If Sewing Paid the Bills....

Ah, wouldn't that be nice, if sewing paid the bills?  Alas, at least in my house, it does not....

In my job that pays for the fabric, I am a project manager for the technologies division of a major credit card company.  Every project I manage goes through phases and busy times, usually 4-6 weeks at a time.  The project I'm working on now, though, is actually multiple projects and I've been working 10+ hour days since May.... and will probably do so until at least February.  That (plus 2 active kids --- ballet, karate, band, kickball) doesn't leave much time to sew, let alone blog.... but I do have a few things to share (finally).

First, and looooong overdue, is a little friendship bag swap I did back in September.  This is the gorgeous bag that Mary (from Needled Mom) made for me.  I just love these fabrics!

Sweet little polka dots on the inside, though you can't see them well, because my bag is always full and put to good use :-).  This bag will be boarding a Disney cruise ship with me on Sunday as my family takes a much needed 5 day vacation.  Can't wait!  It started in California, made its way to me in Florida, now it's going to Mexico.  How many bags are that well traveled??

This is the little bag I made for Mary, using batiks.  (Red may have not been the best color to use in the backdrop but at this point, any picture on my blog is better than nothing, right?)

I actually have a lot of other WIPs.  Below are 2 (out of 6) 12" blocks I made while on a "purge the scraps" mission.  These are all with light blues.  I also made a string quilt top (not shown - yet) with light blue scraps, as well.  The goal is to go through my scraps and make as many monotone (ish) blocks as possible, then start combining them into colorful rainbow quilts. 

In addition to the blue string scrap quilt, I made a quilt top (also using stash) for Quilts for Kids.  Photos to come if I ever get it backed, quilted and bound.

In the meantime, I started making Churn Dash blocks with Classic Pooh centers for one of my best friends who is having a baby in January.  Her shower is November 23 and at the rate I'm going, I probably should have started in April.... but one block down, only 11 more to go!

Last but certainly not least are a few projects I made to take on our cruise.  (Not shown are the Captain Hook and Wendy Darling Halloween costumes I made... I'll wait and take pictures when they have actual people in them.)

These started out as plain fabric bags from the dollar store, similar to (but smaller than) a reusable shopping bag.  Amazing what some paint and fabric scraps can do!  The character was dictated by the bag color, as there were only 4 color choices when I purchased these.  Now each of us will have a little bag for the cruise, to carry a bottle of water, sunglasses, etc.... rather than the usual, "Here Mom, can you hold this?"  I've got Kermit and Mickey for my husband and me, then Minnie and Ariel for my girls.

I also made this little outfit for my 7-year-old.  I used Heat 'n Bond to adhere a Mickey head to a plain white shirt, appliqued around the edges and added a bow.  That skirt took less than an hour to make --- it's a giant rectangle of fabric with elastic at the top.  I'm already anxious for her to outgrow this so I can cut it up and use that fabric for something else :-).

Many more WIPs from the past few months.... hope to turn them into FINISHED projects one of these days, and get back to blog writing / reading soon.

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

 Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~

New Sewing Space

Busy, busy, busy.  So much going on here for the last month of summer, I can't believe it has been so long since I blogged.  I have done some sewing (not as much as I'd like, but still some!) and hope to post a few projects soon.  One of the main things I've been working on is relocating my sewing space from my dining room table (downstairs) to the other side of my home office (upstairs).  It is almost complete now, so I thought I'd share some Before and After photos.

My apologies in advance for the poor lighting... I couldn't take either room outside to stage these photos any better :-).

For the past several years, this dining room table was my sewing space:

We have a large kitchen table, so I only needed the dining room two days/year -- Christmas and Easter.  These photos were actually taken on a "not so bad" day... the table usually looked a lot worse than this!

Sewing supplies were shoved hidden in every possible corner:

After a lot of sorting, organizing and trips up the stairs, I now have a dining room again!

My daughter's birthday party was the day before I took this picture, thus the decorations.  I left them there for a week to "celebrate" finding the dining room again!

The real challenge, though, was where to put everything.  We have a large sized loft which has 3 walls and 1 open side, at the top of our staircase.  A few years ago, we had California Closets do built-ins on 2 of the 3 walls, and had a large daybed on the 3rd wall.  We kept the daybed for guests but in reality, it just ended up a "dumping ground" for everything I didn't know what to do with.  I don't have a picture of the daybed, but everything on this dresser came off of it (plus a lot more that was not sewing related).  Look at all the fabric and batting I had that I didn't even remember!

Here is the home office we already had.  I work in the back corner (behind the chair with the pink sweatshirt on it).

