Wedding Dress Blues To Beautiful Bear!

What to do when your wedding ceremony and reception leave that special dress you spent months picking out a bit worse for wear?  One of my customers faced this very dilemma when she decided to re-visit her beloved wedding dress that she had carefully packed away 5 years earlier.  To her dismay, she also got to re-visit the drink that was spilled on it during the reception and the footprints of the shoes that had repeatedly caught on her train.  Once the cleaners declared it irreparable, she contacted me to ask if I could use the fabric to make a teddy bear for the baby girl she is expecting shortly.

The original dress was a beautiful fitted satin gown with a satin edged chiffon overlay.  I constructed the body of the bear out of a double layer of the satin and chiffon in order to simulate the look of her original dress.  The fabric for the feet and ears was taken from the Cocalo Daniella bedding set that she will be using in her daughter’s nursery.  The bow is constructed from more of the chiffon overlay fabric which I edged on each side with the original satin piping.

What a wonderful challenge, and what a very special way to remember the dress!

Up, Up and Away…

I just finished a custom airplane crib quilt for a customer that wanted me to replicate a vintage red and white airplane quilt that she had found an image of online.  After a little digging online, I traced the image to a 1930’s quilt displayed in “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts,” presented by the American Folk Art Museum at the Park Avenue Armory, March 25–30, 2011.  (http://www.folkartmuseum.org/?p=folk&t=images&id=8665) and the pattern to a 1930’s quilt pattern called “Lindy” that was originally published by Capper’s Weekly, but later reprinted in Better Homes and Garden’s “American Heritage Quilts.” 

The original quilt pattern was for a 74” x 85” quilt using large 10.5” blocks.  I reduced the pattern 50% to make 5.25” blocks that allowed me to keep the overall layout of the original quilt, but accommodate the smaller crib quilt size.

Overall, it was a great project to research and re-create the quilt and I had such a fantastic time doing it!

My completed Red and White Airplane Quilt!

“Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts,” presented by the American Folk Art Museum at the Park Avenue Armory, March 25–30, 2011.  

Image of the original quilt from the exhibit - I think mine was pretty close (though much smaller).

"Lindy" Quilt Pattern

My first practice block

Completed quilt with backing view.

Completed quilt close up.

Completed quilt all ready for shipping.

Elephant Prints

I just finished a custom elephant using the adorable 100% Organic cotton fabrics from Cloud9’s “My Happy Nursery” collection.  He came out really cute and was very hard to part with once I had finished him!

The Freezer - A Girl’s Best Friend!

You may think that a freezer is a strange thing to get excited about – especially on a cold, snowy Colorado evening.  However, when faced with the prospect of feeding a hungry family after a long day, there is something magical about opening the deep freezer and gazing at the rows and rows of summer harvest all carefully put away for times like this.

I love to garden – mostly because I love to cook and eat the results!  This year we grew tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, romano beans, edamame, raspberries, grapes and herbs.  The tomatoes are the core crop in our garden.  We grow a few plants of eating tomatoes (sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and some form of beefsteak for the mandatory summer BLT’s and grilled hamburgers), but the bulk of our crop are Polish plum tomatoes that we grow from seeds that my Dad saves for us every year.  These are no ordinary plum tomatoes.  They weigh an average of 1lb each and are the perfect base for a hearty Bolognese sauce!  Living in Colorado, I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of meat combinations in my sauce.  One of the most successful iterations this year combined Elk, Venison and Pork (along with apple wood smoked bacon and Italian meatballs).   This year we yielded over 80lbs of tomatoes and made 10 large batches of sauce that now line the top shelf of my freezer for just such a night.

Each year we try to scale back on the zucchini and summer squash, but somehow always end up with far more than we know what to do with.  My second and third freezer shelves are mostly dedicated to the many zucchini consuming dishes that I’ve added to my repertoire over the years.  Thank goodness for the Gardener’s Community Cookbook for the entire chapter dedicated to what to do with an over-abundance of zucchini (I’m clearly not the only one with this problem).  I have stewed zucchini, roasted zucchini, zucchini latkes, zucchini soup, zucchini quesadillas, zucchini pancakes, zucchini muffins (these actually have a shelf of their own), and yes, there is zucchini added to my sauce!

We also had a huge grape harvest this year – about 50lbs.  I was too lazy to make jelly this year, but I did make a few gallons of grape juice that also grace my freezer’s third shelf.

So, on this cold night, I was more than happy to heat up some pasta, thaw some sauce and call it dinner!

A few tomatoes getting ready for sauce

Grape juice begins

Sew many projects, sew little time!

Over the New Year's break, I finally got a chance to work on a blue and green version of my yellow and green Riley baby quilt!  I just love seersucker and gingham and had been so looking forward to using them in greens and blues. 

For the pinwheels, I used Deb Tucker's Wing Clipper template - a gift from a very talented quilting friend - and it made a huge difference!  Thank you also to the same friend for encouraging me to use the navy inner border.  I really liked the "pop" of the navy, and the oportunity to add the contrasting white stitching for a fun effect!

Completed Ryan quilt top

Blue gingham pinwheel

Nine patch

Now I just have to find some time to quilt it!

The Cookies Are Coming, The Cookies Are Coming.....!

This is my favorite time of year, so I suppose it is fitting that I start my blog of favorite projects during the Holidays! Every year I bake around 1000 Christmas cookies to share with family and friends. It's a major undertaking, but I love every minute of it!  Now that this year's creations are all packed up and on their way across the country, I thought I'd post some pictures of the finished products:

Sugar Cookie Christmas Trees

Traditional Gingerbread Men

Chocolate Orange Reindeer

Cinnamon Apple Santas (my son's "signature" cookies)

Sugar Cookie Stockings

Sugar Cookie Snowflakes

Sugar Cookie Candies

Zaletti (orange, cornmeal, current) Bells