It's April.

You know what that means: it's time to start thinking about winter holidays. No pressure.
(WAIT! Don't virtually hit me!)

My desk, my work space, my cutting table, my sewing machine - all covered in Scandinavian inspired, holiday-themed, red, white and grey fabrics and I am loving it.

I know. I should be thinking of summer and bright colored quilts but I love this project for a couple of reasons -

1. it makes me nostalgic for my youth. When I was in my 20s, I traveled a lot, and one of the places I backpacked was Norway. And it is gorgeous there. So it reminds me a bit of the beautiful scenery there
2. making something for winter when it's only spring makes me feel viciously ahead of the game, and gives my brain the false illusion that HA! I am SO organized, look HOW organized I am! BOO YA. (it's all a facade, really...)
3. I think that almost anything Scandinavian in feel (be it pattern, color, design, furniture, you name it..) has a link back to the mid century modernism I like to stalk on Pinterest and other interweb outlets, and hope to one day acquire a house full of golden mid century Unicorn-esque pieces (the ones you see everyone else finding in trash bins and at the side of the road on their way home from work on garbage day, the rare pieces that are, you know, solid wood, great shape, would be perfect for that spot in my ____room, etc.)

The line of prints I'm using?

JOL by Wenche Wolff Hatling for Moda. And it is SO cute.

Don't you love my super high-tech marking system? Sticky notes and binding clips.
I'm in the process of working on this project for a blog hop at the beginning of May. I paired it with this beautiful silver minky I picked up on Amazon.com* (aff link) for the backing -

...I'm about ¾s of the way through the 'sub' piecing part in prep for assembling my blocks. It's going to be a lap-sized quilt and it's coming together nicely, especially since I just *may* be doing all of my pressing at night in front of the good old tv.

Really, really in love with it, and can't wait to be done this project and have it be the right time of year for it to be draped over the back of my couch in my living room!

This designer has another fabric line out called Nordic Stitches* (aff link) (just recently I think?) again, winter themed, and I'll be saving up for it now too. It's been added to my wishlist, it is sooo cute. Again, Scandinavian inspired!
Stay tuned for the finished product. I am really excited.

What are YOU working on this week?

*this post contains links to Amazon at no additional cost to you. For more information, please visit my Disclosure Statement and Advertising Policies page.

As I sit here at my basement window beside my sewing machine writing this quick little 'work in progress Wednesday' post (because yes, I'm still gonna write those even though the linky party is long gone...) snow flakes are starting to fall outside on my green Chicago grass and inside my head my brain is screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!

Come on. Seriously. Now I feel like I kinda sorta maybe jinxed myself (and all Chicagoans therein) the other day when I mentioned that maybe Spring was here. D'oh.

This morning I managed to get a bit of work done both writing/editing and sewing; the editing started at 3am when my 3 year old was up yet again and then I couldn't get back to sleep, so why not work?

I'm currently in the midst of finishing up a tutorial on an IKEA-hacked cutting table with cutting mat storage space -


...more on that to come. I have been using the table for a few days now and I have to say - it's fabulous. You need one. Stay tuned!

This morning I managed to finish up an Etsy shop order for a midwifery infant scale sling in such gorgeous bright lemon lime summery colors -

visit sewathomemummy.etsy.com for more midwifery/doula/homebirth infant scale slings!

...and, another project also in the pipeline, and which I hope to have finished and the tutorial written up and posted by early next week - an easy, inexpensive roll-away design wall you are going to love.

More soon! What are you working on right now?

This'll be a quick one - I'm madly trying to quilt this beaut while writing this blog post, all while the kids are (supposed to be) napping.

I hear banging and thumping overhead from one bedroom, and singing (mostly of Disney princess movie tunes) from another.

Recently, The Chicago Modern Quilt Guild and its members were invited to participate in a few special exhibits for the upcoming Rosemont IQF show in Chicago this April, and I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring for one of the categories.

I've been working on this project - and I won't show all of it - but it's been a ton of fun to work with all of these retro, atomic age textures:

More on this soon. The deadline is fast approaching, I'd better move my butt!

Linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced today for WIP Wednesday!

I have been working a teensy bit on my sewing space over Christmas.

My mom is here visiting, and she's absolutely crazy about organization - and gets me motivated to plug away on my space whenever she's here.

I've been meaning to put a shelf above my front basement window since we moved in last February, where I could display my little stash of precuts (mostly Bonnie and Camille, Kate Spain and V and Co. hoards).

Mom helped me to get the shelf up since my husband has been out of commission since back surgery in December.

She even picked me up a few little decorations to make the shelf pretty - a "HAPPY" sign and a cute little star marquee.

