the lovely pillowcases

I am absolutely addicted to making these pillowcases. They are so much fun and super easy.

Here's how I made them.. I used premium muslin from Joann's. It was 108'' wide and about 11.99 a yard. I'll have to say it is worth every penny. The muslin washes up soft and wrinkly just like vintage linens. My mom was convinced I found old pillowcases to embroider on. I can get two pillowcases per yard. A few of the designs came from this book.  I took from a few vintage pillowcases to come up with the zinnia design and for the 

star wars... I traced it from cookie cutters.

more to come...

mustached and monogrammed

My friend and I made these super fun and easy mugs for all of our park ladies. We scoped out our local thrift stores for plain white mugs and had to search high and low for the special black pen. I saw the monogrammed idea on soulemama's blog. She had a link to this blog for the tutorial here. For the mustaches I used the same technique.. I printed out mustaches that

I liked and traced them on with the graphite paper.

oh the possibilities!

I think I'll try plates for the kids to draw on next!

it's a secret

so all of my crafting right now is a bit hush hush... for christmas. 

There's a lot of stitching, taping and markering. (with the only porcelaine pen in la county)

I'll share more later..

happy day!

the ladies

A little embroidering with the chickens.

three years in the making

Mae's Quilt

history: about three and a half years ago my sister and I decided to each make a stacked coin quilt during the summer. During the cutting out process the girls looked through all of my scraps and put aside fabrics they liked. So because my quilt was coming along smoothly I decided to pre-cut coins for a quilt for each of them. Well we accomplished our goal that summer. We finished the tops to our (king sized) quilts but we were so burnt from sewing the stacked coins the girls fabric went into deep hibernation. A move and three quilts later I finally finished this cutie. I love knowing that each fabric she choose was special to her. The fabrics I used for the back also tell a tale of my sweet Mae. Ducks, chickens and puppies are all for her. Now just to start/finish her sister's quilt. 

Hopefully sooner than later.

finished quilt 

72x90... cotton batting

side note: this was my first quilt of this size that I machine quilted!

green gift giving

Last year I decided to rid our lives of wrapping paper waste. I saw the idea to make reusable gift bags on soulemama's blog and loved it. They are so simple and fast to make. I had intended to use them only for the holidays, but I found that I'm using them for all of my gift giving.

this little piggy

 this is my new obsession. 

making pillowcases and embroidering on them!

so many more to come..

I used premium quality muslin to make the pillowcases.

I cut the fabric to 22x38

with a 3 inch cuff

almost finished

the twirly skirt

My friend Jennifer taught me how to make the cutest circle skirt ever! 

It took about 20 minutes from start to finish! I love, love, love it!

this is how it's cut.. so simple just add the waist band and hem.

 then of course twirl!!

a skirt so easy had to be made twice!

happy sewing!

quilting

one really big quilt... one little machine

wish me luck!

heating pad cover

 navy polka dots for the back

 I lined it with muslin and added velcro

hot pads

 finished hot pads with embroidery

 back of hot pads after a little quilting

 I turned it inside out, then sewed around the edge and center

 added cotton batting in the middle

 added a vintage sheet scrap

I started by tea dyeing some muslin.

my canning pantry

the embroidery wall

here are some embroidery and appliques I've been working on for the girls room. 

My daughter embroidered the puppy dog one.