Cheers to 80 Years

Yesterday we celebrated my mom's 80th birthday. Not how we had hoped to celebrate, but we marked the occasion in a low-key Covid-era way. Typically, my mom hosts a quilting retreat for her sisters and me over her birthday weekend. Over the years, the number of days has increased and its always a fun time. Because of Covid, she didn't feel comfortable having her sisters travel and stay with her so just mom and I spent the weekend sewing. We had fun and we both made lots of progress on our 2020 stash buster quilts.

To celebrate her day, I designed an SVG file to cut a vinyl decal to make her a shirt to wear. I made some sketches, and even drew my own wording, that I scanned into Adobe Illustrator and traced. Then I began arranging the motifs into a design. When I was happy with the design, I saved it as an SVG which is the type of file my Silhouette Cameo 4 uses to cut. 

This was the first time I tried to design my own SVG file and was really pleased with how it turned out. It was a little time consuming weeding out the pieces of vinyl from the cut design because of the intricacy, but other than that, it worked great. 

Mom gave me a hard time for making her a shirt advertising her age but when I explained that I was making a 60 one for me (I turn 60 in August) and one for my daughter (she turns 40 in October) for our "40-60-80" trip this summer, she agreed to wear it. LOL!

Have any of you designed your own SVG files? What types of designs have you made? I'd love to hear about them!

Happy Crafting!

~Sharla

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Conversation Heart Wood & Tin Valentines

I picked up these wood and tin hearts at Hobby Lobby the other day to do a quick vinyl project with my Silhouette Cameo 4 that I received as a Christmas gift from my kids. I wanted to make some conversation hearts to add to my Valentines table scape (it was looking a little bare after putting away the Christmas decorations!).

I love this unconventional blue and white color scheme for my Valentines table this year. I added a pop of green with some of my jadeite dishes. 

This project took less than 30 minutes, picking the font for the words was the hardest part! Now I'm looking for other quick projects to make. How many other people received Silhouette's for Christmas and trying to figure it out? Give me some fun ideas of what you are making with it!

Happy Crafting!

~Sharla

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New Year, New Finish-A-Long Goals

The holidays flew by and a new year is here, and with it a new year of the Finish-A-Long is beginning. The FAL took a break last year but posted on Instagram that they were ready to start back up again. So here is my very short goals list for the first quarter of 2021.

I decided to just focus on the three sewing challenges that I started in 2020 and hoping this will help me to focus and finish them in a timely manner (ha, ha!).

1. Moda Blockheads 3 Quilt: There are only five more blocks to go in this sew along, but I'm behind as usual. Still, I'm anxious to get caught up and begin working on my setting blocks.

2. 2020 Stash Buster Quilt: I have over half of the blocks completed to make a king-size quilt. I'm planning on working on this project at my mom's annual birthday sewing weekend this month (if she decided to have it with the continuing Covid concerns). Maybe just mom and I will have a sewing weekend for her birthday to celebrate her 80th! I want to gift this one this summer so I need to get it finished.

3. 2020 Temperature Quilt: I am waaay behind on this one and need to do some serious work on it if I am going to enter it in the Modern Quilt Guild's Temperature Quilt Exhibit that will be shown at QuiltCon in 2022. Deadline to enter is in July, I think. I'm still finalizing the layout in my head for this one.

That's it, my Q1 quilting goals. Simple. Straightforward. Focused. Hopefully I don't have any squirrels that will pop up to distract me:) Did you join the Finish-A-Long this quarter? If so, share your IG name so I can go visit your Q1list!

Happy Quilting, Happy New Year!

~Sharla

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A Pincushion Exchange

Last night our quilt guild celebrated the holidays with their annual Christmas carry-in meal and gift exchange, all socially distanced. Members were encouraged to gift a handmade pincushion and had three months to craft their gift.

I decided I wanted to make a pincushion from some of my vintage fabric stash and finally landed upon the idea of a Christmas tree pincushion. I chose some 30's fabric scraps that had either red or green in them. I used a muslin foundation topped with a piece of fusible batting. I then did a stitch and flip method of foundation piecing the scraps, adding some vintage lace and rick rack for finishing details.

Once pieced and the front and back tree shapes sewn together, the triangle shape was filled with crushed walnut shells. After sewing the bottom closed, I hot glued a vintage wooden thread spool to the bottom for the tree trunk base. A vintage button and metal bow topped the tree. I was happy with how my pincushion turned out, so much so that I almost hated to gift it!

