Category Archives: family

“The Isle of Capri”

by Dawn Posted on March 23, 2022

I’m bringing a little sunshine to the Portland White House with these pillowcases made from “Capri,” Katarina Roccella’s new fabric line for Art Gallery Fabrics. I fell in love with the line when I spotted it in Hawthorne Supply Company‘s weekly email newsletter a couple of weeks ago. It took a few days of daydreaming about it before I yielded to impulse and placed an order.

I was telling my students in a quilting class last week about my — ahem — rather large purchase, which I referred to as “a shopping accident.” One of my students said, “You didn’t have a shopping accident, you had a shopping adventure!” That sounds ever so much better, don’t you think?

I confess: I wound up ordering 10 prints from the line — and I may not be done yet! Just take a look at the fabrics:

Can you see why I fell in love with it? I have no earthly idea what I’m going to make with this luscious array but I did order enough extra of the aqua lemon print to make those pillowcases for the Dear Husband and me. (I used the burrito or roll-it-up method for the pillowcases, using my own tutorial which you can find here.)

I am lucky to have visited the tiny island of Capri several years ago on a trip to Italy with the DH. These pillowcases will be a fond reminder of that trip. They are a fond reminder of something else. When my siblings and I were little, our father used to sing to us. One of the songs he sang was “The Isle of Capri,” whose first two verses go like this:

“Twas on the Isle of Capri that I found her
Beneath the shade of an old walnut tree
Oh, I can still see the flow’rs blooming ’round her
Where we met on the Isle of Capri.

“She was as sweet as a rose in the dawning
But somehow fate hadn’t meant her for me
And though I sail with the tide in the morning
Still my heart’s on the Isle of Capri.”

According to Wikipedia, “The Isle of Capri” was a #1 hit in 1935, the year my father turned 12. The music was written by Will Grosz with lyrics by Jimmy Kennedy. The tempo is described as a tango foxtrot but my dad sang it like a ballad. I love those old romantic songs as much as I love pretty pillowcases.

I’m going to put the new cases on our pillows tonight. Maybe I will dream of Capri!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, roll-it-up pillowcases, update | 12 Comments

More Marvelous Mitts

by Dawn Posted on March 12, 2022

Oven mitts, that is. I’ve made a few pair recently for friends and family. Tracy’s mitts are a royal blue tone-on-tone floral:

I quilted a 1″ grid which offers a pleasing contrast to the curves of the petals. The lining fabric is a bright blue and yellow paisley print with just a touch of silvery metallic:

Jeanne Ann’s mitts are made of a blue and green filigree fabric that I’ve used in several projects:

These were quilted with random wavy lines, a design I like a lot and can do easily and quickly using my walking foot (no marking lines needed). The lining is the same dotted fabric used for the band at the cuff.

I love that filigree fabric so much I scoured the Internet last week for more and was lucky enough to find a yard. I’m tempted to make a pair of mitts for myself out of it. But wait! I’m using that fabric — as well as the royal blue floral in Tracy’s mitts — in my current Sea Sampler project so I’d better move the idea of new mitts to the back burner. (I don’t need new mitts in any case; the ones I made two years ago look almost new, despite having made multiple trips through the washer and dryer.)

My friends David and Ken embarked on a major kitchen remodel last year so I told them I’d make them a pair of mitts as a “kitchen warming” present. The remodeling project was drawn out much longer than expected due to the pandemic. Shipping delays, mostly. But their kitchen is finished now and so are their mitts:

David gave me an outline of his hand so I could make a custom pattern:

These mitts are considerably larger than the other ones I’ve made so far. In fact, they’re close to the “one size fits all” mitts one sees in the stores – the ones that are too big for me, which is precisely what led me to make my own pattern last year, followed by a tutorial.

Here’s one of David and Ken’s mitts next to one of Tracy’s:

Quite a difference, eh?

Are you ready to make yourself a pair of oven mitts? You can either use my free pattern or follow my directions (in the Prequel to the Tutorial, below) to make a pattern to fit your own hand.

