Living Room Make Over With Marimekko And Lotta Jansdotter

It was long over due! 

Ever since I made new cushion covers for a friend of mine, I was thinking about giving my own living room a make over. I was not only thinking new cushion covers but also giving our coffee table a new look as well (I was inspired by this diy-coffee-table-ottoman-tutorial that I found on Pinterest).

First, there was the hard decision of choosing fabric... it took me several weeks! At the end, I chose a mix of Marimekko´s "Kompotti" and Lotta Jansdotter´s "Glimma" collection. Both beautiful fabrics in a gray-blue-brownish color theme. 

This is how my living room looked before - the coffee table had several scratches and also these awful looking corner pads which you buy when you have small children: 

And here is what it looks like now: 

And of course my kids think it is the best new play area in the house!

And here are some pictures of "the making": 

I love this fabric! I am just a little nervous about little chocolate fingers...

Insulated Preschool Lunch Box

A long time ago, when we first tried to introduce our little boy to daycare, I got him a cute lunch box. Now, that he finally uses it, I had to find out that it is way too small. It fits a Tupperware but that´s it. No water bottle or anything else. 

So, I looked at my favorite online place for inspiration (hmmm, which one could that be?) and found a tutorial for an insulated lunch box that I used as my base, and I went from there.

 

I started by measuring my Tupperware and water bottle and determined the size of my lunch box (23 x 8 x 42 cm). By adding a 1 cm seam allowance I came to my minimum fabric measurements: width 23+8+1+1=33 cm, height: 42+42+8+1+1=94 cm. 

I used oil cloth/laminated cotton for the outside and lining fabric with an thermal batting in between. The thermal batting was a left over from this previous project. 

All 3 fabric/batting pieces had the same rectangular size being 35 x 95 cm (14 x 37 inches) - I rounded the measurements up slightly to add some room.

The next step was to fold the lining fabric in half lengthwise right sides together and close the side seams.  

To form the bottom of the lunch box, I marked two squares at the bottom corners, ensuring that my 23 cm width are between those two squares. By pulling the marking lines together at the corners I could stitch down the line of each corner (the tutorial I followed roughly used bobby pins to hold the oil cloth in place without pinning holes in the fabric - genius!). 

After trimming the corners I put my Tupperware and water bottle in the lining to test the size - perfect!

After finishing the lining, I did the same for the outer fabric with the batting on top. In addition, I added a piece of 1 inch wide elastic before closing the side seams.

Almost done! Here you can see both bags together with bobby pins at the top. You can also see why I added the elastic.  

The very last step was to add bias tape to close the bag top and to attach lining and outer fabric.

Done!

Now, our little guy can take everything he needs with him to preschool!

Kids Duvet Cover - Where Are The Boys?

My daughter (4 years old!) finally manages to sleep through the night for at least some nights a week. As a treat for that achievement, we promised her to paint her bed in what ever color she wanted. Well, she has 3 favorites - so her bed got painted turquoise, pink, and purple. 

Around bedtime that same day, my little boy (2.5 years old) was in tears because his bed didn´t get any new color. This reaction was no surprise of course, but I still had no intentions to paint his beautiful white crib!

Instead, I offered him to sew a new duvet cover for his bed and he could pick his favorite color for the fabric. Much happier already, we went upstairs and he had a look at my fabric storage. While my daughter has 3 favorite colors with turquoise being the most favorite, my son has one unchallenged favorite: pink! So, I showed him a few options and here is what he chose (Sherbet Pips by Aneela Hoey for modafabrics.com):

Looking at that fabric he asked me: "Where are the boys swinging?" But he didn´t seem too concerned when I told him that there were only girls on that fabric...

KitchenAid Cover - Another Amy Butler Cameo Project

This might be the last project (for now) of my own little Amy Butler Cameo series, because all these beautiful pieces will leave my house as soon as they are done. 

This cover for a KitchenAid Stand Mixer will move to Oregon together with my friend who got the cushion covers and the floor pillow. I am sad that my friend is moving, but I am happy to give her something that will remind her of me in her daily live. 

I´ve made one of those covers for myself long ago, but this time I added a little pocket (I´ve seen that the store bought covers have those too) to store e.g. your flat beater in it. Not sure how useful...

