sunday stitch vol. 10 - my dining room is now a sweat shop

 

I do a pretty decent job of keeping my sewing table neat and orderly so it's ready to go at a moment's notice...mainly because the adjacent dining room table now looks like this. Yeah, good luck eating a meal here. My freshly retooled serger needed a home. And he was lonely. So he made some friends in the form of four quilts, two octopuses, a cutting mat, and various other works in progress. 

Home sweet home.

Despite the drama earlier this week, I still managed to get a bit of sewing done. I had planned on sharing a Sunday Stitch update with you guys last week, but Labor Day happened, and I just plum forgot. Chock it up to holiday brain. So this weeks is two, two, TWO weeks in one.

A year or so ago I bought an awesome Birch bundle from, where else, City Craft. I'm only now getting around to using it. I was waiting for inspiration to hit me, and it did when my friend Kristi (from Initial K Studio) pinned this bad boy to our Modern Quilting Pinterest Board. WOW.

Image via Tumbling Blocks

It's a variation on a traditional Log Cabin. Don't let me fool you like I knew what that was before I read the tutorial (I didn't). Here's mine so far. It's a mix of the Birch fabrics and some Cotton + Steel.

Please ignore the terrible photography. I couldn't get the blasted shadows to go away. Also, thanks to the dumb builder of my house - once again - for placing a thermostat directly centered on my dining room wall so I can NEVER hang a piece of art there. You're the best!

This quilt will take approximately 9,728 hours to complete. If you've never done a log cabin, here's how it goes: you stitch a row, then iron, then stitch, then iron, stitch, iron, one gozillion times until you are done or rendered insane. It's a labor of love that I'm sure I will have to take breaks from so I don't go ballistic. In a perfect world I would have this (hopefully) twin sized quilt ready for the winter. We shall see.

You can spy in the photo above another quilt block from Tula Pink's City Sampler using some rockin' Frida Kahlo fabric. 3 down, 97 to go. This will also take awhile. Why do I do this to myself? But I'm enjoying working on these little projects in between the big ones.

I got around to putting that awesome neon red thread in the serger and made a few of these bad boys. Y'all, this serger is rocking my world. I wish I hadn't waited so long to get it fixed.

These little jersey blankets will soon be on their way to swaddling newborn babies. I love jersey for swaddle blankets. That little bit of stretch hugs those burrito babies nice and snug.

What have you guys been sewing this week?

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sunday stitch vol 9. - sergers and aquisitions

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sunday stitch vol. 6 - quirky rag doll

classic summer coleslaw and cheater's BBQ sandwiches

Summer may be winding down where you are, kids heading off to school and all that jazz. But here in Texas, it's still one point five million degrees outside, my littles aren't in school, and technically summer doesn't end until September 23rd, so it's still summer in my book.

I thought I'd share one of my favorite summertime recipes - classic summer coleslaw. Far superior to the pre-made coleslaw dressings fo SHO. And it is so hilariously simple. And it goes great alongside my cheater's slow cooker BBQ sandwiches.

I call this cheaters BBQ, because no self respecting Texan would actually believe that a slow cooker can give you authentic smoked BBQ flavor. It can't. But it is far cheaper, easier, and weeknight friendly. It's also great to make for a crowd. Make this now and save your money to go out for real BBQ on a date night or something. No sense in spending $15 a lb on the real stuff for your whiny kids who won't appreciate it anyway.

sunday stitch vol 9. - sergers and aquisitions

 

Our local library is one of my favorite hangouts. Yes, I am a nerd. But where else can you take your kids in the dead of summer that's air conditioned, kid friendly, and full of free entertainment?! They do a free story time for kids once a week, which means for 30 minutes I am only responsible for one kid and can puruse the non-kid sections of the library freely. Well, with a baby. But that's pretty close to freely.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon the quilting section and found Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks, also known as, 100 things I didn't know I need to make RIGHT NOW. As much as it pained me to check out a book on quilting and admit that I am an old lady, I checked it out. (For the record, I'm only 30)

I've made 2 blocks so far. They are about 6" square when you're finished, so the fabric pieces that make up the blocks are rather small (like, some are 1.5" x 1.5"). A great way to use those tiny scraps that I can't seem to part with.

Block No. 1

Block No. 2

But the most exciting thing that happened this week, you know, other than this insane stuff, was the resurrection of this serger! Bah da da DUUUUUUUM!

This was a gift from my grandma a few years back for my birthday, but I was never able to get it to work. As you can see from the image below, it's somewhat old...

Haven't been to West Germany lately. Hear it's lovely this time of year. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The geniuses over at City Craft got it up and running for me in no time. Watch out. I am going to serger EVERYTHING. Is serger a verb? Yeah. I'm going to go with yes.

I immediately bought three spools of neon red serger thread. Obviously. Like that was a choice or something. Henry likes to pretend they are milkshakes. You can see his little hand stealing one out of the photo.

This week I'll be working on learning my rockin awesome new-old machine. The best You Tube video I could find so far is in Spanish. That will definitely make this process easier. Ole!

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life update - the big kid is cool and the baby is EVERYWHERE

Haven't posted much on the parenting front lately. I haven't been holding out on you. It's mostly that's because - wait for it - the kids are kind of actually well behaved right now.

I totally just jinxed it. Yep. Henry's in the corner throwing an epic fit. Uuuuuuuuughhhhh.

sunday stitch vol. 8 - quilt as you go pillow sham

I'm venturing out of my comfort zone and trying some new things. This week I wanted to give quilting-as-you-go a shot. The technique has appeal. No piecing or measuring or planning, really. You just design the piece as you go and quilt it as you assemble it. I may be a planner in most areas of my life, but I prefer to keep my creative endeavors more loose if I can.

I used this tutorial from Let's Eat Grandpa - which by the way is the coolest blog name ever - as a go by but changed it up a bit. Her piece was more organic. I wanted my QAYG piece (yep, I just made up that acronym) to be a bit more linear to coordinate with some quilts that I've been working on...but more on that later.