{Another} Nicey Jane Baby Quilt

This past weekend we held a shower at my house for my good friend Karen, who is about to have her first baby! My shower co-host (who also loves to quilt, but sadly does not have a blog) and I knew right away that we wanted to collaborate on a quilt for the baby.

If you’ve been following along, I’ve made my fair share of baby quilts out of Nicey Jane fabric. It’s such a sweet fabric line, and is perfect for these quick little quilts. We went with the yellow, green, and blue prints for this quilt, and used coordinating prints for the back of the quilt.

Best of all, Karen loved it! She said she’d like to keep it for herself (and, as a shower guest pointed out, the baby would never know!). It kind of coordinates with the zig-zag quilt I made for Karen as a gift for being in our wedding! I’m glad they’ll look nice together.

I’ll be back soon with some of the photos from the shower!

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A Nicey Jane Baby Quilt

Ahh, how I love using Heather Bailey’s line of Nicey Jane fabric for baby quilts. I stocked way up on this fabric last year, when I was using it for assorted wedding quilts and gifts, and I am still not tired of it. I was looking to make a quick, satisfying project a couple of weeks ago, so I cut some 5 inch charm squares, and sewed them up along with white and grey charms.

The result was this little quilt– I love how the pattern almost looks like a large scale gingham!

I also used some of the prints on the back of the quilt– This might be one of my favorite quilt backs!

Such a fun little quilt to make and to look at!

It’s listed in the shop.

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Nicey Jane Baby Quilt

About a month ago, a friend of my mom’s asked if I’d be interested in making a baby quilt for her soon-to-be-born granddaughter. I jumped at the chance, and I was very excited when we decided on using the Nicey Jane line of fabrics.

We chose a fairly simple design to really highlight the colors and prints from this line. I continued the design through the back of the quilt by adding a strip of squares with sashing. I also made a string of bunting flags to go along with the quilt– although I haven’t found an easy way to photograph those yet. I’ll share a pic as soon as I have one!

In other news, I *finally* worked up the courage to start on some of the curved piecing for my single girl quilt this weekend, and I have my first square done! I’m making a queen sized quilt for our bed, so my official count is: 1 square down, 15 to go. I think this might take me a while, but I think I’ll try to pin a few curves every evening to make it more manageable. It’s a little gray and dreary here, so I haven’t been able to get a picture yet, but I’m hoping to share one soon!

And, finally, here’s my favorite Simon photo from this week: He’s so cuddly and loves to be near us, and one morning he curled up right behind J. He’s so silly!

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Lots to share!

Ok, ok, so I don’t think I keep up with posting things as fast as I work on them. But I realize this is because I have been spending my time at my sewing machine, and not as much in front of my computer. Anyway, as a result I have a bunch of stuff to share!

First up, I have an update on my single girl quilt. I set out to make a queen sized quilt for our bed (yikes! Biggest quilt I’ve attempted yet!). I’ve been following along with the Single Girl Quilt Along, and I’ve found all the tips to be VERY helpful.
I am *almost* done piecing my rings (hoping to finish this today!) and then I need to cut out the background fabric and start piecing those curves!

Second, a friend of the family commissioned a baby quilt made from Heather Bailey’s Nicey Jane fabric. I pulled out this stack, which I quickly cut into 5 inch squares.

Now that I have the layout finalized, I’m going to try to finish this quilt top soon!

Also– a quick note here on keeping all these pieces straight– I once read somewhere (unfortunately, I can’t remember where, but if I could I’d give full credit!!) that using small stickers to label rows (or even pieces) of a quilt can help keep things straight when moving between the design board and the sewing machine. I use file folder labels that I cut down to size, and label the top square of each row, and sew the pieces together moving down the rows from there. It helps SO MUCH when I chain piece squares and cut them apart and can’t otherwise remember what goes where!

On a different note, I’ve also been working on organizing my stash. I had kept things sorted by fabric line, but then I also had some stacks organized by color… and everything was starting to look like a mess. So, following Jeni’s recommendations from her “The art of choosing” series, I have been re-folding and stacking by color. I probably shouldn’t admit that this is just part of my stash, but I’m well on my way to having this done, and I love looking at this stack of fabric on the shelf in my living room! Sometimes the fabric and I just look lovingly at each other. Is that weird?

Last up, another dose of Simon! This time, he had curled up on the couch with his little stuffed dog friend, and was using his stuffed dog as a pillow. As usual, I couldn’t resist snapping a few photos of him.

Look how he has his little paw under the dog, like he’s giving him a hug! Ahhh, the cuteness just kills me!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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This made my week.

