Saturday, March 28, 2009

the hobo lunchbag

i saw this pattern on sewing notions a thought that it seemed easy enough to be worth trying. for my pattern paper i cut and taped a paper grocery bag and for the fabric i used four quilter's quarters. otherwise, i followed the pattern exactly as she made it without any of the options that weren't a part of her tutorial's example.


it did end up being really cute and it seems very practical. my final product seems a bit larger than the one in the tutorial, though i suppose it may be i'm using a smaller container. still, it would seem then that mine would have room for a drink and utensils, right? i'm thinking of making more of these for friends and throwing in the plastic container, too, as an excuse to bake something sweet to go inside as an additional treat. nice of me, eh?

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

a gray and pink bead necklace

i found a beautiful rose quartz pendant at the turlock, ca rock and gem show that, along with a string of matching round beads, were begging me to turn them into a necklace. to avoid making a totally monochrome bauble, i decided to throw in some gray squared beads that i happened to already have from a previous visit to a local bead shop.

i didn't follow any design or gain inspiration from anything other than the pendant. i'm pretty happy with the final product, though i wish i had made it, maybe, an inch longer. oh well, it should look great with something that has a deeply cut neckline.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

a baby "quilt"

when my son was born, i decided i'd make him a quilt. (for the sake of this project, i'm using the term "quilt" pretty loosely. it's more so a blankie with quilt-like properties.) i'm not much of a quilter, but the final product was actually pretty nice. four years later, he still carries the thing around. his older sister liked it too, so i made her one as well. since i'm having another girl here very soon (uh, like, tomorrow) i figured i'd be a pretty crappy mom if i didn't make her a quilt too.

the latest quilt was made in the same way as the previous two and it's super, super easy. i started out with 7 eighths that i cut into eight rectangles a piece. jo-ann fabrics will sometimes carry "fat eighths" which is exactly the right amount. this go around they didn't have any in the purple color-scheme i was looking for so i bought quarters and cut them in half.

here are my rectangles all cut and ready to be sewn together. (the blue underneath is my older daughter's quilt that i used as a template to make sure i didn't have two of the same print right next to each other.) i find that the 7x8 arrangement makes a nice-sized rectangular blankie.

where i feel my blankie isn't really a quilt is that instead of painstakingly taking the time to sew each rectangle to the set, i sew up the rows of seven so i have eight strips, then i sew the eight strips together to form one large piece of fabric. ta-da!:

for the batting, i used jo-ann fabrics brand traditional batting. i layed the batting out flat, put my rectangle patch on top, and cut the batting to size leaving a bit of a border so that i'd have a nice trim when i attached the backing fabric.

i pinned the rectangle patch to the batting to give myself better control as i layed out the two on top of the backing fabric. (for the backing fabric i used one yard of standard quilting material and just folded up the extra length into the trim.) i then flattened everything out as best as possible and pinned everything together to prepare for the batting stitch.

flipping over the pinned-up blakie, i drew a heart with some plain white bar soap and used that as the pattern for the batting stitch. once there was an actual stitch holding all the pieces together, i was able to fold up the edges of the backing fabric and pin them to form the trim:

after that, it was just a matter of sewing up around the trim to complete the quilt. i used two hems around the edge for security. here are pics of the completed blankie, front and back:

all that's left to do is wash 'er up in some dreft and she'll be ready for my baby girl. seriously, super, super, easy.

Monday, March 16, 2009

st. patrick's day cupcakes

i felt like making cupcakes for tomorrow.


i didn't give the leprechauns arms cos those buggers can get punchy after too much green beer.

i used betty crocker white cake mix with a pack of jell-o instant pistachio pudding thrown in for the color and flavor. no adjustments were made to baking time or temp. the filling is jell-o instant vanilla pudding. the frosting is betty crocker whipped cream cheese.


i made the decorations out of marshmallow fondant using this recipe. piece o' cuppycake.

this leprechaun dude unintenionally looked like mr. bill so i said, "forget it," to goatees.