Click here to download the free pattern:
Oven Mitt Pattern, page 1 of 2
Oven Mitt Pattern, page 2 of 2

Oven Mitts that Fit: Prequel to the Tutorial

Oven Mitt Tutorial from First Light Designs, Part 1

Oven Mitt Tutorial from First Light Designs, Part 2

 

 

 

Posted in family, oven mitts, tutorial, update | 5 Comments

An Early Christmas Present

by Dawn Posted on December 22, 2021

Winterwood, the winter version of my Season to Taste table runner/wall hanging series, has a new home:

My sister Diane seemed quite taken with it when she read my previous posts about it so I decided to surprise her and send it to her for Christmas, with instructions to open the package upon arrival rather than waiting till Dec. 25. It arrived yesterday and Diane has already found the perfect place for it. The runner fits the table in the main entry hall perfectly. It was meant to be!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, kaleidoscope quilts, table runner, update, wall hanging | 7 Comments

Welcome . . .

by Dawn Posted on December 6, 2021

. . . to my sister Diane’s glamorous garage! This is the last of three posts devoted to the new window treatments I made while visiting her over Thanksgiving. To hide the brackets, Diane added tassels:

Such an easy fix, and it ramps up the glam factor considerably. Here’s a close-up:

Over the 20 years Diane and her husband have lived in this house, the garage has undergone a gradual transformation. Since guests enter their home mainly through the garage, it’s important to her that it look nice. She is fortunate to have found a very talented handyman who not only installed the wainscoting but also built the large storage cabinets on the left side of the garage:

Among other things, the cabinets hold her Christmas decorations. No more hauling them down from the attic!

A longer view of the right side:

If you didn’t see part of the garage door on its track above, you might think this was an interior room. I swear, I could live in this garage!

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update, valance | 9 Comments

Garage Glamour Update

by Dawn Posted on November 27, 2021

I’ve been working at a leisurely pace on my current sewing project for my twin sister Diane’s garage windows. (That’s another way of saying I am easily distracted by any and all invitations to play Scrabble.) Here’s a look at the first valance in place:

As mentioned in my last post, the plan was to make gathered valances attached to a flat rod pocket accented with grey grosgrain ribbon. I was going to make the rod pocket the width of the grosgrain ribbon — 1-1/2″ — but then realized that if I centered the ribbon on a larger piece of contrasting fabric it would make the grosgrain ribbon really stand out.

Here’s a close-up of the valance in process. You can see the grosgrain ribbon has been attached to a strip of yellow gold fabric:

(Pay no attention to the fabric in the background. It was used to cover Diane’s ironing board.) That yellow gold fabric? It was left over from another project I made for Diane at least 10 years ago, the valance over the kitchen window:

The rod pocket trim fabric is almost the same color as the garage walls and ties in nicely with the gray and gold patterned rug at the door leading into the house:

This picture is also proof that Diane and Ed actually do park their cars in the garage! Diane wants me to explain that she wants a nice-looking garage because 99% of the people who visit enter the house through the garage rather than climbing 26 steps to the front door. Earlier this year Diane and Ed had the oil-stained cement floor treated so it could be covered with a multilayered epoxy treatment. It certainly elevated the look of the garage, and Diane reports the floor is easy to clean.

The second valance is finished but our project is not quite done. Both Diane and I don’t like the fact that the brackets holding the curtain rods are visible and have devised a plan to block them from view. (Stay tuned for the final reveal.)

My friends already know I’m a bit obsessive-compulsive. Now you know: it’s a twin thing.

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, Scrabble, update, valance | 5 Comments

Garage Glamour

by Dawn Posted on November 22, 2021

Greetings from Georgia, where my husband Charlie (aka the Dear Husband) and I are enjoying our annual visit over Thanksgiving with my twin Diane and her Dear Husband, Ed. As usual I have a home dec project to work on and this time the site is the garage, of all places.

