dolin bliss

What a lucky girl I am!

Surprise I am finally back!  Whew, it has been a whirlwind the past year and a half.  No need to bore you with all the details.  So let's get down to why I am so lucky...

I can finally mention this lovely book!!!  It has been a long time coming.  I had the honor of helping Jennifer Paganelli of Sis Boom write, illustrate and create the patterns for this beauty.  Jennifer is such an inspiring person and I was so honored that we got to work together.  We have never met face to face, and were put into contact with each other via Chronicle Books (they must have known), how great we would get along.  The book is available for pre-order and will be released at the end of April.  

More book info to come and maybe some catch up posts, on what I have been up to.

My First Quilt!

So excited to have finally finished my first quilt.  It is nothing fancy, just a string pieced number.  But I still love it. 

I did this along with the workshop I coordinated for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles with participants from Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence, mentioned here.  I figured if I am going to continue on with being the project coordinator I needed to have actually gone through the whole process.  It was so much fun and I can totally see making more quilts in the future.  This one was pieced and quilted by machine.  The SJMQT purchased this fantastic machine and I am now trained how to use it.  I still need to learn the computer component, but I do know how to run this fancy pants machine, doing free motion quilting.  Right now, we are teaching all the women that went through the entire workshop how to quilt on it too.  They are having a blast with it.  

This evening we are heading up to SF for Frances and Greg's reception at Flora Grubb.  Can't wait to see the bride and groom in their custom made apparel.  I will post finished pictures of the green couture dress I made for her, next week.  

Finished Mikey Embroidery!

A little reminder of what this looked like before it was finished.  Not such a great picture of the work in progress and photo it came from, but you get the idea.

I realized after a couple of years of being a work in progress, having a previous blog post about it AND being featured in a Craft video... That I should post a finished image of my Mikey embroidery I made for my sweet and very patient husband.  I finished this up quite a few months ago and it just kept slipping my mind to post it.   So here it is:

- I wanted most of the focus to be on Mikey, so he is really detailed and the rest of the embroidery is more simple.  Then, I framed it with 2 different fabrics and put a hanging sleeve on the back, so it can be hung up on the wall.  

Matthew was very happy to finally have the finished object.  

Monday, I delivered a very special wedding dress and cocktail hat to the fabulous Miss Frances, but you will have to wait until next week to see that finished project.  We are going to their wedding reception Sunday evening and can't wait to see her all gussied up in her green dress.  

Canning and Quilt Crazy

Over the long holiday weekend I wanted to get some canning done, with the veggies I bought at the farmer's market and also some veggies from my garden.

 

All of the above were picked fresh from my crazy prolific garden.  I canned the beets, zucchini, some of the jalapenos, lemon cucumbers and crystal apple cucumbers.  I didn't want to waste the beet greens, so we sauteed those on Sunday night.  YUM.  I had big plans to can all afternoon, but our little Domino pup, decided to eat a black widow spider, that I had poisoned the night before.  So we spent the afternoon at the vet.  He is just fine and never even showed any signs of being sick, but I would rather be safe than sorry.  Once we got back home I settled into my crazy night of making pickled vegetables.  I was up until midnight getting all of this done.  I know, what a wild way to spend your Saturday night!  

Everything turned out pretty good, but I am in love with the green beans and the beets.  I used this recipe for the green beans from Sunset Magazine.  Soooo good.  I want to make more of them.  Sunset has a great guide to canning, if you have never done it before or just rusty at it.  This guide has been very useful to me lately.

For the past nine weeks, every Monday night I have been going to a quilt workshop that I planned in partnership with the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association.  We were trying out this workshop for the first time with participants from Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence.  There have been 5 women who have come every week to work on making their own quilt.  Most of them have never sewn before, so this has been a great skill building exercise for them.  It has been great fun for all involved and we are all almost finished with our quilts (I got to make one too).  

 

Here is a little peak at mine:

 I will post pictures of the finished quilts, in the next few weeks.  We have a few more sessions to go, before everyone will be done.  

A Wedding Dress for Miss Frances

So much has been happening and as usual, I haven't blogged about it.  I will need to catch up on everything.  But for now, here is one of my big projects that will be finished soon.  

- A little sneak peak at the wedding dress I am making for the adorable Frances.  The dress (which is all hand basted together, at this point) is on the left, it will have an overlay of silk crinkle chiffon.  On the left are the options of what the overlay will look like and she gets to choose.  

