Bits and bobs I have been working on

Just wanted to say Hi and show you a little face lift to my 'idea book'.

This is where I write lists or sketch ideas of art pieces to be or not to be. 

It was just a plain notebook I had and added some grey scrap book paper to it about a year ago. 

Tonight I looked at it and thought how drab. So hopefully the new additions will inspire new ideas, creativity and cups of hot tea. :) 

Underneath my idea book are fun little quilting squares I randomly put together the other day. 

Here is what my living room table has looked like for the past week. :) 

I am determined not to put it all away until I have created something else..something fabulous, something full of color, something grand!  (my table might be looking like this for awhile ;))

Oh and here is my little incognito sewing/art supply cabinet in my living room.

  I can turn my living room into a creative space in a flash and then close it up really tidy like. :)  

Random note: 

This morning I woke up and pulled my chair over by one of my living room windows and watched the clouds move and make way for the bits of color left over from the sunrise.  As I talked with the Lord I tried to sketch what I was seeing over the apartment buildings all around... they (the apartment buildings) could not shut out the sky, the clouds the fresh morning glow. I am convinced that beauty can be found every where God is!  

Tonight I am going to try and create some beauty. Good night to you all. 

Becky in my west corner. 

Felt circle trees/a baby blanket ~ part 1

This is what I am working on to be a matching set for the pillow I made. 

(If you remember the felt tree pillow I made a bit ago - click here to see )

Still not 100 percent sure on how I am going to pull this off.  I have enough of the same white fabric I used for the pillow to have 4 to 6 squares worth. Now I need to decide what fabric I will use for the other squares and the back. I only have patterned fabric and not really any good baby stuff....so I will piece something together with what I have here in my home stash and see where that leads me. :) 

I will keep you posted. 

I really like it when sets don't match perfectly but just tie into each other in different ways. So I am switching it up a bit for the blanket and making several circle trees, instead of one tree with several circles. 

My two thoughts are to make the circle trees the center of the blanket with fabric strips in the middle to separate them and then coordinating fabric around the edges etc. or my other thought is to  make several fabric squares and inter mingle the circle tree squares throughout the pattern and blanket?  So still thinking it through.  What do you all think? 

In my west corner ...using the fabric I have to create something for that little niece of mine! 

Becky

an itty bitty p.s.~ This is my 201 post! Again I think that is crazy I guess I need to go back and read all that I have been saying over the past few years. I love blogging...it is such a great way for me to process and record my life.

Felt tree pillow update

Felt tree pillow ~ finished. :)

This colorful circle tree pillow is for my soon to be niece. 

The wonderful story behind this is we will be visiting in the States this summer and my sisters due date falls on the time we will be in the States. I am so very grateful to be able to deliver this little pillow to my little niece in person, it is a gift both ways. I love you Debby and can't wait to meet you Gracie.

I was trying to figure out which ribbon to use the blue or the purple ric rac and so I asked my girlies. 

And they said both...:)  What do you think? 

The blue ribbon holds the pillow case together at the bottom along with velcro pieces on each side.

Here is a close up of some of the quilting. :)
All all of the quilting is done in white expect the little circle clouds in light blue
and the grass done in green..

Almost forgot the back. :) So here it is.

This pillow was fun to design and great practice for me. 85% of it was done by hand.


So should I create a blanket to go with?  

In my west corner playing 'show and tell',
Becky

Sewing an ugly quilt

My cardboard love series will start next week mainly because I have been sewing like crazy lately and if I am on a roll I better not stop.  I am trying to learn how to sew proficiently. The struggle for me is that I am not the best at details and reading directions really is a challenge for me.  I like to SEE pics or SEE others demonstrating it. I think I would do great at a sewing class.  I could take one here but they are such a time commitment every week day for for 3 hours for about 4 to 6 months. (crazy) So I am slowly making progress on my own...

I have had this VERY flowery 100% cotton fabric (impossible to find cotton in my town).  The State flowers fabric series...someone gave to me. So I cut it up in squares and I recently starting patch-working it together. The top part is finished and now I am working on tying it instead of quilting because I think it is too ugly to spend that kind of time on it.  So I will show you a picture of the finished product soon. It is very basic but hey basic is where I am at. I think I will make it into a picnic quilt.

