spotted: cross-stitch dog bandanna

A few years ago, after being contacted by an editor at Brides.com for a story on wedding accessories for dogs, I made custom cross-stitch dog bandannas for a few customers. Recently, one of my customers shared these adorable photos of her dog, Mindy, wearing the bandanna I had stitched up for her.

It's so fun to see the things that I make in my little studio out in the real world. Both engagement session photos were taken by the talented photographer Shelby Leigh. Best wishes to the happy couple!

star blossoms mini quilt

When my husband and I went to London last year, I brought along an English paper-piecing project to work on during the plane ride and down time in the city (you can see the start of it here).

In the months that followed, I continued to work on it, and this past fall, I finally finished it.

I used Rachel's Star Blossoms tutorial as my starting point, and decided to make each star monochromatic, pulling scraps exclusively from my stash. For the diamonds in between each star, I used scraps of a gray tablecloth from our wedding (I've used it in other projects as well, including this one and this one).

I backed my mini quilt with two vintage floral prints, and hand quilted it with embroidery floss.

I bound it with an Anna Maria Horner print, which was leftover from this quilt.

I love, love, love this quilt. It was so much fun to work on, especially since it utilized so many little scraps and was perfect for traveling. As soon as it was finished though, I found myself missing having a go-to hand-sewing project---which I quickly remedied with a new English paper-piecing project. Pictures to come soon!

do. Good Stitches: December Quilt Block

For the month of December, Alyssa asked our circle in do. Good Stitches to create a block featuring a combination of pink prints and solids, using this tutorial by Faith at Fresh Lemons. This was my first time doing traditional paper piecing, and while I had to rip out a few (teeny, tiny!) seams, I loved the process and its accuracy, and am inspired to try out more paper-pieced blocks. Have you ever done paper piecing? Any recommendations on patterns to try?

metal frame clutch

I've always loved the look of metal frame clutches, but was always too intimidated to learn how to make one (I tend to veer away from any project that involve fabric glue for fear of making a mistake and winding up with glue on everything). So when I heard that Kelly would be teaching a metal frame clutch class at Sewing Summit, back in October, I jumped at the chance to learn something new.

The clutch was relatively simple to construct, and I used Melody Miller fabric I had leftover from my log cabin napkins for both the outside and the lining.

Kelly helped me during the gluing stage, which turned out to be not so scary or messy, and I thought the end result was very cute.

This year, I hope to continue tackling sewing projects with new, sometimes intimidating, techniques. How about you? Are there any techniques you're hoping to learn?

purple color wheel mini quilt

Not long after posting about the mini color wheel quilt top I started for September's LMP+QG challenge (which I opted to create using only shades of purple), I managed to quilt it, bind it and mail it to one of my good friends (who loves the color purple) for her October birthday.

I opted to hand quilt the piece, using purple floss in the wedges and white floss in the inner and outer borders.

For the backing, I chose a Japanese print I've had in my stash for years.

And for the binding, I used an Anna Maria Horner print, which was leftover from this quilt that I made in 2011.

I was smitten with the finished wall hanging (I love the look of monochromatic scraps!), and so happy to gift it to a good friend.