On a Lark

The Beginning: Project T-Shirt Quilt

Emily — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:21:11 +0000

I finally took the plunge. I bought/got together all the materials to make my first quilt. I’m going with a t-shirt quilt, like this one that my grandmother made for me. This project will serve a dual purpose. First of all, I’ll get rid of the ridiculous amount of t-shirts I have piled up that are too sentimental to throw out but are taking up too much room in my closet. Second, hopefully this will teach me to enjoy a long-term project. As opposed to my normal project attitude in which I force myself to finish it within an arbitrary time frame even if it means staying up all night on a Sunday. More likely, my next quilt will just be a baby quilt, but at least I’m trying.

I ordered the batting and interfacing from Fabric.com and fell victim to the apparently unnecessary but nonetheless comforting need to preshrink my batting. I’m doing it right now . Then on Sunday, I took a trek to my all time favorite fabric store, Alewives. I don’t get there very often, but it’s always a treat. It’s small and cozy but they always have the newest patterns and designs and a lively clientele. Here are four of the fabrics I picked out for the borders:

I decided to go with purple and blue and throw in whatever patterns I found that I liked. I may add some more fabrics to these four, and I still haven’t picked out the binding and the backing, all in good time. If you find any great blue/purple patterns, send them my way.

Reduce the Inventory

Emily — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:38:32 +0000

This weekend my Mom, aunt, cousin, and I convened to make baskets. This accomplished a number of important goals. First of all, the theme of this summer in our family has been “reduce the inventory”. Three baskets made = one more spot in the attic cleared out. Secondly, it was a great way to enjoy a Saturday together now that we’re all finally back in the same state for a while. For our first try, I’d say they look pretty respectable. My aunt was a very patient instructor

My Mom went with the taller, rectangular one and had to go show us all up by sewing in a canvas lining the next day. I chose to use the two red stripes and my cousin went with the rope. Definitely an excellent Saturday. I think we’ve all earned our next planned outing: wine tasting.

A Work in Progress

Emily — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 16:38:00 +0000

Last week I set out to make a new runner for my keys/phone charger/change/mail etc. table and today I (sort of) succeeded. I started out with a Crate and Barrel inspiration and was quickly sidetracked by my insufficient selection of embroidery floss. But I pressed forward. And ended up with this:

I (sort of) like it. (Note: Sorry for the puppy paw in the photo, as it turns out, my brown puppy does really likes to participate in photo shoots. This one had the least amount of my dog in the picture of all the shots available.) I like the red and orange branches, but I ran out of the red and the remaining branches are orange and blue. After all that embroidering, I decided to cut my losses and move on. I should have moved onto something else for the day and come back to the runner project a few days later after I thought about what I really wanted it to look like. But of course, I got right back to work on it. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the finished result, but it’s not exactly what I had envisioned. Here’s what I started with:

And here’s the finished product:

The main fabric is kind of burlap-esque and the leaves are scraps from napkins and old projects. I lined it with cream broadcloth. Now that I’ve sort of completed all of the sewing projects for the house that were at the top of my to-do list, I’m looking for a new project. Maybe a quilt? Or back to some bags? At the end of the work day and playing with puppy, there isn’t a lot of time to work on a new project. But I forgot how relaxing it can be, even when the project isn’t going well

Just when I thought I had unpacked everything…

Emily — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:29:54 +0000

I found these!!! In the back of my mind I was wondering where my roaring bull cream pitcher and my mini disco ball had gone, and yesterday I found them, wrapped up and tucked away between stacks of fabric. Maybe I should take this is as a cosmic hint to unpack my sewing stuff. Because it’s currently stacked in tupperwares next to my sewing machine table. And apparently housing many treasures:

I uncovered all of this because I decided last night that I HAD to make a new runner for my keys/phone charger/change/mail table. No matter how many times my Mom warned me against starting a project late in the evening, I never learned. My kitchen table is now covered with embroidery floss and fabric. Check out my inspiration here.

It’s already off to a rough start because the fabric I have is darker and I didn’t have any tan/brown embroidery stuff. So we’ll see how it turns out. In the mean time, I broke down and bought some Shipyard Pumpkinhead. I think that this may be the missing piece of this runner project. Completed photos soon to come.

Small victories

Emily — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 23:50:06 +0000

I’ve been in the new place for three weeks and my sewing machine has, sadly, been collecting dust on its new table in its new room. But it’s summer and we’ve been extra lucky with lovely weather, so no complaints here. I did break it out the other day to solve a decorating issue that had been bothering me since I moved in. In the living room of my apartment the previous tenant had removed the closet doors on two closets in a prominent location in the room. My very handy Dad put my TV and internet stuff in one of the closets and the other is holding all of my winter clothes. Having my cold weather clothes staring at me as I’ve been enjoying the sunny weather finally got to be too much. I put up curtains over both closets.

Now when I say I sewed something, I should really say I hemmed something. Target can produce curtains cheaper than I can buy the fabric and who am I to stand in the way of cheap production? So I hemmed the curtains up about five inches and I sewed slots in each bottom corner for weights. Two quarters in each corner keeps them hanging straight even with the afternoon breeze.

What hides underneath:

So much better:

Sometimes it’s the small things that make all the difference Even though I’m not ready to break out the winter coats yet, I have to admit, I am looking forward to the crisp fall air and maybe a chance to get started on some new projects.

