Category Archives: home dec

Off to the Quilter!

by Dawn Posted on March 29, 2024

The borders are on my cherry blossom quilt . . .

. . . and it’s ready to be delivered to my longarm quilter.

Don’t you love the freshness of the cherry blossom fabrics against the two spring green tone-on-tone prints? I sure do. The simplicity of the pattern (Town Square by Fabric Cafe) really lets the fabrics take center stage, which is always my goal.

I made a simple pieced backing incorporating two quilt blocks that were too similar to ones on the front. Celebrating Spring is the leading contender for my new quilt’s name but I’m open to other suggestions. Just sayin’.

There was enough of the small focus fabric print left to make a pillowcase for a loved one to go with her new bed linens:

It was made with my own tutorial, which you can see here.

I like this pillowcase so much that I’m sorely tempted to order more fabric to make a pair for the Portland White House. But seriously, the Dear Husband and I have enough other cases to sleep on. If I made pillowcases for every line of fabrics I fall in love with, we’d be sleeping on different cases every night.

Anyway, I’ve embarked on yet another new project that I’m eagerly looking forward to showing you. I hope you’ll stop by to see what it is!

 

 

 

 

Posted in cherry blossom quilt, family, home dec, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, tutorial, update | 3 Comments

Accessorizing the Home

by Dawn Posted on January 17, 2024

I’ve been spending a wee bit of time in my sewing room over the last week. It could have been more but I had my nose in a book. A big book:  715 pages, to be exact. It’s Abraham Verghese’s bestselling novel The Covenant of Water. I actually bought it last summer but was reluctant to begin such a lengthy tome until after my cataract surgeries in June and August. Reading is once again a great pleasure, and this freezing cold snap in the Pacific Northwest over the last several days presented an ideal opportunity to curl up with a good book with either a cat or a quilt (sometimes both) on my lap.

I did venture into my sewing room from time to time, working around the schedules of the workmen repairing the walls and ceiling in the upstairs hallway following water damage from a rain storm. The hallway now looks brand new — a touch of irony in a house that’s 111 years old — but the texture on the walls beautfully mimics the original lath and plaster so you’ll hear no complaints from me. All the hallway needs now is a coat of primer and two coats of color.

I’ve been working on some small things:

This is a quilter’s tool caddy, using the pattern Travel Case by Pearl Pereira of P3 Designs. I’ve made several versions over the years, modifying the design in a few ways but most importantly by adding a fourth pocket so the caddy holds more:

The tool caddy is one of four accessories to go with my current Junior Billie Bag-in-progress. I’ll finish it soon along with three other accessories that go with it — a rotary cutter coat, a scissors case, and a fabric box that I use as a threadcatcher. I’m so enjoying the fabrics — most of them from the Gingham Foundry line by Riley Blake that came out in 2021.

You may remember I used the same fabric last October in a pair of pillowcases made for the Portland White House. I just finished a second pair for my twin Diane, who arrives on Saturday for a two-week visit. Ordinarily she would be surprised by seeing them wrapped up with a ribbon in the guest bedroom but she reads my blog so as soon as she sees this post she’ll know they await.

I couldn’t resist fussycutting the text print on the band so that the refrain “I think to myself what a wonderful world” appears on the top and bottom lines of the band:

A bit obessive-compulsive? Umm, yes.

I also made myself a new oven mitt (from my own tutorial) but got two in the bargain:

I had cut out the fabric and batting weeks ago for the mitt on the right; the materials were stacked in my sewing room closet just waiting for me. I can’t remember why I got out the tub that my oven mitt supplies are stored in but when I did I was surprised to find there was a mitt inside that was almost finished! All I needed to do was tack the red band down and turn the mitt right side out. I adore that tomato print and thought I had used the last of it. Now I well and truly have.

So much for accessories. What about quilts? Well, I have two quilts I started last year that I really need to finish but I’m already dreaming about starting a new one. . .

 

 

 

Posted in Billie Bag, cats, family, home dec, Junior Billie Bag, oven mitts, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, rotary cutter case, sewing tool caddy, tote bags, tutorial, update | 4 Comments

It’s Summer Somewhere . . .

by Dawn Posted on January 11, 2024

Happy New Year, friends! The weather forecast in Portland, Oregon calls for “frozen mix” on six of the next 10 days, with temperatures heading down to 15 degrees Fahrenheit. That is very unusual for Portland. The residents of the Portland White House, including Coco the cat, are hunkering down.

