Summer Sewing School Challenge

There is something so wonderful about summertime. I love the slower pace of summer days. No rushing to get kiddos to school on time (or rushing to pick them up at the end of the day). Catching fireflies in the yard before bedtime. Mornings in the berry patch picking blueberries and blackberries and the yummy pies that get baked afterwards...

Summer is also a slower time for my shops, which is actually a nice little break. This little breather before the holiday shopping season begins is a great time to catch up on things that have been neglected during busier times. As I recovered from the car accident that I had back in January, my computer time became somewhat limited because being at the computer added to the pain in my back caused by the accident. So over the past 6 months, my blog has been neglected. I am hoping to fix that this summer.

I've decided to use my summer to finish up some personal projects that I've been working on for far too long (like my t-shirt quilt that has been in the works for over 2 years now!) and to challenge myself to learn at least 1 new sewing technique/project each week. I started last week, and I had forgotten how much I like making something new. So, over the next few weeks I am planning on sharing my personal summer sewing school challenge with all of you.

First up was Fabric Coasters. I love wooden furniture, so I love coasters. I have them all over the place. One of my favorites was this interwoven one that my mother-in-law gave to me a few years ago so that I could try to recreate it. Well it has sat on my desk holding many a glass for quite awhile, until I finally got around to deconstructing it last week.

I made a few changes to the original - made it a bit bigger to accomodate some of my bigger mugs, added some top stitching, changed the batting and in the end I was quite happy with the final result.

That first set was so much fun to make that I decided to make my mom a set too, but I wanted to make something for her to store them in. So, I made a small coil basket for her to match her coaster set.

The coil basket was cute, but it wasn't a great fit. Back to the drawing board ... I started playing around with a Japanese fabric tray design, made some adjustments and voila! I came up with something I really liked.

I am the kind of person that when I find something I like I tend to do it over and over and over again. (Like when I first discovered Dave Matthews my sophomore year of college, I think my roommate was about ready to throw my CD player out the window!) So, I went on a bit of a coaster making frenzy last week and made about 16 different sets of coasters! I decided to put them up for sale in my handmade shop here. It is always fun to try out new items in my shop & if they don't end up selling very well, you can guess what everyone on my Christmas list will be getting in their stocking this year!

Up next .... Pincushions!

Custom Bilingual Blanket and Block

The summer heat finally broke this past weekend, and we've been enjoying a lovely chilly and rainy fall weekend here in Central NC. The perfect weather for working on a project, in my opinion! So, this weekend I worked on finishing up a custom order I received for a Bilingual (English/Spanish) Baby Blanket and matching Fabric Block. I love custom orders because it gives me a chance to do something a little different and to work with a customer to create something really special.

I am quite happy with how it turned out, and it was so nice to snuggle up in a big chair to bind the blanket and cuddle with the super soft backing fabric :)

I combined some of my favorite fabrics in this blanket. Since two of them are now out of print, I will be very sad when my stash runs out and I can't use them anymore. I love all the bright colors too!

I have been meaning to make another "batch" of cloth blocks all summer, but just didn't have the time. This order finally motivated me to get going on that project. So, that is what I will be working on for the next couple of weeks. I actually really enjoy making the blocks because each one comes out unique, plus the fabrics I use for the tops & bottom are fun to sew with!

Time to package these up and send them on their way to their new home in Chicago! 

EtsyKids Blog Feature!

I am so excited to be featured today over on the EtsyKids Blog! Would you like to see where I do most of my sewing and crafting? The post is all about my sewing space and sharing space with my girls. Stop by and check it out!

Some photos of my "studio" :)

WW: The Evolution of Fashion

A collection of a few of my favorite vintage sewing patterns spanning from the early 1940s ~ 1980s from my vintage alter ego Lucky Happenstance.

Everything Etsy's Moda May Fabric Giveaway

Hello, my name is Claudia and I am a Fabric-aholic. I love, love, love fabric. If I had a whole afternoon where I could do anything I wanted, I would probably spend it wandering around fabric shops. I have a somewhat insane fabric stash...

This is just my quilting cottons {blush} ... I have about 5 more of these big storage bins stashed in closets around the house with flannels, fleece, fancy fabrics ... I know, I have a problem, but I just love fabric. I love the possibilities it represents, the creativity, the potential. I have more fabric than I will probably ever use (realistically), but in my mind each piece is destined for greatness.

