another quilt....

I started another quilt last week.  actually, i started 3 quilts last week.  it was a busy week to say the least. my friend lisa came back to michigan from her new home in minnesota and spent a few days with me sewing and painting.  she brought a bathroom cabinet over for me to show her how to paint and fix up.  more on that later.  

i have been making a few vintage sheet quilts and i decided that i wanted to try something more modern and clean looking.  i decided that i wanted to try a circle quilt after seeing tons of them on pinterest.

it's totally sensory overload there and i was inspired to try my hand on one for myself. 

in a nutshell, i zig-zagged some circles onto some gray squares.  

so this heap of fabric was cut into circles.

because i am so incredibly lazy ingenious, i pinned eight layers of fabric together, placed a cereal bowl on the top layer and traced a circle. 

i cut them out all at once.  

and because i am so lazy ingenious,  i only screwed up a few of the circles...(that'll teach me).

then, i pinned the circles to the squares and laid them out to see how i wanted the placement to be.

after determining that, i sewed the circles to the each square.  

i got a little decorative with some stitching because i thought it would be too boring if i didn't.  

(it really wouldn't have been)

i only did this on about 7 of the circles.

 it does look cool, though...

 i used white fabric between the vertical rows of squares...which i didn't take a picture of.  

 lisa had a great old sheet in her stash that i thought would be awesome for the backing and she was generous enough to let me wrestle it away from her.  

right now i am hand stitching the binding on and will share a picture of the completed quilt when that is finished in the next day or so. 

we (lisa, my daughter shannon and i) decided that we would make quilts for the local cancer center.  it is the same center that don went to when he had his chemotherapy 7 years ago for colon cancer.  he told me that when he would get chemo, he was always cold.  i thought that with all of the vintage sheets that i have  i would make lap quilts for the patients. 

i started two of them last week too...

 a pretty flannel quilt 

 and a patchwork quilt using some of the vintage sheets...

 i asked lisa and shannon to help out and we are in the process right now of matching and cutting more fabric and bagging it up in sets to start making "quilts for chemo"....

more updates soon!!!

congrats to adele....

what a great grammy's show last night....i normally don't watch awards shows because the performers and awards recipients are usually so full of themselves it nauseates me.....

i watched the grammy's last night particularly because of adele.

i throughly enjoyed her performance

and i thought she deserved every award that she got!!

it just goes to show, you don't need all of the flashing lights, outlandish costumes and techno music that disguises your voice.  the true mark of a great singer is their ability to do so much with so little technical help....
great job adele, you rock

looks like they deleted the above video and i can't remove it unless i delete this post....so try the one below instead....at least until they delete that one too!!  :)

a vintage window.....

rummaging around in my friend lisa's parent's barn loft last summer was so amazing.  there were stacks of old windows leaning up against the wall.  I think that they were originally part of the house that they are now in the process of renovating.

i found this one...

it was so dirty that i thought that the glass was opaque and didn't realize that there was clear glass until i brought it home and started cleaning it.  

what i loved about it and the reason that i picked this particular one was that the original paint had turquoise overtones.  and because it was really dark in the barn loft, i didn't realize how really cool it was until i got out into the sunlight.

it had just the right amount of age and vintage charm. and of course, that great 1930's or 40's turquoise paint...

after cleaning it up, the glass was in perfect condition.  i guess all of that dirt helped to protect it, right?  i didn't do anything to this window besides cleaning the glass...all of that paint is the original aging and patina on the wood....it's fabulous! 

I found the perfect wall for it in my house...

the room that had it's name all over it....this wall was just begging for something to fill it.

but this window was big (57 x 24 in) and heavy so i needed to hang it carefully.  

i found some heavy duty hanging hardware at home depot.  i normally would have just used one on each end but i thought maybe i had better not take any chances.  i decided to disperse the hanging tension by adding the hardware to each pane.  

thankfully, the studs in the wall fell into the right place to center this window on the wall.  

it filled the space perfectly....

and added the perfect amount of vintage "grunge" and flaky paint patina

to the otherwise clean look of the room.

thanks again to walt and penny (lisa's parents) for allowing me

access to your treasure trove of a barn.....

and gifting me with this amazing piece of your history...

a sweater pillow....

who knew that you could take a goodwill sweater for $1.50 and make a pillow cover out of it?

ME....that's who....  :) thanks to the internet there are tons of ideas and tutorials floating around.

simple enough.....

make a few simple cuts

find an old pillow or get one at the thrift store for .25 cents

sew a few straight seams down the sides of the sweater you just cut the sleeves off of.  i didn't even measure it,  i just eyeballed it for the seams....

sew all the way around and leave a small opening to insert the pillow form.

pin the opening and whipstitch it closed.

here is the finished whipstitched seam....

and you get this

cute but boring.... you can see in the picture at the top of the post that the pillow insert i used has a dimple in the middle.  had i left it as is, it would have looked weird as pillows usually are pouffy in the middle.  so i took some of the scrap sweater fabric 

tied a knot in the end of it....

twisted it around and sewed it into a rosette.

i found a button in my jewelry armoire.  you know how you get a new piece of clothing and it has an extra button and usually some extra yarn attached to it?  well i throw all of those into my jewelry armoire  and have amassed quite a collection of buttons....do you do that too???

anyway i sewed the little button on to the rosette because it was looking a little like a pair of folded socks and it needed a little something....

i added another button on the other side of of the pillow so that i could tighten the thread to achieve that dimple...

 and a super cute pillow. So soft and cozy for winter....when it needs to be washed, i plan on just throwing it into the washer and dryer.  you could probably put a zipper or a button closure on it if you wanted to but i am all about the easy way to do things.  in fact, if you use a sweater that has a button down front or a cardigan, you have a built-in opening....

remember those sleeves i cut off of the sweater?  they're going to be turned into a pair of 

boot socks like these....two projects from one thrift store sweater.  gotta love that!!!  

now go search your closet for some old sweaters, or if you can't bear to part with any of them, hit up the goodwill or salvation army.  look for great colors or design, (cable and chunky knit designs look fabulous as pillow covers), and you will be helping out a couple of great organizations....and getting some custom decor for your pennies...

now get out there and make something amazing!!!

free storage....always a good thing......

do you remember this piece of trash?.....literally, i pulled it out of someone's trash pile....

it was really rough, inside and out,  but i loved the curves and the sturdiness 

that comes with an older piece.

the edges were pretty chewed up but i knew a little sand paper would work wonders...

I used annie sloan paint in paris grey for the piece.  i figured it would be a neutral shelving unit and any color of fabric that was placed in there would show off as pretty.  

because we all need pretty in our lives, don't we?

 i love that all of my vintage sheets now have a beautiful home....

  to make it even prettier, i painted the shelves in a pretty turquoise. 

 i still plan on getting a piece of beadboard for the back which i will paint the same turquoise. right now i have a piece of wood covered in blanket fabric that i use for photography.  it's a perfect little niche to store that behind the dresser and it works for the backing right now.   

the shelves had to be cut in half though, because there was cardboard there before which was pliable.  the backer board that i replaced the shelves with was more rigid and the only way i would have been able to get them into their spot would have been to cut and remove the post in the back.

once the fabric is on the shelves, you can't tell that it isn't one piece.  

sometimes you just need to improvise to make your design plan work.

 the finish was distressed since it was so rough to begin with.  now it looks like the flaws are on purpose.....

crappy old dresser....0 dollars

beautiful storage for pretty fabric....priceless....