quilted placemats
All through December I sewed and knitted and crocheted a handful of gifts for friends and family in secret. I was so excited to finally get to share some of my creations once the holidays had past. Of course I was so excited to send many of them off, I forgot to take photos. Oops. I did remember to snap some photos of these quilted place mats I made before they were wrapped up.
I had fun with these, with no specific pattern, just piecing together some fabrics that I liked and using a cool geometric pattern on the back.
For the second set, I wanted to do something a little different and made a sort of cityscape. I was torn whether to sew in some stars but in the end left the sky blank. I do like the idea of some bright yellow accents though.
The backing on these is also a fun geometric fabric, though a different colorway. Now that things are a little less hectic I’m looking forward to making some placemats for our home. I think I’ll try a new design with similar colors since I like how these turned out so much.
cozy gift guide
1. Albion Coat Pattern > 2. The Snow Child: A Novel
autumn table decor
The holiday season is just around the corner. With a late thanksgiving this year, my mother and I were already able to throw a fancy dinner party. When looking for inspiration for table decor, I found that a lot of the autumn themed decorations tended to be a bit hokey. We kept it fairly simple and decorated mostly with birch logs and little woodland animals that my mom already had from her christmas tree last year. We added some glitter and fake leaves just to spice it up a little then lined the table with real leaves that I collected back East, candles and tiny pumpkins. My mom also found some birch lined planters to house a few ferns. I loved how it turned out and it was not terribly difficult to set up. It even felt like fall in seasonless Los Angeles.
triangle baby quilt
Hello November! I’ve been away from the blog for a bit longer than I like. We had a whirlwind trip this past weekend to visit Shawn’s family and attend his sister, Amy’s, baby shower. The exciting thing, besides getting to spend some time with family and catch some of the beauty of fall in the East, I finally get to share this quilt. Since it was a gift for the baby, it’s been a secret project while I’ve worked on it for the past few months.
Shawn and I labored over choosing the fabrics and settled on some contrasting colors to go with a cute raccoon print. Since it’s a crib sized quilt, it didn’t take terribly long to sew together once all the triangles were cut. I hand bound the edges and actually enjoyed doing it for the first time.
I was really excited to give Amy & Jason the quilt knowing it is something that their baby will have for years to come. I still have a quilt my great grandmother gave to me for my first birthday and it means a lot to me. I like to think that I’m carrying on some small tradition of quilt making.
woodland halloween
At the last minute I pulled together my Halloween costume just in time for the one party we were invited to. The whole thing was pretty basic: a simple grey dress plus ears and a tail. I’m always happy to be in a comfortable costume (though I’ll admit having a tail feels a little odd).
The makeup is really what pulled it all together. I kept thinking about how to make my face more raccoon like but realized the problem was that I don’t have a raccoon shaped face and there’s not really anything I can do about it.
I had added a velcro closure on my ears but it looked too weird so I’ll probably go back and remove it all together. They stay on just fine without.
Not to be outdone, Shawn made this awesome fox mask. It took me all night to make my costume and he just made this stunning mask out of nowhere. It looked really great. He also had some furry gloves and a tail, so we matched a bit.
Happy Halloween from some forest creatures!
We still haven’t had a chance to carve pumpkins but October isn’t over yet. I’m looking forward to a quiet Halloween handing out candy to trick or treaters.