As we all know, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” And it’s also summer somewhere — the Southern Hemisphere, to be precise. I’m trying to bring a bit of summer into our home during these dark winter days by hanging my quilt Hip Hop in the master bathroom:

Hip Hop is made of a delightful aboriginal focus fabric highlighting five playful kangaroos. I made this quilt in 2018 from my own pattern Full Moon Rising, which features inset circles. It measures 16″ x 59″ and works well as a wall hanging or table runner. Click here to see close-ups of a couple of blocks taken in better light.

It’s hard to believe that we’re almost two weeks into the New Year and I’ve not sewn a single stitch. Sad but true! What I have done is edit the contents of my sewing room following the December wind and rainstorm that resulted, at great inconvenience, in a beautiful new ceiling:

Most of the contents of the room had to be moved out temporarily, and it gave me pause to consider how much stuff I had crammed into it over the years. What a great opportunity to downsize! Case in point:  I had more than a dozen vintage spooners and celery vases filled with buttons on top of my sewing cabinet. I replaced them with three bandboxes filled with sewing notions:

The bandboxes, covered with vintage wallpaper, were purchased years ago at an antique mall in Atlanta while visiting my sister. They used to be on the floor next to the cabinet. I guess you could say they have risen in stature, ha ha! The buttons (which, to be honest, gathered layers of dust in those spooners) are now housed in two very large jars in my sewing room closet.

I have been going through the contents of the cabinet, pulling out fabrics I am no longer in love with and can happily donate. (Please don’t tell anyone this represents only a small portion of my stash.)

The other thing I did is cover the glass doors on the right side of the cabinet with blackout film to block the light coming in from the windows right next to them. This prevents the fabrics from developing fade lines from the light. Prior to that I had hung an old table runner over that side of the cabinet, anchoring it with those vintage spooners. It wasn’t a great look, and every time I took a photo for my blog that included the cabinet I would flip the table runner on top of the cabinet to get it out of the way. This is a much better solution.

I am really enjoying the cleaner look of my sewing room. Once everything is in its proper place, I may be inspired to give you a little tour of my precious sewing space. It won’t happen immediately, though. Now that the bathroom and sewing room ceilings have been repaired, the crew is tackling the damage to the walls and ceiling of the hallway. As Yogi Berra so eloquently put it, “It ain’t over till it’s over.”

 

 

 

Posted in cats, home dec, table runner, update | 5 Comments

Auntie Claus?

by Dawn Posted on December 21, 2023

You’ve heard of Santa Claus, of course. But have you heard of Auntie Claus? That’s me! I made a pair of pillowcases this week as a surprise Christmas gift for my 20-something great-niece Megan:

Megan still has the pillowcases I made for her when she was a little girl. It was her mother’s clever idea to have these pillowcases be from “Auntie Claus.” Megan will be puzzled when she reads the tag but will know as soon as she opens the package that the pillowcases were made by her Auntie Dawn. These pillowcases are finished with French seams — no raw edges in sight. You can find the free tutorial for my roll-it-up or burrito-style pillowcases right here.

And don’t you just love the fabrics? They’re from the “Icy World” line by Gareth Lucas for Windham Fabrics. If you’re a regular reader, you’ve already seen these delightful folk art fabrics in a quilt I made a year ago called Arctic Stars as well as a simple ruffled valance I made just a few weeks ago for my stepmother’s guest bathroom. When I fall in love with a fabric line, it tends to make appearances in multiple projects.

It seems especially appropriate to be looking at Arctic scenes today as it happens to be the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Each day after the Winter Solstice brings more daylight. Bring it on, I say!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, tutorial, update, valance | 4 Comments

One of These Days . . .

by Dawn Posted on October 22, 2023

. . . I’ll get back to the business of quiltmaking. For now I seem to be in an extended home dec phase. Between making valances for my stepmother’s home and continuing my construction of Junior Billie Bag #12 for the class I am teaching, the quilt blocks on my design wall have been unattended for weeks. I will get back to them. All in good time.

