12 Days of Jennifer Paganelli Inspiration

I am excited to be Day 10 of 12 days of inspiration by Jennifer Paganelli! Seriously, we could go on forever on how Jennifer and her fabrics inspire us! Pictured above is my JP stash & I could come up with so many combinations using her fabrics. It's so distracting! I met Jennifer online through Flickr, I think. She had commented on something I made that had bits of her fabrics in it and I was blown away at her kindness. I soon discovered that her style was my style and we were fast friends. I love how she loves to mix color and pattern and everything she does is happy & colorful.

I designed my sewing room around her fabrics. Wait, that picture doesn't look lived in! See below for a true, working sewing room!

Anyway, you can see how much Jennifer inspires me. She is kind and generous to everyone and so supportive to the handmade community, I am truly amazed! For my inspiration piece, I decided I wanted to feature something I've been making lately. Mug rugs are not new items, but I really love finding colorful & artistic mugs and designing mugs rugs to match. They make great gifts as I don't think they have to match a person's home. They are a stand alone gift!  Here are some mugs I purchased from Anthropologie

and one from Cost Plus

And here are the mug rugs I made to match them

I used a West Indies print called Matilda and bordered it with Claudia and then Jane and made a binding out of Sally. All I need to do is pop some Starbucks Via packets or some tea bags and I have a cute gift set.

For this one I used Claudia in the center and then did a log cabin style around it in Dana, Maggie, Danielle, Matt's Tux, Nikki, Matilda and Velentina. The binding is Luca. I love how most of the fabric names are people's names! I still have 2 more mugs to match up, and I'm looking forward to it since there is only 7 days until Christmas! Yikes! The mug rugs take about a half hour if you're using scraps. The center square is approximately 3" & then I add 1 1/2 to 2 1/2" strips until I think it's done, around 8-9" finished size. Here is the list of bloggers and the days that they posted or will post:

December 09 Sew Pretty Dresses
December 10 Sweeter Than Cupcakes
December 11 Sweet Baby Jamie
December 12 Hickity Pickity  Handmade Dress Haven
December 13 Tabbo Designs 100 Billion Stars
December 14 Heavenlelgh Blessings Boutique
December 15 Scientific Seamstress
December 16 Sweet Baby Jamie
December 17 Hold It Right There
December 18 Sew Fun By Monique
December 19 Small Town Girls Clothier Marie Madeline Studio
December 20 Granny B's Clothesline Lilac Lane by Melissa Stramel

Fresh, Spring Crib Bedding

Oh, how I loved working with these pretty spring colors for Yasmin's crib set! I used Danielle in papaya for the base of the skirt with a patchwork of Jennifer's past lines (also in the blanket) from Honey Child, Flower Power, Poodle, Pretty Please, Queen Street and the newest, Crazy Love. She also ordered pillows which are on my flickr. One with pom pom fringe (too fun!) and one with piping. Hope she loves them!

June Song Quilt

A few months ago I was contacted by Lothian to make a custom quilt for her. She told me a few fabrics she loved and I pulled from my stash to create the quilt pictured. Alexander Henry's June Song fabric was the jumping off point for the colors. I used lots of coordinates from Jennifer Paganelli as well as Lizzy House (love all her pearl bracelet prints), Lecien, Josephine Kimberling, Valori Wells & the Daisy is from Riley Blake. I had the daisies with red center on hand and couldn't find yardage for the binding, but found the same print without the red center. It looks so pretty for the binding

I wish it showed up better, but I straight line quilted this with a variegated fuchsia thread from Aurifil which looks especially beautiful on the back against the black fabric. I hope Lothian loves it as much as I do!

Got Girls World??

I received my Girls World book last week, but haven't been able to blog about much lately!! I had a weekend visit from my mom, so I wanted to catch up on orders so I could enjoy her visit (which I did), and now I am back catching up again!! Here's why I love Girls World:

*There are 4 dress patterns that go from size 2-14, so my 13 year old can still wear one of the dresses

*There are gorgeous frills & feminine touches for the girly girl, but the Tallulah Halter Dress has simple lines for girls like my Holly who want less ruffles. I can see making quite a few for her for the summer, can't wait to do that & post about it! (I think Jennifer needs a pattern for moms in that style, hint hint!!)

