ribbon blog tour

Welcome to my stop on the Ribbon Blog Tour, a celebration of Bonnie Christine's line of woven ribbons for Renaissance Ribbons! 

 

If this is your first time here, hello! I'm Caitlin, proprietress of Salty Oat, a quilt studio and online fabric shop.

Bonnie's ribbons, like her fabrics, are colorful and bright, and inspired by nature. As a quilter, I tend not to work with ribbons very often, so I was excited to try something new. Aneela Hoey's Hold it All Pouch had been on my to-make list ever since she announced its release earlier this year, and I immediately thought it would be the perfect complement to Bonnie's ribbon.

I sewed the pouch together in an afternoon and used this pretty aubergine ribbon on the handle, allowing it to be the focal point of the natural canvas exterior.

For the pouch's interior, I used my new favorite polka dot, which is from Bonnie's latest fabric collection, Hello, Bear. The pouch zips up with a pretty blue vintage metal zipper. I enjoyed keeping the pouch's palette clean, simple, and fun, and look forward to stashing some sewing notions in it.

The Ribbon Blog Tour continues through Wednesday, so be sure to check out some of the other bloggers participating, including Shannon Orr of Eva Blake's Makery who made a Reversible Studio Apron on Friday, and Kitty Wilkin of Night Quilter who will be posting her project tomorrow.

Inspired to sew with ribbon yourself? You can purchase Bonnie's ribbons from A Stitch in Time (a North Carolina fabric shop!). And if you'd like to keep up to date on Salty Oat, you can sign up for the newsletter right here.

wedding project: boutonnieres

First of all, thank you to Rachel for featuring my wedding quilt on the Craft blog on Tuesday! I'm so flattered! Also, thank you to everyone for their lovely comments, and welcome new followers!

Since a lot of the projects that I've been working on and photographing this week are for swaps (and I don't want to spoil the surprise for my swap partners!), I thought that I'd share another wedding-related craft project with you.

While planning our wedding (aka reading an insane number of wedding blogs), I came across these button blossoms on Martha Stewart Weddings and immediately fell in love with them. I made boutonnieres inspired by Martha's project for my husband and our justice of the peace to wear at our wedding.

I used fabric-covered buttons (this was my first time working with them) and flowers made from ribbon as my "blooms." The leaves were made with fusible interfacing and scrap fabric.

 Photo by Teresa Munisteri 

I really enjoy working with coverable buttons (as seen here) and have plans for cross-stitch pin-back buttons in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

sewing project: table runner

For her birthday in January, my mother requested a new table runner for her recently rearranged dining room. Using jewel-toned ribbon and strips of thrifted fabric and fabric store remnants, I set to work making the runner using the measurements she sent.

I did very simple machine quilting and finished the entire piece with black binding. I'm pretty happy overall with how the project turned out, and I especially like the color palette.

On the back, I included a turquoise salty // oat button.

christmas wrapping

The past few days have included lots of wrapping, photographing, and mailing (though sadly only a few of the gifts I've made will be getting to their destinations before Christmas--oops!). For some of the gifts I'm giving, I've opted to wrap them in fabric, rather than paper, and top them with handmade ribbon flowers. Little fabric bags like these are super quick and easy to make and are totally reusable.