It was work on my current Junior Billie Bag that interrupted quilt progress. When I posted about the JBB, I included a link to the Gingham Foundry fabric line I was using. Little did I know the link would lead me down a rabbit hole! You see, Montavilla Sewing Center, where I teach the JBB class, carried part but not all of the Gingham Foundry line. When I included a link to the entire line, I spied a fabric I could not live without. (You know what I mean, right?)

It was the main focus fabric in a background called “mist,” a pale blue gray. I knew in a heartbeat that I needed to get some of that fabric to make a pair of pillowcases for the Portland White House. Why? Because I could so clearly see the text print with lyrics to the song “What a Wonderful World” as the band at the bottom of the cases and the “mist” focus print as the body of the cases. Surely you agree!

Lucky for me, I found what I was looking for at an online quilt shop in Texas. The fabric arrived a few days ago, and this is what I have to show for it:

“What a Wonderful World” is one of my favorite songs. I am especially fond of the renditions by Louis Armstrong and Israel Kamakawiwo’ole but I also love the duet by Tony Bennett and k.d. lang. Is there another version I should know about?

 

 

 

Posted in Billie Bag, home dec, Junior Billie Bag, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, tutorial, update | 2 Comments

Whale Watching

by Dawn Posted on October 16, 2023

This might just be the world’s smallest valance! The window it’s made for — the guest bathroom in my stepmother Shirley’s home — is only 12¼” wide so the spring tension rod inside the valance is set for that width. The valance itself is 8¾” long.

I just mailed the valance off to Shirley in Bend, Oregon and will wait for her to send me a photo of how it looks before I make valances (out of a different fabric) for the two windows in her master bath. The fabric for this one is from the “Icy World” line designed by Gareth Lucas for Windham Fabrics.

Other fabrics from “Icy World” starred (literally!) in my Arctic Stars quilt finished last December. I’d not seen this particular print from the line until my sister Diane and I spotted it at the Quilt Basket on our trip to Bend in August and decided it would be perfect for Shirley’s guest bath.

We’ve gone quite a bit inland for whale watching!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update, vintage quilts | 2 Comments

Another Home Dec Project Completed . . .

by Dawn Posted on August 2, 2023

. . . and would you believe it took two years? I’m rather embarrassed to admit it took so long but the posts on my blog detailing the process leave no doubt. It was in the fall of 2021 that my stepmother Shirley asked if I would make valances for the three living room windows in her home in Bend. She had just bought new furniture and was looking for valances that would complement her upholstered couch. Here’s a look at one of the completed valances against the couch fabric:

Back in 2021 Shirley and I looked at valances online and I sketched out our shared vision: tailored valances with inverted pleats in the center and each end, to be mounted on wide-pocket wraparound curtain rods:

By the fall of 2022 the valances were made and ready to hang , , ,

. . . but the trip from Portland to Bend to install them was postponed when the Dear Husband and I came down with Covid. Our cases were mild and we recovered quickly but by then road conditions between western and central Oregon — snow and ice in the passes — forced the decision to wait until spring. Due to a scheduling snafu on my part, the spring trip to Bend didn’t happen until summer (as in last week). Shirley’s grandson Scott (my nephew) drove up from southern Oregon to install the curtain rods; that guy is a keeper!

This is the valance on the front window . . .

. . . and these are the ones on the other side of the room:

Underneath the valances are cellular shades, also called accordion blinds, that can be lowered depending on the location of the sun. This next shot shows the front window with the shade lowered against the morning sun:

Did you happen to notice that my original sketch didn’t include buttons at the top of each pleat? They were an afterthought — and they were by far the hardest part of the project! The buttons are curved metal discs with teeth on the inside to grip the valance fabric, which is cut in circles and then wrapped tightly and smoothly around the discs:

The decorator fabric is quite stiff and also ravels easily so I used pinking shears to cut out the circles. It was a battle getting each fabric circle neatly around a disc. I’m afraid I used some unpardonable language getting those buttons covered. (The DH was in earshot and can attest to that.) Each valance has three buttons. That makes nine of them (eleven if you count the two I ruined).

