Thursday, November 22, 2007

Kitchen Accessories

Busy busy busy! My goodness, there's a lot to do. It makes me quite glad that we're not working. Robot Chicken Season 3 ended for Harv and I about two weeks ago, we met his parents in Arizona (where this was taken in case you were wondering), then brought them back to our house for the rest of the week and we arrived in Connecticut on Tuesday morning to spend T-giving with my family. In the meantime I really really really wanted to finish this quilt for my sister Lauren. Her birthday was in June. I'm so close to being done but I had to throw in the towel the night before we flew out. That will be my first order of business as soon as we return. I did however have time to make some birthday gifts that were late but just barely.
In this case, just a few days! That's really good for me.
My dear friend Niamh is a doer of many things, one of which is cooking.

I've had the idea for this apron design for a while now and Niamh's birthday seemed like the perfect motivation to get me to actually make it.

Included with the apron was a matching oven mitt, made with a layer of regular batting and a layer of Insul-Bright.

It works pretty well, much better than two layers of regular batting.
The second mitt is for me.

Also for me...

Another off-set square pin cushion, made from the oven mitt scraps! This one is a baby. The squares are only 3 inches wide. I really love it though...it is a perfect sewing accessory! I highly recommend you make one of your own.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Dar in the house

My in-laws are visiting this week. Harv's mom Dar is a quilter and serious knitter. In between knitting away she helped me tackle this beast (that I'm ashamed to say has been hanging around for several weeks now). As a little thank you and a "welcome to my craft room" I made her this sweet little pin cushion.

It's sort of made from this tutorial. I read it a couple of days ago and made this today from what I remembered. So quick and easy! The bottom fabric is some home dec fabric left over from some roman shade that my mom and I made for her game room 5 years ago. The top is an old favorite of mine that I have been clinging to since college. I'm ashamed to say that I bought it at Wal-Mart. I swear I would never do such a thing these days. I hadn't yet realized the horridness of Wal-Mart in those days.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Number 3

Three years and counting.
For our first anniversary (paper) I made Harv an album full of photos from our first year. For our second anniversary I made him this cotton quilt. Third anniversary is leather and as much as I love the idea of making Harv an appropriate gift every year I just couldn't come up with a handmade leather gift that he would actually like and use. So, for the leather, I bought him a new wallet. For the handmade gift, I made him this western shirt.

Harv has been on the look out for what he calls "snap shirts" for the last couple of years. We haven't had much luck recently; I think their popularity is waining. Not in our house though, so I thought it would be great to make him his own custom, Lady Harvatine western shirt.

The fabric is one of my favorite little vintage repro prints at Joanns. I used it for the lining of a laptop bag I made for Harv last Christmas and it is now his favorite as well.
This is certainly the most elaborate article of clothing I have ever made. It was very satisfying what with all of the snaps and edge stitching.

Harv has already requested another. With his permission, I might try a little piping on the next one.