Thursday, February 24, 2011

So sweet my teeth hurt!

What do you do when you realize that the totally floofy-girly garbage can you bought for next to your ironing board is totally useless because it has more holes in it than Swiss cheese and all of your fabric bits and thread fall out of it's sides?
Why, you spend two and a half evenings selecting the perfect fabric, designing and making a totally gorgeous liner for it of course!
When you put them together, you get the sweetest darn-tooten waste bin evah!
I was going to use Nicey Jane, but then I happened across my fairly substantial stash of Ava Rose and decided that was definitely the way to go.
I think it's perfect, don't you?
I used an Ava Rose polka dot on the bottom. I know you won't ever see it, but I'm nutty that way.
I waffled between the white and turquoise of this flower print for the inside, but since I had a lot more of the white, I went with it. I used a darling turquoise polka dot on the bottom of the inside.
One of my friends suggested that it would be cute in a baby or little girl's room for storage.
Another angle.
I know it seems silly to do this for a garbage can, but it's for use by my ironing board, so it will only have fabric, thread and paper in it, no nasty icky stuff.
I am quite proud of myself for figuring out how to make a liner that's round and tapered. It's quite a feat for the math challenged (aka:me).
And now for a gratuitous cute dog photo:
Don't your teeth hurt from all that sweetness?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Eating my curds and whey...

Lorrie, from my SewMod group, came up w/the idea of making a tuffet at one of our sew-ins. Her neighbor was kind enough to cut the base and sink the grommets for the feet for us. Lorrie acquired and cut the foam and the ginormous buttons, so all we had to do was pick out feet, fabric and sew our little hearts out!
My cousin Ashley and I spent the evening 2 Fridays ago rummaging through my stash and were able to come up with these:
They are mostly Amy Butler, but there's a couple of Denyse Schmidt and Robert Kaufman thrown in. I love these so much, and have a ton of strips left over, that I'm going to have to make a quilt out of them as well.
There was a lot of prep involved to make the tuffets. I spent all day Saturday foundation piecing my strips into 8 sections. I tend work slower when I do scrappy projects, agonizing over each fabric placement. I think it's harder than a planned out quilt. I would not have known how to make the foundation peiced sections w/o having previous paper piecing experience either. The directions were not very clear on that part. I eventually got a system in place, and that helped speed things up.
Shelley made her entire tuffet at the sew-in. I was very much impressed. And for some strange reason, everyone of us felt the urge to wear our tuffets on our heads. We were all reminded of that cartoon character on Fat Albert.
Some action shots:
Lorrie, Shelley and Andrea arranging the tuffet cover.
You have to get it on just so, or it will be off center.
Andrea and Lorrie  Pattie putting the feet on. (sorry Pattie!)
Yeah! Andrea clapping at our success.
There are no photos of us putting the buttons on, since it took all 4 of us to push the button in, brace the back of the tuffet against the pushing, tie the button and staple the beejeezes out of the thread to the back to keep the button in place. I pulled a muscle in my buttocks doing it. The lengths we go through for a good project! Pattie had left after we made her help w/the first one, smart woman!
I had to strip piece the fabric for my giant button, because I didn't bring any yardage with me to the sew-in.
Mine is about 17" in diameter and 9" tall. You can alter the height w/different feet. (I added this because I've had a couple of people think they might be pincusions).
I L.O.V.E. it! It's true, I do love it. And yes, Sue, I would marry it! Wouldn't you?
The tower of tuffets:
Top - Andrea used Kate Spain Fandango
Middle- my Amy Butler and friends
Bottom - Lorrie used Amy Butler Soul Blossoms
And all finished (except for Pattie's, because she had to leave early, but which I'm dying to see because she is using Sanae's Arcadia, which is totally gorgeous.)
Shelley's is on the top, she used a wide selection of Kaffe Fasset, of course. (Shelley's a Kaffe-o-phile).
I'm already thinking up what I should make my next one out of! They were all totally fabulous.
But I can't start another one yet, because I have a waste bin liner to work on tonight. That's a different post all together.
Our next group project to tackle will be the Amy Butler Gumdrop Pillow poof. Now I just need to find where I put that pattern!
Lorrie has more in process photos over at the SewMod blog and the SewMod Flickr site.