Before Thanksgiving, I wrote a post about a chair I had refinished. I had chosen one of my favorite Nicey Jane fabrics from Heather Bailey for the cushion (the lindy leaf in red), and I was so happy with how bright and crisp the chair turned out. It definitely brightens up my work area! I added some pictures of the chair to a group of Nicey Jane projects on flickr, and I was so surprised a few days later to see that I had a comment on the photo– from THE Heather Bailey!! I couldn’t believe that SHE had looked at and commented on MY photo! It was such a little bright spot in my week, I was so excited knowing that she had liked what I had done with the fabric she designed.

Here’s the picture, and you can click on it to go to flickr to see Heather’s comment or more photos of the chair and other projects!

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Nicey Jane Chair Makeover

A few months ago, I decided it was time to upgrade my desk chair. I had been using a folding chair with a cushion squished on the top, and it worked ok, but it wasn’t the most comfortable after sitting for a while. In an effort to be both environmentally friendly and frugal, I decided to find an old chair to give a make-over. I had seen similar furniture transformations on a few of the home decor blogs I read, and I felt I could handle this sort of project.

I found this chair at University property disposition, where all office-related furniture and equipment go to be sold when the University is done with it. The chair cost me around $10, and I chose it for two reasons: The wood frame looked like it would be easy to sand and spray paint, and the large cushion area would be perfect for recovering with one of my favorite fabrics. It’s very important to me to reuse or recycle items when possible, and furniture seems to be one area where it’s easy to find a piece in decent shape and spiff it up with a little work.

For the chair cover, I used one of my favorite prints from Heather Bailey’s line of Nicey Jane fabrics– the lindy leaf in red. I loved the way the vertical lines of leaves looked running down the chair. I removed the cushion from the chair, and then sanded all the exposed wood. I spray painted it with 2 coats of white spray paint, and I recovered the cushion in the lindy leaf fabric. Once the chair had plenty of time to dry, I screwed the cushion back into the chair frame, and it was ready to go!

(Simon likes to keep an eye on things)

It’s often easy, fun, and cost effective to think about repurposing or upcycling an item rather than buying new. For this project, I spent $10 on the chair, about $10 on a yard of fabric, and $5 on paint. A $25 total isn’t too bad for a “new” chair!

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A special pocket

One thing I didn’t mention in the last post about the birdie sling bag was what fabrics I chose to use for the interior. I think picking out the fabric is one of the best parts of starting a new project (and probably explains why I have so MUCH fabric in my house!), and it was so fun to put together these fabrics. I used the lemon print, as I liked the brightness it brought to the bags. I also used more light blue nicey jane, as it tied in with both of the bags.

One of the things I was most excited about, though, was a special little pocket I added to the interior of my sister Lindsay’s bag. Lindsay got married last summer, and when I began planning my wedding with an eye towards keeping things eco-friendly and affordable, she offered me her wedding dress to cut up and to use as I’d like. I had the dress tailored to fit me, and had some significant changes made to it so it didn’t look quite the same. I had it shortened to a tea length, and added straps and a green sash. In shortening the dress, the tailor had a small bit of fabric left over, and I took it home with me, thinking about how I could re-purpose it and return it to my sister in a new form. It was such a small piece (only about 5 inches tall by 12 inches wide), so it couldn’t really stand alone as it’s own little project. While piecing the pockets of the bags, though, I realized I could easily turn it into a little reinforced square pocket inside her bag. It would be a private little touch that only she would know about, and I love returning goods to their original owners in a different form. Here’s the little pocket, all sewn into the finished bag:

I love when stuff comes full circle.

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Gifts for the wedding

I decided early on that I wanted to make as many of the gifts we gave to people for helping us with the wedding as possible. I also liked how thinking along these lines allowed me to indulge in buying some of my favorite fabrics! I had been eyeing Heather Bailey’s new line of Nicey Jane fabrics since before they came out this past winter, and I knew I wanted to use some in my crafting.

While I did find multiple uses for the fabric in wedding related crafts, these were a few of my favorite gifts to make. For many people in the wedding I made quilts, but for my 2 sisters I wanted to make something else (as I had just given them both quilts as graduation gifts in May).

I decided to use Amy Butler’s pattern called the Birdie Sling Bag. I must say, I think they came out rather well!

This was the first time I used a real pattern to make something– I am very used to winging it when I sew and craft, so having pieces to cut out with an actual template was really new! I also had never used interfacing before, and had no idea how to do things like pleats or gussets. I am feeling very accomplished now, and can’t wait to make myself a nicey jane birdie bag!

I headed to a local park where there’s an old mill to take these photos. I think all hand-made gifts are deserving of such a lovely background for their photoshoot.

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