But all’s well that ends well. Shirley and I are both delighted with how well the valances turned out. It makes me so happy I could fulfill her wish for new window treatments.

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update, valance | 6 Comments

Home Dec Duo

by Dawn Posted on July 20, 2023

I’m taking advantage of my twin sister’s visit to spruce up the Portland White House. A few years ago I helped Diane recover her dining room chairs and now she’s returning the favor. I actually found the perfect fabric on my last trip to Georgia to visit her: a four-yard remnant of a beautiful “high performance” fabric, more than enough to cover six chairs. The beauty of having extra fabric is that there’s plenty to make new covers should the need arise.

In the photo above you can see a piece of the new fabric artfully draped over a chair to cover the stains and worn spots. Here’s a close-up of the fabric:

Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the subtle diamond design.

The chairs are part of an antique dining room set the Dear Husband and I bought 25 or 30 years ago. I had the chairs recovered professionally at the time. The upholsterer did such a good job that all Diane and I needed to do was cover the existing chair pads — no need to remove the old covers and dig out all those staples. An excellent DIY project but a two-person job for sure.

I started by making a freezer paper pattern, tracing around an existing chair pad for the shape and adding about 3½” extra to wrap the fabric around to the back:

Five of the six chairs have no arms; the sixth is the one in the first picture, the one I think of as the Papa Bear chair because it’s a couple inches wider and an inch longer than the other ones. After cutting fabric for the five armless chairs, I sliced the pattern to add the extra width and length for the Papa Bear chair:


Now take a look at the finished product:

Pretty nice, eh?

Here’s a look at one of the armless chairs:

I really loved the old fabric on the chairs but I must confess the new fabric looks a bit more luxurious:

As Diane would say, “Simply elegant and elegantly simple!”

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update | 8 Comments

A New Project . . .

by Dawn Posted on June 5, 2023

. . . and it’s not a quilt!

I can’t remember the last time I made myelf something to wear (not counting bathrobes and aprons). My inspiration for making a summery short sleeve shirt can be attributed to the glorious weather we’ve been enjoying in Portland the last few weeks. That and the fact that the Dear Husband and I are taking a little road trip soon and it would be fun to have something new to wear.

Over the years I’ve given most of my patterns away but have hung on to some thinking I might use them someday. For this project I’m using a Butterick pattern that probably dates back to the 1980s. (I couldn’t find a date on the envelope or instruction sheet.) When I pulled the pattern pieces out of the envelope I discovered they had already been cut out. By me. I’ve made this pattern before — but I have absolutely no recollection of what fabric I used and when I made it. (And why don’t I still have the shirt?)

The fabric is from the “Canyon” line designed a few years ago by Kate Spain for Moda. I’ve used it to make a pair of pillowcases for the Portland White House . . .

. . . and this sweet little basket block that may wind up in a quilt someday:

 

 

 

 

Posted in family, garment sewing, home dec, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, update | 9 Comments

This Time the Dream’s On Me

by Dawn Posted on May 29, 2023

What’s with the title of my blog post? It’s the name of a 1941 song written by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. You’ll understand as you read on . . .

I gave myself the day off today from working in the yard to play in my sewing room.  What do you think of my new pillowcases for the Portland White House?

The main body, accent strip, and flange are from the “Mindscape” line of fabric designed by Katarina Roccella for Art Gallery Fabrics. The apricot-colored band at the bottom of the cases is a treasured piece of “Gypsy Girl” designed by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree & Company. If these four fabrics look familiar, it’s because I’m using them in my current Work-in-Progress, which I wrote about here.

That WIP has been on the back burner for most of May because the Dear Husband and I have been taking advantage of an unusually long stretch of warm dry weather to work outside. In a perverse sort of way, I’m wishing for a little rain to come our way so I can spend more time in my sewing room. Kidding! (Well, maybe not . . .)

It feels so good to finish a project. Pillowcases provide a fast way to achieve sewing satisfaction. Not instant gratification but pretty darn close. By the way, I followed my own tutorial to make what I call “Perfect Pillowcases.”

I’ll bet you can guess what the DH and I are sleeping on tonight! I predict sweet dreams.

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, pillowcases, roll-it-up pillowcases, tutorial, update | 9 Comments