AMH Little Folks for a little one

My dil was supposed to have her baby shower today, but it had to be cancelled.  I was so sad for her, she was going to travel home to NC from GA to see all of her high school and college friends and celebrate her first baby.  I sent her a package with a few of the gifts I had planned for the shower.  It is supposed to arrive today.  One of the gifts is a receiving blanket I made using the Anna Maria Horner voile.  Everyone always talks about how buttery soft this fabric is-and they are right.  It feels like silk.  I understand now why there were so many scarves made with it.  Well, I wanted to make something that the baby would use right away with this wonderful fabric.  I chose to make a couple of receiving blankets with the voile on one side and AMH Folksy Flannel on the other.  I didn’t want to make the blanket too complicated, so I used large pieces from several of the prints.  I made them approximately 36 ” by 36″ and rounded the corners.  I finished them with a top stitch around the edge and did not do anything to the center (such as any type of quilting).

Here they are:

I also sent along this dining chair cover made with some Sandi Henderson Ginger Blossom from this post.  Along with some burpies from this post and a couple of store bought items.  I hope this will perk up the new mom to be and hopefully she will look forward to the shower she will be having in GA in mid-May. 

Thanks for visiting,

http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com
churchillparkstudio@gmail.com

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New woven labels have arrived!

Last month I decided I needed some labels for my creations.  I have tried to make my own and even though the twill tape works, it still looks somewhat homemade.  I used them a few times and was not too excited about them.  Since changing the name of the blog and having a designer create the gate and logo, I thought I needed some professional looking labels.  I chose to use worldwidelabels.com.   These are just some small labels and I was able to get quite a few for under $100.00 because I kept the design simple and didn’t use multiple colors.  Here is their little Saturday story.

Thanks for visiting,

http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com
churchillparkstudio@gmail.com

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Some matching burpies

I worked on my matching burpies and except for some monogrammed initials or names, which I am going to attempt with my new Bernina 820, these are finished.  I like to make them in sets of three…not sure why.  Maybe it is because that is how I often see them in boutiques and specialty stores.  My niece Jessica is due in May.  She loves the colors purple and turquoise and those are the colors my sister said to choose. 

I like to roll them and present them to the new mom looking like this.  Isn’t that pretty?

Someone will be getting this set with Farmer’s Market and a little AB  that is waiting to be monogrammed.

I have made enough burpies to know that you can get three from one fat quarter, but you are left a little short on the end.  I used to run them through my serger and just make them 1 1/2 to 2 inches shorter.  But this time I am going to try the embroidery on my new machine.  Hope it works.  I am a little reluctant because I normally buy the premium Gerber diapers and they are pretty thick.  I like the thickness for padding a baby’s head, but not sure it will work for the embroidery.

My daughter-in-law, Kim is a huge Amy Butler fan.  I think you will be able to tell which girl is getting which sets of burpies.  The third one is not finished because I ran out of the pink rick-rack. 

My nephew is having a boy in late June.  I am planning to use my Pure for that quilt, but in the mean time I made a few burpies with snails  for his new boy.  They are going to name him Keegan (hope I spelled that correctly).   I will let you all know if I am able to figure out the embroidery on my machine and show you the results.

 I made these so that the snails are right side-up when they are over a mom or dad’s shoulder and the name will show on the back side. 

<< Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails-that’s what little boys are made of >>

Thanks for visiting,

http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com
churchillparkstudio@gmail.com

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High Chair Cover ~ dining-out events

Well, there will be a new girl in the family soon ( June to be exact!) and I am gearing up with some projects for our new Georgia Peach!  A niece and nephew are both also having babies this spring.  So, I am cranking out some baby gifts and the best part is that we know the May and mid-June babies are both girls, so this way my dil won’t know which gifts are for which her new arrival or for my niece and I can blog about them.  The end of June/July is a boy (my nephew’s new son), so I get to work with all colors!  I have a project in mind using Pure and am excited about that.

This project is a cover for a wooden high chair, the type that  you find in many restaurants and fast food places.  I am working on another version that will have button holes in it so that you can use the seat  belts on the chairs.  This one is a wrap-around tie cover which is great if there is a missing seat belt on the chair you are using, or your little one is a wiggly worm.  I am going to make a tutorial and a pattern that you can just piece together and make one for yourself.  Here are the pictures:

Thanks for visiting,

http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com
allzimsewingis@gmail.com

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A Couple of New Dresses

Finished a couple of dresses that I started earlier this fall.  One for Kate and one for Caroline.  Kate’s dress is a Katie Cupcake pattern using Joel Dewberry  fabrics. 

