Building Blocks

My boys’ piano teacher is due in a few weeks.  This is their first baby.  Her husband loves Legos – so much so that they have a room in their house dedicated to his toys.  BUT the baby is coming and the little one needs a nursery so the Lego room is being converted the baby’s room.  Time to box those blocks up, Mister!

We love Legos over here as well.  I sometimes wonder if my boys will grow up and continue to love building things with overpriced plastic blocks.  I hope their wives will be as understanding as Mrs. Elizabeth is with her husband.

So what do you give a baby girl whose parents love Legos?  A Lego quilt, of course!  Legos are perfect for designing quilt blocks. Below is my quilt designed out of Duplo blocks.

  And the Duplo Quilt:

Please tell me that it looks like Duplo blocks!!!

I backed it with an Ikea sheet from a few years ago.

I hope she likes it!

Happy Circles::Doodling With Thread

I love linen. 

I love topstitching.

It just seemed natural to “design” some fabric with a combination of the two.

I have to thank my circle embroidery attachment, for without her, none of this would have been possible.   I love how the scalloped stitch looks like petals on a flower.

Not really sure if this is called thread doodling, but until I find another name for it, that’s what I’ll call it.  Did you know you can even doodle on fabric using the same technique as free-motion quilting?  It’s lots of fun, but I’m not super skilled at it yet.  Here’s a sample on some wool felt:

 
 
 
Yes, yes, it’s May, but I can keep the Happy Circles theme going, right?
More here  and here.

Happy Circles::Comfy Seats Round Cushions

A few weeks ago I drove downtown and went to the Funky Finds Craft Show.  It was very well organized.  There was music, lots of customers, and best of all, craft show energy.  Gotta love it when people are happy and spending money.  I’ve been to one too many shows where the energy was low – everything was quiet, and no on was shopping.  Those are sad shows.  Funky Finds wasn’t one of them.  It was fun.  And Funky!  I had one thing in mind to buy:  a seat cushion.  I spend a lot of time sitting in wooden chairs for school with the boys, the computer, and the sewing machine.  I had a cushion on my chair, but hadn’t gotten around to covering it.  Ollie (the dog) had decided that eating the foam up was his favorite activity.  I knew I could make one, but I was ready and willing to buy a handmade gem.  I went around the booths twice and didn’t see any cushions except those of the normal 2-squares-sewn-together variety.  Well, that was all the motivation I needed.  The show was on a Saturday and by Sunday night, I had this on my school chair.

And I was so happy with it that I made more.  Now my computer chair looks like this:

And my sewing chair looks like this:

 

Then I decided to get all crazy and make one that looks like a Daisy:

And not wanting to leave the boys out, made one that would work for a boy.

And then I wrote a pattern!  My first downloadable pdf.  The pattern is here.  And yes, since it’s my first pdf please bear with me as I work any kinks out!

More Happy Circles here and here.

Happy Circles::Tools::The Circle Cutter

I’ve been wanting to do the silhouette thing for a while but just hadn’t gotten very motivated until I was looking through some old pictures with the kids and came across this one from 5 years ago:

His squishy cheeks and his little, “What am I posing like this for?” face just warm my heart.  And it’s a perfect silhouette shot.  So I silhouetted it  in Photoshop, printed it out and cut it out of some of Anna Maria’s voile.  It was so easy to snip all the details out of the lucious, lightweight fabric.  And yes, I think that’s an appropriate use of the word “silhouetted”. 

I couldn’t possibly have cut that perfect circle out without my nifty Olfa circle cutter.  Not sure if it’s my motor skills or what, but for a project like this one where the raw edges are showing, I just don’t get a clean enough circle with scissors.  I am a big fan of this tool.

Unfortunately it’s max size circle is ~8″.  Sometimes, I like to cut bigger ones.  It also takes some getting used to applying the pressure and turning it at the same time – it’s one of those times that happen to me a lot, actually, that I wish I had an extra hand. 

A word on finding images to use for silhouettes:  It’s really hard to find a picture that will look good this way.  I googled “twirling girl” in hopes of finding a little girl shot that would work.  Aerial shots are out because there wouldn’t be any detail to see.  The angle has to be just right otherwise arms and legs get distorted in the silhouetting process.  I found a perfect picture where the girl had ponytails with her arms out.  The only problem?  The right to use it would cost me $50.  No thanks.

 
Some similar ideas to inspire:

The frames above the crib shown here.  The same method above could be used for these.

The silhouettes above the bunkbed here.  Love the girl blowing bubbles.

More Happy  Circles posts here (mine) and here (my sister’s).

Happy circles to you!

Happy Circles::Tools::The Circle Attachment

It’s APRIL!  Yay!  I’m starting off circle month with some circle tools that I use and love.

First up is the circle embroidery attachment that I just got for my sewing machine.  It’s genius, really.  Like why-didn’t-I-invent-it-myself? genius.  It screws into my machine and sews circles.  Cool, huh?  This is what it looks like on the machine.  There’s a little pin that holds the center of the fabric in place.  The fabric spins around the pin as it feed through the machine.

And here it is in action.

 
Are you as amazed as I am?   This was the first time I’d played with it, and yes, I should have had some interfacing or stabilizer on the back.  I straight stitched, added some decorative stitches, then with a little bit ‘o fusible webbing, added the brown linen.  Well, how about if we add some blanket stitches around that baby?

Here’s the final product.

Let me just say that my machine is not an embroidery machine.  Even a regular machine can do this, as long as you have a similar attachment that fits your machine. 

Ahhh – so much fun and so much success on my first try!  I’m happy.

Feel free to sew along!  Info on the button and flickr group are here.

Happy Circles

For the month of April, my sister and I are planning to dedicate our projects to the all-fun, all-round, all-happy circle!  Posts will include sewing projects, tutorials and ideas dedicated to all things round.  Please join us!

 And since it goes along with the theme, let me show you this fun chenille beadspread I found at LLBean.  Yep, I cut it up and used it as fabric.  Could chenille be cuter??

 

More on the story of this little cushion in April!  Get your circles cutters, attachments and fabric ready and join the fun!

The Button is here. 

Flickr Group is here.

April is almost here!