tea party

Yesterday my daughter went to a birthday party:

a fancy tea party.

So I decided to make as a present for the birthday girl

supplies for felt tea party at home.

requirement:

-tea (bags, this is not the UK!)

-cookies

-fruit

-chocolate

-some container to keep it all

so here is my version of a tea party!

The tea bags are based on a few designs that I have been seeing on flickr felt group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/handmadefeltfood/pool/

I combined different parts from different people's vision to make my own version.

As you can tell, I like green tea!

I used tule for the bag, I cut leaves for the inside and the tag.

The string is cotton yarn , and for safety reason it is less than 6 inch.

I found the pattern for the chocolate bunnies at

playingfood.blogspot.com/

I changed the eyes a little, the white part is stitched on with the blue floss,

I did a French knot, of course!

The little cake is made using the new TV show: DIY dish

http://www.thediydish.com/

It is rolled felt on the inside (strawberry/vanilla), recovered with icing

and with some cream on the top!

I also made my favorite cookies

and some strawberries.

For the tray/basket, I used 2 fabric, some ribbons and some iron-on fleece.

I started with a square about 12 inch, removed 4 squares in each corner,

 around 2.5 inch, whatever the high of the tray you are interested in.

I ironed on the fleece.

I stitched the 8 pieces of ribbon.

Then with right sides together, I stitched both fabric around, leaving an opening.

I clipped the corners and the inside of the corners.

I returned the fabric, ironed it and hand stitched.

To help the edges stand up, I stitched along the lignes through all layers.

Here is a view of the flaten tray.

 

It would be all that is needed for a tea party with friends,

after all it should feed 4.

The birthday girl liked very much!

Happy sewing!

today is party day!

Today I have entered my first link party!

So come check out "Tea Rose Home" at

http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/

Sachiko has some beautiful ideas (including great tutorials)

I especially like her child size mannequin.

I will talk more about this particular post later

as I am working an a doll version!

here is a preview!

Happy sewing!

pillows, more pillows!

A few Saturday night ago as I was reading blogs and more blogs,

I found this blog " graphics fairy"with great clip arts:

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

So I went to work and made these pillows:

I used 2 old pictures from monuments of Paris:

free-clip-art-vintage-eiffel-tower

vintage-paris-graphic-arc-de-triomphe

I made my own printer fabric by ironing muslin fabric to freezer paper

(cut to the size of regular paper) and printing the picture.

It is probably not safe for washing, but I do not plan to.

Since I was limited by the size of the paper, I sewed some more fabric on the 3 sides,

 about 2-3 inch.

It did make the picture bigger,

 but the difference between the printed picture and the background fabric was too evident

so I used grosgrain ribbon to make a frame.

I stitched on both side of the ribbon.

I also sewed some black piping before attaching the back of the pillow.

Since they are unusal size, I just stuffed them and stitched them closed.

I think they turned out pretty good!

 

Happy sewing.

Princess dress

How many princess's dresses can a mon make?

Apparently a lot!

While Cinderella has been a huge successful for the 3 of us

(daughter, dolly and moi!)

I have been made aware for some time now

that I was supposed to do more.
So here it is: a Belle costume!

My princess seems happy enough!

And it swirls and turns as it should.

I used a simplicity pattern (9902, no longer available),

I change the skirt a little

as I did not have enough fabric to make the full skirt.

It turned out just fine,

 I do not think she needs anymore fabric around her body!

Happy sewing.

Liberty of London

Today, I received an email from Target about its new products. 

I could not believe it, it was a special on Liberty of London!

As I mentioned before I am a huge fan!

So I checked that our local target did carry the products

and ran to the store, well drove.

Well I did score a beautiful umbrella and a cute top for Miss C..

The prints are typical of Liberty of London, they are genuine,

but not the quality!

Polyester! what happens to beautiful lawn, the highest level of cotton?

I know a yard of Liberty cost about $30-35,

so of course an adult top at $15 cannot be the same!

I was so sad....

So I went home and baked!!!

And since after 5 days of spring we are back in the cold

I made a beautiful banana pie!

Probably not what you expected but delicious!

Here is the recipe:

5 ripe bananas

2 limes

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 oz (or 2) of rum

pastry crust

cut the bananas in slices (about 1/4 inch), cover with half of the lime juice as you cut

mix rest of the juice, rum, cinnamom, sugar.

pour over the bananas, stir and let marinated for 30 min

pour over the crust

bake for 25 min at 375-400

let cool for a few minutes, I like it warm

and enjoy with or without vanilla ice cream

Happy day!

quilt show 2

Humble beginning or how I did not give up

Probably more than 10 years ago, I bought a quilt kit,

I figured it would be an easy way to start,

and since I had no idea what I was doing

I got a heart within a heart,

full of triangles!

While it seemed easy, it was not a true beginner project!!

I did not know anything about 1/4 inch seam allowance!

So I used my sewing foot as a gage for the allowance.

It could have worked if there had been only squares,

but those triangles made it impossible to match any seams!

I finished it and proudly put it in my house.

And yes I was very disappointed with my performance.

