His and Hers

This weekend, hubby left me for Ted, (just for the weekend; he's attending the Ted Conference in Denver with Rachel), so I had to find something to do to entertain myself.
  
I bought the brown and blue fabrics a year or two ago with the intent of making throw pillows for our teevee couch. But one thing procrastinated into another and . . . yeah, they never got made.
  

Two things conspired to change that. One is the orange flowered fabric, which I love, love, LOVE (it's left over from the backing on Mary's quilt); the second is the Sew Crazy Monthly Challenge. I want to improve my sewing skills and one of the things that still scares bugs me is zippers. Sooooooo, I challenged myself to put zippers in six pillows.

  

And because I know hubby will drive me crazy worry about the metal zipper tabs damaging the leather couch, I made fabric flaps to hide the zippers (using this tutorial). 

  

So hubby now has his pillows (in two different sizes, so he can adjust them for his comfort)

 

and I have my pillows, all orange and flowery and pretty. 

 

Hubby got more, but I love my pillows best.

Olaf Dress Trio

I found Olaf shirts at Target and had to have them. 
 Can you see the crowns on the skirt? Perfect for Frozen dresses! (click picture for bigger) 

The little girls looooooooove Olaf, so I figured Olaf dresses would be a big hit. 
 
I'm not sure they liked them
  
. . . . . kidding!
 
Leanne and Leia love them!
  
Addy's will go in the mail tomorrow - hoping her mama will send me modeled pictures when it arrives. Maybe some silly ones like Leia's
 
and Leanne's . . . . 
 

P.S. This is my Sew Crazy Challenge project for May. All three dresses have top stitching where T-shirt meets pink, and pink meets blue fabric; and all have finished seams on the inside. These took me awhile to finish and I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. 

A Mile Away

Remember that old saying, "You could see her coming from a mile away?" It might apply to the bag I finished today. 
 
Bright. Cheerful. LOUD. 
 
I fell in love with these bright, red poppies on last year's Central Coast Quilt Run, so I bought enough fabric to make this bag.
  
But when I started cutting the pieces last night, I kept thinking of changes I wanted to make . . . . like using muslin instead of batting so it wouldn't be so thick; 

doing French seams (!!) so the inside would look more finished; 
 
and top-stitching the seams down (vertical lines are quilting, horizontal are top-stitching).
 
I ditched the binding around the handles and bag top - I turned and top-stitched the handles, and gave the bag top a rolled hem edge. I kept the box corners, which I love.  
 
The only part I'm not happy with is how the straps are attached. 
 
Pretty sure I'm Definitely going to rip these off and try again. I thought about fussy-cutting one of the large flowers, then appliqueing it over the handle, but I think it would just look weird. But that's just a little thing. Overall, not a bad job for a beginning-ish sewist. 

P.S. This is my project for Sew Crazy Monthly Challenge for March, and my UFO Twelve in Fourteen challenge for 52 Quilts in 52 Weeks. Whoohoo!!  @CrazyLittleProjects  #SewCrazyChallenge

Learn to Sew

One of my goals for the year is to learn more about sewing (as opposed to quilting). And how better to do that than having monthly projects, with deadlines. I'm a big, big believer in deadlines - or, I should say, pushing up against deadlines in a mad dash to the very.last.minute. finish line.
 
So, I've joined the Sew Crazy Monthly Challenge. The first Monday of each month, Amber posts a selection of projects that range in complexity from beginner - her "Learn To Sew" series - to ambitious.

I wanted to do two projects* this month, but ran out of time - see 'mad dash' and 'last minute' above. One of the sewing things that scares worries I'm not comfortable attempting on my own is zippers.
 

Silly, huh? I know I've done them before - my mother was a great seamstress and taught all us girls to sew, but it never really 'stuck' with me.

 
It took reading, rereading and re-rereading several tutorials before I was comfortable attempting it, but I got there. And lookee what I made -  
a fully-lined, zippered bag. 
 
I'm ridiculously pleased with this silly thing.

*I WILL get to the appliqued pillow soon. I have all the pieces to make it, and I love the design. The little girls will be in heaven with a tv-watching pillow of their very own at grandma's house.