A wonderful new year is upon us!!

Happy 2011 everyone!! With the new year comes exciting things... I will be getting my BS in Allied Health Sciences with an emphasis in Speech Language Pathology and Audiology, finally getting an apartment with my fiance, and getting married! That's right, we're engaged! We're planning a late August tiki-inspired wedding. Kris proposed with a gorgeous mystic topaz and diamond ring that he designed himself. I couldn't imagine a more perfect ring, or fiance.

 

 

I am sooo excited to start planning the wedding, and to finally see a time so soon that I will be able to start a life with my fiance in the same zip code!

But on to the true purpose of this post... I finished my very first quilt! A while back, Kris had given me over 50 t-shirts that he adored, but no longer wore for a variety of reasons. I divided them into music/concert t-shirts and movie/random fun t-shirts. I came out with 35 of the movie/randoms, so I decided they would make a nice t-shirt quilt. I cut them into 12" squares, 7 down and 5 across, interfaced them, sewed them together, added a 3" border, and brought it to a local woman's house get quilted together. The fee was reasonable and she had it done in just a few days. She gave me some good tips and tricks and was encouraging, which was helpful as a first-timer. I went with a warm and natural cotton batting and black cotton sheeting for the backing. Kris gets super toasty and didn't want something overly warm, so I thought these would be good choices for his quilt. I machine stitched the binding to the front and whip-stitched it in the back. It was time-consuming, but enjoyable.

 

 

and here's Kris all snoodled up in his new Christmas quilt :)

I would definitely do another one of these in the future, maybe for myself :)

Does anyone had any ideas on fun projects that I can do with concert t-shirts that will display the front and back? I still have a bunch of Kris's shirts that I would like to do something nice with for him rather than have them sit on a shelf in the closet.

Before I bid you adieu, I want to show off the AWESOME tiki plates my lovely, talented fiance painted for me as an anniversary gift:

He also got me this super sweet calendar that will keep me busy sewing, all year long!

My eyes say it all... Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone had as great a Halloween as I did! Luckily, I was able to get work off for the weekend to travel home for the festivities. And in case I forgot to mention, I now work in a fabric store! Anywho, I was going to be a dia de los muertos bride for Halloween, but felt to lazy as there was practically no effort put into the costume. So in light of recent events involving spiders everywhere in my life, I decided if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. One afternoon before Halloween, my roommate and I popped Casper into the DVD player, and went to work on our costumes. I assisted her in making her raccoon tail and she assisted me in assembling my eyeball hair combs for my spider costume. My boyfriend Kris was Fido, and his costume turned out wonderfully as well! We bought the patch from Etsy which I just sewed onto his shirt, and he designed the collar himself. He's a crafty man, whether he wants to admit it or not :)

I bought some black crepe that was discounted to $1.97 a yard for having a flaw and I couldn't seem to find, and some felt and plastic hair combs for the eyeballs. This costume was under 10 bucks to make. Seriously. I just made a little body, stuffed some spider legs, and connected them with some string. I also used elastic to attach the legs to my wrists so I could have my hands free for eating and playing games during the evening. Some black leggings combat boots, and fun make-up were the finishing touches! Kris used a grey belt, some metal rings, the metal bottom of two lightbulbs, and a little wooden block to make his Zomcon collar.

We were quite the festive and crafty couple!

 He and his buddies also made all sorts of crazy food including a graveyard cake, zombie punch with spooky dry ice fog, jalapeno artichoke dip that looked like brains, bat wings, and other great things. They used (sanitized!) barbie and doll parts as drink stirrers and food servers, too!

This Halloween was fun, festive, and made from the heart!

P.S... I'm planning on making a dress this weekend :)

Happy Autumn!

It's my favorite time of year. Getting all cozied up under a pile of blankeys with a warm mug of citrus green tea and my new Fall shows couldn't get any dreamier. Well, except that there is a nagging pile of textbooks waiting for me in my bedroom. But that aside, Fall in Michigan is glorious. I loved UP Fall best of all, but Grand Rapids Fall isn't so bad either. I have already broke out my puffy vest and scarf, and can't wait for it to get chilly enough to wear my sock monkey hat that my parents got me for my birthday!

