Help me Obi wan!

Blah!   This is really, really not me.  I'm a color fanatic.  I can choose colors to match something at home even if I'm 200 miles away and it's 99.75% of the time dead-on accurate.   The color wheel is my bestest friend forever.

So, why is this giving me such issues?!?!  

Here you go.... 

had this - 76" long roughly

moved some blocks around to get this.....

same size  - 76" long, different color order  (Choice #1)

 Or - do I want to pull out the pale lavender all together and end with the deep purple?  71" long (Choice #2)

Help me Obi Wan, you're my only hope.

purple patches and a pretty for Monday morning

gotta soon be spring??  right???  please??

Purple patches for Olive quilt.   

Happy Monday!

attempting a dust ruffle

 I've got this little cutie pie you see.   Her brothers both have captain's beds with drawers under the mattress area.   But this little sweetie has a bed from her Aunt Lauren, a pencil post frame with lots and lots of under the bed storage area.  10" of storage area to be exact.   I decided that she needed a dust ruffle but I could not find one at my local store.  Ok, so how difficult could it be to make one?  I've been playing around with the sewing machine a bit, think I'm fairly capable of sewing a straight line without getting my fingers caught, what the heck, let's try it.  Looked all over online for a pattern but my good friends over at Two peas said - it's easy!  Just try it. 

The box spring is made with some sort of white fabric covering, almost quilted so I decided to just have the ruffle coming out under it.  

 Measured length and width.  40" wide x 75" long and a 10" high space underneath.

I started with 2 flat sheets, a white for the center section which will be hidden under the box spring, and a spring green to match the room for the ruffles. 

 

Instead of basting a long stitch and pulling one thread to gather the fabric I decided to pleat 1/2 " sections every 6" to make it a little less fussy (in my opinion)

Pressing a bit before attaching it to the center piece.

Right sides and pressing apart the seam (notice my little helper)

Repeat 3 times.  This is adding the end piece.

                                                              And on the bed

One last close up of the pleats.   I like it. 

calling this project = successful!   Thanks 2peas!   She likes it too!

Top half of Olive 9 patch.

 

Ok, so we've seen this.   Haven't added the blocks at the end yet but I'm planning on tackling them tonight or Friday.  

I did, however, get the top half sewn together.   I have 9 squares in each section and 12 sections all together.  You'll see what I mean in a moment.

 9 blocks - stacked and ready to make into a large 9-patch.

 The pink patch

 Top 6 blocks of the quilt

Made 2 long strips of those blocks.

I'm getting there........

in the meantime.....

While you're oh so patiently waiting for the next row of dark purple 9 patch blocks for the Olive quilt, I thought I'd toss in a few throw pillows just for funzies.

When I recently repainted my office/playroom/dining room space, I wanted to do something to the mis-match of pillows I had just laying around.  

 Here's the pillows.  

 and a few fabrics I picked.   1 yard of each color.

Not real scientific with the measurements.  Just laid the pillow on the fabric and marked how wide it needed to be.   I cut the fabric in one long strip and folded it in half (right side in) 

stitched up 2 sides and half of the 3rd side so I could turn it right side out and stuff the pillow inside.

Then I pinched the last part together and stitched it together by hand, making sure to have the edges turned in.

Her baby doll had a nice nappy on the pillow too.

Lather, rinse and repeat 3 more times and here's the pillows.

Now, off to work on some squares and a dust ruffle for the same bed...... 

opinions?

I need another row of darker purple here. don't I? 

do I need more purple?

.where you're looking at purple on the left side and pink on the right (actually the pink will be the top pillow end and the purple the bottom footboard end)

Do you think I need another row of darker purple blocks at the end?

The Olive 9 patch

 This is the adventure that is my first official I'm-cutting-it-out-myself quilt.  I'm calling it the Olive 9 patch because it'll go on the new big girl bed of a little sweetie that lives here.

 I picked up a selection of fat quarters and a jelly roll to get started

 I have to set things up on my kitchen counter or little hands try to help.

 Pairing up the stripes.  I found a sweet little polka dot white fabric at Joann's to use as one of the lights

 

getting ready to sew, again on my kitchen table this time.

 I also picked out this leaf pattern as another white.    Here's a stack of stripes ready to be cut into the squares

pinning edges

pressing on the ironing board

and here's a finished green patch. 

I have a plan for a pastel colored, sort of rainbow with the blocks.  Starting at pink and ending with lavender.  I'm doing an irish chain with the patches, meaning each 9 patch will be separated with a solid block.

to be continued.................

Fish Hat (Dead or Alive) from Knitty.com

The Dead Fish Hat from Knitty.com Fish Hat (Dead or Alive)? is just the sort of silliness I'm up for when it comes to making things for my (or any) kids.  I'm a fairly new knitter although I've been a crocheter since age 8 when Grandma taught me to make clothing for my barbies.   So I went searching for an "easy" pattern without cables or fancy stitches to start.

Boys both gave me special requests for colors and health status of their fish.  The first hat went ...heh... swimmingly.   No problems even if I was a beginning knitter.  Short rows, increases and decreases were not too difficult to figure out.  Lots of counting so some focus is necessary.  I used up a lot of scrap yarn and bits and pieces of things that were given to me or that somehow just seemed to appear in my yarn bin. 

 

Boy 1 requested "dead" fish.   Boy 1 is happy and wears it often, especially on silly hat day at school.

"Come here cutie, lemme see if this fits"

 

 

 

Boy 2 wanted hat just like Boy 1 but he wanted orange and blue instead of green and alive instead of dead.   No problem.

Cast on, start knitting, knitting, knitting, interrupted to tend to something child related, knitting, counting... hmm... interrupted to feed children something, knit.. hmmm... that doesn't seem quite right?.... interrupted to do something else.

Yeah.  Counting + busy mom + 3 kids = 

Admittedly it's cute, but it is so absolutely wrong I can't even tell you where it started to go wrong!  It's floppy and short and mismatched and the fish mouth isn't even going in the correct direction.  But Boy 2 loves it so there.  

nice jammies too huh?