Crazy Love Set

I wanted to wait to blog about the Crazy Love quilt and pillow I made for Jennifer Paganelli until after she blogged about it~ after all, its her amazing designs!! All I can say is put on your sunglasses as this is one vibrant collection. Everyone who saw it in my sewing room had a jaw dropping reaction~ its truely stunning! The amazing thing is that this is one fabric line where all the fabrics look good together. There are some color defined groups~ like the brown, fuschia, tangerine, purple, yellow or green, but they all intermingle and when put together make an eclectic gypsy~bohemian~70's look that is so different from anything else out there. It does match with her Honey Child, Queen Street and earlier collections really well. 

I decided after a couple of days of thinking about it to go with a random patchwork pattern that I make so often. I really love that design for large prints as it is showing off the prints rather than the pattern. Since a few of the prints were large scale, I fussy cut some sections so it looks like more fabrics then there really are. I pre cut my usual (plus seam allowance) 8x8, 8x6, 8x4, 6x6, 6x4 & 4x4 plus large square in the corner is 11x11 because I really wanted to feature that design completely somewhere. After that I just played with the colors and patterns to get a pleasing mix and sewed it all up and backed it with fuchsia minky. For the pillow, I did a log cabin variation and started with a square in the corner and kept adding on different width strips to get a finished size of 16x16. I tried to mimic a crazy quilt using my different stitches on my Viking, here's a closeup

I used iron on batting to keep it simple, then used the pompom trim and backed with fuchsia minky & voila we have a crazy, eclectic set for anyone who wants an adventure in color

Crazy Love comes out in March~ can't wait to play with it all again. Can you imagine the amazing crib bedding this would make???

A Very Southern California Christmas

Adult Table outside

The spread

With 95 year old grandma & great grandkids

My last minute skirt

I can't complain about the weather we had today in Manhattan Beach at my brother's house with lots of family. It was about 73 degrees, clear and sunny. We had an outside BBQ of tritip and shrimp with incredible sides, cakes for dessert and amazing appetizers. Normally the weather isn't THAT nice for Christmas, but this one was one for the books~ just gorgeous!! I had originally planned on making the Painted Portrait blouse to wear by AMH, but I must have measured myself wrong as it came out way too big~ I'll try to alter it another time! I made this skirt last minute from the Barcelona pattern from Amy Butler using the Clippings fabric from Loulouthi. There is a basic A line with zipper option that took about an hour to make. I skipped the lining and just hemmed it all up, love how it came out and intend to make more. What a beautiful day! Hope you had a wonderful Christmas!!

Merry Christmas!!

 This scripture was read at my church recently and it reminds us that we must celebrate the free gift God has given us in Jesus. The best present we will ever receive! Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas!

Quilted Patchwork Purse Gift

I get to have help sewing from Christina one evening a week and I have found out that she LOVES bicycle fabric, so I thought this Munki Munki fabric would be a great basis for a project. I decided to do a patchwork purse, so I pulled from my stash (l-r): more Heather Ross flowers, Lizzy House' Foliage and Pearl Bracelets from Outfoxed, Anna Maria Horner's Maybe from Innocent Crush, Wildfield from Valori Wells Wrenly & Loulouthi Hugs & Kisses. I lined it with Hugs & Kisses and inside pockets (not pictured) in Maybe. For the back I took a smaller portion of the stripwork and made a pocket. I enjoyed hand quilting a heart around the 'bicycles i've loved' words as well as down some of the strips. I used a rust colored embroidery thread from Anna Maria's thread collection. Hope she loves it!

Handmade Crazy Love Birds

I really love the bird tutorial I found from spool sewing to make these little birds. They are great for small pieces of fabric scraps as the finished length is apx 5". I had some scraps from my Crazy Love quilt that Jennifer blogged about recently and wanted to make ornaments, but I decided not to attach a string as I really like mine on my windowsill

You can see the one I originally did on the far left with Honey Child. They make great stocking stuffers or cute topper on a gift! I just machine sewed the bottom shut, but you could fancy hand sew it! I'm working on a few handmade gifts, not too many as I only have a few days left!! Made some pj pants for myself last night out of some flannel and am still wearing them at 12:30pm right now. Its a cozy day here in southern CA!!

Crazy Love Tee

I made progress on my Crazy Love quilt over the weekend and LOVE how its coming along! I usually applique a design from a favorite fabric onto a tee shirt. I couldn't decide which one from Crazy Love, so I decided to make a patchwork block to applique. I started with a 1 1/2" square and kept adding different size strips around the center until it measured approximately 5". I ironed wonder under to the back and fused it to the tee and then used a decorative stitch from my machine with a flower motif to attach to the tee permanently. It looks great with my green sweater and jeans!!

Hubby Helps

I just had to take this photo of my husband! I was taking pictures of a blanket I finished and he was looking over the start of my Crazy Love quilt and had an opinion! One of the patches had the pattern sideways and he said he preferred all the prints facing the same direction. I see his point, but I like them in different directions in the random patchwork as that is part of the randomness. Tom is amazing in construction and creating as he's remodeled 3 houses for us. I value his opinion and am glad he cares~ but cute boy, I know what I'm doing! :)

Crazy Love Peek

I just about fell over yesterday when I received this package from Jennifer Paganelli!!! Its fat quarters from her entire new line coming out in March called CRAZY LOVE. I have been waiting for Girls World Vibe to come out and hadn't even seen images of these fabrics yet! (I stalk her blog looking for peeps of new stuff!) I think what I love most about this line is the intricacy of the patterns and the (of course) super amazing color combinations that Jennifer is so famous for. This line is true Jennifer style with a 70's nod, but in incredible, electric colors. The orange fabric in the middle picture thats in the middle was hard to photograph on its own it is so electric!
I get to be part of a project with Katy from I'm A Ginger Monkey, Heather from Olive and Ollie and Toni in making projects introducing Crazy Love. If you love this line and Jennifer Paganelli (who doesn't??), then be checking back on my blog and the other amazing sewists blogs to see all the goodies we're going to make out of this amazing fabric!

Scrappy Star Block

This one was a doozy, but so much fun! It took me a few tries to get the chevron piecing correct. I didn't understand how to do it, so jumped in and was fine until I realized that I forgot the part in the directions that said draw a line for half from the left corner & the other half from the right, so all my chevrons were going the same way. An easy fix, just redid those parts. This block did remind me, however, why I don't do many star blocks as I inevitably cut off some of the points and I don't want to go back and fix it! Luckily, this block is so busy that if you aren't looking for errors, you won't see it. I love the slices I got from some of the fabrics~ like Santa and the cookie. I squeezed in Anna Maria Horner's Needleworks fabric slicing it a bit bigger so you could see the motif. Onto block 5. It's not too late to start the quiltalong!

Fireplace Block

I'm on block 3 in the 12 days of Christmas Sampler Quiltalong . I wanted a 'chair rail', so I used Sherri Berry's "Have a Sheri Berry Christmas" fabric for that part. The wallpaper is Jennifer Paganelli on the top, Polly Stripe, on the bottom Luca. The wreath medallion is also from Jennifer, Karen. It was too small on its own, so I used a snowflake print from Countdown to Christmas by Sweetwater with pinking shears to give it a cute edge. Stockings with scallop are from Bonnie & Camille & with check Tanya Whelan (red) Michael Miller (green). Of course, Joel Dewberry for my wood mantle and wood floor! I don't know which fabric the flame is, I got it from my LQS & its a scrap. I really love how it came out! Looking forward to making the others.