Fabric

Modern Meadow:

It might surprise you to know that I’m not a big fabric buyer.  I rarely buy fabric unless I have plans for it.  I’m too cheap.  But I did snag these two bundles a few weeks ago when they were on sale from this shop.   I love them both, and especially love how modern meadow looks in person….so pretty and still husband approved (and that’s hard to do!).

Whimsy:

Car Seat Cover (aka Greeter Deterrent) How to:

Before I had my baby I saw a lady at Target with a neat car seat cover.  You have all probably seen them before…or have them…but I had never seen one ( I live in a cave ) so I thought it was pretty cool but decided I wouldn’t really need it.  

That is …..until the greeter at Wal-Mart ( why on earth are there greeters???)  wanted to PET MY BABY’S HEAD a week ago.  Sorry but not happening lady.   Who knows who else’s head those hands have petted…..gross.  So last night a car seat cover was born. 

I made quick instructions for how I made it….and I mean quick instructions since it was night time and I was tired and I totally forgot to take pictures of the most important part where you sew the straps on.  So you’ll just have to figure that out by yourself ….man I sound cranky, can you tell I did NOT get any sleep last night?   Here goes with the crappy instructions:

You’ll need:  1 yard outer fabric, 1 yard lining fabric, 12 inches of velcro, and a 6 in. by 36 in. strip of fabric for the handles. 

Trim the selveges off your outer and lining fabrics and lay them right sides together, trimming off any excess so they are the same size.  My fabric pieces were about 35 in. by 42 in. after trimming.  You can adjust this if your car seat is smaller, since mine is a jumbo monster Graco car seat.  Pin the fabrics together. 

Using a bowl, trace around the edges and trim off the excess, now you’ll have nice round corners and it helps the corners of the cover to stay off the ground while your packing it around. 

Sew around the whole thing with a 1/2 in. seam allowance (or so) leaving a hole on one side for turning.  Clip your curves, turn inside out, and press along edges.  Topstitch around the whole thing making sure you close the hole with your stitches. 

When your done, lay it over your car seat and figure out where you want the handles.  I made it so the edges hang over a couple of inches in the front and the back.   I put my pins about 10 inches apart, if you put them too close together your cover will hang like a teepee and that would be kind of annoying. :)

Now the instructions are in the pictures….hopefully you can read them.

 

You can kind of see how I sewed them on here:

Now stick a baby in it and hopefully no more greeters will try to touch your baby!!!

Finished Hunky Dory

This might be the cutest quilt ever.  I’m trying to think of a good reason to buy a whole bolt of that blue flowered Hunky Dory fabric.  I actually finished this one up with the other two last week, but I felt like you might think I was sewing instead of feeding my children if I posted three finished quilts in a week.  Its actually amazing how much faster I can finish quilts if I baste and quilt a few at once (it took me two hours of the boys naptime to baste and quilt all three).  I think it must take me longer to get the machine ready and all the supplies out then it takes to actually quilt  them. 

With this quilt I pre-soaked and dried my batting, but I honestly couldn’t tell any difference between the shrinkage of this quilt vs. the pez quilt that I didn’t pre-soak.  I soaked the batting for an hour in hot/warm water, then put it in the washer for a spin cycle, then into the dryer until dry.  Have any of you pre-soaked and still had shrinkage?  I love the crinkly look so I don’t mind that it shrunk up, it was just an experiment.

The backing is a light pink on pink dot.  This one is in the shop. 

Chicken Herding

Me:  Ben will you put the chicks away? 

Almost there…..Oh, so close.

Give it one more try…

Success!  Good job chicken herder Ben.

The end.

ps.  Thanks for all the zig zag love and have a great rest of the weekend!

Finished Zig Zag

In between acting as a dairy cow ( I’m gonna start moo-ing) to my always hungry baby, I managed to finish this quilt.  Actually I’ve been sewing my head off while I’ve had extra hands entertaining my 3 year old during the day.  I finished this one with simple quilted zig zag’s and backed it with a moda orangish red print I can’t remember the name of.  It’s in the shop.

Flickr Group

I joined the bandwagon and started a flickr group.  Mostly so you can upload your Cluck.Cluck.Sew project pictures for all to see (or just me).  As of now there are whopping 1 members (me) and no pictures…so hop on over and upload your pics, because one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever see…….get it?  like the song?  nevermind.