Today Miss Francis is coming over for her final dress fitting, before her big day on September 26th!  I am so very excited.  She is a dream to work with and I can't wait to see her on her big day, dressed in her signature color.  

- Here is the proof of the poster version of their invite.  Photo courtesy of the talented Olivia, who also designed our wedding invites.

I am also making a cocktail hat for her, that will incorporate her dress fabric and peacock feathers.  So pretty!

My other really big project is a bit of a secret for now.  But I can tell you that I am working with Jennifer Paganelli, the fabulous designer behind Sis Boom.  More to come on this.

Have a great weekend.

Humble beginnings to fun summer top!

I know, I know... I haven't posted in ages.  I won't bore you with any excuses and get right into the fun stuff.  I have been crafting and will share what I have been up to in upcoming posts.  The first thing I wanted to share with you is this fun summer top I made from an old pillowcase that I bought for a buck.  I followed Betz White's tutorial on the Craft blog.  The only thing that I did differently was add more of the shirred stitching.  I totally recommend this project!  It was easy and done in a couple of hours.  Some great summer almost instant gratification.

- Here is what I started with, a vintage pillowcase with a sassy floral print.

- Ta-da!  A great summer top for those hot days, which we have been having a lot of here in San Jose.

- Here is a close up of the shirring and strap.

- I even put in bra strap holders on the under side of the straps.  I hate having to adjust visible bra straps all the time.

Check out this tutorial on Craft and try it out.  You don't need an old pillowcase to do it, either, you can use any piece of fabric that is large enough.  

I also wanted to give a big ol' THANK YOU to the ladies at StyleSubstanceSoul!  They were kind enough to feature my Refashioned Crochet Embellished Tank on their site, here.  

Just one of those weeks!

We all have had them.  Start off the week on the right foot, ready to conquer everything on your To Do list... Then it all comes to a halt, because you get sick.  Ugh, I am so tired of feeling sick and tired.  As of today I am on the mend, but I think that allergy season is now in full swing with a vengeance, so I am very sniffly and I look like Rudolf the red nosed reindeer.  Oh yeah, I had to deal with two dead birds in our yard this week too!  I stumbled out of bed on Wednesday to go to the store and post office.  On my way out the front door I see a hawk on our front lawn with a headless pigeon in it's mouth (not a great thing to see when you are feeling well, but being sick it was almost to much to handle).  The hawk got scared and flew away, but left the pigeon on our lawn.  Great!  Then yesterday I see Domino playing with something in the back yard and go out to investigate.  Get up close to him and he has a dead bird in his mouth!  Again, YUCK.  

Enough of my pity party.

I have been meaning to post about this for awhile, but I just got around to mending the hole in the cushion cover.  Remember the cushion cover I made way back in November... Well I was sitting on it with Domino, rubbing his belly (forgetting that I had put Advantage on him earlier that day).  When he got up the nasty Advantage stuff had eaten a hole in the cushion cover fabric!  

Okay, grated this fabric is vintage repurposed drapes (and I have no idea what the fiber content is), but for this stuff to eat a hole in it!?!  What was it doing to us and our dogs?  I haven't used it since, but now need help finding a good natural remedy to rid the dogs of fleas.  

I did patch the cushion cover.  Luckily, I had underlined the drapery fabric with a layer of cotton.  So I sewed a straight stitch around the hole:

Then cut away the torn fabric:

Zigzagged the raw edges:

I had some left over drapery fabric, so I cut out a piece of it, trying to match up the pattern.  I applied sticky back fusible webbing to the patch, to hold it in place while I topstitched around the patch edges:

Viola!  A mended cushion cover:

So if any of you out there have a natural way to get rid of fleas on your pet, please let me know.  Right now, they are getting bathed weekly and I am putting eucalyptus oil on their collars.  I am also washing their bedding often, vacuuming often and spraying where they hang out with a mixture of apple cider vinegar, water and a few drops of the eucalyptus oil a few times a week.  But would love to know if any of you have better ideas.  

Spring has sprung... and I am a bit looney!

I love this time of year.  When the weather gets warmer, flowers are blooming, days are getting longer and I can indulge in my favorite Easter candy...  Yummy, candy covered malted milk eggs!  Oh joy.  