Also because I have my machine out I decided to try and upscale or up-cycle my wardrobe.  I am excited to show you the results of that too.  I have put together a full outfit that I never would have worn together before the remake.  A pregnancy dress and a sweater turned into something ~ simple and trendy, but most importantly me!  Here are the before pics, I have no idea if I will have the guts to model the outfit we shall see. :)

I have finished the sweater so off I go to finish up the dress. Until next time...
In my west corner,
Becky

My patchwork curtain makes me giddy

Ok, so I am learning to sew and little accomplishments make me delightfully giddy.

This little patchwork curtain hangs in my kitchen.  It blocks the sun that comes in during the day that HEATS up my kitchen. :) It is especially made for our balcony door, and I really like it, just hanging there looking cute and blowing in the breeze from time to time. It does its job so nicely.

There is a small window above it that I want to do something about. I think I am inclined to put fabric up there using my cornstarch mixture in this post.  We shall see, until then I am content with this little guy.

From my west corner over here in Turkey to you all in your corners,

~Becky

A 'little' batting a 'little' applique pillow

Homemade gift ~
I am starting to feel more and more confident sitting behind my sewing machine. Self learning comes with soooo many mistakes I feel, especially me who doesn't like to read directions. lol. I have started to realize however, that I am the creator of my creations.  One of my newer goals in sewing is to be willing to explore doing things in ways that I don't normally see.  I figure no inventor ever invented anything without risk and doing things differntly. So I will experiment as I go because I have noone to tell me 'no thats not the way you do it'. ;)

Here in Turkey there is not 100% cotton batting and I like it so much more than anything else. Batting is the stuff you put on the back of a quilt that actually makes it a quilt and gives it that puffy, cozy look. (fyi because I didn't know that one year ago. );) My friend gave me some of her small stash of batting this last Christmas, for me to quilt my first pillows. (here and here) Well now I have very little pieces of that batting left and I used a bit to make this small applique house on this pillow.  I made it for my firend who just moved into a new place..it was a house warming gift I guess. :)

I really like the way it looks frayed but I think next time I could do better.
The word : 'EVIM'  means 'My home' in Turkish

     I hand stitched this little quilted house, I just followed the pattern on the fabric.

Truth is I have no idea what I am doing and I am learning while I go.

The word Evim was hand stiched with a thicker thread.

Sewing the pillow this way with the mouth of the pillow open was much easier for me and quicker so I decided to do it the way I wanted and I like the way it turned out.

A sweet gift of fabric. 

I loved getting this fabric from our friends. I had a riot going through it all and there are some pieces that are just perfect for me!!! I am sosoo grateful for this sweet gift that weighed a lot for luggage allowance.

Ever since we had some friends come from the States and bring over all these bundels of fabric (most 100% cotton) I have had more inspiration to sew.  All the patterns are not my personal choice however what I like about not getting everything at my fingertips is that I get to become a more a diverse sewer (that is my hope anyway)and learn to experiment and put colors and such together that maybe I normally wouldn't.  I figure if I can learn to 'use what I have' regarding my fabric and not wait until I have everything that I want then I will be more versitle and when I do have more choices I won't waste them. :) 

Well that is all for now. Thanks for following me on this 'use what you have' journey. 