You can see here that I'd already unloaded all the books off the bookcase and started stocking it with fabric, which used to take up a lot of space in the guest room/play room closet.

Our original plan was to have matching built-ins done on the 3rd wall, and that seemed well and good until the price estimate arrived!  While it was in line with what we had paid a few years back (so not unexpected), my husband asked me to think long and hard about what I was getting.  Would it really meet my needs?  Is it everything I'd ever want in a sewing room?  The answer, unfortunately, was no.  The counter space was only 25" deep... no design wall space... no good place for a cutting mat.  We decided to scrap that idea (I was heartbroken at the time!) and look for something else.  I'm really glad now that we did!

Here's what I ended up with -- a large dining room table that I bought unfinished and stained to match the rest of the wood in the room.  It measures 40" x 72" so it's big enough for my regular machine, embroidery machine and cutting mat to be set up and accessible at all times.  If my kids want to sew, I put their machine on the left end (where the cutting mat is).  Not to mention, it cost under 8% of what the built-ins would have cost.  This leaves lots of room in the budget for more fabric :-).

My fabric is all nearby (on the bookshelf), which makes it easier to find and I love the color it adds to the room.  I also have a (small) design wall now, which I never had before.

I put some of my favorite things up on the wall, including special pictures, patterns my grandmother made by hand (cut from the side of cereal boxes), some plaques I purchased years ago, embroidery hoops, my FMQ thread and even a framed piece of wallpaper taken from my daughters' nursery when they outgrew it.

I have some cubes underneath the table that contain tiny things (zippers, magnets, velcro, magnets, etc).  I would like to swap this out for something nicer, but it works for now so I'm taking my time to find something I really love.

I found this idea (and soooo many others) on Sew Many Ways.  Have you been over there?  Karen has *THE* best sewing/craft room!  Anyway, this is all of my ribbon, on tension rods attached between the table legs on the right.  It makes the ribbon easy to see / access (who knew I had so much?!?!), adds color to the room, and blocks the (not so) "hidden" storage under the table from view as you come up the stairs.

While there are still things I'd like to do/change/update (and a few minor things I've already done since taking these pictures a few weeks ago), I really, really love the space.  Now that everything has a "real" home, I've been much better about keeping the space neat, cleaning up after every project, etc.  I can't do as much late night/early morning sewing as I used to (all the bedrooms are close by, machine is too loud if others are sleeping).... but I can still carry it down to the useless empty dining room table if I want to.

Now that I have the space, all I need is the time... then back on track with my (very long) project list!

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~

Mug rug swap

Earlier in the month I shared this picture, which was a sneak peek of a mug rug I made for my friend Ida in my first ever swap.  I also posted some pictures of the *gorgeous* mug rug she had made for me.

Not only was I excited to receive such a beautiful gift from her, but I was tickled by the similarities between the mug rugs we had made for each other.  The only instruction was "mug rug" but as you can see, we both used similar colors, applique, a diagonal corner stripe and (my favorite part!) ladybugs!

I made her mug rug while on vacation in New York.  All I had (in terms of supplies) was my hexie kit -- paper hexies, needle, thread and scissors.  I procured a FQ bundle and started stitching --- completely by hand -- until I came up with this.  Instead of batting, I used 3 layers of craft felt in the middle.  (Two would have been more than enough, but live and learn!)

I hadn't really intended to do the entire thing by hand, I was just going to make a hexie... but once I got started, I thought it would be a fun challenge to see how much I could do.

Basting was the hardest part, nothing seemed to stay flat as I was hand stitching, but it worked out well enough.

If you look closely, you can see that I stitched "Made with love and ladybug hugs" (in addition to a ladybug).  Not only is it the name of my blog, but it's how I make everything -- with love and ladybug hugs.

I also sent Ida a small ladybug notepad, some shells collected on the beach near my house (in Florida) and a bottle of Adirondack maple syrup from Upstate New York, my favorite place on earth.  I hope she will enjoy all of them as much as I enjoyed making this for her.

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~

Forever has arrived!

I was sure the day would never come, but FOREVER has arrived!  What started as a giant box of t-shirts and 4 pair of pants.... over 2 1/2 years ago.... has finally become THIS quilt.  I couldn't be happier!

It measures 85" x 67" and is made entirely of my friend Shaun's clothes (mostly t-shirts) on both the front and the back.  The only exceptions are a few song lyrics he asked me to embroider for him, which I did on a white cotton fabric.

Though not a "traditional" quilt (and certainly not "traditional" construction methods!), this may just be one of my all-time favorite quilts.

Each and every block holds a memory and tells a story for Shaun.  I really can't think of a more special quilt than a memory quilt.

