Bunny Love and Porch Lounging (Part 1)...

First off let me say Happy Bunny Love to everyone on this Easter Sunday... this is how this lil bunny wanted to celebrate, highly inappropriate but funny nonetheless... so how ever you celebrated I hope it was a great day! Next I need to apologize for being absent... that's what you do right... after a brief absence from posting, you apologize to your "readers" which I'm purely speculating that I have any that care :) anyhoo... I have been busy... busy being happy lol... which apparently there is a direct correlation between my moods and the craftiness I get into... guess its not a bad thing unless your looking to have a somewhat entertaining blog about craftiness and my surly commentary on the world for which today I have none... but don't fret... I've managed to be somewhat productive... which leads us to this...

With Summer right around the corner (unless you look at the actual weather report which counts snow in the forecast this week) we decided, we meaning my friend "J" (yes the name has been shortened to protect the innocent...) and I, decided that we needed to turn her sad looking porch into a place of relaxation for this summers porch lounging... this is the first year either one of us have had adequate outdoor space to make use of so we were off... We didn't want to spend a ton of money of chairs since most are ridiculously over-priced so to the D.I. (aka thrift store) we went. Ended up finding 2 fairly decent albeit with HIDEOUS cushions chair that had a destiny far greater then the sad life they were leading in the used furniture aisle of the D.I. so we picked out bright cheery summer fabric (yep that is zebra print, duh... "animals prints are so hot right now") and went to town...

This is what we started with... gross... who doesn't love a good flora and fauna print... oh wait... me...

we decided to line the back of the cover with a solid yellow canvas and the front with the zebra, we made the back an envelope closure so the covers could be taken off and cleaned when needed.

After careful measurement (seriously... measure TWICE cut ONCE... it does not work the other way...) we went to town

In order to achieve the envelope closure for the back you make the piece slightly longer then the cushion and cut the piece in half about 15 inches from the top so you have two pieces. give the top of each piece about a 1 inch hem. It helps to have an excellent apprentice (and photographer) iron and pin the hem pre-sewing... makes it soooo much easier... Thanks J!

Here's proof I sew :)

it will look like this when done. Don"t worry about finishing the edges or the other sides it will all be taken care of when you sew the front to the back...

with that step done... I used my specifically designed craft space and by that I mean my living room floor, to lay the front print side up and the back with the finished hems down over-lapping slightly until it was the correct dimensions of the cushion. Pinned the pieces together and once again to the sewing machine...

The best part of the envelope closure is that you don't have to leave a opening in the sides... you can sew all the way around... I like that... its basically like making a super big pillow cover...and we know I'm getting good at that

Once the sewing was done... we stuffed the ugly old cushion into our new cover and ended up with this...

TA-DAH!! we made 2 total for the chairs we bought and then coordinating pillows in the flower print from the top... once we spray paint the frames I'll post complete after pictures... but they turned out so well... I can't wait for the weather to warm up and take to the chairs and enjoy the porch... so stay tuned!

xoxo

My Latest Obsession...

Thanks to this post from Ampersand Design Studio I am thinking of the possibilities... I've been looking for a new project and I think I may have found it... my inspiration is this lovely number from Anthropologie Did you know they make kits for dying silk? I've been looking at a few online here and here they are actually very reasonable. I like the look of the watercolor effect, where the colors bleed into each other and I'm thinking the above cowl neck shell could be easy to recreate plus there are mostly straight sewing lines... we know how I love that... I've made shells before so I'm thinking I could get close... hmmm.... perhaps I can add amateur clothing designer to the list of trades I pretend to be good at :) stay tuned!

Completely Gratuitous Picture of my Dog...

"where we going? I'm ready!"

When I first got Dede... she was super little and yes I took her everywhere (it was more of a socialization thing then a "Paris Hilton" thing... this little pink tote was "her" bag... she got really good at knowing this too. Anytime it was on the floor she'd hop in it knowing it meant we was going somewhere, that and it makes for a great party trick... she has since gotten a little bigger and doesn't travel near as much, at least not in a bag... but while cleaning out my old bags and purses I came across this and found that old habits die hard... even with cute little pups!

I Can Sew a Straight Line...

So I'm sharing my latest obsession...PILLOWS!!! ok ok ok I wouldn't say "obsessed" per se... but here are a few of my little friends...

The one that started it all (see the ugly one next to it... it's no wonder I covered them)

Which turned into...

and they became...

Next thing I know I have...

and...

looks like I still have room I can squeeze a few more in...there are 2 on there that I did buy, but they were on clearance and super cheap (thank you Landsend.com) and ones I had wanted to make but couldn't find the right materials ...

I once tried to sew curves... lets just say I make pillows for a reason... (tutorials for some of these will come in a later post... for now let me know if you want the deets) and truthfully I had no idea what I was doing when I started... it was sort of a happy accident... had some fabric left over from a previous project and just thought I'd see what I can come up with... and its just gone on from there... I get an idea or see one and attempt to recreate it... so far I've had much luck... so if any of you have an idea or have seen something out there I'd love to hear it... I'm always up for a challenge... just so long as it's straight lines.