Goodbye May

Where did the month go? It felt as if May went by so quickly... but it was a great month. Fun birthday celebrations and lots of cake (maybe too much). The weather has been great around here and plenty of plants are blooming in the garden, so I got to enjoy fresh flower in the house too. The fruits and veggies from the garden are doing great and we did get to enjoy some already. Even though we don't expect a big yield this year since we are re-configuring our planting beds, we savor every bit that we get.

  

Good bye May... now I'm really looking forward to June and the summer weather. 

I hope you had a great May too! 

XX

Martha.

Blogger's Quilt Festival: Spring 2013

If you are a regular reader probably you have already seen this this quilt (maybe way to many times)... sorry here it is one more time. I decided to join the fun and enter the Blogger's Quilt Festival organized by Amy @ Amy's Creative Side. I f you are new here visiting from the Festival, welcome!

I just finished this quilt this month. I have been working on it since January; it was a rather long, but very enjoyable process. I wasn't sure in what category to enter it and I decided on the Quilt Photographer category because I had such a great time photographing this quilt.

Quilt Stats:

Star Blocks using this Tutorial From Cluck Cluck Sew

Quilt size: 70X80 inches

Fabrics: Chicopee by Denyse Schmidt, DS Quilts by Denyse Schmidt, Kona White

Machine Quilted by me on my Janome 

Quilt Category: Quilt Photographer

Thank you for stopping by and good luck to all the quilters. And a big Thank you to Amy @ Amy's Creative Side for organized such a fun event.

Martha.

Tutorial: Upcycled Paper Flowers

My friend Alicia from Arty and Crafty Little Things is hosting on her blog A Month of Flowers all this month. Every day she shows us a flower craft project created by her or by a contributing blogger. I have been having so much fun and getting so much inspiration from all of the great projects that she  has presented. And when she asked me to contribute I was totally on board. I made a flower with upcycled paper from a brown paper bag (like the ones they put your groceries in at the supermarket). I try to carry my reusable bags when I go shopping, but sometimes I forget them and I end up coming home with a bag or two. So instead of just throwing them in the recycling bin I try to reuse them as much as possible.

This is a super simple flower that you can use to embellish a present or make a few, attach them to a ribbon  and make a lovely garland. 

Materials:

-A piece of craft paper from a brown paper bag (approximately 8X8 inches)

-Hot glue gun

-Scissors

-Pencil

-1 button

1. Draw a 4 petal flower approximately 4 inches from end to end. Don't worry is doesn't have to be perfect. Cut your flower and use it as a template to draw a second one and cut. 

2. Fold each petal in the middle without folding all the way to the center of the flower.

3. Using hot glue attach the two flower as shown in the picture. Set aside.

4. Draw a 2 inches circle and cut. Make small cuts from the edge to the center making sure yo don't cut all the way to the center of the circle. Using your fingers curl up the edges. Glue to the middle of the flower and finish off with the button in the center. 

XX

Martha.

A Picture... A Moment

The most striking flower on a miniature cactus in my garden. It only blooms once a year for a few days. The flower opens in full sun and closes in the evening. And today I was lucky to catch a glimpse of this beauty in its full splendor... and until next year.

XX

Martha.

Pretty Little Pouch II

For the second time I entered the Pretty Little Pouch Swap over on Flickr. This round I wanted to do something a bit different for my partner. She mentioned that she likes hexies and patchwork, so I decided to combine both and made her this wallet using scrappy hexies. I spent about a week piecing the hexies (mostly during my commute to work). It actually felt really good having a little project to do while on the go, and paper piecing is great for that. The basic pattern for the wallet is from one of my favorite books Bags: The Modern Classics. The pattern is lovely and very easy to understand as the other patterns from the book.
 I mailed the wallet to my partner this week and I'm anxiously waiting to hear from her how she likes it. I hope she does:) . I think I want to make one for myself.

XX
Martha.

Improv Table Runner

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and a lovely Mother's Day. My celebration was a bit bittersweet. Days like this is when I miss my mom the most. But I'm grateful I still have my mother-in-law and my four legged babies really made my Mother's Day special. They gave me lots of dogie kisses, tail wags and silly faces. And instead of getting sad I tried to keep my mind busy with some sewing projects. I practiced some improv piecing; I love the look of improv quilts, but I don't know why it is more difficult for me to create a random design than a pattern. Probably it is the way mind works. Anyway, I gave it a try and crated a table runner to give to my mother-in-law for Mother's Day. I'm really happy with they way it turned out. And she said she loved it. Right after she unwrapped it she put it on her dinning table and kept showing it off to everyone :) 

XX

Martha

Stars Quilt

Hello, I hope you are having a lovely week. I'm still recovering from a very busy weekend. We celebrated my husband's birthday in the company of family and friends. That is always fun! And I finally finished my Stars Quilt that I have been working on since the beginning of the year. Wow! that was a long process. This has been the largest quilt I have made so far; it measures 70X80 inches, so hand stitching the binding took me a while to finish. The quilting is simple diagonal straight lines meeting in the middle. I'm really happy with the way this quilt turned out and I'm sooo ready for a new quilting adventure.

Quilt Stats:
Measurements: 70X80 inches
Fabric: Denyse Schmidt Chicopee,  DS Quilts and Kona White.
Machine Quilted 

XX

Martha.

April Recap

Happy May Day! It feels like April went by so fast. It was a very busy month at work; yet it was filled with fun sewing projects and petty flowers from the garden. I'm really looking forward to what May will bring (my Birthday is in May, yeay!).  

Photos from my Instagram feed.

XX

Martha.