More Bags & Scarves

Remember how last week I was talking about finishing up all my UFO's?! 

Well, I discovered the reason why I cannot seem to get any of them done.... I start new projects! :) Why do I do this? 

There is always a good reason.. new fabric.. new pattern..because I MUST! I get so excited about new things so I just jump right in with both feet! I really need to learn to control myself! ;P 

Last week I discovered that Noodle-head had a new pattern: The Caravan Tote (I LOVE her patterns, she has great instructions and photos). AND we got the new Cotton & Steel line in at the shop, "Mochi" (in canvas, cotton and double gauze) SO I had to buy some of it! 

The tote was definitely justification for buying the fabric! 

How cute is that Tote? I recently discovered a local shop called "Black Elk Leather" where I found the leather for the handles! (I've been sending people there for years, hearing that its a fun place, but finally went in myself.. eeek, almost as bad as our shop!) 

I snagged some of that green arrow fabric and some "mochi' fabrics (the lining) on Wednesday and started cutting.. it is a fairly straight forward bag to put together, even the leather handles weren't as labor intensive as I thought they'd be! 

Now I have a cute, and functional tote for those quick trips around town (without the kids)!

And because I couldn't help myself I also bought some of the Cotton & Steel Double Gauze.. 

OH MY MY MY!

Guess what I made...?! 

I know you're ALL shocked that I made scarves! The weight of the fabric is SO perfect for our early spring! Plus, I used a FREE Pinterest tutorial to whip these up in 10 minutes! YES 10 minutes you guys! (Ok 20 minutes for both.. but still!)

Now the hard part will be choosing which one to wear! 

Come by the shop and see all of the beautiful NEW fabric, get some of the gauze and make some scarves because SERIOUSLY.. it does not get any easier than this!

(FREE Scarf Tutorial)

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude)

Weekend? Where did you go?

Where O Where has my weekend gone? Where o where can it be?! 

My weekend always starts with my mind set on finishing ALL of my UFO's... and every Sunday I'm wondering why their not all done? (I think somewhere, someone is plotting against me.. secretly ripping out my seams!) 

So yet another weekend has passed and I only managed to finish ONE project.. and it took me Wednesday night to cut out, Thursday day to fuse interfacing and start sewing,  Friday night to keep sewing and Saturday night to FINISH! YAY! I was so excited!

And of course the only person around to show was my husband, and he doesn't get nearly excited enough! I always text my sister a photo of my finished projects too; she gives much more appropriate reactions! 

So.. without further ado.. my ONE finished product from the weekend: 

Loving my new Professional Tote - Echino on the outside, cute Cotton & Steel tigers on the inside!

I have been looking for an excuse to buy that Echino print for something. It is one piece of fabric that has lines of different colors and patterns and I LOVE IT! I wanted something kind of fun and silly for the lining so I chose a cute Tiger in teal from Cotton & Steel! (There is still more of both these fabrics if you too must have some!) 

Besides working on my tote, I spent my weekend at the shop running a Free Motion Quilting Workshop, which was a blast! I spent Friday night there helping the ladies get their quilts "sandwiched" and prepped to quilt and then ALL day on Saturday pinning more quilts and helping plan out their quilting! We had a blast and my hubby knew that letting me play at the shop and sew all day was the best Valentines present he could give me!

I did come home to this though..

He earned a few bonus points for this. He surprises me every now and then with these sweet little gestures! I got a good one!

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend, and that you got spoiled by your someone special! 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (And Gertrude) 

Gertrudes Quiet Weekend

Hey All,

So of course, it figures our first week "back", I get a cold that knocks me out ALL weekend. Boo.. no fun! (Cross your fingers that its gone by tomorrow!) 

Even though I got almost no sewing done this weekend, I was fairly productive last week. 

Remember that cute whale fabric from last week?! Well I got it sewn into two cute little self binding receiving blankets! 

One for my nephew & one for my niece!

I also taught the second session of the Moda Modern Building Block class at the shop on Friday, where we finished up our second block! 

There are 4 of us in the Friday session (one of us was on vacation)! Three of us are working from the kit, and my sister is working with her own fabrics! 

We are making great progress on our blocks, so stay tuned to see the rest of them!

Other than those projects and spending a few hours at my sisters baby shower on Saturday, I have been in bed trying to get over a head cold all weekend! Here's hoping I'm back to normal tomorrow!

I hope you all had a relaxing (sewing productive) weekend! 

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

Gertrude is Back!

Welcome back to all of you, our wonderful readers!

We've missed you while we've been away, though we've been busy working on projects and updating the blog. As far as the projects go, you all know, that list has no end in sight! For the blog, we will still be working on some changes, so you'll see a few more updates along the way!

So, what else have we been doing while we were away...?