She's also been sorting through my stash, and slowly, I've been adding some of the things I don't need to my Etsy store (check out my destash there! Gooseberry and Wrens and Friends to name a few...)

I'll be adding more to my destash there soon. I have to pare down, and, it's all going in to my longarm fund. I'm bound and determined to buy one. And like I said in this post {here}, if you're not using it, sell it!

As well, I finally got my swap quilts up - one from Rossie Crafts and the other from @sheenarichmond on IG. I think they look awesome beside my pixelated sewing machine.



Well, my sewing space is a continuing WIP. It's going to take me years to get it to where I want it, but that's okay. I'll make it my own, make it perfect in my eyes!

Linking up to Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday.

January will see my first finish of the year - I'm off to a good start. I have been sewing up a little somethin' somethin' for a Fat Quarter Shop Quilt-Along, celebrating their top tutorial videos for 2015!

I chose to play with their Fractal Quilt pattern, and I've been having a lot of fun with it. I decided to simplify the quilt and add more negative space. The quilt will be for my mom's living room and she wanted something simple, yet cool.


I've been using some Riley Blake polka dot basics paired with some Kona Iron.

The quilt features the Creative Grids non-slip Kites Plus ruler - and I can see myself getting a lot of use out of this ruler in the future. I cuts kites and the side and top triangles needed to square them up. Very cool.

I'm participating in their blog hop on January 15 - I hope you'll pop back to see what I've cooked up with this beautiful Fractal Quilt pattern from FQS!

I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced today for Work in Progress Wednesday - head over there to see what others are up to with their WIPs, and, make sure to check back here next Friday to see my finished Fractal Quilt!

I've already started on all of the Christmas presents I'll be giving the kids this year which will be handmade.

For that matter, every time I go to Target, I check their dollar section and try to pick up a little something for stocking stuffers so that I'm not leaving it to the last minute (and thus ending up with an insane bill all at once - ouch).

I don't usually work with quilt panels, but hey, my kids (3 and 22m) are NUTS for commercialized stuff. I'm giving in to Princesses and Avengers. No sense in fighting it anymore.

Pick your battles.

Plus, I figure I only have a few more years before receiving anything homemade won't be 'cool' enough, so, enjoy it while it lasts!

First up is a Princess quilt panel, backed with minky (man, I must love my kids because I have sworn off quilting minky on my machine in the past - it's such a mess and not easy to maneuver but they love their "cozy" blankies...):

It's hard to see in the picture, but I'm backing it with a lavender minky cuddle, and lining it with a cotton batting. Nice and cozy for cold winter movie days.

Because the kids don't really care what the quilting looks like, I'll be practicing my free motion quilting on them.

My meander/stipple needs a bit of work, but I'm getting there:

Today I'm linking up with Lee at Freshly Pieced for her WIP!

I have never worked with ties. Period.

But when a friend asked if I could make some throw pillows out of some of her dad's old ties, well, I couldn't resist. Sounded too cool to pass up.

So, I've been busy at night stitch ripping stacks of ties in preparation for what I'm pretty sure will be quilt-as-you-go pillow fronts.

Have you ever worked with ties before? Leave me a comment if you have, I'd love to hear about it!!

Linking up today with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

Busy busy!

Next week I'm off to Vancouver, back home to see my family and friends, and to attend my best friend's baby shower!

I've been busy making a ton of stuff for her and the baby, all in her theme (elephants!) and colors: purple (lavender), teal and grey!

First up is her main baby quilt; I pixelated a mama and baby elephant, and then made my first (purposely) scrappy quilt - it was a lot of fun:

A photo posted by Erin Davis (@sewathomemummy) on May 11, 2015 at 11:17am PDT

I just received it back from Melissa @ Sew Shabby Quilting - and still need to bind it before I leave.

Next up, with the elephant theme in mind, a stuffie for the new babe:

A photo posted by Erin Davis (@sewathomemummy) on May 11, 2015 at 11:31am PDT

heheheh - it's an elephant. And I'm in the process of stuffing it, it's not pooping batting, heheh.

I'm also in the process of making a portable change pad for baby:

A photo posted by Erin Davis (@sewathomemummy) on May 12, 2015 at 10:23am PDT

And, I've already made a stack of change pad covers in minky dot, two fitted crib sheets, and two lovies for her as well.

Super busy! Back to work for me, linking up today with Lee at Freshly Pieced for WIP Wednesday!

This is a quick post for today!

We are off to IKEA this morning in search of something to help me with the chaos that is our master bedroom closet. It's a hot mess. We need some sort of organization plan.

Somehow we ended up with the smallest closet in the house. Our 3 year old has a closet twice the size of ours - we need help. I'm not exactly a fashionista but I am the type to hold onto and wear my clothes for many, many years. Tee hee.

