Sprocket Pillow

Sprocket Pillows have been popping up everywhere on the sewing blogs I read lately. I have a ton of scraps around that I've been wanting to use together but didn't know what to make with them. But after seeing the different versions of this pillow I couldn't resist:

The white with purple leaves, the middle border, and the backing are from remnants I found at WalMart last night.

The blue is from a fat quarter I got at JoAnns the first week I got my sewing machine.

The sparkly pink is actually a cotton jersey (which yes, was not all sunshine and rainbows to work with when mixed with such crisp, pressable cottons...but it was screaming to be included in this) and it's a remnant from a yard I couldn't resist buying awhile back and am in the middle of making a shirt from.

The dark purple rose print is leftover from the Pseudo-Amish-Quilt I made for a class project last semester.

I absolutely love the backing fabric. Occasionally WalMart has good prints, but unfortunately the one WalMart here I could count on for a small, if not very good, fabric selection is cutting it all back and there was only a 5/8 of a yard scrap left of this print.

You can find the free tutorial for this pillow at Cluck Cluck Sew.

Easter is Sunday and it's the first weekend day I've had off of work since Christmas/New Years weekends, and before then... since last summer before I started this job. Much needed. I'll actually get to go out Saturday night with friends and act like a young adult. An oddity in my world.

My mother mailed Alex and I some Easter goodies. And of course she couldn't forget her grandbabies. Hiroki annihilated most of his within an hour or two. He usually saves some of the end for the next day.

And even though it's too dark to take pictures outside right now... I can still share that my tomato plants have two decent sized tomatoes on them at the moment. One is probably the size of a golf ball, the other a bit bigger. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of tomatoes, I love watching my apartment-garden grow.

A project of a different kind...

These past few weeks I've been working on a project at work. The end result is that we opened an entirely new section of our store at the flea market, a t-shirt shop with custom and plain t-shirts of every color and size. And an e-bay store to go along with it.

Not the best photo, as it's a hurriedly snapped picture from my boss' iPhone, but the general idea of things. Instead of having the heat press and t-shirts stored in my vinyl shop (we make decals and custom license plates, yard signs and banners... etc) now it has its own home in a little closed off cubicle. And obnoxiously bright signage for all sides.

Yesterday we got in our last shipment of shirts to fill out the place, and tomorrow will be the first day that all signs are up, ebay shop has items in it, and shirts of all colors are lining the aisles. Better pictures to come.

So who needs a custom t-shirt?

Behold... the most even edges to have ever come out of my machine

My mother got me a gift subscription for American Quilting and Patchwork magazine. And as soon as I saw this quilt I wanted to make a miniature wall-hanging of my own.

And so I whipped out some scraps, made a promise to myself I would pay attention to every seam and cut edge... and wala.

The most lined up and even square centers that I have ever created. Ignore the fact that the light purple and burgundy are slightly shorter at the ends, because as you can see...

They get cut off anyway, and I only had 4" squares of this material to work with.

And then came my first ever curved seam that was intended to lay flat. And it worked out.

I promise, promise, promise I have been sewing these past few weeks. I've got two shirts completed, one shirt almost completed, and a dress that is partially constructed and in that awful stage of limbo where I have no motivation for it.

And then, of course, this little four-squared wall hanging I started on a whim last night.

As soon as crazy projects and papers for this semester are over (next week! and then there's only finals left to go), I will have pictures and updates.