Free Amy Butler Holiday Patterns

Amy Butler has some free holiday patterns for download on her site. Here are some of my favorites!

Snow Mum Pillow



Tree Forest


Gift Box Sash


There are many more on her site!

More linen love...

you know my obsession with linen...isn't this fabric gorgeous!! I can already picture what I want to make with it


Photo: maramiki

Apple Pickin'

Ok so I am kind of obsessed with linen fabric, I love it...I want to use it in every sewing project, even when it's not always appropriate. So you can imagine my excitement when I found this free pattern for a linen apple picking tote! I think this bag is cute enough for every day use. I love it!




photo: Molly, purl bee

Quilting...

I'm starting to work on Christmas gifts already. I'm hoping if I start now I won't be rushing at the last minute to finish everything like last year. Most of our gifts will be hand made this year, my most ambitious project will be a quilt for my parents. I'm planning on making the color wheel quilt from Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts.

Last year my mom and I were in Purl Soho and they had this quilt hanging on the wall behind the register. My mom kept saying how beautiful it was and according to the book, it is supposed to be relatively easy to make. Plus it will help get rid of some of the many fabric scraps I have stashed away! I'll keep you posted on the outcome!



photo: purl bee

Crafting

I made some cloth napkins for the house a few weeks ago...my stash of fabric is starting to take up greatly coveted space under my bed and I have a loooong list of things I want to sew and napkins were the first easy thing I could think of to make. I have been meaning to make them for a while now. I chose two different fabrics and made two of each so Mike and I have two sets and we will know who's is who's! The fabric is from Urban Outfitters, they were having a duvet sale a while back so I picked up a couple to use for craft projects.

After I sewed the napkins I was feeling very domestic so I made some zucchini bread. Then I wanted to get a picture of the whole thing so I dragged our old school desk to the window in our apartment that gets the best light!

Little Stitches

Amy Butler has a new book out, Little Stitches. I heard about this book a few months ago and the release date wasn't supposed to be until September but it's available now! I can't wait to get my hands on this new book, especially since my best friend is expecting soon!

Pillows

Here are the completed pillows...


Of course PeeWee has to get in every photo!

Pita and pillows

Mike made some yummy pita bread this weekend. It was delicious and fairly easy to make. He got the recipe here. He switched a portion of the all purpose flour for whole wheat. Much better than the store bought stuff! While he made pita I made some pillows for the couch. I picked up the fabric last weekend when Melissa was here. It's from Amy Butler's new line, Midwest Modern. I worked on them for a few hours and then got really frustrated because I had to re-do one and I could not get the slip stitch right. I had three of my sewing books laid out, all of which had slightly different instructions for how to do a slip stitch and none of them made any sense! I went back to it last night and finished them, I think I finally got the hang of how to properly sew a slip stitch and they turned out really well. It was dark when I finished so I wasn't able to get a photo but here are some pics of the fabric. My next project is pot holders and an oven mitt.

Happy Tuesday!

Hey everyone! Sorry for the lack of posts lately, we had a long weekend so I didn't get a chance to blog. Mike and I kind of become hermits in the winter so we didn't do anything too exciting over the weekend. We slept in, drank tea, had brunch, made some really good meals, ran some errands, watched movies and basically just relaxed! Friday night we watched Eagle vs. Shark which was hilarious. It's not really mainstream comedy but we loved it and were quoting the movie with our best New Zealand accents all weekend!

Mike's mom's bday was a few weeks ago and we still hadn't gotten her a present so I worked on her gift all last night (Christine if you are reading this, please stop reading now!). Here are the pics. The pattern is from the Lotta Jansdotter book. Sorry the pics aren't great...I was trying to work with the little amount of natural light that was left! It's a tote bag if you can't tell from the photos, I think it came out pretty well! We are filling it with a bunch of goodies and will hopefully get it in the mail this week.