Flowers

I have been working at a Prom dress shop for the last few months. I do alterations and I make straps to add to the dresses. When I have extra fabric I make hair flowers like these to sell there too. Here are a few I have made. 

Some of these have been custom orders, its been fun to make these and it has gotten me in touch with my girly side which is sometimes pushed aside because I live in a house full of boys.

Ann Marie's Quilt

My mom and sister's designed and made this quilt for my sister Ann Marie's wedding. She was married Nov. 13th. We did the quilt in her wedding colors. She and her husband really liked it.

This is the front. My sisters and mom did the blocks for it. I would have helped but I was in the process of moving across the country. We all helped with the layout of the blocks.

I pieced the back and my mom and I sandwiched, and basted it. Then I quilted it.

Here are the two block from the back up close so you can see the quilting.

The quilt turned out to be a king sized quilt 100 by 114 inches. I really like how it tuned out.

Small news

I'm working on a new pattern! Details later...

Life Happens...

So remember last post I said I had been on vacation? Well Before we had been back even a month my husband was laid off from work. It has been a roller coaster ride for us but here's the short version:

My husband was laid off Sept. 2. We don't live by any family. We decide now is the best time to go back to live by family and look for work there. So we do. We sold a bunch of stuff and gave a bunch of stuff to goodwill, dejunked, packed, fixed up the house and moved across the country from Houston to Salt Lake City in three weeks. For those that are wondering we drove our car with our kids the whole 24 hour drive.

So we are in Utah now living with family until our house sells and we can find a house for us here. Oh and my husband found work just this week.

I've been on vacation...

just in case you were wondering what happened to me. I got CRAZY busy the month before I left and then I've been gone from home with kids in tow for 6 weeks. But I'm happy o report I'm back and I have a thing or two to show you once I get the pictures off my camera...

Until then..

A mess of playing musical shelves

It all started about a week ago, but let me give a bit of back round first. For the last 5+ years I have been storing my fabric stash on some wire clip together shelves from target, which have held up well. They are now starting to bow and once in a while un-clip them selves from each other because of the weight of the books and fabric.

Before: wire clip together shelves

So I have been on the hunt for a sturdier shelf to use and last Tuesday I thought I had found one. Enter the white 6ft shelf from the thrift store. It was perfect until I had taken all my fabric out of the old ones and was ready to put it all back in the new white shelf. It had less space then those cheap clip together shelves!

I am now in a bit of a panic, this was just supposed to be a quick one day reorganization job and now its not. There is no way I'm putting all that fabric back on those clip together shelves that were starting to bow. So now I'm stuck. By the way I'm in the middle of sewing some curtains for a client, but with fabric taking up any and every flat surface, umm I can't really sew.

I call my husband and tell him all about how this new shelf is not going to work and I need something different now. We decide to build some from a really cool blog called Knock off wood
but then we discover while we are at Home Depot (2 days later) that it would be cheaper and less time consuming to just drive down town to Ikea and get some of their Expedit shelving units. So we drive 45 minutes down to Ikea at 8:15 at night with 3 tired kids. What were we thinking?

We get the shelves and get out of there at about 10:15pm to drive 45 minutes back to our house. We are never going with 3 kids at that time of night again. We were crazy. So anyways, I now have better shelves. I just had to play musical shelf to get there. My sewing room is getting organized again and I think I might get to sew tomorrow.

I should have taken pictures of the mess but didn't. But when I'm all done I will post before and afters.

What's black & white & red all over?

This room that I just finished making a few things for! I posted about it here. I will tell you right now that I did not make any of the bedding, but I could have. This first picture is so you get an idea of the whole room.

My friend Jana wanted several things made to help make the room more finished and pull in the bathroom that is attached. First I made the window valence.
Then I made the seat cushion out of an extra duvet cover that she had. The cushion is completely lined and finished on the inside and it has a zipper so you can remove and wash it if needed. I also made the piping that is on it.
Then I made a valence for above the shower curtain. It is the same style as the one for the window, but with piping added.
To finish, and tie in the bathroom with the bedroom I made this wall hanging. It is hanging on a curved wall. It has a piece of boning in the top so that it will curve with the wall.
I cut the flowers out of what was left of the duvet cover and appliqued them on to a red fabric that I got to match the red of the bedspreads. Jana just let me be creative with it. I love how it turned out.