More Babies are Coming (not mine)

By now you all know that I will become an Auntie for the first and second time in February & March. Both my sister and my sister-in-law are expecting; one a girl and one a boy! I am SO excited! They both like to tell me how wonderful being an auntie is, so now I get to experience it first hand!

But, that means I have been working like a mad woman making burp clothes, blankies, sleepers and of course bumpers (those are still "in progress"); I have enjoyed every second knowing that soon I get to snuggle my niece and nephew up in these cute accessories!

for the Nephew

for the Niece

And a stack of burp clothes for each; I tried to get fancy and put my nephew's initials on a burp cloth!

I am just about ready to start on the bumpers (probably should've done those first) and will post photos for you all once they're done! Both are doing "sea" themes so I get to make "mermaids and narwhals" and "pirates and treasure" sets! 

OH, I almost forgot, I picked up some CUTE flannel from the shop the other day to make those awesome self-binding receiving blankets for them! 

Seriously, how cute will those be?!

Life, other than (other people's) Babies! 

So, as far as my other regularly scheduled life goes... we're pretty much same 'ol same 'ol here on the home front, though my oldest daughter turned 5 on Friday! OMG I was a little emotional (ok, maybe a lot) the day before just thinking about how much of a Big Kid she is now, and that she'll be off to Kindergarten this year! Eek!

Where did the time go? She went from a quiet, sleepy baby to a crazy, wild kid!

Of course I have to brag, the kid is pretty cute!

As far as the other two go, well they are trying to keep up with their Big Sister, and are now wearing 4T clothing (mind you, they are 2 1/2, big Sis wears 7/8! Crazy I know!); they take after their daddy who is 6' 4"!

Ahh. I can hardly stand the cuteness! 

Okay, back to sewing related things..

In early January I started teaching a new class series for the Moda Modern Building Block Kit! OH MY! We are having a great time so far! I have two sessions, a Friday and a Saturday for this project. Both groups are wonderful, my Friday class even finished the first block!

My sister joined in the fun, her block is the middle one; she had to be different, of course! The first block is 36" so it was pretty impressive that we sorted, cut and sewed our blocks the first session! 

We've been getting ALL sorts of new fabric in at the shop, and it seems that I work just enough to BUY it all, but not bring home much money! :P 

We have new KNITS (featured above in the sleepers), new MINKEE (oh boy do we have lots of new mink) and LOTS OF NEW COTTON! 

So, I may or may not have bought a Fat Quarter Bundle, Roll up and coordinating "textures" from the new line we just got from Carolyn Friedlander! (uh hem..and I may or may not have snuck it home and "hid" it in with the rest of my stash before my hubby came home!) 

You can't tell me you'd be able to pass this beautiful fabric up?! 

OH, and last but not least.. I have been working on some new "promotion" projects for the shop Facebook page! I LOVE that part of my job because I get to sew, but I am also working! It's the BEST!  

I just finished up all those baby projects, which just happened to be my "Friday Facebook Projects" for January. Most of which were FREE patterns (thats always nice!) and get to double as baby shower gifts! 

Now, I am working on a few projects from some of the Fabric companies; Art Gallery & Kaufman will be featured the first two Fridays in February! You all get a sneak peak here of the Art Gallery project, which was super fast and a lot of fun! 

How cute is my "Arizona" infinity cowl; Gert photo bombed me!

I used a line from Art Gallery called "Arizona" which is perfect because the pattern is FREE from Art Gallery! This project will be featured on the Seams Like Home Facebook page on Friday the 6th, but you lucky folks get to see it early! Who hoo! 

(Art Gallery Infinity Cowl Pattern)  - I am running a contest with this project so make sure to check out the post on Friday to enter to win a fun bundle from the shop! 

Betsy is making a Return!

So, if you have been around the blog for a while, you know that Gertrude had a little sister named Betsy! Well the original Betsy found a new home, and we are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Betsy the second! She will be the same Bernina 350PE, but she will have a much prettier front (not that Betsy wasn't pretty...) that was designed by Tula Pink!

OHH LA LA! How pretty is she?! I cannot wait to get her! I LOVE sewing with Gert, but sometimes it's nice to have a machine to take with me to the shop for teaching classes and Betsy the second will be much easier to transport! 

SO.. WHEW! I feel like the friend who invites you out for coffee and then spends the entire time talking about herself.. yikes!  Just one more thing though...

THANK YOU! 

Thank you, thank you to those of you that read the blog, leave comments and email us! We love chatting with you, and LOVE hearing about what you're working on. Please keep sharing with us and we'll keep sharing with you!

We are so glad to be back! Until next time...

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

Gertrude is on Sabbatical!

A BIG Thank You to those of you that read our blog every week!

Gertrude and I enjoy brining you fun new projects, as well as the funny little stories about life in a household with three little girls!