over here in the west corner ~Becky

For those of you newly visiting "Use what you have" is my theme for this season. I would love to have you follow/subcribe to this blog if  you too are at a place where you would like to thrive at 'using what you have'  instead of being discontent with what you don't have.  If you are simliar in this then please conisder joining me. Hopefully we can inspire eachother.

~~~

diy Patchwork bookmarks ~by my girlies

Happy Spring... I am happy that the day on the calendar has arrived but really when the weather finally turns then I will really be able to say Happy Spring to all. 

 However in light of the seasons changing which I absolutely love

 we have been doing a few fun projects ..especially with fabric scraps.  

We worked on these 'patchwork' bookmarks the other day for a B-day present for the kid's Grandpa.  

The thing I like about this idea is it gave my girls the opportunity to touch the fabric and put colors together.

  It was a lot of fun and easy to do. 

 I used up some scrap fabric but I think if you had some really chick new stuff these could be a real hit!!

Patchwork bookmarks made by my girls.  
I think a new or used book and a book mark is one of the best gifts! 


If your interested here is how we went about it. :)

I tend to do almost everything "with" my kiddos and so while
the little guy was playing cars we were cutting up fabric.
 However in this pic I guess he was more interested in his 'bear bear' and the fabric. 
It's amazing we caught him holding still. ;) 

I absolutely love this picture of my girls hands
reaching for the colorful fabric.

We just used pieces of scrapbook paper I had
and a glue sick  to put the fabric on.

My little Lydia took this pic.  ;)

We wanted to monogram the bookmarks to make them more personal.
Plus I just love monogramming..;)

I think stitching on paper is fun so I decided to give Autty a go at it.
She was a natural on the sewing machine and tonight we practiced again.
It is fun to work with her on something she really desires to do, funny thing is she will probably pass me up if she keeps learning at this rate. ;)

Here is the back of them. 
 I didn't want to cover up the back because I wanted to leave room for a written note.
As you can see one is for one of the Grandmas. :)

They are done except for being laminated and some ribbon.
I did leave a few with no stitching just for variety.

Here we are at the Kirtasiye (office supply store) getting them laminated.

For all you Turkey dwellers several Kirtasiyes have lamination machines and it is inexpensive.

 Yep that's the lamination machine. I don't know why I took the pic authenticity, I guess. ?? ;)
 It cost about 2 liras for one page. (just over a dollar)

Here they are laminated.
 I cut them up and then rounded the corners so they weren't so poky. 

I put a slit in the center top and found a pretty ribbon for each

 and then hand sewed the ribbon together.

This little picture is a token for my girlie's. 

I have a few more 'no sew fabric projects' I want to post.  Fabric is one of my favorite things and this last weekend our family went to Istanbul for an education conference and I was able to buy a few cotton pieces of fabric.(cotton is really hard to find and pretty expensive) I am thrilled and completely inspired ~ inspiration is not usually my issue for not getting more done, it is time. I figure God allots 24 hours for a reason so I guess I will submit to it and go to bed. :) 

Good night from the west corner.

~becky

Autumn's quilted pillow

This is Autumn's pillow.  I  really had fun putting together these colors. It was fun to pick colors and design to match my girlies .  However I feel like the pics don't do justice .. (but that's probably just me since I worked on them for a solid month and 1/2 ;))  I am the kind of person who learns by doing. Wow did I make a bunch of mistakes and have to start over on this or that,  but after Lydia's pillow which was more complex anyway, this pillow didn't seem to take me as long and the actually quilting (sewing) part was a lot of  fun.

This is the back.  I need to fix the one side  however the back is Autumns favorite part right now.
It was fun to do applique for the first time with this.

Christmas morning ~ with the pillows.
(yes that is our homemade doll-house in the background.
I want to blog on that soon too.)



Christmas 2010 ~ In our west corner,

Becky

Quilted pillows

Well I did it.Quilted pillows for my two sweet girlies for Christmas. Lydias pillow was the most challenging.  This is my first real quilted anything.  My sweet friend Consuelo gave me some real cotton batting, it is sooo much nicer than the polyester batting that is found here.  I would love to import some of it.  I learned a lot about sewing and by the 2nd pillow I was able to sew much quicker and make less mistakes. :)

 

Lydia's pinwheel pillow.

 

I tried to do triangles on every side but I didn't have a cutter and board

and it was taking forever so i only did two sides.

Ta daa this is the back. I tried applique on this
one. Don't know if I did it right but it looks cute and is well secured. 

I love quilting because even if you make a mistake you can fix it with something fun.
 Nothing professional coming from my house, but lots of fun learning.

From our west corner,
Becky

Success

Well after starting this quilted pillow case over 6 months ago I have finally finished it.  It has been ready to be sewn into a pillow case with all it's pieces for months I just wasn't sure how to put it together. Thanks to Consuelo's 3 minutes demonstration I picked it up today, retrieved my sewing machine (which is one of my most sweetest gifts from David) and finished it in 30 minutes. :) Yippee now a little color and a little piece of my own handy work in my living room.



Here is my little pieces of work




The back of the pillow is where my learnig curve was but I learned and so success.



My goal is to make a quilted pillow for Autumn and Lydia.  I have decided that a blanket is past my ability and patience right now, so I thought a quilted pillow case for their beds would be perfect.  I would love to make them for Christmas gifts.  The problem is not enough material, I brought some fun squares back from the States this time around but I just don't feel like I have the material that I would like for both of their personalities.  Maybe I should go to the pazar and buy some different bed sheets or I could go through their old clothes and pick out shirts or dresses that they really liked and use pieces from those. However I would really feel funny cutting up a bunch of nice clothing that others could use for a pillow case.  Well we shall see what I do -  I will pray for God to provide ideas for getting the perfect material for these little gifts that I want to make and give. ( I sound like Karma Rasico which so makes me smile (she prays about everything, even cardboard boxes)- you are a great example.) ~