Now for the looney part.  I have mentioned before my love of vintage sewing machines and I need another one like I need a hole in the head.  But this weekend I brought another one home!  I can't believe it myself, but as I am writing this I am looking at my new girl Lucinda.  She needs some work, but I hope you can look past that and see her in all of her vintage Singer glory.

She is an 1898, model 27 Singer treadle sewing machine, sometimes known as the Sphinx.  I have been wanting to learn how to use a treadle sewing machine, for quite some time.  I grew up with one in our living room, it was my great grandmothers and the sewing machine that my mother learned how to sew on.  I remember playing with the treadle pedal and pretending to sew great things, on that machine. It never had a belt and I don't remember the condition of the actual machine (the cabinet was in great condition).  It wasn't as old as this machine.  Anyhow, I really looked forward to getting that machine from my mom, this past year I asked my mom if I could have it and found out that she sold it a few years ago, without letting me know.  I was heartbroken and very mad at my mom for a while, but realized that I needed to let it go.  So in comes Lucinda.  

-She came with instructions on how to use all the attachments that originally came with this machine, but Lucinda didn't come with them (they are readily available online).

-Also, the original bill of sale! 

I will keep you updated on how her cleaning and tune-up goes.  I can't wait to sew something on her!  

Hello Again and a Refashioned Cashmere Sweater

OMG!  Has it been almost two months since I have posted?  Where has the time gone and what have I been up to?  Geez!  I don't have much of an excuse, but I have been concentrating a bit more on some freelance work.  

I have always wanted to be the one that keeps a journal religiously, and can look back years later at all my oh so interesting entries.  But I have never been good at it and the entries end up feeling way to self conscience and not at all interesting.  I guess that is kind of how I have started to feel about my blog.  Don't get me wrong, I love blogs!  But sometimes I feel like I don't have much to say and don't want to bore you.  I need to change my way of thinking about it all and just blog and create things to blog about.  So here goes!

On that note, I do have something to share, that was quick, easy and fun.  On a recent thrift store outing I found this great pink cashmere sweater for $5!  BUT, it was a tad to small, bummer!  I held onto it while I finished my shopping, not sure if I should put it back or buy it (I also was holding the exact same sweater in a pale turquoise, that I am kicking myself for putting back).  I decided to buy it and figure out what to do with it later.  I brought it home, washed it and set about figuring out what to do with it.  

Since it was a tad small, I thought, why not make it into a open loose cardigan.  So I carefully removed the ribbing at the neck.  Just so you know most sweaters (especially ones made from nicer fibers like merino wool, alpaca and cashmere) are fully fashioned.  Well, what the heck does that mean?  You ask.  A fully fashioned sweater means that all the pieces used to make it up are knit to shape (unlike, a tee shirt which is cut to the shape you want), then those pieces are linked together (which is like sewing them together).  Anyhow, this means you can carefully take apart most sweaters without the pieces coming unraveled.  Just a little tidbit for you to know.  Sorry for the tangent.  I removed the rib around the neck and cut a straight line up the center front.

Since I cut the center front of the sweater, I needed to finish off the edges somehow, otherwise the garment would start to unravel.  I had this vintage fabric with pink flowers, that went with the sweater.  So I cut a couple of bias strips to make binding, to finish off the front edges.  

Now what to do about the neck and closure of this cardigan... How about a great shawl collar that become the ties to close this puppy up.  

Here is a close-up of the shawl collar.  It is basically a wide bias band folded over, then I sandwiched the neckline of the sweater between the two layers of the shawl.

WOOHOO!  A great new cardigan to bring welcome Spring in.

Slowly but Surely...

The living room is getting decorated.  I am hosting a knitting night here at my house tonight and wanted to make a cushion for our pew, so we have enough comfy seating.  I used both of the fabrics in the slipcover I made for the love seat and the thrifted drapes I got a couple of weeks ago.

-Close-up of the fabric used.

-Finished cushion on the pew.  I couldn't get a picture without one of the dogs in it, but they both approve of the new cushion.  Since we do have dogs, I need to make sure I could take the cover off and wash it, so I put in a hidden placket on the seam that is against the back of the pew.

-Hidden placket.

You all know about my love of needlepoint... Well, my friend Lynn sent this link out about artist Brigid Berlin.  Aren't they amazing?