What I've been sewing lately...

Due to a relatively hectic schedule lately, my sewing has fallen a bit by the wayside. In fact until last week I hadn't sewn since my trip to Hawaii almost three weeks ago. Needless to say I have a pile of projects waiting to be made (including several Mother's Day gifts) that need to get finished sooner rather then later.

Tomorrow we leave for 8 days in Mexico, for a dear friends wedding. I offered to make this dear friend her Out of Town (OOT) gift bags for the wedding guests, just the bags mind you, not all the contents. I made 26 drawstring bags that are lined with laminated cotton. The idea behind these bags is that they can keep items dry at the beach, like and IPOD or camera, or can nicely carry your wet bathing suit home, without getting all the suitcase contents wet.

I loved making these, didn't have too much trouble with the laminated cotton, and I think the labels I ordered look really lovely. I hope the wedding guests love them like I do.

Maybe thats another thing to add to my yet created etsy store, OOT gift bags for weddings.

The best thing so far this week...

Although I didn't make these delicious pieces of chocolatey, oatey, deliciousness, I just had to write a little post.

A friend of mine who lives in NYC made these once during a trip we took, this was 2 years ago, I have been think about them ever since. I told said friend about my craving for them, and yesterday a box of them arrived on my doorstep. For a girl who is going on 4 days being sickly, these brought the biggest smile to my face.

Yum, yum, yum.... I may only give Skywalker one of them!

More home goods...

The pictures above are of the completed sewing machine cover I made for my partner, janssendesigns (which was kind of reversible, but I didn't like one of the sides). It was too big for my machine, but it fit hers perfectly. See the picture she took of all the goodies I sent her.

The bottom two pictures are what I received, a beautiful apron made with some lovely Modern Meadow prints, a cute sewing basket/bag that will live on my sewing table (made with the cutest Heather Ross prints), and a really fun bright and cheery reusable lunch bag, which will look so much better in the fridge at work then the the plastic grocery bags I usually bring all my stuff in. Thank you so so much Meagan from Edan Rose!

The process of spiderwebs...

It was my month for the {Bee Mod} Quilting Bee, which meant I got to pick fabrics and a square for 11 of my friends to make. Originally I was going to have some pink in my piles, but I kind of liked the idea of tonal blocks. I still have grand plans for including the pinks I chose in the final quilt, but I will have to see how all the squares look when I get them back.

In case you aren't a sewer, a spiderweb block is a type of string block. Where all the pieces are made up of precut strips of fabric. There are lots of tutorials for many types of string blocks, including spiderweb, available online, but I was confused by all of them. So I read through two of them, and then just decided to create my own tutorial, which I gave to my group. Hopefully it is clearer for the bee members, but we will see.

Doesn't looking at all those piles of fabric just make you happy? It doesn't, well they make me happy.

Off to a new home....

You may be sick of this quilt, but I am not, and I promise this is the last post about it. Quilt was loved by all and now "Jungle and Forest Friends" lives at it's new home on the island of Oahu. Doesn't look good on the crib, and aren't you jealous of the beach this quilt may get to lay out on?

Macaroons

Although I am the sewer in our household, we both like to bake. Almost every month we bake goodies for the monthly celebration at Skywalker's office, sometimes people even make requests for what they want. Dear husband wanted to try to make macaroons for the April party (we had the best french macaroons while in London last fall). I was worried that they would be a disaster like some of our other baking adventures, but they turned out delicious. Well, I didn't get to try one, but thats what I heard. Skywalker dropped two off for my mom and dad after work, and my mom has already requested more. They weren't as hard as I thought they would be, but they weren't easy either, and they are super labor intensive for a relatively small amount. A nice heaping pile of them would have looked so lovely on those Liberty plates.