Tag Archives: upcycling

Red and White Challenge – Crumbs Pillow

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Look what I made! This fun heart-shaped pillow is crumb-pieced from scraps of fabrics with only reds and whites. No pinks or browns, only shades of reds and whites. It was made for my friend Kim’s Project Quilting Challenge for this month. Of course, I got it finished in the nick of time.

When crumb quilting, I usually piece all my bits together regardless of color. Limiting it to only two was a creative stretch and I’m pleased with the final product. We’re not a pretty pillow household, so it’s in my etsy shop for someone to adopt and love.

Special pricing today only! The 25% off all made items ends with August. This pillow’s $42 but you can have it for only $31.50 if you act quickly. https://www.etsy.com/listing/201798075/pieced-heart-pillow-red-and-white-12×12?

Do you want to learn this technique? I’m teaching a class at SLO Creative Studio in San Luis Obispo, CA on November 7th. Sign up at http://www.slo-creative.com

Prep Work

I painted my toenails just to stuff my feet into sneakers. I put lipstick on to sew in my pajamas. I do my hair up nicely to watch TV with my husband. I put a dirty fork on the counter so the sink can be empty. Aaand I cut up perfectly good fabric just to sew it back together.

These things may be a little nutty but they make me feel good. What are little things that make you feel good? I challenge you to do one of those things today.

Speaking of cut up fabric that’s sewn back together, I showed a sample of my letter pillows in this post. Well, the time has come to reveal the etsy listing. Get ’em while the getting’s hot!

Here are the options on the pillow covers. I’ll be adding more sizes and colors as we go. They’re envelope-backed. And yes, as part of my prep work for launching these pillows, I made sure they actually fit into the pillow form. Who’da thunk?!

Four background colors to choose from: Black, Beige, Grey, and Teal.
Buy just the 12×12 inch pillow case, or add-on a pillow form to save you a trip to the store.
I can do any letter, uppercase or lowercase. For now, it’s one letter per pillow.

I used Sam Hunter’s time-tracking method to help determine pricing. These pillow covers are only $35 plus shipping! What a deal.

Prices increase on custom orders beginning tomorrow, February 1st. Everything that’s already listed as a completed item in my shop will stay the same price. New items and custom orders increase by 10% tomorrow.

Sneaky Peeks

Here are a few of the treasures I’ve been working on. The first is a wedding quilt for a dear friend. Spoiler alert! It’s green.

I wasn’t able to go out and get this tracing for a portrait quilt of a dog enlarged today. So I pulled some fabrics for it instead! Here’s my method of keeping everything straight once I’ve made the decisions. FYI: I’ve put 90 minutes into this quilt already and haven’t yet started putting it together. That’s why I charge $25 per subject as a design fee!

I finished this quilt. Woo! It feel so good to have a project done done done. This is a signature quilt and is for sale in my etsy shop. You can sign this quilt in the beige fabric spots… which, as you can see, make up most of the quilt. It’s great for weddings, anniversaries, birthdays, and other celebrations. Super-durable, it’ll hold up to washings. Just make sure to follow the directions on whatever fabric marker you buy. Some of them need to be set with a hot iron.

I’ve also been working on this week’s Project Quilting Challenge, which is up-cycling.

I pulled some fabric for my new guild’s round robin. I’ll be adding a border and some embroidery. Unfortunately, this is all supposed to be secret until the big reveal in a few months so I cannot share photos of it until then.

What are you working on?

My Holiday Loot!

I usually don’t post “yay I got this” kinds of posts, but you might actually be interested this year. Especially since a lot of the gifts I got, I picked out myself. Those came from etsy sellers.

First, my Dad’s side of the family has a secret Santa gift exchange every year. I got a very thoughtful gift this year, a mason jar for pins with a pincushion on top. Oh, and these gifts have to be handmade. It even has a little saying on it with kitty paws.

My hubby got me my own printer, which is awesome. Now I don’t have to bug him in his garage workshop to print something out every time I need that. It even has scan and copy features. Woot. I won’t bore you with a photo of that.

I bought this beautiful photography 2014 calendar from an etsy shop. It didn’t come with those blobs of grey, I added them because I started filling in appointments before photographing it.

I also got patterns from two etsy shops. The first pattern is of a messenger bag. Here’s that shop. The second pattern is for up-cycled sweaters and finger-less arm warmers. You can find that kooky shop here.

I’m on the hunt things made from wool and cashmere to start making my own up-cycled items. A dear friend has offered me several wool scarves that are moth-eaten. Perfect! I’m looking for items that are stained, stretched, shrunken, ripped, or otherwise unusable to you. Please please contact me if you have anything like that you’d like to donate to my cause. I can help with shipping costs if need be.

My next blog post (on Monday) will feature a custom photo quilt that I made for a client who gave it to her husband for Christmas. I’m so excited to finally be able to show it to you! (Didn’t want to ruin the surprise.)

Happy Holidays!