the softest swearshirt ever, perfect for my tween

While it feels like we will never get any snow

(channeling my inner child!)

we have had quite a few chilly days.

So I sewed a warm sweat shirt for Miss C.

She likes them large and fluffy, with a hood

and a large kangaroo pocket

And so she got just that.

I had brought back the fabric from France last fall,

it is like a two sided fabric: soft cotton jersey

and fluffy minky .

I think that fabric was mostly designed for babies as it was mostly pastel color,

but this warm grey was perfect for my young lady.

For the pattern I combined 2 patterns from Ottobre,

old edition of the magazine, but sweat shirts are pretty classic in design.

Instead of doing any kind of binding, I turned the sleeves and the pocket inside out

to add a cool design, and fluffiness!

Once I was ready to work on it, it was a resonnable project:

one afternoon of transferring the pattern and cutting the fabric,

another afternoon of sewing.

At the end, a happy child!

I miss sewing for her,

but no more little dresses or cute shorts...

1. dress, 2. shorts, 3. shorts, 4. tunic, 5. dress, 6. dress.

but sweat-shirts are good!

Happy sewing!

a new mug rug, updating a favorite

I could not help myself!

Having sewn some new cool indigo pillows,

I made a coordinating mug rug....

Doesn't everybody do that?

 Miss C. made some cute valentine's day cookies

 (from a box mix, she is baking all by herself)

just the perfect touch after a long day at work.

I mixed linen and various prints from the Aria collection,

since I purchased a few fat quarters....

You might recognize the design of this mug rug,

as I have made many versions of that pattern.

You can follow my tutorial if you are interested,

it is an easy project, the quilting is the longest part,

but still pretty fast.

here for the tutorial.

Mug rugs are the perfect size to try a new technique.

I like this echo quilting on the diagonal, 

this time I did a better job than previously,

so no matter how many I make, there is still room for improvement!

Luckily we spill a lot, so there is always a need for more!
Happy sewing!

my new favorite and almost trendy indigo pillows

Winter has not been harsh so far,

but I am ready for spring!

And nothing like changing the pillows on the couch

to change the feeling of the living room

and make me think of lighter, brighter days.

So I sewed 3 simple pillows and mixed them up with my other pillows.
The long shaggy pillow is made from an IKEA rug, around $15. I used some off white velvet for the back (left over from the Christmas tree skirt). It is quite soft and comfy. The rug was a little bulky  so I stitched it slower than regular fabric, but it was not harder.

This cool indigo print is a quilting fabric

 (I worked not too far from an independent quilt store,

which is awesome and extremely dangerous....large fat quarter collection!!)

The line is Aria by Kelly Ventura from Windham Fabrics.

I like the whole collection so of course I bought a bunch of fat quarters

and 1 yard of that print.

Most of my pillow forms are 20 inch, so too large for fat quarters.

Because the fabric is thinner than a drapery/decor fabric,

I interfaced it with fusible fleece, it made it the perfect weight,

 it does not wrinkle and keeps its shape.

I always cut the fabric the size of the pillow (here 20 inch)

so that it fits snugly at 19 inch (1/2 inch seams).

This flowery print is also from the same collection,

that pillow form is 18 inch so I was able to use 2 coordinating fat quarters for the tops.

It was also interfaced with fusible fleece.

In both cases the zipper is at the base of the pillows so there are not bad sides.

It is not the case of the fluffy pillow, I was too concerned about the "hair" being stuck in the zipper!

Most of the other pillow covers are from IKEA, except for the PB blue and natural linen cover.

In December 2015, I mentioned that I wanted to redo the coffee table.

same couch, all in red!

Well I received the wheels that Christmas, and painted them right away.

Then I installed them, and that was it!

I still think about other changes but I guess I am not quite ready!

We did get a new rug last winter (from Costco)

and it goes perfectly with my new pillows, like I had a plan or something....

It is also larger (and softer) than the previous one.

On the week end, I enjoy having a little aperitif with Mon Cheri

before dinner and the craziness of the children,

so I set us up with nice drinks and little snacks:

dried chickpeas and warm little goat cheese bites.

My love of indigo is not recent , these napkins are more than 10 years old!

The little plates are more recent....

No food photo-shoot could be complete without my drooling helper:

She did not steal anything, but it was very tempting!

Happy sewing!