Repurposed Cabinet

I have lots of stuff.....lots of stuff!!  And, I love cabinets with lots of little drawers, which works out great because I need them to store all my stuff! :)  So, I found a project to help with this....

 

Sadly, my Granny passed away in June of 2011.  She was a "collector" of lots of things!  She was a teacher, so she had lots of school stuff - books, crafts, and other stuff that she could never stand to get rid of.  She was an artist in many different ways - but, she loved quilting and painting most.  She liked teaching quilting classes, spent hours and hours reading through quilting books/patterns, and working through small projects.

Granny with my youngest Son - Thanksgiving 2010

When she passed away, my Mom and her sisters began sorting through her house.  My husband and I traveled back to her house to help them load up some moving trucks.  It was an exhausting weekend!!  We were planning on leaving behind this old metal cabinet full of dust sitting on the side of the garage.  We had some room left in the moving truck, and I had a big idea to paint it and clean it up to put in my little studio in my basement.  So we loaded it up and it came home with me!

My husband and I took it all apart (well...mainly my husband)!  We cleaned it up, drawer by drawer...  It took a lot of time to take all the little drawer pulls off - spray paint them and add them back on to the drawers.  I used a metallic silver spray paint for these:

We also painted each drawer and the outside cabinets with white spray paint. You can see from this photo we had quite an operation going in our garage.  (These are horrible photos that I just took with my cell phone!)

And, here's the finished product!

I am so upset that I didn't take a before photo so that you could really appreciate the transformation.  But, imagine a dirty, rusty, and matte gray version of the above.  I decided to put it in my "studio" and store all my scrapbooking stickers by categories, like Christmas, Halloween, July 4th, Summer, etc.

Took a while to get them all arranged and the drawers labeled - but, I am feeling very, very organized now!  As you pull the drawer open, the front drops for easy access to the contents.  I think the cabinet was originally used to store 8 1/2" by 11" sheets of paper - maybe handouts in school or something like that.  

It was a lot of work, but I love it!  And, I'm so glad that I decided to throw it in that moving truck.  I'm sure Granny would be glad to see it being used!!  :)

Lots to do!

I have tons to get done around here!  Many, many projects underway and I really haven't been doing too much sewing lately. With the holiday's, work, and getting some other stuff done - I just haven't had time!  First up, I have been working on a new quilt with 60 degree diamonds.

I actually took photos to put together a tutorial (my first!).  I will be posting that as soon as I get my top completed.  I keep changing my mind on how to piece the stars together!  I need some more fabric for my newest idea....so I might head to the quilt shop this afternoon.

I also started a Dresden Plate quilt out of Camille's Ruby collection.  I really like it, but struggled with the one shown in the photo above.  It isn't laying flat like it should, so I've been reading that I just need to sew the seams in more to make it lay flat.  Not a good sign because I plan to make 12 of them for a large quilt!  I do love the colors though - and it was fun to make.  Just need to sew more precise I guess!

I also plan to make a quilt from this fabric for a good friend who is expecting a baby boy in a few weeks.  I need to get on it to get this completed!

And, next in my plans is to start making this quilt.  I've had this pattern and fabric planned for quite a while - I just want to get it started.  The pattern is Basket Lattice by Sheri Pape Designs.  

And, the fabric is Amy Butler...which is gorgeous!

And, I took 3 quilts to the quilt shop right before the holidays that are just sitting there in piles waiting to be binded.  I will be posting about those when I'm finished as well.  I've also finished my French Roses quilt top - just need to get the back together and then off to the quilters for that one too!

So much to do, so little time!!!!

New goodies

I have some goodies (meaning new fabric purchases) to report!  I also just took 3 quilts in to be quilted, so I'll be blogging about those soon too!

I got a half yard of each of the fabrics in the new Riley Blake collection "So Sophie" designed by Jen Allyson and Deena Rutter for My Mind's Eye.

What a lovely little stack!  Here's a link to all the swatches - I only got the pink and blue sets.  They are adorable and I'm excited about using them (of course, just adding this to the list of projects I have in mind!)  My favorite is the polka dots - so cute!

I also found some fabric to match my camper fabric (yay!).  A while back I found this cute camper fabric at a local quilt store and thought it was perfect for my family.  We have a camper and love going as much as we can between Spring and Fall.  So, I thought this would be cute to make a camping quilt with. It is from the collection "On the Road" for Robert Kaufman designed by Ronnie Walter.  Isn't it cute?

I found the "Fresh Meadows" collection designed for Exclusively Quilters on Fabric.com (which has great deals on fabric by the way).  I ordered the 2 leaf prints and the one with the brown background at the top of the photo below.  I've combined it with a yellow, green, and orange from my own stash and think the group looks great!!!

Now I just have to decide on a pattern for the 2!

It's a girl thing....

One of my favorite quilts to date is finally finished!!!  It took far too long - I started back in February or March of this year.  It wasn't hard to make - just took me forever to get it finished.  At least I got it done before the 1-year mark...phew!  I had a goal to finish a quilt top every 2 weeks at the beginning of the year.  I think this was the 4th quilt of the year - so, obviously I am not doing well at all in making my goal!

It's a hexagon quilt made from Girly Girl by Pat Bravo's Art Gallery.  I really like her fabric and have purchased a lot more since this!

