sewtakeahike

Process photos

 

A few months ago, I bought this old pencil sharpener on ebay for a few bucks.  It looked pretty tattered, so today I transformed it.

These are my process photos:

 

 

 

 

Maybe the excitement of having a new home in the near future spurred me on to beautify it?  Or maybe I was just tired of looking at the poor little sad thing sitting on my desk.  Either way, I'm glad I did it. 

Do you have any little projects laying around that really wouldn't take that long to complete that could possibly bring a little joy into your day if you just went ahead and did it?

Please do tell and then by all means get crackin'!

Happy Friday to the lot of you!

~Penny

fun, fun and lucky ducky

 

First of all, thank-you, thank-you everyone for playing along with my silly "down the road a'piece" game for the giveaway.  I giggled over and over again, and had such a good time reading all your comments.  So fun!  Thank-you for the smiles!!

 

Wendy in "Don't mess with mama"

And just to share a little bit about our weekend, we had an absolute blast camping and kayaking with some friends!  At one point, we were all making dinner and I turned around to find Wendy standing by the dinner area holding a spatula and a pistol.  I grabbed my vintage apron that Tara gave me and took the opportunity for a photo-shoot (pun intended).   She totally rocks this look, wouldn't you say?

Next, I must apologize!  I made a mistake on what Amy is giving away today.  I posted that she is giving a tea towel, but she is actually giving away a piece of her screenprinted fabric,  not a towel, so you can make whatever you like with it (I bought a piece of this from her and it's the exact image that's on the towel, but without the fabric border like the tea towel has and can hardly wait to use it.  It'll take a special project though!) 

So without any further delay, the lucky ducky winner of the screenprinted fabric and teapot paper piecing pattern from Amy is #27, Debra, who said, "When I lived in Georgia that was standard directions. Go over yonder and down the road a'piece. I bought a map!" 

Go ahead and get your info down the road a'piece to me, Debra!  Your color preference for the fabric and your address, and I'll send it over to Amy!

Happy Monday everyone!!

~Penny

I'll tumble for you!

 

 

Mindless, happy sewing.  That's what this was. 

At our last MQG meeting, Patty brought her GO cutter with some dies, and we learned about how to use it. 

After everyone had tried it out, she was gracious enough to allow Tara and I to cut out enough tumblers for 3 quilts!  One for me, one for Tara, and one for a friend of ours.

 

 

I'll be turning this quilt instead of binding it, and then hand quilting it with cotton crochet thread. 

 

And for those of you who are joining me for the Yoyo along, I'll be posting the first installment later this week.  This will be a long, slow, yoyo along, with a completion date set for October-ish.  So if you were on the fence about joining, please jump off and join!

Have a great week you lovelies you!

~Penny

pretty hexie, wouldn't you say?

 

I finished the hand quilting on this earlier this week, that process was part of the reason I felt so out of the loop!  It seemed like the stitching would never end.....

I used size 10 cotton crochet thread for the quilting, and for the backing, some vintage cotton with funky medallions

The finished size is 66X72. 

I present to you my "pretty hexie" quilt.

Have a great weekend everyone!

zipper reduction

I'm such a junker at heart.  I think it must have been imparted to me when I was growing up.  I dreaded driving anywhere with my dad in the summer because those trips that should have taken 20 minutes, always ended up taking 2 hours with all the detours to follow garage sale signs around town.

Now, I'm often just.like.him.

One thing I usually see in abundance while junking/thrifting are zippers.  And I snatch them up.  You can't beat the price at 5 or 10 cents each, and most of the time they are new, still in the package.

And yes, they're usually odd lengths like this 22 incher.   And that's perfectly fine with me since I can always cut it down to the size I need.

Here's how.

I have a project that needs an 8 inch zipper. 

Zippers are measured from the top of the zipper pull when the zipper is closed, down to the little metal stopper at the end when the zipper is open.

I measured from the top of the zipper pull, down to eight inches, marked the zipper, and then used the bartack stitch on my sewing machine (see the blue, highlighted stitch #25?)

to tack the zipper on my marking.  Then using a pair of craft scissors (not your good sewing scissors), cut the zipper about 1 inch below your new zipper stop.  Don't be timid, this will work even if the zipper teeth are metal.

There it is, the perfect zipper color and size for my project.

Happy Wednesday to you!

~Penny