sewing

Color Play Friday: Christmas Ornaments

Wow- all I’ve been posting lately is Color Play Friday! I’ve been busy sewing Halloween costumes, but that’s done now. I do have some quilting projects in the works, and should be starting to show them soon. To really keep up-to-date on what I’m doing, your best bet is to follow me on Twitter, Periscope and Instagram.

More about Color Play Friday:

Trina from In An Otter Life and I created Color Play Friday one day after a nice trip to the fabric store together.

Here are the rules:

Each week, Trina or I will select a picture from our joint Pinterest board. These are all pictures that one of us has taken on our adventures.
We each create a palette using colors from that picture
We then create a bundle of 5-8 fabrics that is inspired by that palette. They don’t have to be an exact match to our palette, and we can throw in contrasting or accent colors, but the bundle should look inspired by the palette.
We don’t see anyone else’s palette or bundle before we post on Friday.
That’s it! It’s going to be so fun to see what we each come up with.

This weeks photo was taken by me a couple of years ago after Christmas. I was taking all the ornaments off the Christmas trees and sticking them in a box so I could pack them nicely later. Suddenly, I looked down and saw all this Christmasy wonderfulness piled on top of each other and had to snap a photo.

Christmas Ornaments Palette and Bundle 1

Christmas Ornaments Palette and Bundle 2

WAIT A MINUTE?! Two palettes?! Two bundles?!

That’s right, I’m a big old cheater pants this week. As I was selecting fabrics, I found myself torn between a literal interpretation of what I was seeing in the picture, and how the picture made me FEEL.

So I figured two is better than one and went for it!

Here are the fabrics I chose:

Bundle 1

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Snowflakes in Beige

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Linen Texture

Kaffe Fasset, Shot Cottons, Woven in Mulberry

Kate Spain, Solstice, Hemisphere in Berry

Robert Kaufman, Metro Living, Ogee in Scarlet

Whistler Studios, Glisten Metallic Gold

Joel Dewberry, True Colors, Scrollwork in Green

Basic Grey, Blitzen,Creatures in Evergreen

Bundle 2

Makower UK, Christmas 2015 Scandi, Hearts and Stars in Red

Bunnyhill Designs, Winter Wonderland, Candy Cane Stripe,Tonal Redwork

Bunnyhill Designs, Winter Wonderland, Redwork

Doodlebug Design Inc, Santa Express, Santa Stripe in Red

Jo Clark, Organic, Festive, Gingerbread People

Micheal Miller, Glitz Metallic Quarter Dot, Pearlized Glitz

Makower UK, Wonderland, Houses

Victoria Hutto, Holly Jollies, Dots in Black

A note about scale:

While I believe scale is a very important part of fabric selection, the fabrics shown in my Color Play images are not always perfectly to scale. I do my best, by you should always double check scale before ordering!

Don’t forget to head over to In an Otter Life to see what Trina came up with and to Shimmy and More to see Steph’s bundle!

You can also head over to my Color Play Friday page to see my palettes and bundles from previous weeks.

Next week’s photo is Pike Place Market from Trina

Are you enjoying Color Play Friday? We’d love for you to get in on the fun and create your own Color Play post! You can create a bundle of fabric, select yarns or embroidery threads, or create a project inspired by our photo. Be sure to let Trina or I know so we can link up to you. You can get in contact with me via email, or by tagging me on Instagram.

I hope you can join us next week!

Happy Sewing, ~L

Color Play Friday: NYC Bus Tour

Happy Friday, everyone! On Fridays we play with color, and today we have some pink!

If you’re new around here, check out my Color Play page to see the rules.

I chose this picture of Trina’s because I just couldn’t wait to play with those bright colors any longer! The combination of that yellow tour bus and her adorable raspberry-colored tights was so much fun.

Her tights made me think of a grown-up ballerina, so I knew right away what my main fabric would be! The pink ballerinas from Tiger Lily! I’ve been looking at this print for weeks, and was so happy to finally get to play around and find a bundle to feature it.

So, without further ado, here’s my palette and bundle!

Here is the list of the fabrics I chose:

Alexia Abegg, Mesa, Dining Car is Coral

Heather Ross, Tiger Lilly, Ballerinas in Pink

Alexia Abegg, Hat Box, Palm Springs in Pink

Kimberly Kight, Lucky Strikes, Dime Store Dot in Navy

Alexia Abegg, Paper Bandana, Paint Dot in Cloud

Timeless Treasures, Sketch Basic in Daffodil

Laura Gunn, Painters Canvas in Yellow

This week was unusual for me, because I had four fabrics from Cotton and Steel, three of them from the same designer. I usually mix it up a bit more than that. But they worked so well that I just had to include them all!

Don’t forget to head over to In An Otter Life and see what Trina came up with this week.

Updated to add: Steph from Shimmy and More got in on the fun! Check out her post to see what fabrics she picked for this week.

If you’d like to join in for next week, just send us a message letting us know so we can link up with you. We’d love to see everything our creative friends come up with!

Next week’s photo is one of mine and is titled Jellyfish. It can be found on our Color Play Friday Pinterest Board.

Happy Sewing! ~L

My Embroidery Project

Hello, friends! How are all my fellow northern-hemisphere dwellers settling into fall? Here in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve had some much-needed rain this last week.

I love where I live!

In my house, we’re coming to terms with the end of summer. Today my eldest had his first day of high school, which he was excited about. My younger kids start school tomorrow. I think everyone is looking forward to being on a normal schedule, but we will all miss sleeping in!

I’m hoping that them being in school will give me a little more time to devote to the blog and to doing some design work.

Last week, I talked about the foot pedal on my sewing machine going kaput. My new pedal arrived, but there was an issue: the light was going off whenever I put the pedal down. But after a little ‘don’t try this at home’ jury-rigging from my husband, it worked just fine. I’m so glad he’s smart!

In the meantime, I worked more on my embroidery project.

Laurel and Pine Embroidery Progress

I’m always on the go, so I need to have something I can throw in my purse and work on at any time. After completing the hand sewing portion of the Quilt of Champions, I settled on this project.

I improvised the design as I went along, since this project is all about freedom in creativity and the joy of the making process.

Laurel and Pine_ Embroidery from above

I’ll be sharing progress of this project as I go along, but since I don’t want my recipient to know about it quite yet, the over all plan is going to stay secret for now. But I can say that the embroidery you’ll be seeing in the weeks to come are all for the same thing, and it is quilting-related! 🙂