knitcole

Apples, apples and more apples.

It's been a crazy November here at the Coleman house so I figured I'd give you a little post about some apples. A couple of weeks ago we headed apple picking with the family at Oak Glen. We went last year and had a great time so I was excited to get some fresh Arkansas Black apples! It turned out to be REALLY busy up there and HOT. All in all it was a great day and I loved hanging out with our family especially this little guy, our nephew Jude.

I was talking to my Aunt Pammy about our apple picking and she told me that my cousin Sarah calls her unborn baby "Apples" since they don't have a name for her and she craves apples. With my recent trip to Oak Glen and Sarah's impending baby shower I was inspired to make her a couple original baby gifts. 

It started off with making a simple baby block. I overstuffed it a little making it a bit less block shaped but with the appliqued apple and "a" I still think it's pretty adorable. I also stuffed it with some crinkle paper. 

Then I decided I wanted to make her an apple. Using a beach ball inspired pattern I set out to make an apple, which originally looked like a tomato! So I had to remove a couple pieces to make it round again and now it looks more like an apple! Stuffed with bells this one jingle jangles just enough.

Then I thought this sweet little girl needs a little apple to look at while she's hanging in her crib playing with her apple toys. So I made her this nifty silhouette.

It was a lot of fun to make some less conventional baby toys. I hope little Apples, or whatever her name actually ends up being, loves them!

Nicole

Good stuff is coming!

Well I have been absent from my blog because I was preparing for our amazing 1st anniversary party and trip. It was really great and I am dedicating all next week to the fun, food and friends that made it all possible!

For now, here is a picture of my first quilt! Technically it was my second since I made one once before with my aunt guiding me the whole way and I tied it off but this was my first one that was completely sewn all by my lonesome.

I made it for my sweet nephew Jude. I really like how the blue and brown go together and it's the perfect color to match his big blue eyes.

Nicole            

Some exciting news!

I officially got my aprons put up for sale in Seed People's Market! It's been a crazy couple of weeks since I put my aprons for sale at Seed. It's kind of surreal knowing they are out there for all the world to see and purchase!

(Please excuse my iPhone photos, I didn't get any proper photos before I dropped them off.)

I'm happy to report that April informed me that I have already sold three of my aprons! I am beyond excited. I'm so glad that I finally got them out there and that they are doing well. I'm definitely going to be making some more aprons to sell at Seed.

Thanks to everyone for your support!

Nicole

A penny for your thoughts.

I've been sewing away this week since I am work free for for a couple of days. I've been working on aprons, quilts, bouquets, coin purses and a couple of other projects.It's been a lot of fun and I'm so excited to keep it going and to actually move forward with some business dreams.

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A couple of months ago I bought some African wax print cotton and I had no idea what I was going to do with it but I just had to have it. When I bought this amazing wallet from the great Whodini, (you should go buy one too! Jay is amazing and his wallets are LEGIT,) I had to downsize from my massive girl wallet which means I had a bunch of cards and things that I wanted to carry around but didn't necessarily need in my wallet. This is when I figured out what to do with my wax prints.

Considering I'm not very good with zippers this came out much better than I thought. I pretty much made the pattern and had to figure out how to do the lining without sewing it all together but I definitely think that I will make more of these. Maybe not so small, this one has a 4" zipper which means it's pretty tiny but my cards fit in it just perfectly! Now I can carry around my punch cards without having to overload my wallet!

Nicole

 

Let's take a bath!

Today was the first day in I don't know how long that I haven't had to work or go to some obligation or another and I planned a day full of sewing! Mr. Coleman and I headed out to Armstrong Garden Center bright and early to pick up some grass for the pups and a new cilantro plant. (I learned that if you let your cilantro plants grow in the sun they eventually bolt and grow flowers which become coriander.) We were home by 10AM and I spent the rest of my day in my sewing room.

For awhile now I've been working on making our bathroom a bit more nautical. It's kind of hard to do with the all of the earth tones that are in it but I'm making do with what we have. So using inspiration form a pattern in this wonderful book, I set out to make this bath mat using an old towel and some fabric scraps. I don't usually end up following patterns, I use them as inspiration and this was no different. The only thing I definitely followed from the pattern was her recommendations to not worry about straight lines, which my OCD had a severe issue with but I managed.
 

I really like how this one turned out. I'm not sure if it's nautical or Americana but either way I'm happy with. Now all I need to do is make the anchor embroidery pieces done!

Nicole

 

Where have you been?

