a few things

I made a second batch of grocery bags over the weekend. (you can see my first batch here). Once again I used Michelle's pattern which is my favorite go to grocery bag.

I so love this adorable elephant fabric and I'm glad I finally found a perfect project for it. Now instead of having it hidden in my stash I'll be able to admire it every time I go shopping :)

I also finished all thirty six scrappy improv patchwork blocks. All I need to do now is join them into a quilt top, I even have a plan on how I want to quilt it.

I had to laugh at the fact that for some unknown reason I thought I might not have enough scraps for this quilt. What a crazy idea, I must say, it barely made a dent in my scrap boxes :)

And, I put together this pretty stack in hopes of turning it into a Swoon quilt for our bed. It probably won't happen any time soon but it felt good to do all this plotting and planning.

Last, but definitely not least,  the most exciting thing of all - I have a project in Quilt Now 1 magazine. I'm sort of late with this news since the magazine came out last month, but somehow with the move and all I only now managed to get a copy of my own.

Thanks for reading friends. Hope you all have an absolutely positively amazing weekend. Svetlana

flowering snowball {a finished quilt)

....finished at last !!!

I started this quilt back in June as part of Mary's Flowering Snowball Along. I loved making each and every one of these blocks so much that I had the quilt top pieced together in just a few days. 

And then, because I could not decide on how to quilt it, I set it aside. For almost three months!!!!

I really wanted to hand quilt it, just like Mary did hers, but I realized I did not have time for it and if  I wanted this quilt finished any time soon I had to machine quilt it. Which worked out pretty well, I think.

I also added perle cotton ties to the center of each flowering snowball.

The quilt finished at 56" x 56".

All these pictures are after the quilt was washed ad dried and I just adore how soft and comfy looking it is.

Thank you Mary for leading this wonderful quilt along and for all the great advice and guidance along the way.

Svetlana

scraps to treasure

A few days back I talked about how I need to work on my wips because they've been sitting around for way too long. I even planned on doing just that, and then I came across this quilt on Pinterest.

What can I possibly say? Just minutes later all the wip plans were all forgotten as I dumped my overflowing scrap buckets on the floor and started making scrappy blocks like there's no tomorrow.
 

This is what sixteen blocks looks like. Crazy stuff, isn't it? Each block measures 12.5" and I'm planning on doing a 6x6 layout. I think this is going to be one of those quilts I either love to pieces or hate everything about it. So far I'm at the love stage :)

What I really like about making these blocks (tutorial here) is that I'm actually using up my scraps without having to make more scraps. You know what I mean, right? I've made quite a  few quilts trying to use up scraps only to have even more scraps at the end :(

I'm really, really hoping to use up most of my scraps for this quilt. Wish me luck :)

Svetlana

idea pouch

I think I figured out what to do when my quilting mojo is sort of lost and I wander from one project to another without really "feeling" any of them and thus accomplishing nothing constructive  but simply wasting time and getting frustrated... 

... small, almost instant gratification projects !!!

 

So, the other day I decided to make Idea Pouch (pattern is written by a super talented Michelle and you can purchase yours here).

I combined two of my absolute favorite fabric collections at the moment - Emmy Grace and Cotton + Steel. I think they go together beautifully.

I love that this Idea Pouch fits a regular composition notebook. I think the addition of perfectly sized slots for pens and pencils is such a great idea, too.

I used sew-in magnetic snap closure instead of recommended ribbon which was the only change I made to this project.

I absolutely adore how this handy pouch turned out and I'm pretty sure I'll be making more soon.

But first I need to tackle some of my wips (double wedding ring, flowering snowball, needle turn applique, plus a few other projects) - they've been laying around for way too long and might be the reason why I feel overwhelmed every time I try to decide what to sew.

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

my sewing room

Ever since I caught a sewing + quilting bug a few years ago I've been using a corner of our family/ TV/ dining room to do all my sewing. I made it work and liked the fact that I was able to sew right next to where my children were doing their homework, reading, or watching TV. But, from time to time, I really wished for a space of my own.

I even had a plan. As soon as all three of our children became independent I was ready to take over their room and turn it into my very own sewing room. Never mind the fact that our youngest one is only eight :) One can dream, right?

 And then, one day a few months back, my husband and I decided to look for a new, bigger house. A house where I would have my own sewing room, yay!!!! With lots and lots of windows, ....

 

and a giant cutting table. I ordered the cabinet after seeing it on Faith's blog. I love this table and how huge and wonderfully sturdy it is, but ordering from Home Depot.com and putting this cabinet together was pure nightmare. Just saying in case some of you would like to get one :)

I love having my fabric (I bought my fabric cabinet here), cutting supplies, design wall, as well as my sewing machine all in one room. What a treat! No need for "set up" and "take down" every time I want to sew.

Now just to find my sewing mojo and I'm ready for some serious sewing :)

Thanks for stopping by. Svetlana

scrappy stacked coins

When I first started making this little quilt I wanted to simply join lots of scrappy strips together and turn them into this kind of quilt. After I finished just a few blocks though, it all looked like such a disorganized mess I knew it was time for plan B - Kona Snow to the rescue. I recut the colored strips and used Kona Snow to calm things down and bring much needed order to the quilt.

I then used big strips of no longer loved fabrics for the backing. I find this to be a good way to use up that fabric that no longer sings to me yet I don't feel good about simply getting rid of it. You know what I mean, right? I'm sure we all have quite a few of those fabrics in our stash. (and Rachel has tons of great ideas on what to make with all that no longer loved fabric on her blog if you're interested)

I was out of 505 spray when I finished this quilt top so I decided to pin baste it. All I can say I will try very hard not to run out of basting spray ever again. I did not enjoy poking all those pins through the layers at all. To top it all off, I kept getting ginormous puckers when trying to machine quilt it. 

So, I decided hand quilting was the only reasonable way to go, unless I wanted to re-baste the quilt which I did not want to do at all :) Oh, how I love those big chunky stitches. I'm actually  glad about all the changes I had to make along the way and I'm pretty sure I like this second version of the quilt a lot better than the one I started with :)

 Thanks for reading, friends. Have a very lovely day. Svetlana

pack patch mini makeover

So, I did it again - made a mini quilt which I loved very much but could not decide where to hang it, so I turned it into a pillow cover.

I used this lovely organic Cloud 9 fabric from Joann for the backing. As usual, I followed my tutorial to install the zipper, I love how easy it is and works like a charm every time.

And you know what? I didn't even have to redo the whole binding. Since I hand stitched the binding to the backing of the mini all I had to do was remove those stitches, sew the new zippered pillow back to the mini, and reattach the binding.

The pillow cover finished at about 22" square and I stuffed it with a 26" pillow form which makes for a perfectly plump and squishy giant reading pillow.

Happy Friday to you all. Svetlana

Linking up to Amanda Jean's Finish it up Friday.