I found this hexagon quilt along at Jaybird Quilts while I was on maternity leave with my youngest.  He was a colicky baby and was only content when I was holding him.  So, her blog was one of the first that I came across and it actually gave me the inspiration to start my own here (along with a few others: Cluck Cluck Sew, Simplify, p.s. i quilt, etc.)  It was a good way to pass the time - I spent hours browsing Flickr, reading blogs, and catching up on this "blogland" that I never knew existed before - all while sitting on the couch with my new little guy just praying that he wouldn't cry! :)  So, I've had this quilt in my head for over a year now!  It is amazing how many good tutorials there are out there.  I've got a list a mile long now, which continues to grow all the time.

I used Aqua Garden for the outside border and backing, and I used Berry Whispers for the binding.  I think that the bright pink frames the quilt well.  I purchased the fabric from I Love Sewing, a cute new quilting store in Fremont, Nebraska.

These photos didn't turn out all that well because it got too dark on me - I'll have to get some better ones sometime.  My husband helped hold the quilt for me in the backyard - and, as you can see from the little feet in the bottom - he had a little helper from my son too!  He has to be in on the action at all times.

I have it quilted at my local quilt store in a swirling design.  After I washed it, it crinkled up and became perfectly cuddly.  

I used 1 jelly roll to make this quilt + inner border, outer border, binding, and backing.  I followed Jaybird Quilt's Hexagon Quilt Along for the most part.  I sewed 2 jelly roll strips together and used the Creative Grids 60 Degree Double Strip Ruler to cut triangles all the way down the strip.  I was able to cut 12 triangles from each strip.  I used 6 of these triangles to make each hexagon - and some half hexagons on the sides. The top was sewn together in diagonal strips, and I used leftover pieces to fill in the gaps on the bottom and top.

It is approximately 48" by 66" finished size, including the narrow inner border and outer border, and after washing.

I'll have to set a new goal for next year - perhaps I can stay on-track....we'll see!  Here's to more time in 2012!  I'm already planning my projects......

French Roses WIP

Wow!  It has been a really long time since I have posted anything.  My regular job has been incredibly busy, so I haven't had much personal time.  This is what I have been working on though....

I saw a quilt made with this pattern at my local quilt store several years ago.  I bought several (way too many!) fat quarters at that time of Charms designed by Nancy Halvorsen for Benartex.

I am using a pattern called French Roses by Heather French.  (I still found one for sale here and made by someone else here.)  It is a raw-edge applique method - so will look much better after washing!

I cut out shapes using templates provided in the pattern.  This is my first time not using a rotary cutter to cut everything out, but it didn't take as much time as I thought.  Just did it while watching TV for a few nights.

They take quite a while to sew together though.  And, I've been having a hard time finding enough time to get sewing done with the little kids. :(  Here's a close up on one:

I have 21 blocks down, and 21 more to go!!  I have modified the size a bit....I'll be making it 6 x 7 blocks instead to make it more of a twin size quilt.  I'm also using a variegated thread, which you can kind of see in photo above.  It matches the colors of the fabric perfectly and I really like it so far.  Also, because I have so many left over fat quarters of this fabric, I think I will sew together the fat quarters in a simple patchwork for the backing.  Hoping to get it done soon!!!

My Whirlygiggle Gift

I made this quilt for a good friend's new baby boy - another baby quilt! :)  I love this pattern and was excited to make something for someone using it...

I used the Whirlygiggle tutorial from Crazy Mom Quilts, except I didn't follow it completely.  I used a charm pack, so I ended up with smaller blocks.  And, I didn't create a template.  I just cut the charm square from 2" from the top on one side, to the other side at 2" from the bottom.  I had a lot of squaring up at the end, but it worked easily.

I bought some charm packs for Love U by Deb Strain from Moda a while back when I found out I was having a new baby boy.  Because each of the charm packs had both the boy blue and green fabric and girl pink fabric included, I picked out the "boyish" squares from 2 different charm packs.  I needed 2 identical squares to form each pinwheel block.

 

I was originally planning to do a solid white border to make the green inner border pop, but I didn't like it at all.  Just ended up looking blah - nothing exciting.  Here is a photo of that idea...(but, so glad I changed my mind!)

Instead, I decided to do a scrappy border with the leftovers.  It added so much more color and fun to the quilt.  Here's a close-up...

I love the owls and snails....very cute for a little one!  I used a flannel polka dot from the same collection for the backing to make it more cuddly.  I quilted it myself using a "kind of zig-zag" pattern, which you can see a little bit here.

It was so hard to give away...pretty selfish huh?  I really liked the way it turned out, but I know it will be very well loved, which is what I want.  

I used basting spray for the first time on this quilt too.  It made the process so much quicker - and, I avoided those annoying safety pins by doing it that way.  However, it was very sticky, and kind of frustrating because everything kept sticking to each other.  There is probably a better method of doing it that I haven't figured out yet though! :)

Circles

Another baby quilt for my son.....

I found some similar quilts on various blogs and Flickr, and decided to make one for my son.  I loved the circles, and found this Drunkards Path Block Tutorial by the Sometimes Crafter.  I also got inspiration from this Raw Edge Circle Quilt Tutorial by Cluck Cluck Sew, although I decided against the raw edges (even though I think they are really cute too).

 The finished quilt measures approximately 40" by 50."  I squared each smaller block up to 5.5" when making the quilt - which means that each bigger circle square was 10" finished.

I used red, blue, and brown fabric from the All Star collection by My Mind's Eye from Riley Blake Designs, which I actually won from a local quilt store.  I also used additional pieces that I had on hand.  The brown polka dot backing is flannel, and the top is cotton.  After washing, it shrunk up quite a bit because of the flannel on the back.

These photos were taken in my parents backyard.  The weather is starting to get beautiful - can't wait for Spring!!!  He is enjoying being outside as well - as you can see! :)