Parade Day Sew Along Part 1-Flag Blocks

Hi Ladies!

Ready to sew along with me today?

Put some flip flops on, make an iced tea (or a long island iced tea depending on how much you want to party,)  and pretend that it is summer and you are getting ready for July 4th!! =)

Let’s make some flags.

For each flag you will need:

2 red or blue strips cut at 1 1/2 x 7 1/2

1 white strip cut at 1 1/2 x 7 1/2

2 red or blue strips cut at 1 1/2 x 10 1/2

2 white strips cut at 1 1/2 x 10 1/2

1 red or blue square cut a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2

Sewing

Using a 1/4 inch seam sew your strips together as shown in the picture. Press toward darker fabric.

Now sew the corner square to your top strips. Press toward darker fabric.

Now sew your block together, pressing toward darker fabric.

Stand back and look at how cute your little flag is! It should measure 7 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches.

Hum the National Anthem while you make 3 more flags.  Two Red and Two Blue.

Excuse me while I go finish mine up!…….

4 cutie tootie flags:

I’ve added (hopefully) a linky for us to share our blocks and progress. That way we can easily visit each other as we sew along.

I’ll see you back here on Wednesday for the Star block!

Melissa

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Parade Day Sew Along

Thank you for letting me know you would like to sew along with me!

We’ll start on Monday with the flag blocks.

So gather up your red, white , and blue fabric from your stash.  Sorry I don’t know the exact fabric requirements because I didn’t write any down when I made it the first time…oops.  But fat quarters or fat eights are all you will need for the flags.

Later in this project you will also need a dresden ruler.  So if you don’t have one and you are out and about this weekend you could pick one up.

I’m excited to sew with you ladies!!

Later gators,

Melissa

New in the shop and a maybe sew-a-long.

These are so stinkin’ fun to put together!

The cross stitch chart  was a freebie from Appleseed Prims.

And you can check it out here.

I’m thinking of doing a sew a long for a summer quilt I put together the other day.

Anyone interested?

I’m calling it Parade Day.

I first pulled some more subdued civil warish and Minick and Simpson fabrics…

but somehow ended up making it with brights.

If you’re interested let me know, and if there is enough interest I will draw up the pattern and do a sew-a-long.

Later gators!

Melissa

Sharing Spring

Sharing some snaps of spring around my house. I’m ready,  now I just need  Spring temps!!! =)

Spring Crafting

I don’t know about you, but I am soooo ready for some GREEN!

Honestly I can almost smell spring coming, and I am hanging on tight waiting for it.

I’ve scattered my Easter and spring decor around the house, and found I needed a new wreath for my basket in the dinning room. I’ve enjoyed finding seasonal wreaths to place inside the basket that sits on our plate shelf above the board and batten in there.

I found a clearanced wreath at Joann’s and added some sprigs, moss, burlap bow, nest and eggs. I also added a little mossy bunny.

Next I made a new little arrangement for the dry sink.  I found this lovely little ironstone tureen for a steal because it was missing it’s lid. No problem here I didn’t want the lid!

I filled it with some left over flower foam, added moss, flowers, a nest, and a bird I stole from my bedroom.

I’m laughing because it really didn’t do too much to brighten things up today.  It is so stinkin’ grey out, I’m starting to feel like I live in Portland.

Come on sunshine, I’m ready for ya!

Hope your day is going wonderfully, and that you live somewhere sunny. =)

Living Room on a Tight Fisted Budget

It all started with a trip to Ikea with Mom and a little extra pocket change from our tax return.

Mind you the tax return had all been planned out before we even knew what we were getting back.  The BG was the Executive Director of spending the tax return this year, he KNEW what he WANTED, and none of it was going to go into our living room.  It is to go for boring things like riding lawn mowers and fences.  He did say I could go buy curtains though, so off to Ikea I went.

While there I found the a cute little loveseat with a pretty small price tag (270.00), so a phone call later and I had the go ahead to buy it.

We spent the next day putting up the curtains and trying to figure out how to place our new little loveseat in our impossibly weird-angled, and previously fairly empty  living room. A decorator  I am not, but even I know  we really needed a rug to anchor the seating arrangement, but we cannot have a rug because of our dog (long story, but she destroys rugs.)

So until the dog goes to dog heaven and we can buy a nice rug, we decided that the alcove was the best place for it.

We got it all set up and I was happy as a lark, there was some much needed seating in the living room now.  On Monday I got a phone call from The BG saying he wanted to go buy a new coffee table and find some lighting!!!! WHAT?? HE wanted to buy more stuff out of the precious tax return money??  He decided that he was going to claim the new seating area for board game nights with his pals.  I’m no dummy, and I was game to go shopping. LOL

We didn’t find anything that night, but a search on the internet uncovered an  coffee table from World Market that we both loved.

So we headed out on Tuesday in a huge blizzard to buy the table, and while there we spotted a ginormous floor lamp to cure our overhead lighting problem (there is no overhead lighting in here!!)

I slip covered the Target slipper chairs to match the loveseat slipcover and while purchasing my fabric I found this cute little side table at Hobby Lobby for 35.00!!!

All told we spent about $850.00 which I think is pretty darn frugal for a living room! =)

loveseat- Ikea 270.00

curtains and rods for 7 windows- Ikea 130.00

coffee table- World Market 250.00

lighting- World Market 100.00

slip cover fabric and side table- Hobby Lobby 100.00

And The BG already tried out the “gaming corner” last night with a friend playing board games.  His verdict? Money well spent!