To exchange our pincushions, we played Quilt Bingo. As someone got a 'bingo', they selected a wrapped package holding a pincushion. We played one looong game of bingo until everyone had a bingo and picked a gift. Since I was calling numbers, I took the last remaining package which happened to be from my mom. My mom made a pincushion from a vintage ceramic cat planter. Isn't it cute!! And extra special since she made it.

Are you making any special gifts for Christmas using vintage fabric or items? I would love to hear about your vintage creations!

Happy Sewing!

~Sharla

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A New Hobby

Our family celebrated both Christmas and Thanksgiving over the week of Thanksgiving. That means my Christmas tree looks pretty lonely with no Christmas presents under it this year. But it also means I get to play with my Christmas presents earlier this year! My kids gifted me a Silhouette Cameo 4 and I thought I'd share my first project!

I'm not sure I need another hobby, but I can see this will get addictive! I have a lot to learn with it but I was pleased with my first project. This is an old sled that my mom gave me and it had plywood where I imagine it once had a nicer board with a painted logo or design. I decided to dress up the plain plywood by painting it white then applied a vinyl decal that I cut on the Silhouette of a red truck carrying a tree with a Merry Christmas greeting. The weeding was a little tedious on those snowflakes and I learned my eyesight isn't what it used to be (truthfully, I really already knew that). The sled now is part of my patio decor and greets visitors to our home.

What holiday craft projects are you working on this month? I'll share another project I made this week after it is gifted. I'd love for you to share your projects with me!

Happy Crafting!

~Sharla

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Jello Mold Pumpkins

What??? OMG, I knew I hadn't posted in awhile, but a whole month?! You know there's some serious stuff happening in my sewing studio when I haven't posted for a month. Unfortunately, I've been doing some secret sewing and designing and can't share any of it right know. So I decided to pop in and share a little crafty project I made this morning, these vintage Jello Mold Pumpkins! They took no time at all - especially since I sent the hubby out to the workshop to drill the holes for me!

I rubbed a little gold metallic wax finish on the outside of the molds to give it a little hint of gold. Then drilled a hole in the center of the bottom and attached a drawer pull through the hole. Easy peasy! I picked up the drawer pulls at Hobby Lobby and chose ones that were white ceramic and had some gold accents so they coordinated with my other fall pumpkins and decor. Oh by the way, I am loving my navy, jadeite green and white fall table decor this year!

Actually, I still need to add some curly wire around the base of the knob for tendrils but I was so excited to share. I'll try to remember to share another photo after I get some wire and finish them properly.

I think these are so cute! I have more jello molds and am thinking of ideas to make some Christmas crafts. Got ideas? Please share 'em!

Happy Crafting!

Sharla

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A Lightbulb Moment Stockings

It's Friday again and I'm back to share the final "A Lightbulb Moment" bonus project with ya'll today. No Christmas would be complete without stockings hung by the fire! So here are two versions of my "A Lightbulb Moment" Stockings using the leftover scraps from making the large lightbulb blocks in my other projects.

The instructions are for a solid body stocking cut from fabric but I couldn't resist not using up all the triangles left over from making the lightbulb blocks. I just can't throw those pieces away unless they are really teeny tiny. Anyone else save all those leftovers?

This stocking used the oblong triangles cut from the sides of the lightbulb. I used my BlocLoc half-rectangle triangle ruler set to square the rectangles after sewing the triangles together. 

This stocking used the triangles from the upper corners of the lightbulb. They made half square triangles and I squared them up with my BlocLoc half square triangle ruler. I just love my BlocLoc rulers!

I just sewed the squares and rectangles into a pieced section that measured 11.5" x 19", fused the fleece batting to the back side, layered it with a piece of plain fabric for my stocking body back (right sides together), then cut out the stocking.

Click Here To Download "A Lightbulb Moment" 

Stocking Pattern

The lightbulb blocks in the cuff of the stocking are reduced to 25% the size of the original block. You'll need the "Best of Moda Bake Shop" book for instructions on how to make the block and then the download pattern gives you the formula for figuring the sizes of each piece of the block to reduce the size.

I've shared a total of 10 bonus patterns over the last couple of months. You can click here to see links to all of the patterns.

I've really enjoyed sharing all of these patterns and hope ya'll have enjoyed them too. I've been making plans on how I'm decorating for the holidays this year to incorporate all of these lightbulb projects. Yesterday I found jumbo lightbulb lawn stakes that light up and I'm going to use them as lights on my Christmas tree this year. I'm also drooling over Fiestaware's lightbulb dishes. I may have to splurge and buy me some of the lightbulb-shaped plates. Dang, why does Fiestaware have to be so pricey?

Tomorrow I'm presenting a trunk show with all of my "A Lightbulb Moment" projects. Can't wait, should be fun!

Happy Quilting!

~Sharla

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