Chemistry Couture

Onesies Donesies

I will go ahead and start by apologizing for the title.  I just couldn't help myself.  I've been spending most of my sewing time working on things for my little niece or nephew who will be born in January.  I posted about these onesies a while back, but now that they are finished up I want to give an update.

All of the onesies, bibs, hats, and burp cloths are from Gerber, and they were all dyed with bright Rit dyes in purple, red, yellow, orange, and turquoise.  I dyed them a while back and then they just sat on my table while I thought about how I wanted to decorate them.  Since they are already very bright I didn't want to do anything too wild or clownish.  I wanted them to be cute but not necessarily baby cute, you know what I mean?  So this is what I came up with.

The fabric is from Joanns, its just an inexpensive natural colored cotton with little white stars scattered around.  I cut out little shapes (not seen in the picture: bunny head, bear head, leaf, moon, apple, the list goes on) and attached them to the clothing first with Wonder Under.  Then I machine stitched around the shapes with brown thread.  I went around a couple of times to give it a "sketched" look.  Randy approved of the first one I did so I just ran with it!  There are ten oneses, three hats, three bibs, and eight burp cloths (the burp cloths just have the same star fabric as a binding).  I can't wait to send them off to my sister, I hope she likes them!

Two More!

I loved the commissioned pink and green baby quilt that I made so much, I made another quilt top with the leftover scraps.  I am done with the original, I just neet to take some nice pictures of it. 

 
I also made up a quilt top in purple and yellow.  This one is pretty bold, but I really like it!

 
I will be working on these when I'm not working on little things for The Bean :)

A Little Here a Little There

A tiny little ity bity sneak peek of the two Bean Quilts I am working on.  What is a Bean Quilt?  It's a quilt for my little niece or nephew who will arrive in the beginning of January.  I am so excited!  I get to make the crib bedding for my sister and my mom (as both will have a nursery, though my sister is the one expecting.  Imagine if my mom was pregnant too!  Wow, weird thought), and I am cruely keeping the construction and colors a secret until I am finished.

I've got all of the makings for the bedding for my mom, and I am gathering little goodies for my sister.  She just sent me some Liberty Fairy Clock fabric to use that I can't WAIT to get my hands (and scissors) on.  I love Liberty fabric.  Anyway, above is the little bit I am willing to show of the quilt for my sister.  Lots of applique.  Thats all I'm gonna say about that.

And these other pictures are the quilt for my Mom.  You can tell that the construction of this quilt is going to be pretty basic.  The prints are Alexander Henry (I found them at Joann's) and the solids are Kona cotton.  It's going to be reversible and adorable and hopefully appropriate for a boy or a girl!  I am going to use some of the same fabric and some new fabrics for the bedding.  Hopefully some of the little details I plan to add will make up for this quilt being a little simple.

October

It is Nichole's month for the Snip Sew Send quilting bee.  She sent out some gorgeous purple shot cotton (a purple cloth with threads of fuschia and dark indigo running through it, so much prettier than it looks on the computer), and asked us to donate some of our own fabrics to complete the blocks.  She is making a "field of flowers" quilt and we were asked to make a 16.5"x16.5' block using the purple cotton with 1-3 flowers from out own stash scattered around.  You can see her inspiration quilt on the SSS website.

I decided to use some of my precious Liberty fabric for the flowers.  For one thing, they were the prettiest flowers I had, for another I just wanted to use the Liberty.  It feels good to use it, especially if I am using it for someone else.  This quilt is going in her bedroom, and Liberty is some sexy bedroom fabric!!!  So I hope she likes it. 

For your enjoyment, I have taken some upclose pictures of the bits of Liberty.  One of them is not actually a flower, it's a dragonfly.  But there are dragonflies in gardens . . . right?

So Far So Great!

September was my month for Snip.Sew.Send, and I've recieved almost all of my blocks.  I'm still waiting on two, but I thought it would be fun to show you what I've got so far. 

I really like the way they all look together.  It was so exciting to open the mail box and see one of my envelopes inside.  I tried not to look at the Blogspot site too much because I wanted to be suprised, but I couldn't always help myself.  These women really outdid themselves.  One person admitted that the number and amount of fabrics I sent out was overwhelming, and I knew it would be.  But I wanted it to look scrappy and I wanted to make sure everyone had enough to work with!  And they all did a fantastic job.  It definitely looks nice and srappy.

To tone it down a little bit I am going to border each block in a solid color and then use a dark navy sashing to really bring it down a notch.  I like all of the bright colors, especially the reds, but I don't want it to get too out of control. 

I asked everyone to send back any scraps they didn't use and now I have quite a pile of leftovers.  I'm going to make a few blocks of my own, I think, so I can make a large nap-time quilt.  Any scraps I have left over from that are going to be used in a baby quilt.  What do you think?  Is it cheating if I make extra blocks?

Forgive Me!

I've been away for quite a while.  I've been so insanely busy this past month and a half that my head is spinning!  I have so much to share with you, but I'm so increadibly disorganized at the moment . . . I thought that maybe if I gave you a teaser post I would be motivated to take pictures and write about my projects and my life.  So this is my promise.  Good things to come.  Don't give up on me :)

Woah There

This is a very bright baby quilt.  Is it too bright?  Little ones love bright colors, so it's good from that perspective at least!

The Second Block

This is the other block I made for Zonnah's month.  I took the picture on the kitchen floor at Randy's while he was setting up lights to take pictures of the blue and green quilt and the necklaces I made.  He's so sweet to do some professional photos of my stuff.  I say it a lot, but I'm a lucky girl!  I hope L. likes the two blocks I made.  This second one took a long time to finish because of all the hand work I had to do on the applique.  The circles were completely free style (can't you tell), but I like the wonky imperfect look.  I'm looking foreward to having the month off of the quilting bee, though. 

A Patchwork Necklace

(or two)

I've been trying to think of ways to make patchwork items that aren't actually patchwork.  I came up with this idea when I was teaching science camps this summer.  The idea just popped into my head one day, so I rushed to the store after work to get some supploies, made one up that night and then asked everyone I could find if they thought it was a good idea.  Most people liked it. 

So here you go, two "patchwork" necklaces made of fabric backed plastic discs and sterling silver.

They are both for sale on my Etsy shop, and more are in the making. 

For a Baby Boy?

The blue and green baby quilt is finally finished and for sale in my Etsy shop (along with those patchwork bags I made a while back).  I love this quilt.  I think it's just BEAUTIFUL.  And I really hope someone else will think so, too.  The purple quilt has been sold, by the way.  Did you notice?  Yay!