Hunky Dory Baby Top

I was in need of some pink amongst my household full of BOYS! So, this baby quilt was born with these adorable fabrics. Most of the fabrics are from the Hunky Dory line by Chez Moi, but there’s also some Nicey Jane, Ginger Blossom and Farmers Market in there too. The fabrics all blend so nicely together, I love it when the colors from different manufacturers match perfectly together! It makes my matchy matchy heart happy.

The blocks are 7 inches finished and I’ve included the dimensions below if you want to make this quilt yourself. The finished quilt with 5 blocks by 6 blocks ends up about 33” x 39.5”.

You can find Hunky Dory, Nicey Jane and MUCH more at fabricworm.com ( I warned you…and your wallet).

Pez eye spy quilt

Finished and now in the Shop!

Scrapbox Zig Zag Top

I forgot how much I love a cute zig zag quilt. For this one I used more of my Pez fabric and some other larger pieces that were floating around in my stash. It’s such a nice feeling to use up some of those bits that are too big for the scrap box but get lost in the yardage. This quilt is the PERFECT gender neutral quilt.

Bow-ties

I made bow-ties last week for my son and nephew to wear at my brother’s wedding. My new sister in law (LOVE HER!) chose my favorite dot fabric by Amy Butler for the wedding. I was going to figure out to make them on my own but remembered I had this tie pattern, which saved me lots of time and took me a total of maybe 20 minutes. They were sure handsome boys in their bow-ties. While they kept them on that is.

Oh Pez Fabric…

Once upon a time I bought a whole lot of American Jane Pez fabric. I love the fabric (LOVE IT!) but then I used it in this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and for the whole back of this.

Not to mention the pillows, and table runners, and well….you get the picture. So needless to say I’m sick of it. Really sick of it. I still love it, I just don’t want to see another piece of Pez fabric in another quilt for a very long time.

So last week I was on a mission to use it up. So I made one baby quilt top (this pattern) with as much pez as one baby quilt can possibly handle….can ya tell? But after one baby quilt I was pez’d out, so I sold the rest to a good home. So long pez…you will be (kind of) missed.

Visit Pink Chalk Fabrics for all things non-pez. As in new fabric like Modern Meadow by Joel Dewberry. I may or may not have bought some already when I was whining about hating all my fabric a couple weeks ago.

Pow Pow

I didn't mean to add this post to this blog ( it was supposed to be on my family blog)...but since there are already comments on it I'm leavin' it! :)

We are free of Ben’s pacifier (pow pow) finally. This is how:

Ben: I broke my pow pow.

Me: Bummer…maybe you can have no pow pow’s now since your a big boy.

Ben: No, we’ll buy more at Target.

Me: You can buy more Pow Pows…..or any toy you want.

Ben: Ok, I want an Ipod like Daddy’s.

Me (in my thoughts): Crap.

Me: How about an airplane instead?

Ben: OK.

The end.

Procrastination:

Tomorrow we fly to Seattle for my brother’s wedding. Which means I should be doing this:

Or these:

Or at least some of this:

But instead, I’m cutting out a quilt. Because I can’t go visit home without a quilt (or four) to work on. I might just be the queen of procrastinating the “have-to-do’s” and doing the “want-to-do’s” instead.

Which means I should probably get off this computer and get some sewing packing done while the boys are asleep!

Birthday goodies

For my birthday this year my husband bought me this book (at Costco). I am always a little skeptical of Martha books, even though I loved her last craft book there was very few things I would actually make in it. So I wasn’t going to get this one, but I’m happy to say I LOVE it! It has so many great projects for home, baby, kids, and its full of great stitching techniques and resources for learning. So good job Martha (or Martha’s people), this one I’ll actually use!

And just for kicks I had to share this vintage wall clock my Mom bought for me at one of our favorite antique stores in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. I don’t even know the name of the store, but its fabulous and full of treasures. This one makes me want to start collecting retro clocks.

PS. I'm featured today over at Sew It To Me. Check it out here!

Thank you…

To Quilter’s Home Magazine for thinking this blog is Rad.  I must admit I feel a little inadequate being in the same list with artists like Heather Bailey & Anna Marie Horner (among 52 others!), but thank you nonetheless!

I finished up this little blanket last night for a friend’s baby.  I’m trying to be more adventurous when it comes to putting fabrics together.   I usually play it pretty safe when it comes to matching, but I’m going to try throwing one or two prints that I normally wouldn’t use into my next projects.  Like that orange flower in this one…..still not sure if I love it but it definitely stands out… like it or not!