March Finishes

I got all of the things I wanted to get done for me, well done :)  Except the quilt, But I did get the backing fabric in for it and the batting should be here soon.  Which by the way if you want to learn more about batting you should read my blog post here and my March Goals are here.

Here are my completions for the month.

Star Light Star Bright Pillow

The Parade for all of the Star Light Star Bright projects starts tomorrow on April 1st if you want to get some inspiration.

Hexagon Bee Tote Complete

I made a Quilt Top

and my Collage Sound Check Bag for the Pantone Challenge, didn't win, but that's okay, I love purple anyways!

Last me project was my Meringue Clutch

that I ended up not liking but I found someone who will like it, so I am sending it on to a new home, there is also a small handmade gift giveaway going on if you are interested and have not entered yet.
I want to learn how to make fabric postcards so put your name in the hat with your birthdate and you just might get a birthday present from me.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linking to A Lovely Year of Finishes March
and the final linky for The 30/30 Challenge 

I've been sewing for me, now I want to sew for YOU! GIVEAWAY!

This is Week 4 30/30 Sewing Challenge Update, the final week of a month long challenge all about sewing for yourself.
Last week I told you how excited I was that I got a table for my sewing machine, this week was mostly spent cleaning up the downstairs area, re-arranging furniture and a whole lot of cleaning up to do.  So I only completed one project this week, the Meringue clutch from the "Big City Bags" Book.  I really dislike this bag, so even though I had originally created it for me, I will not be keeping it.

Sewed it all up on my new table

Wednesday- I cut the fabrics
Thursday - Ironed the Interfacings and some other fabric ironing
Friday - I sewed up the St. Patrick's Meringue Clutch

The little glass bead is from my trip to Ireland, this clutch is really stiff and I don't like it at all, will not be making this EVER again, if you really, really like it, I will send it to you :) Someone liked it and it will be flying to it's new home soon, good!
Linking this finish up to

Old Sewing Space, upstairs at the dining room table off of the kitchen, yes there have been a few oil splatters on my fabrics, oops.

I sew barefoot and always need a blanket under my feet, cold tile.

 Pictures of my new sewing space and then a giveaway at the bottom at the post.

Do you remember this picture from last week, this is the front of the house and the 2 windows and balcony doors to my sewing space.

Standing at the balcony door, you see my cutting table.

To the left is a bookcase and door to the upstairs.

The low (old coffee table) I will be re-purposing and making it into a large ironing board.

 All IKEA crap, awesome stuff!

This little side table is with my first color love, Stained glass, I made both pieces you see, the cabinet in a wood working class and the fish stained glass when I was living in Sacramento, CA.  We need to paint the cabinet, especially since the kids have drawn all over it, and I need to screw the doors on as soon as I find the little screws, I have had this upstairs for the past 7 years and I had the doors off since it was in the kids room as a book case and I didn't want them to break the glass, but now it is in MY SPACE!

 I made up some fabric bolts with guess what, canvas boards for painting!  I can find these cheap, 10 for $1 versus the comic boards which I can not find here.  I won't do all of my fabric but a few pieces for "show".

The rest of the room holds a bed and a sofa that can turn into a bed, we sleep down here during the summer.  I need to paint the walls, not sure what color yet.

I really want to Thank Sarah for hosting the 30/30 Challenge because I think it was all of my sewing that I was doing that finally pushed my husband into buying a table just for the sewing machine, Thanks Sarah.


GIVEAWAY:
Now I promised a giveaway, I have been dying to make fabric post cards and I need someone to send them to, would you like one?  I will send it to you for your birthday, or if your birthday was in January, February or March I will pick another holiday to send the card for.  Use the rafflecopter below for an easy entry just enter your birthday, mine is June 5th, you don't have to put the year if you don't want to ;)  I will be having another really big giveaway then and also another giveaway on April 14th, so if you want to keep updated make sure you hit the bloglovin' button.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

30/30 Week 3 Update

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME, HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!  YIPPEE!
My husband doesn't generally do any type of gift giving it's just not in the Greek nature to give gifts, they don't even celebrate birthdays here, instead your name day is celebrated so if you are named Timothy then all the Timothy's have their day, but a name day celebration is well if you really want me to get into Greek details then say so in the comments and I will be happy to explain the oh so wonderful Greek customs.  
On to my Awesome Wonderful News!  My husband finally broke down and bought a "table" just for a my sewing machine, don't worry we didn't tell his mother, omg, we would never hear the end of that one "jes fer the masine that uh sew en"  hehe like my Greek accent.
We went to IKEA

This is the downstairs part of our house this is the front, the other 3 sides are surrounded by rock and it is very cold there in the winter, but in summer we sleep downstairs, this is going to be my "sewing room".