This last month has been so busy that Gertrude and I haven't been able to spend much time together, however, we do have a few BIG projects that we will be working on over the course of the next few months, and we look forward to sharing them with you.

We are planning to take a few weeks off of here to get our projects in order (as well as some Blog facelifting) and come back online on February 1st to show you what we have going on!

We will miss you while we're away, but know that with all the work we plan on doing while we're "offline" you will be just as excited as we are when we come back!

In the meantime...

Happy Sewing,
Enjoli (and Gertrude)

Cookie Coma

Gertrude and I are slowly recovering from the holiday madness with the three little munchkins! We haven't gotten much sewing done since we finished the girls Grinch blankets, though we did have a little "incident" making some pajama pants on Christmas Eve (more on the later)!

We spent the week leading up to Christmas making Gingerbread houses with one set of Grandparents, and then making Christmas Cookies with the other set!

Our Gingerbread Village

Santa ate ALL of those cookies!

We even managed to make it by to see Santa before he went back to the North Pole! We were a bit behind on that this year! 

Ascher & Avalyn still NOT impressed with Santa!

We had a great Christmas morning opening packages from Santa, Auntie and Uncle came over to have breakfast with us! Santa brought me the DVD TV Series of the original Batman Series so my Christmas was made! We even watched it for a bit before heading over to Great Grandma's house for MORE Christmas fun! 

Since, I know you're all wondering.. the Pajama Pants Incident..

Well of course, why do things ahead of time when you can wait until the last minute to do them?! I decided (on Christmas Eve) that I wanted new PJ pants for Christmas morning! I had some awesome fabric that I scored during the HUGE clear out sale from the shop! I LOVE this fabric (can you sense the impending doom yet?!) and figured I need some "super easy" pants made out of it!

So what do I do.. I hop on Pinterest, find a tutorial and get to work.. 

The tutorial suggests you use a pair of your favorite PJ pants to draft your pattern.. Ok, no big deal, got those.. 

Cut, cut, cut... Sew, sew, sew... Try on the pants.... 

...... hmmm ....... hmmmm .... &*%*$*$....hmmm... they don't fit.. can't get them over my hips... 

What did I miss?! 

Go back, re read the tutorial.. Well Crap.. yes she is very clear that you SHOULD NOT use a pair of knit pants to make non-knit pants OR cotton pants as it were... 

SO.. this is where my beautiful Christmas PJ pants sit.. waiting for me to have a smaller butt (NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!) or add some fabric to the side seams so that I can actually wear them! 

Maybe I'll have them fixed for next year!

I'm hoping my New Year of sewing endeavors prove a bit more fruitful than the Pajama Pant Incident!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, and have a safe New Years Eve!

Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (and Gertrude) 

an Event and an Un-Eventful weekend

Whew.. what a weekend we had at Seams Like Home! It was our Grand Opening weekend, and we had an amazing turn out! Thank you so much to all our Friends and Family that came by to say hi, see the new building and enjoy our Grandma's delicious cooking!

If you were in the shop at all last week, you probably saw the huge pile of boxes & a pallet that held our new Bernina fixtures! Some of us (ME!) have been anxiously awaiting these fixtures since we were in the University Mall! We are so happy to have them! They look wonderful and show off our AMAZING Bernina machines so wonderfully!

Featuring the Bernina 530 Swiss Edition

Bernina 830 & Beautiful Bernina in the background

This beautiful image is what you see when you walk into the new shop! 

All the Sergers you could want!  

the Bernina 880 & Sterling Edition goodies

the Bernina 880 Sterling Edition

 Bernina E16 Embroidery machine & Bernette machines

We are so overwhelmingly excited to have these beauties in our shop, especially since we LOVE our Bernina machines so much! 

And speaking of our Bernina machines, Gertrude has been feeling a bit neglected lately because I've been in the shop working quite a bit more this month. But, we did get some bonding time in together today to work on a quilt for my baby Nephew (due in March)! 

I probably say this in every blog post, but every time I sew on Gertrude it makes me happy. I love sewing on a Bernina machine, she is so smooth and so quiet! It's a nice change to hear her purr rather than the crazy screaming of my three little girls; which is wonderful, of course, but the quiet hum is a nice change! 

Our weekend on the home front was a little less eventful! 

I came home from the shop the other day to find our Christmas Tree like this...

I looked all over trying to figure out what happened..maybe the Grinch paid a visit to our house?! I was in such a hurry to get upstairs to play in my sewing room that I pushed him back up and a few minutes later the dog came tearing upstairs because the Tree had fallen over again! Our ornament casualties have been quite high so far this year! Here's hoping you all have far less! 

Happy Holidays & Happy Sewing,

Enjoli (And Gertrude)