Several years ago Diane bought a pair of beautifully made custom valances at a garage sale (how appropriate), although I’m certain the valances initially adorned an interior room. The valances featured a charming toile print with a gathered ticking stripe underneath. After years in the garage the striped ticking disintegrated from exposure to sun streaming in through the windows but the tailored valances survived. Take a look:

Diane framed vintage images of scenes from Portland and the Columbia River Gorge to remind her of her native Oregon:

But I digress. Here’s a close-up of one of the valances:

Now it’s time to replace them. (By the way, have you ever seen such a clean garage? Mine sure doesn’t look like that!)

Last week my twin and I went shopping not only for her valances but for valances I am going to make for our stepmother — my next home dec project. Diane and I found fabrics for both at the very first place on our list. This is Diane’s valance fabric, a lovely floral linen print:

The plan is to make valances that are softly gathered at the top and bottom and to accent the rod pocket with grey grosgrain ribbon. I’m going to line the valances with whiteout fabric to add body and protect the linen from the ravages of the sun.

And what of the valances we took down? They are still in good shape. And we have an idea on how they might be repurposed elsewhere in Diane and Ed’s home. Subject of a future post, no doubt!

 

 

 

 

Posted in family, home dec, update, valance | 9 Comments

My Feedbag Face Mask, Modified

by Dawn Posted on November 6, 2021

I made myself a new face mask yesterday using the excellent free mask pattern from SeeKateSew. In the process I made a second modification that not only makes the mask fit my face better, it also eliminates one of the final sewing steps. Gotta love that! Here’s a look at my new mask:

Kate calls her design the 3D Mask but in my family it’s known as the Feedbag Face Mask, thanks to an observation my twin sister Diane made last year about my first effort involving a rather unfortunate choice of mask fabric on my part:

(You can read about it here. It still makes me laugh when I see that photo with the peapod lips and teeth.)

Kate’s pattern is essentially an elongated octagon. I extended the ends to allow for a wider casing for the earloops. That was my first modification, made last year. What you see below is her pattern along with the freezer paper pattern I made from it:

Through folding and stitching, the flat pattern is transformed into three sections (still in one piece). The top section goes across the nose, the middle section over the mouth, and the bottom section under the chin. The mask becomes three-dimensional when pleats are made along the ends of the top and bottom sections next to the casing. This photo of two masks I made last year shows what I mean:

You can also see the channel at the top of each mask where a nosewire can be inserted.

On my latest mask I omitted the pleats at the top section. One result is that the top of the mask comes up a bit higher on my face but another — and better — result is greater comfort. That’s because the nosewire, which gets pressed across the bridge of my nose, fits along the top of my cheeks better. My older masks tend to leave indentations in my skin from the nosewires because the pleating at the top pulls the masks tighter across my face. My modified mask is still slightly boxy (and still snug) at the top while the greater boxiness at the bottom makes the mask fit nicely under my chin.

As long as the need to wear masks continues, we might as well go in style, right? For me that means fun fabrics and comfort.

 

 

 

Posted in face masks, family, update | 3 Comments

It’s a Wrap: The Green Goddess Quilt

by Dawn Posted on October 30, 2021

A windy fall day in Portland, Oregon did not offer a great photo op for my latest finish, The Green Goddess Quilt. Nevertheless, I posed in front of my Subaru Forester (aka the Green Goddess) today so the Dear Husband could snap this photo to show you how well the quilt goes with the car.

Here’s a close-up of the binding:

Don’t you love the look of a stripe on the bias on a quilt binding? I sure do!

Here’s a photo of the finished front . . .

. . . and the finished back:


The label:

I made an inset circle (using a compact disc as my pattern) and then enclosed it in another circle using the same fabric I used for accent strips on the back and for the binding. The label was appliquéd in place by hand.

Sometimes, if the quilting motif is compatible, I will stitch in the ditch around the inner circle to secure the label even more to the quilt. The motif I chose for this quilt (an edge-to-edge design called Sashay) has a lot of loops and swirls so I went for the added stitch-in-the-ditch. If you look carefully you can see the stitching:

Now take a look at the front of the quilt:

Do you see the circle? Look at the dark orange print triangle in the lower left corner. There it is!

