My Creative Space - A Celebration (and giveaway)

Today I celebrate my first blogiversary and decided to have a little party in my messy studio, so you are all invited to come for a visit and have some cake. Put a party hat on and please don't look too much at all the stuff lying around the place.

I am surrounded with Keri Beyer fabrics these days, what with the quilt I am making with the Proud collection, and some Urban Farm just turned into some pillowcases. So I thought it would make sense to share my love of Keri Beyer fabrics with you on this special occasion.

So, here it is, I've put together a little bundle of three fat quarters of Proud in teal and orange.

If you would like a chance to go home with these lovelies, it will be quite simple, because who wants to make things complicated and risk ruining the party?

Here are the rules:

1. Giveaway will be opened until midnight, EDT, on March 31st, 2010.

2. Everyone can enter, international visitors welcome.

3. All you need to do is leave a comment on this post, but to make it interesting for me to read, I ask that you tell me what is your favorite sign that spring is finally here (or fall, depending on which hemisphere you call home).

4. You need to leave a way to contact you, either an email address or a link to your blog. If I don't have any way to reach you, I will have to draw another name, and that would be too bad, wouldn't it?

5. Winner will be randomly selected and I will post the result sometime on April 1st, 2010 (no April's Fool, I promise!).

Thanks for coming to the party, and best of luck to everyone!

Don't forget to visit all the other great spaces here!

Sylvie

Pillowcase Frenzy

I don't know when or how, but I've become a little obsessed with pillowcases lately. I am still patiently working on Cassie's On The Edge Crochet Along, and we're getting closer and closer to the most dreaded - yet fascinating - part: the crochet border. I have sewn the pillowcase "with flap" without any trouble and I am very pleased with the result, but I won't show it here until is is complete (or ruined, haha) with the crochet border.

However, I've been working on another pillowcase project of my own, pictured above. I used a very quick and easy technique, the tube method, shown on AllPeopleQuilt, which I discovered thanks to my big sister.

All you need is too yards of coordinating fabrics to make two matching pillowcases in no time. My boyfriend likes cows (please don't ask why) and I, well, love Keri Beyer fabrics, as The Quilt shows without any doubt, so I had to get some Urban Farm as the main fabric for his pillowcase, and I matched it with lovely dots in light blue for mine.

I am sure I'll be making some more of these in the near future.

Sylvie

Crochet Study

I learned the basis of crochet from my mom, when I was a kid, but I had not given it much of a thought for over twenty years.

Recently, I couldn't help falling in love with these pillowcases made by Beata, and when Cassie annonced her project, I knew I had to join in and make my very own. I knew just which fabric to use and could already picture the final result.

Then I thought I'd better give a try to crochet before the time came to actually make the pillowcase border. I unearthed the only hook I've ever owned, bought a couple of yarn balls, looked at some directions on the internet and was ready to crochet away...

Until I realised that this whole crochet business, which seemed simple enough when I was twelve, just got a lot more complicated with the years. It took me forever to understand how to make the double crochet, and even after I got the hang of it, I still can't figure out how not to lose any stitch as I change rows.

Last night I crocheted a piece that could have become a nice triangle, had I kept going, and I thought it was pretty funny too, but then I was also very tired. I know it is just a matter of making "spare" stitches when I switch from simple to double crochet, but the answer still eludes me.

Hopefully I can find it in time to crochet a border to my pillowcase. I am off to once again undo my almost-triangle piece and start over again. They say practice makes perfect, but what I actually wonder is just how much practice will get me anywhere near good enough...

Have a good week!

My Creative Space

I may have totally lost control over the studio lately, but at least the quilt is progressing, though not as readily as I would have hoped.

My blocks are all done now and for some reason I've been avoiding them for the last week, always putting off the crucial step of assembling them together to another day. They are an intimidating bunch...

Meanwhile, I've been pursuing lighter projects, like the little green container in the picture. It is actually an empty can of cashews that I saved just before it jumped in the recycling bin. Though it is made of cardboard, it is sturdy enough to hold small items, and a piece of scrapbook paper glued around was all it needed to be given a bright second life.

Ready, Set, Quilt!

About a year ago I got a revelation, while reading some gorgeous quilting blogs. I got it in my little head that I, too, was going to make a quilt. A wise voice (don't know where that came from) was telling me that it was a silly notion and that I should wait until I had more sewing experience, and so I put it off for the time being.

Las December, on Sew, Mama, Sew's Giveaway Day, I was very lucky and won this, thanks to Leisel. Amazing, isn't it? I was very excited because this it one of my favorite collections and I already had a few of these fabrics, but did not know what to make of them to really show them off.

I am sure you can see where I am going. It only took the right quilt pattern to get me started. So now it looks like I really am going to make a quilt, even though the wise voice (still don't know where it comes from) keeps telling me how crazy I am.

I got all my squares cut in the last week and have been playing with them, trying different layouts. I still have about a zillion pieces to cut for the borders, but at least I've got a start.


I am pretty confident about the cutting and piecing and binding parts. What scares me is the actual quilting, on which I don't have much information.

Luckily, I came across this book at Winners for just 15$. It is actually the French translation to this one. It may not be the greatest sewing book, but I found in it a few answers and now feel a little less scared about the whole thing.

The rest, I guess, I will learn as I go.

Wish me luck!

What I don't like about sewing...

Is new fabric.

I mean, I love new fabric, though it might be better if I didn't because then it would not cost me so much money. But there is something about new fabric that I don't like, and it is the washing. I wish it were as simple as you buy the fabric, you cut into it and sew it into something fabulous - or at least decent! But the process of washing all of it before and having to face it all wrinkled and mingled in its own thread is distressing. It always gives me a pang in the heart when I take it out of the washer and it looks like nothing but a pack of threads.

By the way, does anyone know how to avoid this mess when washing cottons? I've read somewhere that you need to cut the corners, but I haven't brought myself to do it yet. How exactly should it be done anyway?

So, this is how I spent my afternoon, washing, cutting thread and then ironing it all. But as a reward, I now have all this pretty fabric ready to use. And what fun am I going to have with it!

Have a great weekend!

Sylvie

Easy weekend

We did a lot of this over the weekend. For once we did not have a thousand errands to run and so we had time to just hang out at home in our pajamas, play outside in the snow and obviously do some sewing (I did, Patrick did not!). I finished my winter placemats so that we can use them for supper tonight. It was a fun little project to make.



Now getting ready for another week of work. Hope everybody has a good one.

Sylvie