Christine, you and your family will be missed!

Floor Pillow - One More Amy Butler Cameo Project

Since I saw one of those on Pinterest, I wanted to try it out. And it turns out it really is as simple as it looks! You only need one yard of fabric, 2 packages of pre made piping, a zipper and of course the filling (lots of filling!).

The filling turned out to be the hardest part, as I had no idea what the differences were. So I started with a fiberfill which was recommended to me by my local fabric store. But the pillow turned out to look wonky with bulges. After a little research I came across shredded foam with was 1. cheaper and 2. looked much better inside the pillow. The only disadvantage is the mess while filling it inside the pillow :).

Dimensions of my pillow are: 

18 inches diameter

10 inches height

and it has a little zipper underneath the handle

 

And because this pillow will not stay at our house (it goes together with the other cushion covers I´ve made), I will definitely make at least one for myself - as soon as I have decided on a fabric / color theme for our "new" living room.

Cushion Make Over with Amy Butler Cameo

I had a really nice weeks with this project! 

I offered a friend to help her redo her cushions and we had a lot of fun thinking about colors, color combinations and different themes in different rooms. I was very glad that she decided to pick such beautiful fabrics! They are all from the Amy Butler Cameo collection and even if they are meant to be for different rooms, I think they all go great together (one room will have a blue/white theme, the other one will be green/pink).

I have worked on a total of 12 cushion covers in different sizes and two different fabrics each. And here is how I broke the work down into small pieces to have a little accomplishment each day: 

Day 1: Cut all 24 fabric pieces
Day 2: Sew the first seam with room for zipper (all 12)
Day 3: Insert zipper 1-3
Day 4: Insert zipper 4-6
Day 5: Insert zipper 7-9
Day 6: Insert zipper 10-12
Day 7: Serge all 3 remaining seams (1-6)
Day 8: Serge all 3 remaining seams (7-12)

Done! And that way, I even had time to finish 4 other projects during the same week!

I am just sad that those cushions will not stay at my house. I should really work on a living room make over for myself... wait for more...

Round Cushion Cover with Sunbrella Fabric

This project was long overdue! Last fall the cover of this round cushion got pretty dirty (not cleanable dirty!) and when in addition the zipper broke it was time to do something. It took me a while to get in done but yesterday was finally the day! 

The fabric I chose is a sunbrella fabric which is a little pricey but I hope it will hold up a long time and will be easier to clean than the cotton cover we had for the last 6+ years.

The Ultimate Spring Dresses

Spring is almost here - at least that is what everyone (including myself) is hoping for. To help the spring feeling develop even faster, I made two colorful spring dresses - one for my daughter and one for myself. Both are made of a linen cotton blend by designer Etsuko Furuya (Kokka Echino Collection). So beautiful and bold! I´ve got both fabrics from Britex Fabrics in San Francisco 3 days ago!

My dress or tunic is the third of that kind in my closet. I just love that pattern! Here you can find an older post about the same kind of tunic. It is still missing pockets but I was out of fabric (note to myself: 1 1/4 yrd. is not enough!) 

The second dress is for my daughter and because I could not find the perfect pattern for a girls linen dress, I had to make my own. I started with a few pieces from her closet that I thought could have the right shape and made a few alterations on the go. 

And it has pockets!!! It took me a while to figure out how make these and how to put them together (!!) but I am proud to say: they turned out the way they were supposed to!

Voilá! Pockets for little rocks, hair clips, and other treasures.

The Princess Fleece

This David Fussenegger fabric was sitting in my cupboard for quite some time and I was saving it for one day in the future, where I would make a blanket out of it. But when I was looking for a fleece fabric to make a jacket, I thought that could be it! 
And here are some more impressions. 

Potluck Bowl Covers

Already a while ago I made these bowl covers and I like to use them a lot! Not only for potlucks but also for rising dough that needs to be covered etc. The idea (of course) is from Pinterest.

I made my own bias tape with a bias tape maker (something like this). And the fabric, just in case you wonder, is Heather Bailey´s Pop Daisy. 

Make your own it is super simple and always a big "wow"!