So Long April

Dash the deep thinker under the cherry blossom...

Jen Hewett

So how many of you still read the physical copies of newspapers?  Honestly, I hardly do it, but my landlord and one of the instructors at my ceramic studio are among those who still do.  They surprised me by telling me that I was in the paper.  No, no, not me.  Jen was in the paper.  Jen Hewett, my ex-neighbor who lives at my old apartment, was in the Home and Garden section of the SF Chronicle this past Sunday.  She kindly mentioned Peapod as her favorite fabric store in the city.

What a huge accomplishment!  Look, how big her photo is.  One entire page is dedicated to her success story.  Congratulations, Jen!  And thank you!

Lemon Squares Quilt Completed

The photo was shot on a beautiful weekend...

The tiny print in indigo is for the binding...

Gray, blue, and indigo for the backing...

Glimma

Fat Quaters available...

I just love Lotta's handwriting on the selvage and the red dots...

Binding

Just working...

Indoor Garden

A little indoor gardening was done the other day...Happy Friday!

Lemon Squares Quilt

The first block of my Lemon Squares Quilt on the wall about a year ago...

The wall was growing...

Growing...

Growing...

And it's done!  After completing my boy's quilt, I kept going.  Today I finished the whole top.  My tall nice neighbor kindly held it for this photo.  Thanks Mike!

The Boy's Room in History

So now you know what the boy's room looks like.  Then when I was searching for some photos in my gigantic files, I found these photos of his room in our old apartment which I posted on my old old blog which no longer exists.  It was decorated totally in my taste for a kid's room, light, airy, vintagey, flea markety, handmade, and old school...

I covered a bulletin board with flax color linen and I reupholstered the chair with red gingham...

Patchworked windmill pillow now resides at the shop...

His self-portrait from 3rd grade is pretty good...

I made and changed his bedding a lot back then, and still do.  Both the duvet cover and the pillow cases were made by me.  Mr.Teddy was one of the baby shower gifts...

Elmo was his best buddy back then...

Peapod used to carry more linen back then.  I made this curtain with my baby blue linen...

The boy was in a stage when sewing was fun to do.  He designed and made this space ship pillow...

In 4th grade, he took guitar lessons...

Among soccer, space stuff, and animals, he still keeps his interest in animals to this day...still volunteering at SF zoo...

I briefly followed Feng Shui, and read that plants in kids' rooms was a good thing.  I don't even know if that is an accurate Feng Shui thought or not...

My positive quilt #1 with a matching pillow case...

His display shelves were fun to change by the season and occasions...

After nature walks, we always brought something home...

He brought back all the feathers from his first trip alone down to Los Angeles, the zoo camp at his aunt's work.  Then I made a garland with them...

His room was often used for photo shoots for my sewing work.  No, I didn't make these...

A classic red gingham dress...

A Little Red Riding hood print camisole.  This popular print was available way before those Japanese Little Red Riding Hood prints came out...

A green linen with rose embroidered dress/top...

A blue polka dot camisole...I made this for my friend's baby girl...

Most of the projects were for a little girl, but this famous goldfish in bags print shirt was one of the rare clothes I made for the boy...

Positive Quilt in The Room

The quilt is finished!  I don't even remember when I started to work on this quilt.  Two years ago, maybe?  Finishing this quilt was one of my new year resolutions.  So I am extremely happy!

While we have more projects to work on for his room, the shelving above the desk is up...

The old skateboards and the cool poster remind him of the good old skateboarding days.  He now found his new passion, snowboarding.  The design and colors of the quilt were totally meant for this room.  The boy loves it!

His room is so small, roughly 10' x 10', so it is hard to capture the whole quilt in a picture.  It is about 60" x 80".  While I have no problem hand quilting a larger quilt, it wasn't easy machine quilting this size.  I quilted in straight lines about 5" apart...

I love the scrappy patchworked binding... 

His twin sized Ikea bed collapsed about a year ago.  So we collected free pallets and made a platform bed.  We still need two more to make it higher.  It was his first DIY project alone... 

Dash wanted to model in front of the quilt...

Dash: liar, you made me...

In Progress

I finally started to quilt the positive quilt #3...

It's about a twin size and it is not easy to machine quilt this size...

The binding is patchworked too...

I love this last part of the process...hand stitching the binding to the whole quilt...

Sew & Tell

Warm weather is upon us, as spring has arrived.  It's time to put your no sleeve dress on!  So Karen made this with espresso Kona cotton.  She made it at the Sonya Phillip's workshop, but she did it her own way.  She tightened the whole dress, gathered the front neck line, and put the whimsical pom-pom on the hem.  How cute is this?

 I love the red stitching!

So Spring has come, and the fog is already back.  So, forget the short sleeve dress.  Instead, you need a big lofty comforter to warm you up on a chilly summer night.  I'm gonna call the creator of this duvet cover "Miss Braids" because she always has two cute braids on her hair (so sorry forgot to ask your name, Miss Braids).  She pieced these tiny Japanese cherry blossom prints with the civil war reproduction prints to make it a queen size.  I think they go pretty well together and love its rustic look.  It looks so warm!

Thank you, Karen!  Thank you, Miss Braids!