To get the backing for my Pantone Challenge Quilt Top You Can vote for it here, #18, under "Just Quilt Tops" Category click the little heart in the right hand corner, you can see more photos of it here.  Do you like the IKEA written numbers print, they are awfully large numbers, but I think it will work, I am going to use a purple binding also, I think.  The Quilt top is what I was sewing on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
Tuesday was spent our 30 minutes doing a photo shoot, that resulted in my children playing in the stream, so we had to hurry home.

Wednesday I cut fabric for my Pantone Challenge bag, You can vote for this one under the "minis" category, #50, Thank you so much if you vote, there are a lot of beautiful items to look at.
Thursday I Thankfully received the package of interfacing and did some sewing
Friday I quilted the interior of the bag and put the bag together, you can view more pictures here.

My daughter doesn't realize that when I say I want to see the back side of the bag I don't mean I want to see the back side of her also.

LOL, not only does she crack me up, she cracks herself up too!
We took the bag shopping with us today to IKEA, it is about an hour away in Larisa just south of Mount Olympus where the Greek Gods reside.

You can see their snow peaked tops in the distance.

So today's Saturday 30 minutes time was spent fabric and desk shopping, by the way have you seen the new "board/wood plank" fabric that IKEA has, I saw it on someone else's blog and now I don't know who, but I saw it in person and it is nice but it is a heavier canvas type material and not a quilting cotton material, just FYI.
As soon as I clean the downstairs and do some re-arranging we have a double bed, a sofa and a wall bookcase down there, so I will need to find out where to put my new table!  And then I will share pictures.
Linking up to 30/30 Sewing Challenge Week 3
Oh in case you were wondering yesterday March 21st marks 7 years I have been married to my husband Arthur the Greek.
Next week I am going to start a suitcase out of old jeans, so fun!  What are you going to do?

Pantone Quilt Top

My Entry for the Pantone Quilt Challenge

This Quilt Top was made using 5" charms from a Purple Charm swap put on by Amanda from What the Bobbin?
It is a pattern from the UK Magazine "Love Patchwork & Quilting", Issue One, called "The Plus Side" by Holly DeGroot, I got this magazine from my wonderful friend Shirley of SimpleSew.

I didn't have enough of the grey and white plaid background fabric, VIP Exclusive "Rod & Reel", so 6 of the blocks are substituted with 3 different greys from Art Gallery Fabrics and 3 different Kona purples.

While taking this picture my kids ran off and started playing in the river, I quickly finished making photos and found them all wet.

For the charm squares inside of the purple squares I used Alison Glass's white on white Sun Prints prints, from another charm swap I was in, I also used her fuchsia corsage and bike path prints as some of the purple plus's.

Thank you for all of the encouragement in helping me make my 3rd Quilt Top, my husband has promised me a shopping trip to IKEA to get enough fabric for the back, the quilt top measure's at 54" x 67".

30/30 Week 2 Update

I did a great job this week to.
I finished 1 of my projects.

The tote is from the Free tutorial over at Ellison Lane and is called the Crafty Traveler Tote.
It is really massive inside.

I made a few alterations as usual with patterns and screwed up a few times, so it took me an extra day to sew, since I put the handles on wrong, oopps.

3 pockets on the outside.

But what I really loved making was that cute little pouch, I have a pouch obsession and I think I just found the be all end all pattern, you can find it over at Clover and Violet, it is called the Bella Clutch, I did make a few changes here too, but it is the cutest little thing, I will be making a whole bunch of these as Christmas and Birthday presents.
So those 2 items saw me sewing until Wednesday, but I did stop and pet fabric on Monday.

I was  little bummed because I thought I wasn't going to be able to participate in the Pantone Challenge, but then my lovely bloggy friend Amanda said to me in an e-mail "I think they have a category for just quilt tops? No pressure ;)" and it was like a DUH moment for me, of course I could do something other than what I had originally planned, since my original piece of fabric and interfacing got lost in the mail, I got lost also in the not being able to do what I had originally wanted to do mindset.

But I have all of these awesome purple charm squares and my other totally awesome bloggy buddy Shirley sent me a magazine with a great quilt in it that uses charms.

