Amanda's Quilt

Quilt top rescued at estate sale for very minimal price. Sewed an extra strip along side of quilt and hand-quilted it to match the rest of the pattern. Sewed binding to edge of quilt and was able to finish it in time to give Amanda for Christmas. It was already a beautifully hand pieced and hand quilted piece of work, but since it hadn't been finished it was in like-new condition. We already have too many quilts in our house, but I know she would appreciate it.

Superhero capes

A couple of capes made for a birthday party this weekend. There is only 1 birthday boy, but I thought, what fun is a cape without someone to be your sidekick, so I made one for his sister. They are personalized with their initials.

Velcro closure for easy-on and off. Made from half vintage and half M & L fabric.

Cool finds

I haven't been posting many of my finds on my blog, but I have been finding a few really cool items. We have a great little used bookstore near our house and I go there often. I try not to go too much because I find too many great books. However, I was glad I stopped in a few weeks ago because I found these beauties. I have them listed in my shop right now.

This one actually sold a few minutes after I listed it. It is a beautiful fairy tale book with very unique illustrations. I almost couldn't part with it, because I love the style of the illustrations. However, I have a ton of fairy tale books that I don't read, so I thought I would just list it. I hope I don't regret selling this one.

Remember this old toy? I loved my Spirograph. I filled paper after paper with these crazy drawings. They never looked as good as the ones on the demo though. I found a bunch of these at a church rummage sale, but I held back and only bought 1.

Spiderman!

Jakey knew that he wanted to be Spiderman for Halloween months ago. This gave me time to scout out the best costume--which I actually found at his daycare yard sale. When I first got it, he couldn't be parted from it, not even for a quick wash. It was pretty cute. Then, he got out his Spiderman coloring book and wanted to try out all of the poses. He also realized from looking at the Spiderman pictures that he was missing the all important mask, gloves and boots that would make his costume complete. Today, Nate found a mask to go with his costume at a Halloween store, so his costume is complete.

My first quilt

I know I have quilted many quilts, but this is the first one I've done with my own pattern and materials. The layout of the quilt using dark/ light squares quilted in triangles. The greatest thing about this quilt is that every single bit, down to the thread is all thrifted, vintage and secondhand. It was all headed for a landfill and it has been rescued. I think I could get addicted to this. Most of the flowered patterns are vintage sheets that I got from a vintage sheet square swap.

Here is the almost finished quilt hanging on the line. I couldn't wait until the binding was finished to take pictures of it.

Here is the back of the quilt. It is a little bit off at the bottom. I"ll have to work on that. I think the bottom fabric pulled away a bit from the top 2 layers as I was quilting it. Otherwise I am really happy with this quilt.

5 year old b-day present

I tried to do a take on the pencil roll project and make a sort of pencil / travel case. The fabric was M & L cowboy fabric mixed with fabric from my stash.

Note to self--next time allow more room for the pencils. I had to rip out a few seams and it puckered a little after putting the pencils inside.

Repurposing a card to use as the cover for my recycled paper journal worked well. I will have to try more of those. I like how that one came out.

Last haul before Lent

I managed to get a picture from my haul. From the ads it didn't look promising, but as I am giving up estate sale shopping for Lent, I figured that I had better just get out there one last time. The first place I hit was a moving sale. It turned out to be someone's grandparents moving out. They had awesome antiques, sewing supplies and a few vintage tablecloths. I piled all of it into a box and they asked $5. THAT'S WHY I LOVE YARD SALES!!!

I spent less that $20 at the 4 sales I went to and I came back with loads of vintage fabrics, some clothes for Jacob and a few really cool odds and ends that might appear in my shop. I wish I had pictures of the places I went to. One was a real dive, but the piles of vintage fabric were incredible.

If you have not gone to yard sales or estate sales, I encourage you to get out there at least one or two weekends a year. It's fun to see what people have out there, but if you really want to get the good deals, you will have to go more often than that.

Jamie's quilt

G. and I collaborated on our first quilt for a church member. This has been my most rewarding quilting experience to date. I found that I actually am having trouble giving away this quilt I love it so much. This is for a new baby, but the mother requested these colors: eggplant, mustard, red, gray--no pastels. We searched through our stashes for materials using these colors and here is what we found. I love how 75% or more of the fabrics came to us secondhand. That beautiful purple backing is from Thriftown. All of the linen in the quilt was from upcycled thrift store dresses. 90% of the fabrics I contributed were from garage or estate sales. I love being able to reuse what others might have thrown away, and to be able to produce something this beautiful from cast offs is pretty amazing. Thanks G. for your idea. Although this quilt is for a baby, it would probably fit a twin bed. We made it 45" x 64".

Very first zip pouches

These are my very first zip pouches... also made for Christmas. Every single part of these zip pouches was made from upcycled fabric or zippers. I got the zippers on eBay from a man who had made it to a church rummage sale in my city that I had missed. Go figure that one out. Then, I got the great strips of patchwork which was the inspiration for the project from a box of old fabric given to me by Nate's mom last year for Christmas. I got the outer cotton/linen polka dot fabric and the inside turquoise polka dot fabric from garage and rummage sales also. It's so great to put cast off materials to good use. I might be inspired to make more of these, maybe smaller ones next time.

Gratitude wraps

Here are a couple of gratitude wraps I made from Soulemama's tutorial. They came out pretty nice. I used some barkcloth remnants that I found at a few estate sales and tried to match it with some of my bias tape. It's nice to use stuff from garage and estate sales. I also made the notebooks that go inside of the wraps.

Sleepy Owl Vintage

I have an etsy shop! I finally started it and now it's open. It has taken a little while to get all the bumps smoothed out, but I have already sold one item. Yeah! Here are a few of the things I have in my shop.

Another Refuge House Quilt night

Here we are hard at work again. I love the look of concentration on Amy's face. The pincushion shown is one I got at an estate sale a while back. I love how much character that little thing has. There's a rare shot of me sewing, but oddly enough it's not on my sewing machine. I have 3 sewing machines, 2 of which are regularly used for quilt nite, but this was was someone else's. It's funny using another person's sewing machine. It's sort of like driving a different car. The levers have the same functions, but they are in a different spot. My Kenmore is a lot like my old Toyota Corolla. Dependable and simple without a lot of power. My Bernina is more like an old school diesel Mercedes. It has HORSEPOWER and it's strong. The last picture is of the variety of quilt strips we have. Most of those fabrics are from this rummage sale I went to a few weeks ago. The lady was selling bags of her stash for $1 a bag. We also get our fabrics from a discount fabric store or garage sales. Coming up soon-- a few of my favorite squares.