Just saw “my” dress on a commercial for Anchorman 2. I feel so retro.
Category Archives: Offbeat
Six of Seven
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I have six of seven couch cushions completed! One more pillow to finish the couch, then the chair and a half can wait until after our holiday company rush is over before I start its three pillows.
Boy, that mushroom really stands out, doesn’t it?
Keep sewing, my friends!
Moss Terrariums
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Winter is coming … and before it gets here, I want to be sure to have a little bit more green in my house. We live in an area surrounded by trees. During spring and summer, we have long months surrounded by gorgeous green hills. Everything feels so alive! Then there’s fall, when the trees really put on a show. And then comes winter, and the leaves are gone until spring. Every winter I seem to miss the color green a little more.
So this year, there will be a little extra green right there on our coffee table, where I’ll be sure to see it daily. Because we have cats, I went with terrariums. This way the plants have built in force fields to protect themselves, and there’s the bonus atmospheric bit where they recycle their own water. I can enjoy them all the time without having to fuss over them.
The smaller terrarium with horses is filled with moss from my own yard. The larger one (a cookie jar from Walmart, $7) contains moss and lichens from adhocstock on Etsy. I’ve ordered from her before (terrariums are a great gift for kids!) and she ships a wonderful assortment of beautiful, healthy plants. Just for fun, I added an Empire State Building souvenir and some tiny deer, creating my own tiny version of I am Legend. I think I’m better prepared to face the lack of green outside now.
In other news, I’ve now completed four of seven couch cushions. Slow and steady wins the race, right?
Herringbone Shuffle Dining Room Wall
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I finally finished painting my dining room! (Well, that’s not exactly true, I do still have some touching up to do … but I’m still counting it.) I used the Herringbone Shuffle stencil from Royal Design Studio Stencils, but because we have heavily textured walls I had to trace the stencil with a pencil …
and fill it in by hand with a small paint brush.
It took AGES, but it did allow for a much more random color placement.
The cats are thrilled to be allowed back into the room, and I’m working on a few smaller projects to finish things off, like hanging the curtains, touching up the paint and recovering the dining room chairs with a bright Marimekko fabric that a wonderful friend gave me.
I’m finding the chairs difficult to photograph, but there are the first two. (Please ignore the puppy-chewed spindles on the chair to the right. ) I may also recover the ironing board because it often sits out in this room while I’m sewing. It should be pretty too, right?
Sewing Handmade Shoes
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I made shoes! The pair of Mickey Mouse shoes above was my first “test” pair, just to see if I really could do it and if the fit would need adjusting. I’m pleased with them and wear them around the house constantly. Since they have a simple fabric sole, I think of them more like slippers.
But when you love to sew, it’s rarely enough to make something just once, without throwing in your own little changes. If you think about it, there’s really a lot you can do with that little area of fabric that becomes a shoe upper. I decided to try a mismatched pair, using the quilt-as-you-go method with fabric strips.
If you’d like to try it, you can buy a great How to Make Shoes PDF pattern from Shoeology. Shoeology also sells a very nice waterproof soling material with a nice grip, if you’d like to wear your shoes out into the world. There are instructions for making insoles included in the detailed pattern, but since I’ll likely end up with several pairs of homemade shoes I thought I’d try an insole I could easily switch out, something with a little more arch support. So far, these are very comfy and they only cost about $6.
And the finished shoes:
Forrest Gump knew, “Momma always says there’s an awful lot you could tell about a person by their shoes.”
I may have ended up with shoes only a quilter could love, but since I am a quilter, I’m OK with that. :)
CoopCrafts 