Thursday: choosing, ironing and cutting of fabric for quilt

Friday: first row of sewing and ironing

Saturday (this morning): Second round of sewing, I will iron later.

This is total selfish sewing I love the colors I am using and it just makes me happy, I should have this quilt top done by Tuesday (it is super easy) I won't quilt it though because I don't have any big pieces of fabric for the back.  But I also put in an order for some interfacing at a UK store so maybe I will even be able to do 1 of my other planned projects, once again not the original cause the Acacia fabric is missing, yes that is the fabric that went missing, sigh.
Thanks everyone for your help, BIG HUGS!
Linking up to 30/30 Sewing Challenge Week 2

WIP and 30/30 Update

My rundown of the week:
Saturday:  I petted fabric, cut a little and drew my quilting lines on my pillow.

Sunday:  I quilted the pillow and washed it (to get the drawings off)

Monday: I hand quilted and then put the back on, pillow is finished and blogged here.

Tuesday: back to petting fabric (really my favorite part about sewing :), doing fabric auditions and cutting of fabric.

Wednesday: Making small hexies.

Thursday: Ironing on Interfacings and working on the Large hexies

Friday: Wonky Hexie QAYG thing going on.

Excuse the night time photo, it is after all a WIP!

So that's my rundown of the week, 1 finish and another half finished.
Linking up to WIP, oops missed that one, oh well next week
and 30/30 Challenge
and Thanks to BillieBee, also the Hexie Weekend

Star Light Star Bright Pillow

I love it!

I machine quilted and washed it yesterday and then did some big hand stitches on it today and put the back and zipper on.  This is my first time doing a side zipper (or bottom, guess how you put the cushion on your couch) I followed this tutorial here on Pretty Bobbins. (all links will take you to a new page)  Worked out pretty good.

I like my zippit zippers, I cut a little notch off the ends and glue them on the card she includes with the order, that way it is almost like a thread card but instead it is my zipper card.

I matched the Aquamarine 049 perfectly with my Teal Coblestones Textures fabric from Angela Walters.  I quilted a cathedral window echo thing, in the Swirls Jade (Variegated Aurifil 4662) and Swirls Citrus (Variegated Aurifil 4658).
And hand quilted in the AG Pure Elements Mystic Grey areas.

I think my Star Light, Star Bright pillow looks pretty darn cool next to my Star Surround pillow.

Close up of threads used and hand stitching.

Both of these patterns are FREE and available from Melissa at Happy Quilting, check her Quilt-A-Long's page.
More pictures of the sewing process can be found here.
Linking to Pillow Collective over at Amy's Creative Side.
Linking to

March Goal 30/30 Sewing Challenge

Carving out 30 minutes of me time sewing time for 30 days of March, are you ready?  I hope I can meet this Challenge, one thing about sewing is that it relaxes me, so any type of sewing is relaxing even if it is making something for someone else.

I have my every month monthly goals:
1.        Every month I plan on following along with  

The "Classic meets Modern QAL" this month is the Drunkard's Path (first time doing that block)  Lots of different block inspiration can be found here.
2.       Every month I plan on making a block for the

 Aurifil Designer of the Month  This months designer is Emily Herrick a very easy borders block
3.       Every month I plan on making something from a

 Craft book Sew Along.  I haven't decided what yet, I am getting some new books in that I won.
4.       Every month I plan on meeting the challenge over 

at Le Challenge.  This months theme is "Order"
5.       Every month make a bag from

"Big City Bags" also a Sew Along.This months bag is the Meringue Clutch.
6.       I want to make 4 Quilts this year, mmm... should be interesting, maybe one will be from the Feathers QAL  I am going to try to finish the Feathers Quilt, I finally got in my orchid colors.

If I get this quilt done it will be for me, also the Meringue Clutch will be for me and I am also making another bag called the Wonderland this month that will be FOR ME!  So lot's of sewing just for me.
I am making another bag for a swap partner, so if you are counting that is 3 bags!
And one last item that I need to do in the next 2 days is quilt and do the backing for my pillow FOR ME, or actually for my husband, but they do say that husbands and wives are 1 unit, right!

If I do get it quilted in time I will enter it in the Pillow Collective Challenge. going on over at Amy's Creative Side.

I will be linking to these great linky parties this month with my finishes.
A Lovely Year of Finishes
Celtic Thistle Stitches for the Christmas Ho, Ho, Ho and So We Sew and also the New to Me 2014
And a Stitch in Time over at Such a Sew and Sew.