Room Shoes 2013

This year's batch of room shoes (sorry about the photo, the light has been terrible around here!). In fact, I saw the blue sky yesterday briefly around 3:30pm and I was blown away - felt like ages since I'd seen such a clear, beautiful, bright blue colour. Making room shoes is such a revelation. When I hold a finished shoe in my hand I'm just amazed that I made it! This is a very rewarding item to make, a bit finicky and the sizes are "approximate" as I'm not what you'd call a precision sewer like some quilters I know. It's best to just try on a pair and go from there! Looking forward to Sunday - hope you can stop in. We'll also have lots of good things to eat while you browse our wares.

Office Picnic Car Picnic...

For the Trunk Show, I've made some picnic sets - placemat, utensils and chopsticks all in a neat package. The backing fabric is the blue dot canvas that is shown as well as a pale blue chevron canvas. I've always thought they would be good for the office, so you will always have the basics for those meals you eat at your desk. My good friends L&DH keep their sets in their car so they are always ready to sample good food at the market or at potluck picnics on the go. The design is from one of my favourite sewing books that would make a great gift for a new sewer. It's Lotta Jansdotter's and it's been around for a while but it is VERY good! Among other things, Lotta designs fabric that I really like and used last summer in some simple shifts.

The Trunk Show Skirts

Here they are (although most of them still need hand sewn clasps at the back) ready for the Trunk Show next weekend. I couldn't resist one bicycle print this year but most of them are a houses and cities theme with some Kaffe Fassett flowers for good measure. I have a few skirts from last year available too - including a Richard Scary busytown streets skirt. We have some new talent at this year's show - I sure hope you can stop by if you are in Whitehorse on the 5th of May, just in time for Mother's Day - hint hint!

New Zippies

More little sewn goods for The Trunk Show. The Zippy, slightly larger than what I used to make, is a one pocket wallet. Now I really need to get back to those skirts so that you can have one to match your Zippy (all fabrics will be in skirts as well - except the tricycle print unfortunately).

Pinch Coin Purses

I have had the pinch purse hardware to make these little purses for too long. I bought them from my favourite fabric and sewing shop of inspiration in Toronto the workroom. If you are in Toronto you really should stop in there! Finally (in a fit of procrastination from finishing more skirts!) I made 4 of them this morning. The best part is I get to use some old favourite scraps of fabric. The green interior of the open pinch purse was used to make my dear friend K a skirt, the orange and yellow sunflowers was used for many things but my favourite would be quilty pants for M who is now 7! Her mom loved them so much I got to see them at many play groups! The brown city fabric I made into this dress for my first Cranberry Fair arts and crafts show in 2011 and the bright houses is a new skirt for this year. Come see these cuties at the Trunk Show, Sunday May 5th at the Chocolate Claim!

A-line Skirts 2013

It's that time of year again - skirt season! Although, looking across the country today you wouldn't know it - snow blizzards abound! Luckily these sturdy A-line skirts look great with boots! This year's batch is about houses and city scapes - and some pink bikes too. Click on the picture to see the others on my flickr site. More coming in dark blues, check back next week! This batch of skirts will be for sale at The Trunk Show on May 5th, see you there? By the way, A-line skirts are shaped like the letter 'A', that's where they get their name.

Thinking of Pressing Repeat

Don't get too excited - I made these in 2011. I'm thinking of making another batch for this year's Trunk Show - Sunday, May 5th - mark your calendars! Artists joining us are listed on the side bar. 10 - 4pm at the Chocolate Claim on Strickland St.

Sneak Peek

40 new pair of quilty pants are coming soon to a toy store near you - if you live in Whitehorse! Angellina's Toy Boutique is expanding into a beautiful new space with lots of windows on Main St. Exciting times!

More Ed Emberley

I really like Eb Emberley's drawing books (not just for kids!) and the fabric to match makes for a fun gift. Imagine having a dress AND the book that tells you how to draw the animals to match. Here's one of many books. The dresses and matching headbands have been received by the birthday girls and the book will have to join them soon (it arrived a bit late!). I found the fabric at fabricworm but it's going fast.

Colour Sorting 3 bins of fabric scraps - hello January project.

I have a lot of fabric scraps. My sewing tends to use up big pieces of new fabric, not the bits. But I save those bits and now they are starting to stress me out! So here I am, sorting them by colour:
reds
pinks/purples
black
brown
yellow
green
blue
grey
white
orange and
Japanese prints!
My idea is to make bins (see below) for each colour, iron each scrap and fold neatly for easy access and use in my projects that use little bits. These projects are few but include t-shirt applique, ticker tape quilts, tea towels... I think that's it. So far I have 2 buckets made. I seem to have been distracted by market bags, birthday boy bags, snow biking face masks, polyester pants and a wedding dress!