Have  a great day!

Melissa

new trinket box

Added a new trinket box to the etsy shop today, and I have to say if it doesn’t sell I think I will be just as happy to keep it!

Have a happy Thursday!

Melissa

fun mail, vday, and doings

First and foremost I’d like to wish you a very happy LOVE DAY!!! If you don’t have a special sweetheart today, God  loves you with an unimaginable amount of love, send Him a Valentine! =)

I’ve gotten some fun mail the last couple of days.  Yesterday in my mailbox I found my sweet toweling yardage I bought from The Fabric Depot. It’s on sale if you want some too.

It’s more fun to do dishes with pretty towels isn’t it? I think I’ll make some table runners for my retro kitchen too!

I also got my scrap bag from Homestead Hearth I kept seeing on blogs. I must say when I first opened it I was a bit disappointed, but I went through it again today and thought there was quite a bit I could use.

That’s the fun of a grab bag isn’t it? You just don’t know what your going to get!

I’ve been busy working on my red and white quilt. I got the half dresdens done and the flying geese border on.

I think I only have room for one more border because of where I plan to hang it.  I’ll have to stew on it awhile.  Since my Mom hasn’t been here to sew, I started doing her’s for her so she doesn’t fall to far behind.  I’m a good kid, huh? LOL

I’ve got her half dresdens pinned on and ready to applique today.

I started working a little Blackbird Designs freebie last night. It’s called Know I Know My ABC’s .  I like to keep something to stitch by the couch at night while I’m sitting with The BG whatching TV. The colors they chose are so interesting!

Who is itching to get in the garden this spring? This will be my first spring here in the house with my very own, get-to-keep-forever, garden!  So you know I am excited!! We spent the tail end of last summer and fall clearing and clearing and weeding and weeding. Now we have a fairly blank canvas to plant what we please.

It has been my intention to start a garden journal in which to keep pictures of where we started, plans and reminders.  I don’t want to forget plant sunflower seeds!!

So I whipped up this cover yesterday (tutorial here from Bloom blog) and jotted some initial notes.

I used some of   The Simple Life fabric, which is quite garden-y don’t ya think? I added a little pocket for my favorite pink pen. Too bad journals don’t have spell check, flowers are kind of hard to spell! (giggle)

What do you always mean to plant in your garden, but forget to do it?

Have a great day!!

Melissa

red and white progress

I picked up my Square in a Square ruler from Quilt N Go yesterday and couldn’t wait to try it out for the red and white quilt border.

I can’t say it helped me when sewing them to each other, but it sure did help me get nice square blocks before I sewed them together.  Going over all those bulky seams doesn’t seam to be my forte.

Good news the first border is done. Bad news Lor’O'Mercy it still looks better from afar!!!

This is inspiration for quilters to just keep pushing through even when a project looks better when a person is squinting and standing ten feet back from it (and it wouldn’t hurt if they’ve had a nip or two of the hard stuff.)

It’s just for me, and I am sticking through it!!  I have made quilts that are darn near perfect, but this one isn’t gonna be one of those!!! LOL

After I got my housework done I went back to my sewing room to think on what would come next.

Mom and I decided early on that we were only going to put one border on before putting on the setting triangles, because we don’t want the solid white to be too big and plain.  I put my block on some white yardage  just to stare at it and see what we could put in there to liven it up.

I decided to try out a half dresden.

Oh that might be cool!

So I sewed up the other three half dresdens and took a picture to see how it worked.

I think it looks better than a big chunk of plain white.  I can’t sew them down or move on because I have to wait for Mom to catch up.  We didn’t have a sewing day this week because she was feeling bad from a cold.

I’m thinking flying geese for the next border? Any suggestions?

Have a great weekend!

Melissa

A new sampler

I started this sampler last year, so I can’t remember the thread count of the linen I used, and it took me a week to track down the brown variegated floss I used(it was hiding under a pile of quilt scraps,) but finish it I did!

I learned the first time around when I had a sampler professional framed that my budget does not allow for me to pay to have all my stitchies framed, I would rather spend that money on quilting.  So I have started to just frame them myself.

I needed to go pick up my sewing machine from the shop today. It went in for a cleaning a week or so ago.  So on my way I stopped at hobby lobby and grabbed a frame and an 8 x 10 stitchery mounting board. You can find those in the floss section of craft stores.  Now I am sure all serious cross stitchers would never use these as I am sure they are not archival, but for my little stitches they work just fine.

$12.00 later as opposed to the 100 or something for the professional framed sampler, I have a sweet old looking sampler to add to my collection!

I used a pattern that I made up in a free cross stitching program. I say “made up” but I really just took elements I liked from an antique sampler book I checked out of the library and just put them all together. It’s fun to use you should try it! Here’s the link.

I love how sweet and homey it looks when you hang samplers in mismatched frames together, like this one from Words and Blooms blog.

And the BEST part of my day so far? Guy (that’s his name) at the sewing machine shop didn’t charge me a thing when I picked up my machine! He said it was completely clean, so he didn’t do a thing but lubricate it.  WHAT???? I asked him, are you SURE that’s my machine??  I sew on that fella 5 hours a day or more, and I haven’t had it cleaned in over a year.  I guess I must be doing a good job of brushing it out.

Hope you only get good news today too!

Melissa