I realized that the only way I was going to get better was through a class.

The saying is "when the student  is ready the teacher will appear", I was ready and I found a great teacher

at my local quilt store.

The owner Pandy became a good friend, and a great quilting inspiration.

My next quilt was just a four patch and the magical 1/4 inch seam was revealed!

Yep it was that profound of an experience!

I also learned how to "cheat" so that the seams are sort of aligned!

After that I was able to try some other simple pattern,
and be happy with the results!

This simple quilt is a pattern from "PS I love you" by L. Milligan and N. Smith.

So how about sharing your first quilt?
Post some pictures and let's remember!

Happy quilting.

my own quilt show

This weekend, I missed the local quilt show!

So to make it up, I decided to run my own!

Well through my blog at least!

I have entered a few in the past and not much came of it...

just the pleasure of showing my work.

So for the next few days, I will be posting quilts I have made

over the years.

Today, I will start with some of my favorites.

I am a believer of quilt as art, so a lot of them are on the wall!

and yes we ran out of beds!!

let's start the show:

The pattern is from McKenna Ryan of Pine Needles.

It is fusible appliqued, machine stitched.

The laundry is really hanging on the rope with clothespins!

I called it "gone with the wind"

The pattern is from a quilting magazine (cannot remember which one).

To make it more interesting I challenge myself to only use batik fabric for the leaves that I had ...

when I said I had a large collection!

This Noah's ark was done using Margaret Rolfe's CD-ROM and book "a quilter's ark".

Each animal is paper pieced, has hand embroidered faces and tails (some can move  like the zebra or the giraffe).

Tomorrow, I will post the pictures of the quits that started it all

(and it is not pretty!)

Happy sewing!

doll bed

I received an American Girl catalog a couple days ago, it is full of nice looking stuff for girls and their dolls

....but oh so expensive!

The cheapest bed is around $50, and a pretty one is over $80!

While I am sure they are well made and all, it is not in my budget!

So I would like to share the bed I worked on.

It all started with a IKEA doll bed ($20)

here is the link: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10101664

It is the right size and while the bedding is not fancy, most dolls (and girls) would be happy with it.

It is just a plain pine bed.

So I build it, primed it and painted white. Already it looked much prettier and similar to my daughter's bed.

At the craft store, I bought some rub-ons and a huge sticker. The rub-ons have a painted look, just a lot faster.

At the time I thought I would buy some molding and do some fancy work, but I ran out of time!

I remove the bedding that did not look good to me (there is nothing wrong with it, just not my kind of pretty!)

And I made my own with some flannel from the fabric store. I used about 1inch foam to make the mattress, cut to size and recovered with the flannel. The pillow is just a stuffed rectangle.

For the blanket, I used some leftover minkie (just so soft!)

And voila, for under $30 a well made, pretty and sturdy bed.

I am sure that one could made a bed from wood for less, but at the time it was a good as it gets!

The same bed could be stained instead of painted, I was going for a mini version!

It has been now over a year that I have made it, and I am happy to report that it has survived very nicely!

It has also been used as a table to some restaurant game, and little girls have sat on it (probably a bad idea!)

The only damage came from one of our dogs during the 4th of July firework...for some reason, he found the need to chew the side! But left the rest of the toys alone! I did not take it as a criticism on his part!

Miss C. still enjoys very much the bed, even with its indentation.

And Dolly too!

Have fun playing doll, I mean sewing!

Paris, je t'aime

Paris, the name brings back memories of major adventures, as a kid or as an adult.

It was the places of all cool stuff, the very special outing for end of the school year, the camp that took us to Versailles...

Now it represents mostly the airport!

I know, a little sad but after more than 15h of travels and 2 little kids, I just want to arrive at my parents!

The part I would like to focus on is the Eiffel tower, after all it is one of the symbol of France, even if there are smaller replicas in the USA: las Vegas, Texas, Cincinnati (in an attraction park).

There is currently an exhibition celebrating the 120th anniversary of the tower....of course it is inside! (it opened to the public on May 15, 1889)

Recently my sister sent these cool t-shirts for the kids, pink for Miss C., the queen of Fancy, and dark and cool  for my Lego Master, the typical tween.

So merci ma soeur!

And as I was remembering my first time in the Eiffel tower (I think I was 8 or 9, with my uncle and my aunt), I felt like creating something based on it.  Just then I received the latest "Marie Claire idees" magazine from France, my Maman very nicely sends it to me. For some reason, I was able to find it in the Southwest but not in the Midwest.

Here is the link if you are interested in checking out the cover: http://mci.blogs.marieclaireidees.com/album/19800809644b4c44c0f3aca/

And there it was, the perfect project:

So I guess I will have to make another pillow!

I found some buttons at the fabric store, a bag of them for under $3, so perfect, buttons are usually so expensive! I have some leftover linen so I should be good to go.

I put them on the fabric and I think it looks great, so I just have to sew a lot of buttons.....

which is not my favorite part!

So there is a chance that this project will not be completed for quite some time!!

(maybe glue will be my friend?!)

Happy sewing