Even though I may not *need* more fabric, I always want more :) So I am entering into the weekly fabric giveaway being hosted by Everything Etsy this week and sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop. They have such an amazing selection - it is crazy! I am not usually an online fabric buyer because I like to touch fabric before I buy it, but I am not going to turn down the chance for a $75 gift certificate either! Wish me luck!!

ARGH&$@#!!! (aka Messing with My Serger)

I have a thing for gadgets - kitchen gadgets, electronic gadgets, sewing gadgets. You name it, I probably have it. Ginger grater? check. Fancy phone that my 4 year old can operate better than I can? check. Kwik Clip (safety pin closing gadget)? check.

So a few years ago I decided I absolutely NEEDED to have a serger. Had I ever used a serger at that point? ummm.. no. BUT, I had read about them and they looked really cool. So, I pooled together some birthday money, did some research on patternreview.com and trusty old amazon reviews and got myself the Brother 1034D serger.

In the first month, I had it out every day. I got all sorts of books on serging, and I played with it constantly. Then, I moved on to something else and my little serger sat under its dust cover for a couple of years until last week when I decided I wanted to make my daughters some twirly skirts. 

I read somewhere that you could use a serger to form the gathers needed for each layer of the twirly skirt. "Fantastic!" I thought because I am not a huge fan of gathering on a sewing machine (ie using two basting stitches in the seam allowance and pulling by hand)  I have a tendency to snap the thread as I am gathering.  So I dusted off my serger, pulled out my manual and decided to figure out how to make gathers on the serger.... this is the point where the ARGH&$@#!!!! comes in.

The manual makes it sound so easy ... just snap in the gathering foot, put the dials on the following settings, do a test piece with your fabrics to figure out the ratio and TADA you have a gathered layer attached to a non gathered layer all in one step. In reality however, not quite so easy. Now, I made it through Calculus 2 in college so you would think I could figure out a fairly simple ratio... nope. Try as I might I could not figure out how much fabric I needed for each layer. Every time I ran a test piece it came out differently. I ended up calling my husband in, and even his mad math skills couldn't get it right. 

I was determined to make this skirt though, so I kept fiddling with it and through a combination of serging & sewing I finally got there:

I used about one-third of the Hello Betty Retro HoneyBun from Moda to make it. The other two-thirds I used to make this coil basket for my etsy shop:

So in the end, not as smooth and easy as I thought it was going to be, but I ended up with a skirt that I'm pretty happy with. That is the nice thing about the volume in these skirts - they hide a lot of the imperfections nicely :) I'll try for a tutorial after a few more tries. There are several good ones out there though if you are interested...

• Twisty Twirly Girly Skirt by Sheri Howard
• Patchwork Circle Skirt by VegBee
• Rainbow Patchwork Skirt (not a tutorial, just for inspiration)

If anyone has any good serger resources to share, I'd appreciate them! 

Three years in the making...

I have been thinking about starting this blog for about three years and now that I finally have it all set up I am sitting here staring at the screen wondering where to begin. How do you go about introducing yourself to cyberspace?  Hello, my name is Claudia and I am ...

• a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a niece, a granddaughter, a great-granddaughter, a best friend;
• a stay at home mom = a cab driver, a nurse, a chef, a baker, a dishwasher, a housekeeper, a child psychologist, a life coach, a professional organizer, a teacher, a singer, a dancer, a human bouncy seat, a photographer, an historian, a human chew toy, an interpreter, a sherpa, a travel agent, a bookkeeper ...
• an amateur gardener
• a craft person (sewing, crochet, needle felting, doll making, general arts & crafts)
• an eternal student with a couple of fancy pieces of paper on the wall in even fancier frames that cost me a lot of money (which I will be paying back until I am well into retirement...)
• a traveler and a wanderer
• a wanna-be locavore/foodie

Why am I starting this blog? Many reasons. I like to write. My brain needs some exercise, and I need somewhere to put all the random thoughts that bounce through my head on a daily basis while I am chasing after two kiddos. I want to share some of the knowledge and resources I've collected over the past few years on parenting, gardening, crafting, etc. I want to be one of the cool kids with a blog :)~
So I can't really tell you up front what you will find here - maybe some tutorials, maybe some recipes, most likely some random musings on parenting and motherhood and life. We will just have to wait and see. But for now I would like to issue you an  ...

INVITATION

by Shel Silverstein ( from Where the Sidewalk Ends)

If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer . . .
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire,
For we have some flax golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Oh yeah, and I guess I am now ... a blogger :)