But if you looked at the entire quilt again from the front, you probably wouldn’t notice it unless I pointed it out:


That’s what I mean about the stitching motif being compatible; the stitching around the label is virtually unnoticeable from the front.

Before The Green Goddess Quilt takes up residence in its namesake, I need to throw it in the washer and dryer so it gets that lovely old-fashioned puckery look that only comes with laundering.

The Green Goddess Quilt finishes at 48″ square. It was made using Melissa Corry’s free pattern State Fair and a Layer Cake (10″ squares) of the charming “Jungle Paradise” line designed by Stacy Iest Hsu for Moda Fabrics.

 

 

 

Posted in family, quilt labels, State Fair quilt pattern, update | 8 Comments

Rounding the Bases

by Dawn Posted on October 24, 2021

Yesterday afternoon I finally got the bias binding attached to my Green Goddess car quilt (made from the free State Fair pattern by Melissa Corry). It’s a little hard to tell from this photo but I’m attaching the binding with a 3/8″ seam, the same measurement the finished binding will be:

The binding got attached shortly before the beginning of yesterday’s Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, with the Atlanta Braves holding a 3-2 edge over the Los Angeles Dodgers (last year’s winners of the World Series). If the Braves won, they would advance to the World Series; if the Dodgers won, the two teams would be tied at 3-3 and force a Game 7.

The Dear Husband and I settled down to watch the game and I began hand stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. Many quilters dread this step in quiltmaking but it has always been a process I’ve enjoyed. And it was oh, so appropriate to be working on this while a baseball game was underway.

You see, whenever I bind a quilt I have a visual in my head of each corner being the base of a ballfield. I start out a few inches from one corner, and as I get to each corner I tick off the base mentally in my head. It’s always satisfying to round third base and head for home plate.

I didn’t get all that far yesterday because the game was so exciting I kept pausing with my needle in midair. By now (if you’re a baseball fan) you know the Atlanta Braves won the game and will be going to the World Series for the first time since 1999. Twenty-two years! The team will face the Houston Astros, winner of the American League Championship Series.

I hope to have my quilt completely bound before the first game of the World Series on Tuesday. In the meantime, here are a few process shots of my binding, starting with first base — er, the first corner:

. . . which looks like this from the front:

. . . and the second corner:

. . . which looks like this from the front:

Depending on the time of day and the amount of natural or artificial light, the colors of the quilt — especially the greens — can look so different. Nevertheless, I think you can see how cute the fabrics are that feature the animals in Stacy Iest Hsu’s “Jungle Paradise” fabric line.

Can I say it? I think this quilt is a home run!

 

 

 

 

Posted in family, State Fair quilt pattern, update | 5 Comments

Changing Horses Midstream

by Dawn Posted on October 5, 2021

There must be a quilting equivalent to that expression but I’m leary of mixing my metaphors. And, metaphorically speaking, I didn’t really change horses midstream. Instead I said “Whoa!” and pulled them to a halt.

You already know that I spent hours and hours in front of my design wall arranging the blocks on my current project, nine large blocks making up a fun pattern called State Fair. Each block contains 36 pieces so you know there was a lot of moving pieces around to get the balance I was seeking. I didn’t sew a single component together until I had all nine blocks laid out.

But here’s what happened: after sewing just four of the nine blocks together, I was so pleased with what I saw that I didn’t want to go any further. Behold:

What you see is a quilt top that will measure 48″ square when bound. That’s a bit on the small side for a lap quilt — but not for what I have in mind. You see, I have long wanted to make a quilt for my car (aka the Green Goddess). I think this will be the perfect size. It’s large enough for the Dear Husband to throw across his lap on a road trip but small enough to fold up easily and toss in the back seat. And in a pinch it could double as a seat cushion at a baseball game.

Here’s another bit of good news:  in my fabric stash I found the perfect fabric for the back. I’ll be back soon to show you. In the meantime, here’s a shot of the Green Goddess when she was brand new (January 2019):

You’ve probably already noticed:  green house, green car. And soon: a green quilt for the green car.

 

 

 

Posted in family, State Fair quilt pattern, update | 4 Comments