vintage trunk

My hubby and I found this great vintage Oshkosh trunk at a local antique shop. Treasure Isles Antique Mall on Big Bend Blvd in St. Louis is one of our favorite places to antique shop. There are so many goodies in there and the inventory changes so much. We are never disappointed when we go there.

The best we can tell, this is from the 1930s and has traveled throughout Europe, to and from New York several times. Those travel stickers are in rough shape, but they were fun to look over and try to read. The kids had fun imagining all the places this trunk had been.

The trunk is in pretty rough shape. Someone tried to pry it open and the lock is cut off, but that is what makes it a GREAT coffee table. We can put our feet up on it and not have to worry about scratching it! After so many years of being of the anti-coffee table club, I can finally say that I have truly converted!

double take

I just wanted to show you my second finished Summersville quilted pillow. I felt like I needed a matching set although they are not actually totally matching. The center squares are the same, but the rest is random. The second one is also quilted just a little different from the first. I quilted triangles inside the triangles on the second one instead of doing circles. I like the circles better, though...

I also quilted the back of the pillows. My stitches looked great until I pulled them out of the dryer. The stitches look really bizarre. It's like the tension on my machine is off on every other stitch so they look coupled together. Anyone know why that is? I'm wondering if it's from the fabric shrinking. Or because I was using up my polyester thread (gasp!) on a project I knew would never leave my living room. Hmmmm.... I've never had that happen to me before. I guess I'd better figure it out before I make another quilt!

my stash...

Today I uploaded a pic of my stash to Amy Butler's Show Me Your Stash contest on Flickr. I thought you all might want to see my stash, too. This is my sewing corner of our family room. The other half of this room is used for school. As you can see, my stash is quite small. Although my hubby probably thinks it is growing too quickly, I feel like it cannot grow quickly enough! Maybe I should show him all the other stashes of Flickr. Yes, I'll do that! Do you think it will help my cause?

 

• On the top shelf, I have my knitting/crochet projects, tatting supplies, solid scraps and a bag of miscellaneous scraps that I can't seem to part with.
• On the second shelf are my solids that are not scraps and jars with thread, tools, pencils, ect. I love see-through containers. My organization may not make sense, but at least I can see what is in each container!
• On the third shelf is the majority of my stash- all those unused lovely prints that are longing for a home in a project.
• The bottom two shelves have various notions and tools. It's kind of sad that I have more notions and tools than fabric.
• The box on the ground holds all my batting scraps, various other non quilting fabric and a few clothing repair projects that I know I'll never get to!
• There are two tubs full of fabric that is nonquilting fabric in my hubby's office. I probably should go through them someday and see what kind of goodies I've forgotten that I have! The rest of my patterns and notions reside there, too. I'm in the process of moving them all to my little sewing corner.

I purchased my wonderful and used drafting table several months ago. It has a protective mat onto that is immune to my rotary cutter and protects the wood top. That's the real heartbreaker when it comes to my damaged dining room table. If only I just would have been working in the appropriate space... The reason why not? Well, little gnomes come into my house at night and make my work space a disaster. I think they love to pull fabric of the shelves and look at it for long periods of time. Those silly gnomes, such daydreamers. There simply was too much of a mess to be working on my sewing table that shamefully terrible day. {And most days for that matter!} Hmmmm.... maybe a nice note and some cookies would convince those gnomes to clean up after themselves.



This next pic is of the precious scraps that I simply cannot part with. {I am a fabric hoarder, likely because of my lack thereof.} I put them in mason jars and placed them on this shelf as "decoration" for my seriously under-decorated sewing room. Only a sewist/quilter decorates with fabric scraps, I'm sure! I saw the idea of putting scraps in jars on one of the blogs I read quite some time ago, but I simply cannot remember which blog it was... so I cannot give credit. I think I need some other things to go on this shelf, maybe some sewy/quilty things. That lens cap just isn't doing anything for me!


And last, but not least is the silly pic. You see, everytime I take pictures of the kids, I tell them that they have to smile nice and then they get to do a silly one, or two or three. It works every time. My sweet little boy thought that I needed to do a silly pic since I smiled so nicely for the first one! I was only too happy to oblige!

Happy Friday, everyone! I'm planning on a full day of sewing tomorrow! I can't wait!

Finished Pillow!

Cathedral Windows Pillow {tutorial from here}

 Here is my finished pillow! I'm really loving how it turned out! And I must say, it really looks good in my living room! I chose a white border and the back is navy.

Once I finished the pillow,  I realized that I didn't have an 18-inch pillow form anywhere in my house, so I got creative (thrifty) and made one. Did you know an old pillow case makes a great pillow form? Who doesn't have old pillow cases laying around? I trimmed a white stardard pillow case down to 18 1/4 inches, leaving two of the original seams intact. Then I sewed up the other two sides,minus a gap to fill it. I filled it with some fiberfill that I had laying around, and finished it off. It literally took me five minutes and it was essentially free!

I like this pillow so much, that I now have a problem- I think I need a new quilt for my sofa... and maybe another pillow.... I could redo the dog bed, too.... The other side of my sofa is just looking so lonely without a colorful pillow. And my poor old quilt doesn't match the new pillow. Oh, no. I'm feeling a room re-do coming on... That's the problem with small projects- They inspire larger ones!

Cathedral Windows

Cathedral Window Pillow Top {Tutorial from here}

This is a little project that I whipped together yesterday afternoon. It's just the front of the pillow, but the rest should come together fairly quickly. I have to admit that I was a little intimidated to start this project, but the tutorial I used was well written and super easy to follow.

I am fairly happy with how this turned out. The points aren't as neat as I'd hoped and I'm just going to assume this comes with practice.... does that mean I'll make another one? It's quite likely!

Now, I need a little help. I can't decide what fabric to use to make my border for this pillow. Should I use the same as the background fabric or one of the other fabrics? I have laid it out several different ways and I just can't decide! I'd love some input from you!

$3 Baskets

I got these baskets a couple of years ago for $2 a piece at a local discount store and they've been holding all the girlie bows and hair ties in the kids bathroom ever since. We recently remodeled the bathroom and I just thought these were a little too boring for my new space.  I liked that the liner material was a durable canvas and they fit my shelf perfectly,  so I decided to spray paint them white and sew a couple of strips of fun fabric I had in my stash to perk them up. They're not so boring anymore!

I'd love to show you a picture of them where they belong, but bathroom pics are just awful! No sunlight, a tiny space and compact fluorescents make for some seriously bad pics! After $2 a piece for the baskets and a $2 can of spray paint, these were only $3 each!