Can you spot the hidden ladybug, hand stitched into the block above?

Quilting this was quilt a workout... it was HEAVY and THICK!  It was equal parts sewing and wrestling, for sure.

For the most part, I quilted along each seam with a wave line and some loops.  I added loops to each intersection, and did a little FMQ in some of the plain filler blocks.

I didn't want to detract from any of the t-shirt designs, so I did not quilt inside any of those blocks.  I also didn't want this quilt to "crinkle" (and distort the shirt designs) so I used a polyester batting, rather than the cotton I typically use.

It is even bound with t-shirt fabric, which was not an easy task!  (Note: Spray starch is my new best friend!)

This quilt is far from perfect in terms of sewing, but it is still a "perfect" quilt --- full of love, warmth and memories for a very special friend.  After all, isn't that what quilt making is all about?

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~

Goodies

Last month, I joined my first ever swap.  So exciting!  This group has been together for almost a year and they swap mug rugs every other month.  They had an odd number of people so my sweet friend Ida asked me if I'd be interested.  Um, yes!!!

While I was away in New York, my package arrived (early) from Ida.  It took all I had not to open it right away, because I wanted to finish hers before I opened mine.  Hers went in the mail this morning so I finally allowed myself to open the one she sent.

LOVE!!!!

Aren't these fabrics beautiful?  I just love the colors and the ric-rac on the bottom corner.  She's a wiz with her ME (machine embroidery), don't you think??  She even added a heart (my maiden name is Valentine), my blog name and best of all --- ladybugs!!!  There's not a snowball's chance in Florida that a mug will ever sit on this rug, it's just too pretty!

She even signed it for me on the back, which I love.  Ida is the reason I own an embroidery machine, and I will always love to hate her (hate to love her?) for that, haha!

Below is a sneak peak of the mug rug I made for Ida.  I don't want to show the whole thing yet, but she should get it early next week so then I'll show the rest.  Though we obviously used different fabrics, I was amazed at how many similarities there were between them.  It's almost like someone gave us guidelines and we put our own twist on them... but really, the only guideline was "make a mug rug."  I suppose great minds just think alike :-)

The one I made (above) was completed (except for the binding) while I was in New York.  I didn't have a sewing machine, rotary cutter, mat or even a quilting ruler.... all I had was a FQ bundle, my hexie / hand sewing kit and some pieces of craft felt.  The one I made for her was done entirely by hand, except sewing the binding on, which I did when I get home.  I hope she likes it!

Many more updates but one thing at a time.... I still have 7 loads of laundry to do from our trip, and I've been home 5 days already!

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~

The Forever Project - Part 2

It was over a year ago that I first posted about The Forever Project.  A friend of mine asked me to make him a quilt with his large collection of concert t-shirts.  I was happy to help, and he mailed the shirts to me in April 2011.  Yup, over 2 years ago.

His only request was that the quilt not end up looking like a giant checkerboard, which seemed logical enough at the time.  I got to work right away ironing fusible interfacing to the back of each design and cutting them out to (more or less) match the size and shape of the design on the shirt.  Then I put them into a drawer.  For a year.

In May 2012, I made some embroidered blocks, with song lyrics he had asked me to include.  Since I was thinking about this project again (finally), I pulled the stack of shirts back out of hiding and laid them out on the top of my king sized bed, which they covered completely.  I started arranging them and realized that I should have spent more time thinking this through.... it is very difficult to attach squares and rectangles into a quilt when every single one is a different size.  Back into a drawer the entire pile went.... for another year.... 

From time to time, I would think about this quilt, try to make it work it my head, but it never came out of the drawer.  About a week ago, I decided enough was enough, I couldn't *actually* take forever to finish this quilt, even though that's the quilt's name -- The Forever Project.  So, back out they came, for the biggest, messiest game of Tetris I've ever played.

Layout 1: Too long, not wide enough.  Too many small homeless pieces.

Layout 27: Getting better, but still not quite right.

Layout 43: If we lose a skull, this may possibly work... 

Layout 92: The skull makes it's way back in!

I ended up printing out that last picture and drawing boxes around the "sections" I needed to create, in order to put this entire quilt together.  I ripped a few seams, made a few more changes, and I think I *finally* have the final layout figured out.  Maybe.  My goal is to finish putting the top together this week, since I'm leaving for 3 weeks in New York on Sunday.  I know I won't have the back done, but I'll sleep much better at night knowing that "forever" may actually arrive!

~*~ May your day be full of Love and Ladybug Hugs ~*~

Thanks for stopping by!

~ Kat ~