My daughter was so excited to get it home for a special party that evening, that I was unable to try for a better picture.  So, here is it hanging by a wimpy wire hanger!

Caroline’s is the Claire pattern from Portabello Pixie.

Back of dress with added ties.  The original pattern does not call for ties at the waist.  I added them once I saw that the brown fabric I had chosen for the ties at the shoulder were not coordinating enough with the dress due to the pink in the apron, so I wanted to accent the brown a little more.  I am happy with the results.

I purchased this fabric over one year ago and can’t seem to find the name of the line… I’ll keep searching through my selvages and try to let you know. 

Joanna from homemadepineapplemarshmallows  has figured out that a couple of these fabrics are from Annette Tatum’s “House” line.  Thanks for doing the investigating ; )

Thanks for visiting,

http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com
allzimsewingis@gmail.com

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Gotta Love Amazon

The first part of my recent order arrived today! Woohoo!! I have three more to look forward to-and one is the new Joel Dewberry book!

Life is good.

Thanks for visiting,

allzimsewingis@gmail.com
http://www.donnachurchillritter.wordpress.com

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Catching up on my Bees

Either I really needed Spring Break in order to sew for my bees.   Now that I am back home I am really trying to catch up on March/April.  I still have some houses to make for Aimee (Adventures and Pursuits)  (March).  I have given up trying to be my own inspiration and am purchasing a pdf pattern for mini houses.  Aimee, you block will be done this week!

Lucy from the 1st Wed. Block Swap (Peekaboo Lucy) wanted a log cabin.  She sent both Nicey Jane and Meadowsweet and I think they really look good together.  I had enough left to begin a second one:

Liz, also from the 1st Wed. Block Swap wanted triangles in pink and lime green.

And Mary (The Sewing Geek) from the Red & Aqua Bee 2 was doing something a little different, she wanted strips instead of a block.  At first this sounded goofy to me, and even after seeing the computer design she gave in the instructions…I still wasn’t sure.  But, then someone with more imagination than me got the strip done right away and posted it onto the flickr site.  Wow, I was impressed! 

Making this strip was really like making your own little quilt.  I made lots of little pieces and then had to put them together while thinking about color, symmetry and design.  I really enjoyed making this strip and it was a great idea for a virtual bee.

Here is my strip and pieces:

mini disappearing 9 patch

 

the other 2 mini disappearing 9 patches

the center portion

The end- I ran out of Mary's fabric and had to start using my own in order to reach the 40 inch length

 

the other end

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The Pillow Talk Swap

This winter I was fortunate enough to get involved in the Pillow Talk Swap on flickr hosted by Sewdearlyloved and alamodefabrics.  We were broken up into 3 sub-groups and then given a blind swap partner.  Our job was to create a pillow that our partner would like based on the photo collage they put together and posted on the site, along with stalking (in the nicest way) the blog/website and photostream of that person. 

My partner turned out to be a person who loves art, words, ampersands and the color green.  At least she had lots of things that were green.  So, I came across a paper pieced template for an ampersand here.  I brought the small template to Staples and kept enlarging it until I was happy with a size that would fit onto an 18″ pillow front. 

The paper template came in 3 pieces, so that was my starting point.  I had to make sure it would turn out well, otherwise I needed to change directions.  Here are a couple of pictures:

 You can see my little bit of starch build-up here.  I managed to get rid of it before I put the piece into the pillow.  I just used more water after the initial pressing.

These were my initial fabric choices. 

I had a large 1/2 yard stash of Meadowsweet by Sandi Henderson that I intended to make dresses with, but once I began stalking, I knew these colors would be great for my partner.

Here is a picture of the final pillow, front and back.

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The First Month of the Fussy Cut Bee

Gretta asked for fussy cut flowers in the center and then 2 inch log cabin borders around the flower.  I pulled from my stash so that I could keep a color scheme going and tried not to use other floral prints that would detract from the center flower.  One block is very citrus looking and the other is more like cotton candy.  They will be in the mail tomorrow.

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A Gracie pattern for Kate

Finished a dress in size 3T for kate today.  Hope she likes it!

I put one of my cheezy iron-on labels from JoAnn’s Fabric store inside the yoke.

Here is a view of the back.

The buttons are a better match than they appear in the photo.

Well, the snow and sleet is making for a good sewing day.  🙂

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