a year in review: 2017 was a good year!

It is time to bid farewell to 2017 and review this year top posts.
For the house, it was the year of the bedrooms, as I made over Brick Master's room

and our master suite during the ORC.
Even after 6 weeks, it still feels like a fancy retreat!
Of course, I enjoyed sewing for my upcoming niece, making cute silly things like the butting, the bear, the beary pillow and a sweet quilt:

And there were also this new obsession with sew illustrated, a fun way to do applique and machine embroidery:

1-first basket, 2-pin cushions, 3-second basket, 4-pin cushions, 5-mug rug, 6-Liberty mug rug
And finally, on a personal note, it was our trip to Provence, which I had been dreaming about for many year.

It was a very good year for this little blog, and I hope 2018 is just as good. See you next year!

a cookie mat for Santa and a Merry Christmas

While I thought I was out of time, I managed one more little sewing project: a mat for Santa's cookie and milk!

I made it for my niece and nephew  who are at the perfect age (6 and 3) to enjoy it.
And as many times before I was inspired by Amy of Nana Company. I could have a special tab on my blog for all the sewing I did inspired by her work....

The instructions are on her blog here and also published in the BHG Holiday Crafts 2015.

I want to wish you and your family a Merry Christmas!

a warm scarf, teenager approved!

Do you find yourself with limited time for sewing and in need of some homemade gifts? What about a picky teenager? Then this is the gift for you, well actually for him/her: a cool scarf!

This was Star Wars weekend, so a Wader T-shirt was a necessity!

It just took me a couple hours to sew it, and that includes hand sewing the button and snaps (no, there are no buttonholes!)

I followed this tutorial from We Can Make Anything, using some sweatshirt fabric (from JoAnn I think), and a cool button that I brought back from Brittany, I am sure I am not the only one that visits fabric stores on vacation....

And the best part? Brick Master actually loves it, and has been wearing for the past couple weeks!

It went so well, I am planning on making a few more...
Happy sewing!

a more or less traditional Christmas table topper

Here is my latest version of the hexagonal table topper

in a more traditional Christmas color way,

with red and green and a beautiful Liberty of London print.

And of course, for the background I used some linen,

it goes so well with the Liberty of London!

The pattern is from the book "Quilt petite" by Sedef  Imer

of Down Grapevine Lane.

And unlike my previous one, the red and aqua one:

there are no short cuts: no raw edges, no machine appliqued!

I did use some interfacing to make all the leaves,

much neater and accurate for me

than the traditional needle turn under. 

I drew all the leaves on the interfacing

(I used iron on, it works great, just do not use an iron until the end!)

and stitched all of them at once, easier than one at a time.

it also uses less fabric as they can be quite close,

1/2 " apart is quite enough.

Then I cut around all the leaves, made a cut into the interfacing

and flipped the leaves right side out.

I pushed out the edges with a little stick,

rolling the edges until smooth, but no ironing,

since my iron on interfacing is on the outside...

and finally I organized them on the linen.

Then it was the perfect time to iron everything

as it sticked a little to the background.

I still had to pin the petals in place

while I hand appliqued all of them....

yep it took a while!

I matched the thread to the color of the petal.

After that I did some simple machine quilting around the shapes.

keeping the same pattern on the linen.

It has a lot more dimension and "thickness" than the red and aqua one.

I think it looks especially good with my flowers from Costco...

 Happy sewing!

a new tradition: homemade gingerbread houses

I had been seeing a lot of gingerbread houses all over instagram

and the blogosphere, especially these by Miss Mustard Seed.

So Miss C and I decided to give a try.

And here is the result of our first efforts:

Not too bad, but I am not going to give up my day job!

I made the big one and Miss C. made the little ones, and an army of snowmen.....

As I mentioned earlier this week,

during the tree reveal,

Lou was very interested in the houses!

She was even willing to stand still for pics,

just so she could keep her eyes on them...

They do look good under the tree lights,

but it is not a safe place for them!

Since Miss C. made a gingerbread dog house, (the one in the back) Lou will get to it on Christmas!

We followed this recipe from The Food Network, pretty easy and tasty, making the dough the night before, baking the part in the morning

and icing/glueing it together in the evening.

I used some cookie cutters that have some embossing, they hold their shapes very nicely. I also made an Eiffel tower, because....why not?

and some hearts that I thought we could use for decorations, but we ate them! They were just too good.
While it is a great new tradition to follow, the kids have mentioned that it cannot replace the traditional buche de Noel au chocolat:

Last year, I also tried the buche de Noel aux marrons, but I was the only one who really enjoyed it...

I will be busy making a few of the chocolate yule logs  pretty soon!
Happy day!