In between the chaos of the Sew at Home Mummy household's daily shenanigans, I've been working on another subcontract for my friend Elizabeth making patient physiotherapy support vests for a local robotics company. So here's my work in progress for this week:
....working on the hip pads in the above picture....my Singer 201 (a vintage machine) burns through the thick dense foam layers like it's butter. Love it! I'll continue to post pics of this project on my Instagram feed {here} and I'll try to make sure to post some pics here on the blog as the vests come together. They are really something, the finished product!

Linking up today to Lee at Freshly Pieced!

(I should really stop calling him Baby Ewan. He's 16 months going on 5 years. The kid is a going concern.)

I have to apologize to my quilty-readers. I hope I've not been boring you too much as of late with all of my talk of decorating and house shtuff and DIY shenanigans.

Here I go again!

I'm busy making some curtains for Ewan's room out of this super fabulous duck cloth (I LOVE duck cloth. Didn't know it before this project, but now I do. LOVE.) with retro cars and trucks printed all over it.

I wanted a fabric that was boyish, but that wasn't too or overly juvenile - because he's a cool dude (but mostly because this mama is freakin' busy and won't have time in 2 years to make more curtains, hahaha.). I needed something that would grow with him but would be relatively easy to decorate around.

Plus: HOLY COW BATMAN, have you SEEN the cost of curtains nowadays??? Uh, wowzas.

Let's just say that I hit a home dec sale, with a coupon, at a popular online store and scored everything to make his curtains for a heck of a lot less than what I would have paid for the equivalent quality off the shelf.

I realized recently that it's been a long time since I have written and shared a tutorial with my readers, and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to get back into the swing of blogging by writing up this project.

Especially because I'm using grommets. Yup. And they are NOT scary, and you do NOT need any special tools. Hang on to your crafty panties, people. Cute things are coming.

Stay tuned!

(Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday!)

Oh my goodness.
Every waking moment for the last several weeks has been full to the brim with kiddy and house-y related things. This has kept me away from my sewing much more than I would like, but, that's life!

I thought I would share the WIP I've been trying to work on when I have any down time (ha!)....it's my first of two quilt tops I'll be assembling for the Classic meets Modern QAL I hosted last year here on my blog.

 ...several years ago I was at a quilt show and was partaking in a bit of shopping, when I came across a charm pack of moda's Vintage Modern. When we last moved, it was parked in a bin and I only just came across it in the fall this past year and knew it would fit the theme of my aqua and red blocks perfectly. I decided to use it as corner pieces in the sashing, and I think it looks really pretty.

I also have a few FQs and bits and pieces of Vintage Modern I've slowly collected over the years, and thought it best to integrate it into the backside of the quilt.

But: when it came to cutting the fabric up to make blocks and such I couldn't.  I needed a way to showcase the beauty of this line while making the back more interesting than just using huge pieces of the stuff.

So. What better a way to showcase the line than set-in circles?
I'm plugging away now on these circles. Takes a while, since I'm (obviously) a pinner...but that's okay. I love piecing circles!

Linking up with Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday!

Super quick WIP Wednesday here - I'm only going to post about one project today, when the reality is I have about a million on the burners.

I've been working on this heart quilt as part of an upcoming blog hop through the Fat Quarter Shop, and decided to modify the pattern a bit with respect to size. It'll hang over my baby boy's crib, and hopefully will be cool enough for him to hang for most of his childhood, tee hee.

Oh my goodness. I have been up to some shenanigans here.

Before I get to that, here's an update on the Moonlit Round of the C+S Swap here at Sew at Home Mummy!

I have received fabrics from the following people (in alphabetical order):

AS 29483
ED 60202
ES 26180
FK 14517
IJ (Int'l)
ME 22172
SE 82070

Please check in on the weekend for another update on packages received if yours is in the mail and you don't see your name above!

Also, remember that the next round, the Basics Round, starts on August 25! Every print in the basics line for Cotton + Steel will be swapped - you can sign up for swapping fat eighths, charms squares, or both! More information on the swap can be found {here}.

Now!

Onto the shenanigans.

I've been working day and night on this project - it still involved quilting!:
I've been helping my friend {Elizabeth} out with this project; they are harness support vests patients will wear while undergoing physiotherapy for learning to walk again.
I used my Singer 201 for the entire project, and it was awesome. Sewing through thick, dense layers of foam, strapping and nylon was no problem for the machine. I love it!

The vests turned out really well, and they've been already delivered to the company which ordered them. I was so happy to be able to help {Elizabeth} out with this project, it was too cool.

I've also been busy working on infant scale slings for the Sew at Home Mummy Etsy Shop:
I'm excited to get back started on some (more traditional!) quilty projects!

Linking up to Freshly Pieced's WIP Wednesday!