I have a chili pepper red peacoat with buttons down the back that this will complement nicely :)

Switching gears completely, I have something new and adorable to show you:

I've been meaning to make a purse out of this fabric for months, and bought this pattern, Vogue 7889, with such intention, but never got around to it. This pattern came with instructions for 4 different purses, and I had originally planned on view D, but changed my mind at the very last second and just impulse made view A instead. I love it! The outer shell is a Michael Miller fabric the inside shell is Heather Bailey. Here's what the inside looks like, it could almost be reversible:

It fits all of my things really nicely, with room to spare for when I need to throw in my headphones or a pepsi for the road. My last purse didn't have any pockets and was lined with black cotton, the same color as my phone, so I could never find it. This one little pocket is PERFECT for my phone, and is in a nice struggle free reach zone. The top also opens up nice and wide so I can easily scrounge around for what I need.

I highly recommend this style handbag for the fall. Something easy, quick to sew, and casual with spare room for mittens!

Mr. Tiki

It's been so long! But I'm back with something new and exciting. I embroidered a tiki dude onto a shirt for my Mr to wear to a wedding this past weekend. He loved it! And I thought he looked quite dapper in it, as well. This is my second embroidery project i've completed, and I am thrilled with how it turned out.

And here's a close-up of Mr. Tiki, fresh out of the hoop!

I used the Tiki Freak pattern from Sublime Stitching, with their transfer paper and stylus as well, since it was on a black shirt. The white transfer paper didn't really work that well on this shirt material, so I mostly just eyeballed the pattern and went free-hand. I changed the pattern around the eyes a bit because I thought it was too busy, but otherwise I tried to stay pretty true to the pattern. I love this design because it is colorful, yet still masculine and to boyfriend's taste.

Next on the list: a birthday dress (I hope!). My 23rd birthday is next Friday, the 11th, and I would LOVE to have the time to make a new dress to wear out to dinner and then maybe a drink or two at the voodoo bar. Wishful thinking everyone!!

I'll be back soon!

Sorry I've been away so long! This past month has been a whirlwind of craziness, and I haven't gotten any down-time to work on anything new. I have so many projects lined up that I want to get started on asap, but other things have to come first. I started a new job as a keyholder at Francesca's Collections, a brand new store that opened last week, so that's been gobbling up my time, on top of being a full-time summer student. My classes will be wrapping up at the end of June so my free time should be my own after that. I will have to squeeze in a little bit of time for a project as my Mr. want's me to embroider him a shirt to wear to a wedding in early June, but that's pretty much all I have time for right now. Hopefully, I'll be back soon!

Lantern Embroidery!!

I tried my hand at a little embroidery for the very first time last night... and I loved it! I ordered a few patterns and supplies from Sublime Stitching and got right to stitching in the little free time that I could find. It was a good de-stresser, but now i'm looking around my apartment thinking "hmm, what in here could I embroider?" haha.

The patterns that I am now the proud owner of are:
- ChinaTown
- Tiki Freak
- Krazy Kitchen
- Tattoo Alphabet
- Dia De Los Muertos
- Craftopia

I used three lanterns from the Chinatown pattern sheet to embroider my pillowcase.

The comforter on my bed is patchwork that's supposed to resemble a rice bag, and I have little paper lanterns hanging above my bed as well, so I thought that these colorful lanterns would tie in my plain-jane pillowcase nicely.

Not too shabby for my first try, eh? I'm pleased.

Now does anyone have suggestions on things that I can embroider for dudes?

The Slippery Pepper

My boyfriend and his crew like to get together and cook something wild as often as they can. It can get out of control. And now they have started a blog to chronicle those events and tasty, tasty meals! Their first post is very down to earth and subtle for them, but if you have any interest in reading about mind blowing cuisine in the future, I'd suggest you check it out!