Finally moved in…mostly

Emily — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:51:58 +0000

Here we are, the puppy and I updating you all from our new apartment. After about a week and a half of moving, shopping, and unpacking, and oh yeah, working, I’m pretty much all unpacked. There’s still one big wall with five or six pieces of art leaned against it waiting patiently to be hung. And the coat closet is still waiting for a curtain to artfully (hopefully) cover it up. But otherwise, everything else has found a home. Including the eight throw pillows that I furiously sewed covers for to cope with the stresses and excitement of the whole move:

Please ignore the wrinkles, tennis balls, and puppy hair (you might not be able to see it on the photo but it’s there). You might recognize the floral Anna Maria Horner voile. At one point I had dreams that it would be a skirt. After several failed attempts, I think it looks pretty nice on my couch.

All in all, this new life is pretty excellent. Everyday flies by and I find myself rushing rushing rushing to relax for an hour or so before bed and enjoy the summer breeze. No complaints here.

Rainy Weekend Freezer Jam

Emily — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:34:47 +0000

The rain finally came down on Saturday and beat down the heat. My Mom and I took the opportunity to make up a batch of freezer raspberry jam. Raspberries are my all time favorite berry and, obviously, make my favorite jam. My Mom spent a morning picking at a friend’s house and came back with more quarts than we could ever eat fresh (even though I have been trying my best). So a few days ago she tested out the freezer jam recipe her friend suggested (which appears in the Sure Jell Pectin box). I don’t know much about jam making and canning, but as far as I can tell, freezer jam makes a lot more jam per amount of berries, has a fresher taste and involves less sterilizing and jar boiling because you always keep it refrigerated. And it is extremely delicious.

One half hour + 2 quarts of raspberries = 5 big mason jars of jam to keep me going until next berry season…or for quite a while anyway.

I win, home decoration industry!

Emily — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 18:18:15 +0000

A new town and a new apartment called for some new bedding. I found sheets and pillow cases without a problem, but when I started searching for a comforter cover, I was pretty surprised. Even at Target a 100% cotton cover with a decent thread count was somewhere around fifty to a hundred dollars. Now, I think we all know that a comforter cover is two flat sheets sewed together with some buttons, and I bought my 400 count flat sheets for 7.99.

So I figured, I’ll just make my own cover. But here’s where the home decor industry gets tricky. They only like to sell sheet sets. So if you want to make your own cover, you’d need to buy two sets, and by that time you almost should have just paid the artificially inflated cost. Luckily, I found two lovely high-quality silver/gray flat sheets at my local discount store. Home decor industry: 0, Emily: 1. So Friday afternoon, still sweating in our week long heat wave, I got to work on my comforter cover. For a complete tutorial, check out my Hubpage. Otto also helped:

This project had one unintended effect. I learned that I am a true unflinching creature of habit. I probably should have realized this when eating the same lunch for months in a row, or sitting in the same seat in giant lecture halls for the entire semester, but when I really figured it out was when I came home from my bedding shopping trip. With a bag full of purples, tans, grays, and sage greens, I thought to myself “new colors for a new adventure.” And then I realized that these are the exact colors of my sheets in grad school…and undergrad…and high school. *Sigh*

Anyhow, here’s the finished product. I had to photograph it on my folks bed because my bed is currently covered with paper work and things that need to be packed. Throw pillow covers are on Saturday’s agenda.

The “After” Pictures

Emily — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:16:46 +0000

After a week of trips to the hardware store, sweating in the once-a-year heat wave we’ve been having lately, sanding, gluing, staining, and oiling, I have discovered three things:

1. I love Minwax Red Mahogany Stain. It is the best and it was the perfect match to restore the six board antique chest.
2. I also love Gojo. It removes everything I manage to get on my hands minus the death factor associated with mineral spirits and paint thinner, and it’s exfoliating. So there you go, you should try it.
3. Happy mistakes. I learned this from my elementary school art teacher who was constantly facing budget cuts and used the term to keep us from running through a year’s worth of construction paper and paste in one week. And I am now applying this when I mess something up and can’t bear to go back and fix it. Most notably when I didn’t get every last speck of paint off the bureau and it created a sort of spotted (or pleasantly aged) effect when stained. But I did paint the knobs teal, so you can hardly tell…

And here are the finished products! I threw some intermediate pictures in there to show the process.

The Chest:

The Bureau:

The Sewing Machine Table:

Now that the furniture is all ready to go, I’ve moved on to the textile portion of my first apartment decoration Coming soon: how to make a duvet cover for $20.

The “Before” Pictures

Emily — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:16:18 +0000

On Wednesday, I found an apartment. A beautiful, sunny, close to work and town and places to walk the puppy apartment. But more importantly, an unfurnished apartment. I’m so excited to move in, but I don’t own much furniture of my own. Luckily, my whole family has been extremely generous and between my parents, aunt, and my boyfriend’s parents, it looks like I’ll have some places to sit and eat and sleep. Hurray!

So this morning I set to work getting my very kindly donated furniture ready to go. Here are the before pictures of the first three victims.

This is a six-board antique chest from my Aunt. It is so beautiful and I’m almost afraid to touch it. Still, there are a few watermarks on the top and I’d like to protect it from myself with a few coats of something just on the top. I think I’ll be able to take a few layers off the top and slap on a few layers of polyurethane:

And this table is going to be my new sewing machine table. It’s nice and big and there are some big changes ahead for it:

This bureau came from my boyfriend’s parent’s house. I love the way it looks but after years in my boyfriend’s childhood bedroom, it needed some love. After a morning at the hardware store and a few phone calls to my Dad, I think it’s nearly good as new and ready to a new look:

Stay tuned for the after photos.