sewtakeahike

bag & iron

I just love linen.  And the colors gray and mustard together.

I've had the japanese magazine that has a pic of this bag in it sitting on my desk for oh, 2 months now, constantly reminding me I wanted to make this bag.  I think the linen works fabulous with the morning call and echino fabrics, don't you?

(I'm contemplating selling it though, how many bags can I actually use?  email me if you're interested....)  yeah, that didn't last long.  I'm keeping it. :)

AND!!!!

I took your advice:

and so far, so good!  I'm hoping this one won't have to sustain the injuries that my last iron had to.  I'm going to be really careful.  I'm serious.

Happy New Year to you all!

~Penny

wonky triangle quiltie-poo

is done!!!  I loooooooove this quilt!!  The finished size is 40X40.  I really think this is the very first quilt I've made that I adore every single fabric in it.  Would you just look at those hello betty sunny side up dots????  LOVE them!  And my precious flea market fancy scrappage, yum.my!!

I used brown thread to quilt the plaid pattern in it:

I think I'm going to HAVE to make another one of these, but BIG!!!  Yehaw!

~Penny

900 and counting

keep 'em coming!! 

We're at 900 signatures! 

Make sure you're part of the combined voice aimed at bringing flea market fancy back! 

And while you're there, make sure to enter the giveaway!

29 fat quarters of flea market fancy (that's 7.25 YARDS of fabric!)

AAAAAAAAAAND:

some goodies directly from Denyse Schmidt's studio!

Come join the fun!

rust removal from fabrics

 

Isn't this the cutest fabric EVER???  I recently swapped someone for it and she warned me it had some spots on it.  I didn't care.  I wanted it!!  When I got it home, I washed it in my laundry detergent that will seriously take anything out.  Except rust.  Darn.

Until I found out that there is a way to get it out.  Using something most people have laying around, and a little sunshine.  Today, we are going to learn how to get rust stains (and even those diffuse yellow stains that distinguish a lot of older fabrics) out of our precious fabrics! 

ringalingaling!!  class.has.started.

This is what you will need:

• your rust riddled fabric
• lemon juice
• paper towels
• sunshine!

And this is what you do.

(if you look closely near the side edge, you can see the rust.  The fabric was covered like that with rust)

1. lay your dry fabric out on the paper towels
2. juice your lemon(s)
3. soak the rust stains with lemon juice so that the paper towel and fabric stick together. (and you don't have to be particular with this step.  My fabric had seeds and pulp all over it)
4. lay the paper towel/fabric layer out in the sun to dry.
5. repeat if necessary.

I did this twice to my rust riddled fabric and the stains are mostly gone.  I'm kind of picky though, so if the sun is out today, I'll do it once more. 

Tada, no more rust to speak of!

Have a great, rust-free weekend!!

~Penny

i think i can, i think i can

finish this weekend.  Here's a sneek peek of the back of the "a little help from my friends" quilt.

UPDATE:

here's the complete back

I pieced some of my favorite scraps from the scraps to treasure swap together to make wonky strips by color.  I love how it's turning out!  I'm really drawn to gray right now, so I chose this gray bonnie blue basics I had in my stash for the background.

In other news, I was so surprised to find this:

in my mailbox this week from Jacquie at Tallgrass Prairie Studio.  She used some of her scraps to make this pillow cover and sent it to me!  I love, love, love it Jacquie!  Thank-you!

Hope you have a weekend like no other!

~Penny

p.s.  I'm now getting email notification of comments again, yay!!

::tour de fat:: finale

::tour de fat:: part 2

::tour de fat:: part 1

 

For the next couple of weeks during my little blog break, I have set up some posts for your viewing pleasure of the Tour de Fat from this last weekend.  The "tour" is put on by New Belgium brewery here in town that makes Fat Tire beer.  Basically, thousands of people dress up in wierd costumes and ride through town on their bikes.  Totally fun!  If you are ever near Fort Collins when this event is happening, you should seriously check it out.  There were over 10,000 bikes this year and it was a total kick!  I took over 100 pics and I could have taken loads more if my camera card hadn't been full. 

Anyway, enjoy the show!

seriously, I wasn't going to. but I HAVE to.

I'm serious.  I really wasn't going to post again for a while, but this, oh this changed things. 

A little random act of kindness from Kristine.  Some County Fair on the top and precious Flea Market Fancy on the bottom.  Thank-you Kristine!!

Now seriously, I probably won't be around much in blogland until the last week of September.  L-man and I have some family visiting for the holiday (which means my sewing room will have guests) *AND THEN* (love that movie!) my Bernie is going off to get a manicure, pedicure, and a little tweek here and there, so no sewing for me for a little bit. 

We'll catch up soon!

Calling all Flea Market Fancy lovers....

  

This, dear friends, is a photo of my Flea Market Fancy scrap stash being guarded by Mr. Rooster, his menagerie, and El Gato.  They're guarding it because that's all I have.  And it was bequeathed to me by the most wonderful "Fairy Godmother" there ever was.  And I love it dearly.  You see, I missed out on the Flea Market Fancy craze as it was going on right under my nose.  I never ordered even a fat quarter of it.  Now that it's insanely hard to find, I know about it, and would love to own some.  As would who knows how many others. 

That's why I have decided to take action.  And I hope you will join me.  I have contacted Free Spirit Fabric and inquired about another run of Flea Market Fancy.  I won't give the whole story here, because you'll be able to read about their reply on Flea Market Fancy Freaks, a blog I started with the help of a few others, to get the attention of the powers that be over at Free Spirit. 

If you'd like to help (pretty, pretty please), head over to Flea Market Fancy Freaks (FMFF) and leave your signature (comment with name and location) on the main post.  There are several things listed on FMFF you can do to get involved, one of them being to spread the word.  How can you do that, you ask?  Grab this button:

 

which is complete with a link to the FMFF home page and post it to your site and tell others!   Let's see how many signatures we can get in the next week!  Gooooooooo team!!

p.s.  If you need your own guards for your personal FMF stash you can find them here!