Puffy Petal Flower Tutorial

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This week I made something special for my baby girl!  I am sharing the full tutorial over at Fireflies and Jellybeans next week, but here is a little sneak peek...

I made some fabric flowers with five petals to match the fabric and embellish her outfit a little bit.  I have made fabric flowers before, but after playing around for a few minutes, this just seemed like an easier way to do it.
Cut a piece of fabric 8" by 4" and fold it in half, right sides together.  Make a template 1" high by 1 1/2" wide and trace on five curves- keeping them tight together to create a scalloped edge.
Sew along the lines you drew, trim around the scallops, clip the curves, then flip it right side out.  It won't lay perfectly flat, which is fine and gives the flowers more poofiness anyway.  Sew a long basting stitch along the bottom about 1/4" from the raw edge.
Pull the thread to gather the petals together.
Sew it by hand to a small circle of felt.  You can pull and shape your petals a little better in this step.  The stitches do not have to be pretty- no one will see this. Then sew a button on top and attach it to your project, a hair clip, or a headband!  (Of course, the button is a choking hazard, so consider yourself warned.)
So pretty and cute! For the larger flower, I sewed each petal individually, which gave me more control over their shape and made them longer, but it wasn't as fast. 
 

Make sure to check out my tutorial over at Fireflies and Jellybeans!  I will update this post with the link when it is up!

UPDATE:  You can see my CUTE Sweet Summer Halter Top tutorial HERE!

Kelsey's Quilt

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I don't believe I have ever shown off one of my quilts on my blog, but I am also a quilter! (Actually, I learned to sew quilts before anything else.) After a really tough Spring semester my sophomore year of college, I sold back all the books I could find from the first two years, went straight to Walmart, and bought the only sewing machine I could afford. That summer, I taught myself to quilt.I made baby quilts for my nieces and nephews, but the pre-quilting era kids have been skipped. So, for the girls, I have been making larger quilts for their 12th birthdays. Kelsey’s was just a bit overdue. I started it in April of 2009 and I just finished it. The piecing went really quickly! Basic nine patches in light blue and lilac, set on point with a cream background.

(The backlight from the window doesn't show this off the best.)

See, it took so long because I like to hand quilt motifs on the open squares. This intricate flower one was totally my own design and each block varies.

I like how the colored thread stands out against the cream fabric.

I put a few butterflies in there, too. I really punished myself with this one, and it would sit for months at a time with me having no ambition to work on it. However, I use washable crayola markers to draw on my quilting lines and after nearly 2 years, it didn't want to wash out! It took a lot of washing and soaking and OxiClean to get most of it out.

This is a terrible cropped in picture, but I designed a little motif to put her name in it that coordinated.

And of course I mitered the corners, too. I handstitch my bindings on around the back. (And that is some of Baby#5 under the green shirt there- makes a nice photo prop!)

I try to embroider a special message on the backs of these, and this one included Isaiah 40:8

The grass withers, the flower fades, But the word of our God stands forever.
So there is my first quilt show-off. Expect more of these because I am trying to catch up on some new baby nieces and also trying to use up lots of quilting stash before I move my sewing table and hubby sees how much I have jammed in there! :)