*Being more of a 'home sewer' I was drooling over all the projects under the Home section~ Holly loves the Patchwork Memory Board & wants to make George the puppy! I need to make the Birthday Banner~ really!!

*There are no sew projects~ lamp shade, headband and the ingenious "Ambassador of Goodwill" badges.

*Yay, a quilt pattern, pillow pattern as well as an amazing Canopy with Pinwheel Strands for your bed

Can you tell I LOVE this book? The photography is amazing, I love seeing her fabrics in action & combined. After I look through it, I am truly inspired to create!

You can see my journal & notecards in the background, all happy colors to add to my desk. :) I really love the quilt I recently made, so with the scraps I made a mug rug so I can see the blue, fuschia & orange combo every day. Hopefully, that catches you up with what I've been up to lately!

Honey Child WIP

Sorry for the lack of blogging! My computer is not hard wired to the internet yet & I just have wireless which is either super slow or there is no connection. I am sometimes able to use it for a short time, like now. All my pics are on my computer and I just can't post without a pic! Lots of WIPs, but I am just LOVING this color combo. I started with Danielle on the bottom (dark purple background, fuschia & orange~ wow!!! Can't wait to finish this and 3 other quilts that need to be quilted. I'm using a Mega Quilter to quilt and can't find all those bobbins I bought. Its hard finding things in my new room. Sometimes I'm too organized and can't find which 'special spot' things are in. :)

My New Desk Area Finished!

Well, I am slowly starting to move into my new sewing room. There is so much to put up, attach & move that it will be a slowish process. I thought I'd post as an area is finished. My first priority was getting my desk area finished so I can use my computer asap. I painted an antique chair I had white as well as the desk. The desk was Tom's grandmas & it already had 3 layers of paint on it. It looked like the original was aqua~ which I would have loved! I used fabrics from Jennifer's new Honey Child line for the chair skirt. Dana in green for the seat (from Jennifer's fqs she sent me), skirt in Danielle in green that I ordered from http://sewmamasew.com. The piping & ties are from Queen Street & are a great coordinate. For the desk top, I used iron on vinyl that comes in 17" width & I use it for the back of changing pads. I ironed it to Elizabeth Rose ice from Flower Power & pinked the edges for cuteness. It makes a great mouse pad as its smooth & adds color to the all white desk. Lots more to show you coming up!

Dresden with Sis Boom Fabrics

This is my first Dresden Plate block ever! I am having so much fun with it! I've been wanting to play with my new Honey Child fabrics, so I figured this is a great way to mingle them with other lines Jennifer has. I won't tell you yet what this will eventually be, but something fun! :) I used the pattern from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book from the Center of Attention Quilt. Some of my points didn't get as pointy as I'd like, but I'm sure I had some error in sewing them. I was really careful about the 1/4" per Anna's recommendation. We'll see if it lies flat when I'm done. So far, so good!

Honey Child Has Arrived!!!!

I am beyond excited!!! Those of you who have been reading my blog know that I am a HUGE Jennifer Paganelli fan. Her newest fabric line called Honey Child is simply amazing, as usual! I was on Twitter on Valentine's Day & fatquarterly (the downloadable magazine) asked, "If you could have one stack of fabric for V Day, what would it be?" Of course, I said 'Honey Child' knowing it wasn't coming out until May~ and Jennifer got the message & sent me a FAT QUARTER STACK!!! Who knew I would get my Valentine's wish come true?? I just got the stack today and immediately dropped my paint brush and pulled out all my Jennifer fabric to see what went with what. I have posted all the fabrics with coordinates on flickr, but put 3 of my favs here on the blog. I'd say my absolute fav is Danielle in purple (top pic, left side) & my fav combo is the top one as well. Here colors glow, making everything vibrant & beautiful! You definately need to get this one. BTW, I heard on Jennifer's blog that sewmamasew has the prints in already! Heres the link: http://tinyurl.com/4ztr9fz