Perhaps you have been asking that very question about me...well...I've been crafting away like a crazy person! On top of being under the weather for the past three or four days I have been diligently trying to get everything ready to open my Etsy store. I'm almost ready, just one more day or two and it should be up and running!

Here's a sneak peek of some of the things to sell.

Aprons - I'm going to be selling aprons and here is my favorite so far. 

Beanies and Booties - For the little babes in your life.

Bouquets - I'm not quite sure how this one is going to work yet but I'm definitely going to try to give them a whirl!
 
Nicole

I've been looking everywhere for one of these!

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I find vintage dress forms to be gorgeous! I have been looking for one for the past couple of weeks to take pictures of my aprons. I've thought over and over about how to display my aprons for photos and it seems that using a dress form would be easiest. I could use a live person to model but that would require more planning and I like to set up and take photos in my own home. My mom in law recommended I use Mr. Coleman as a model but he's just a bit too masculine to model sweet little aprons. But the first guypron I make will definitely be modeled by him! 

I know that vintage dress forms can be pretty expensive and the truth of the matter is the form most likely wouldn't work if I ever wanted to use it to make clothes for myself since most of them run a bit smaller than my measurements.

So here I am looking for the perfect dress form. Got any suggestions?

Nicole

 

iPad 2...oh how I love thee!

When my iPad 2 arrived I was GIDDY! I couldn't believe how excited I was over the silly thing. I was so excited over it that I actually made myself a cover for it the very same day it arrived!

I modified the pattern from my sewing class for the laptop cover, which you can see here. There were a couple of things I would have liked to change, like a longer flap so I could have a small pocket. (Which by the way I added but had to remove because I didn't think about that beforehand.)

Additionally if I had really wanted to make it perfect I would have lined up the pattern on the fabric a bit better but I didn't do this because I wanted to use less of this awesome fabric so I would have some for a future project.

All in all I'm happy with it and it's protecting my fun new toy!

Nicole

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up. - A. A. Milne

Lately I've been crafting in a mess of a studio. Our extra room has been thoroughly destroyed by, well...ME! I got into such a sewing frenzy that there was fabric and aprons and flowers and all kinds of other things all over the place. I usually prefer things to be in their place but since we can just shut the door on the extra room I have been growing a huge mess of a mess!

Last night we invited Mr. Coleman's sister to stay over tonight which means I spent all morning cleaning. I was going to just clean up a little bit but once I got started it turned into a major scrub down of bathrooms and kitchen and of course, the extra room. 

Since our extra room is where our guests stay I knew that I was going to have to make my mess a lot less messy to accommodate Charisa and the air mattress. So I cleaned up the random messes that I had all over the room and focused on cleaning up my fabric cabinet. Here are the results.

I was getting tired of not being able to find fabrics and having things stacked all over the cabinet. So I consolidated the yarn and rolled up all of the fabric. I took this little technique from my Aunt Pammy who stores her fabric this way. I love how I can see all of the fabrics. If you look at the picture at the top of the post you can see how lovely all the little bundles of fabric look all rolled up. The only fabric I didn't roll up is dedicated to the quilt I am going to make so I didn't roll that up so I would be motivated to start cutting squares. Plus I love that I can actually see the things on the top of the cabinet instead of them being covered in clutter. I already informed Mr. Coleman that I am going to need another cabinet since most of my yarn lives in bins in the closets and I would really like to get it all out but I am very happy with the little bit of spring cleaning I did today. It may not seem like much but it always feels good to be organized!

Nicole    

Aprons, not just for your grandma anymore!

You might remember my post on the aprons I made for Christmas...well I was inspired by how much fun I had creating all of those and I decided that I was determined to make my own pattern for a half apron. I got lucky and got it right on the first try! Can you say SUCCESS?

Since this first half apron creation I have been perfecting my little pattern and I will have some sweet aprons to show you soon! For now, here is this lovely little apron on my friend Nicole who was the recipient of it at our annual Christmas party, (which didn't happen until the end of January!) She LOVED the apron and stole it from someone else, (it was a white elephant gift exchange,) to end up with it for good! I think it was meant for her, Nicole loves to cook and even makes amazing gluten free energy bars.

So here's Nicole modeling her new apron and her amazing sugar free blueberry cobbler! By the way, isn't Nicole just gorgeous! Love this lady!

Side note, this isn't a gratuitious photo of Nicole's backside, I just had to show you all how Nicole tied a perfect bow on the apron as only she could!

Nicole