more birdies

It seems every year around this time I have this burning need to make adorable birdie ornaments using Kajsa's free tutorial. You can check out my previous two birdie making spells here and here.

For some reason I decided making twenty birdies at once was a good idea !?!?!? 

So, of course, going the "assembly line" route was the only way to get them done without losing it :)

I must say, these little cuties never disappoint. And I got to use some scraps too, which is always a good thing.

Thanks for reading friends. Svetlana

Linking up to Finish it up Friday.

blogger's quilt festival {scrap eater}

Hello, happy Friday to you all.

 Yay,  it's time for Blogger's Quilt Festival . I've already added my newest Irish Chain quilt to the small quilts category, but since we're allowed two entries I decided to add my Scrap Eater to scrappy quilts category.

I love this quilt. I used only scraps to make it, and improv pieced the whole thing, and just love how scrappy yet at the same time cohesive it looks.

It now lives on one of the arm chairs in our family room and I think it fits in just right :)

Finished size of this quilt is 72" square.

Now I'm off to have a look at all the other beauties already submitted to the Festival. There's such a great variety, totally totally marvelous. Hope you'll submit your quilt, or two, also.

Have a lovely weekend friends. Svetlana

irish chain {a finished quilt}

all finished, yay!!!

This quilt just might be one of my absolute all time favorite quilts I have ever made. I so love its simplicity and calm, its modern feel while at the same time being so clearly influenced by countless Irish Chain beauties. I used Denyse Schmidt's pattern from her book Modern quilts, traditional inspiration.

I used Kona Lime, with a small addition of blue patterned Cloud 9 fabric, for the little squares and Kona Snow for the background as well as binding. I think this makes binding to sort of "disappear" and let the pattern itself shine.

I used a combination of a lovely vintage looking fabric by Denyse Schmidt and Kona Fog for the backing. I do love that shade of blue a lot.

I quilted it with an overall continuous eights pattern. Now, I will be the first one to agree that my eights could use some practice, hopefully I get better at them soon because I adore this pattern and it's super quick, too. I made my eights 4" tall - my preferred size for them right now.

The quilt finished at 58" square and will look perfect in our family room, I'm sure.

 

Wishing you all a very lovely rest of the day. Svetlana

looking for pattern testers

A big thank you, thank you, thank you to all the lovely people who offered to help out by testing my new pattern. As of now I have enough pattern testers for this pouch. I am, however, working on more PDF patterns so if you'd like me to put you on the email list for my next pattern please feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to do so.

Hello friends, happy Saturday to you all !!!

So, I took a plunge and decided to publish my very first PDF pattern. I've been thinking about it for months and months and now I finally stopped coming up with excuses why it's not a good idea and went for it :)

I was wondering, would any of you my lovely friends like to test this pattern for me?

I'm looking for a few willing people who:

- have some experience sewing bags or pouches (the pattern is for a pouch)

- can make a pouch and send me at least one clear, well lit picture by Nov. 2nd

- can proof read the instructions and give me feedback on how to make them more user friendly

Each pattern tester will receive a final PDF copy of the pattern and will have their photo of the project (with links back to their blog, website, or Flickr stream) published on my blog.

If you're up for it please send me an email at svetlana.sotak@gmail.com.

Thank you so much and have a wonderful weekend.

Svetlana

pumpkin patch pillow

In my last post I was saying I was not really into seasonal sewing and you know what? It apparently is not true.

Because, as soon as I was finished with my maple leaf coasters I started working on this pumpkin patch pillow (it's 100% inspired by Karen's beautiful table runner).

I improv sewed my pumpkins and framed them with lots of low volume prints. Each pumpkin finished at around 5.5" or 6" tall - this pillow is huge (16" x 36").

I used fusible fleece to back the front of the pillow and did an uneven/ improv grid quilting all over.

I went with my usual zipper technique for pillow closure, and I even decided to use my long hoarded The Little Prince linen for the backing.

Here's a little detail. Adorable, isn't it?

I finished the pillow using 2.25" double fold binding - I so love this technique as it leaves me with absolutely no raw edges inside the pillow case.

How about you? Have you been doing any seasonal sewing? Do tell.

Svetlana

maple leaf coasters

I'm usually not a huge fan of seasonal sewing, but lately I've been crushing hard on Modern Maple quilts popping up all over blogland. I think it's such a perfectly perfect autumn quilt, don't you?

Now, since I only have one properly functioning leg at the moment and doctor's order to stay in bed as much as possible, I decided to hold off on attempting the whole quilt and make maple leaf coasters instead (they were inspired by these lovely coasters made by Karen).

I used Maple Leaf pattern from Lynne and Kerry' s cute little book, but I made my squares slightly smaller (they finished at 1.5").

I hand quilted the coasters using 2 strands of embroidery thread and bound them the way I would a quilt, only I cut my double fold binding at 2" instead of my usual 2.5".

Oh, and I used some old Echino I had on hand for the backing.

All in all, this was such a wonderfully satisfying, super quick project. And very useful, too. Because, really, we can always use more coasters in our house :)

Talk to you soon friends. Svetlana

Linking up to Finish it up Friday.

my knitting bag

I simply could not wait any longer. I had to sew at least a little bit or I was in danger of losing my sanity :)

I knew exactly what I wanted to make - Jeni's lined drawstring bag. I've been knitting up a storm in the last few weeks so a new knitting bag was totally in order.

It felt so good to dig through my stash once again and after quite some time I decided to go with Cloud 9 Diamonds are Forever and Cotton + Steel XOXO. I do love how these two fabrics look together, especially with the addition of striped pull string.

Also, Jeni's tutorial is fantastic and I absolutely loved the way she constructed this bag. So very simple and easy to do. I'm sure I'll be making a lot more of these bags in future.

But now it's back to my knitting. I'm making a Mara shawl.

Talk to you soon friends. Thanks for reading. Svetlana

recovering...

Hello friends, happy Thursday to you all !!!

You might have noticed things were pretty quiet around here lately. Too quiet in fact :( You see, I had a much needed ankle surgery done and doctor's orders were to stay completely off the injured foot (walking with crutches totally stinks by the way), in fact my motto was to be "toes above nose" for two whole weeks.

So, there was absolutely no sound of sewing machine in our house for two weeks straight!!!

I had to find something to keep myself from going all crazy though. And so I knitted. Yes, it's possible to knit even with one foot elevated way up high in the air.

This is Betty the owl (pattern from this book).  I love how adorable she is which is a good thing since I don't see myself ever knitting another stuffed toy. Unfortunately I found the process too tedious and I questioned my sanity the whole time I was knitting :(

So then I did some cross stitch. I love how this little picture is coming to life (pattern here). I might turn it into a pouch once I'm able to walk and sew again.

I also did a little bit of hand quilting on my Large Scale Improv Quilt. Those red crosses are my absolute favorite.

And, of course, I did tons of reading. I very highly recommend each and every one of these books.

So, that's my last two weeks in a nutshell. And now I'm really, really ready for things to slowly get back to normal. Well, as normal as they possibly can get with a giant plastic boot on my leg and no stepping on my foot for four more weeks. At least I no longer have to keep it up in the air all the time :)

Wishing you all a very lovely day. Svetlana