen, and a little bit of hand quilting.

My absolute favorite thing about this cover, however, must be the addition of this handy-dandy pocket to hold the cord. So very clever, isn't it? Hopefully now I won't have to turn the whole house upside down looking for the cord every time I need to charge my ipad :)

 All in all, this was one fun, quick, and easy project to work on and not only is it pretty, it's practical and useful, too. Totally a win - win and I would highly recommend giving it a try. 

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this giveaway is now closed

Now for the giveaway

Our wonderful sponsors for this week are:

and here's what you can win if you leave a comment on this post:

• 5 Aurifil sample packs
• fat 1/8th bundle of fabric plus a fun sticker from Form & Fabric
• charm sample pack from Pellon

Mr. Random and I will draw the winner on Thursday (Sep. 19th)

But wait, that's not all!!!

Join in the Zakka Along 2.0 and link up your finished project over at Debbie's blog to win 1 yard Pellon 987 fusible fleece plus  this wonderful bundle of fabric from Imagine Fabrics.

Thanks so much for reading and good luck everyone. Svetlana

the swoon {a finish}

My Swoon quilt is finally finished, yay! It's been such a long time since I finished anything larger than a baby quilt, so it feels especially good to have this giant crossed off my wip list :)

I first started working on this quilt way back in June. I so enjoyed picking fabric and slowly sewing each and every one of these blocks.

All was going well. I assembled my quilt top, backed it with lovely AMH flannel, I even started hand quilting some of the blocks, when I realized that the fabric I used for one of the stars (middle row on the right) was going to bleed when washed :( I used this dark red fabric in another small project and after washing it the color bled all over, pretty much ruining the whole thing.

I knew some serious "quilt surgery" was the only way to go. I carefully removed the offending block, made a new block, and successfully patched the whole quilt top up, phew!!! OK, it was a lot harder than I made it look right now. There was sashing involved, and 505 sticky spray, and the batting and backing - it was no fun, I tell you.

I then went back to hand quilting, outlining each middle star as well as the outside of the main block.

I decided to go with light aqua binding at first, but it did not feel right. So, once again, my seam ripper got busy and I replaced the light colored binding with this dark navy one. Aaaah, much better! I think the dark binding pulls all these colorful blocks into one cohesive quilt.

All in all, a pretty rocky way to get to the finished quilt, but finished it is and looking mighty well, if I say so myself :)

Finished size of this quilt is about 76" x 76" and the pattern is by Camille Roskeley.

And, since it's neither practical nor reasonable to keep every single quilt I make, I decided to list this lovely scrappy Swoon in my etsy store.

Thanks for reading. Svetlana

ferris wheel pillow

I made a new pillow for our couch (because we only have about 6 pillows on it at any given time, so yet another ginormous pillow was totally a necessity :))

I used Katy's templates and instructions to make this pillow and I thoroughly enjoyed the slow and relaxing process of epp-ing each and every one of these shapes. 

I had a really hard time deciding on the background, though. After reading all your helpful comments on this post, as well as trying out many, many other backgrounds, I decided to go with natural linen as that seemed to be the right fit for these scrappy rings.

I then quilted the whole pillow top in  a crosshatch pattern. I wasn't sure about this choice at first, but it's growing on me.

After seeing these wonderfully tailored pillows by Anna (Noodlehead), I set about making my own piping and attaching it to the pillow while adding an invisible zipper, too. Nothing went terribly wrong, I just found the whole process quite tricky. I do love the finished look, though so I'd say all that extra work was well worth it.

The pillow finished at 20" x 20". And here it is, getting to know its new pillow friends on our couch :)

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you all have a very lovely weekend. Svetlana

Linking up to Finish it up Friday.

berry basket

Last night, just before it was time to get everyone ready for bed, I had to sew. It didn't need to be big or complicated, but I simply needed to touch, press, cut, and sew with some pretties before the day was over. So, I decided to make Anna's berry basket.

This was such a fun and quick project. And, once again, Anna's instructions were clear and easy to follow with lots of helpful pictures along the way.

The only tricky part??? That binding. I suspected it was going to be quite finicky, but at the end it worked out pretty well.

I attached the binding on differently than what the instructions called for, though. I did a double fold binding just like I would do for a quilt, cutting it at 2 1/4 ", attaching it to the exterior part first. I then used tons of clips to hold it in place and stitched over both the exterior and lining sides of the binding at once. Worked like magic :)

Now I'm just trying to decide what to keep inside. Maybe some thread? or a small wip project? or some special fabric? I'll see.

Speaking of fabric, I treated myself to a new Sugar Flower 2013 FQ bundle. I have never ever bought the whole collection of one fabric before so I'm quite excited to have all these pretties in my stash.

No plans for what to make with them, though. I think some fabric petting is absolutely required before I can cut into any of these :)

Talk to you soon. Svetlana

small finishes

I've been about small finishes lately. It's really hot outside and that might be the reason I keep ignoring my large quilty projects and working on smaller things instead. Plus, the instant gratification is hard to resist :)

I made yet another one of Ayumi's fantastic trivets (this one is #3 for me).

I added one more row of triangular border (the dark one) to make the inside hexagon smaller than the original one, and I just adore how perfectly that flower fits right in.

More pretty flowers on the back, of course :)

 I just remembered I never showed you my trivet #2, oops! Here it is.

This one is for my MIL. She helped me choose all the fabrics and I love how the finished trivet reflects her sense of style.

Oh, and I made this very simple baby boy quilt. It's just two rows of blue/ gray/ black scraps joined together with some Kona I had on hand. It was inspired by this lovely quilt and must have been the quickest quilt I have ever made.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you all have a very lovely day. Svetlana