It’s called One-Yard Wonders 101 sewing projects and it’s put together by Rebecca Yaker & Patricia Hoskins. One of those books where sewing bloggers could send in projects to be considered to be in the book kind of books.

I’ve been looking through this book a few times now and it’s about time I write about it. I think it’s a pretty and useful craft book. The first chapter, Sewing Fundamentals, is a great introduction with helpful tips for any beginner. Some of the projects are extremely easy to do, others a bit more time consuming but still not impossible I think. ;-)

From the first chapter introduction:

What do you see when you open the closet of your sewing room? Is it filled to the brim with fabrics that you just had to have but didn’t have any plans for? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed trying to find coordinates, or do you need ideas for small projects?

If you you say yes, this is a book for you! I’ve got a lot small pieces of fabric (too much) and I adore all of the patterns and can’t downsize (I’ve tried!). I need to start sewing!

I think this book has great photography with fabric choices that is lovely and inspiring. Every now and then there are helpful how-to-illustrations and all of the projects have step-by-step descriptions. Plus the pattern pocket that makes it super easy to get started – no need to enlarge tiny patterns on a copy machine!

With as many as one hundred one sewing projects of course there is bound to be a lot of patterns I have no use for (like clothes, toys and gifts for dogs, babies and bigger children for example). And even if I have a cat I sure wouldn’t make her a fabric tent knowing she would never even enter it! But on the other hand, of course there are a lot of fun things that appeal to my eye and that I could find useful if I made them. I love totes and handbags. I’ve been meaning to make a sewing-machine cover for years now, as well as a yoga-mat-bag, a laptop sleeve and a few fun aprons. I want to make them yes, but it just hasn’t happened yet…

This book is made with almost the same size and style as another sewing book I bought last year, Chic & Simple Sewing written by Christine Haynes and published by Potter Craft. They are big books with hard covers and a spiral binding inside plus a huge inside pocket with the patterns ready to copy and sew from.

The Chic and Simple Sewing book has full-sized patterns for more than 20 projects with skirts, dresses, tops and jackets, for the, as the book calls it, “modern seamstress”. I love most of the patterns and I would love to wear some of these things when the summer comes…

I haven’t sewn anything from any of these books yet, which makes me realize I am more of a fabric collector than a seamstress… But I still enjoy the books a lot and I’ll get back to you if I ever pull myself together and make something from them!

Yard Resources:

• One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric! - get the book and more information about it at amazon
• Sock Monkey Dress - created by Rebecka Yaker
• CraftSanity interview with Rebecka Yaker - podcast interview with one of the authors of the book
• Storey Publishing - Books for Country Living since 1983

I got this book from the Storey publisher along with their beautiful catalouge with a cover by one of my favorite blogger the artist Geninne who has a inspirational and colorful blog. I want to embroider one of her birds!

By the way, 1 yard is almost one meter (91.44 centimeters). You will not be able to do all of the projects with “just one yard of fabric” like it says on the front cover, hehe, but you can do many things with that amount of fabric. Just take a pick and start sewing! Let me know what project you will do and I might get a kick in the butt to start too!

My second quilt is brown. I’ve been mixing beautiful rosy fabrics with my collection of brown ones.

I have a thing for browns. Maybe it has something to do with being born in the seventies, when everything was dark brown, with hints of orange. Back then even living room walls here in Sweden (where everything gets depressingly dark in the winter) was painted brown. No matter what design trends will be born in the future I don’t think I could ever paint my walls brown, or any dark colour for that matter. But still, I do enjoy hues of brown a lot. So for quite a while I was collecting thrifted fabrics with browns in them, for this wee quilt project. And now I’ve recycled them into something that is useful, warm and very much finished!

I don’t think you remember, but I actually started this project back in January 2007, but never finished it then… The brown quilt top have been folded away in one of many plastic containers around here, all full of fabric and scraps of fabric. But as you can see from the photo evidence it is now a gloriously finished project, paired with a pink backside fabric with white dots and a romantic edge fabric that I’m quite found of.

The two quilts I’ve made in my life so far, hanging outside in the sun together. One pink and one brown!

Instead of finishing the Brown Squares Quilt I started and finished a Pink Striped Quilt (and quite a few quilted log cabin pillows) in 2008. Both my quilts are simple and quick (even if I’m a rather slow quilter), with no patterns used. I call them my TV-quilts, perfect to snuggle under while watching a good movie and doing some embroidery. Cozy! Can’t watch anything comfortably if I don’t have a cozy blanket or quilt to roll up under!
Here is a view of the pink polka dot backside:

And some snaps from the quilt corner and edge sewing:

I tried another version of folding in the corner than before, it’s called mitered corners. I just winged it and these are a bit more fancy but not difficult. Next time I’ll try to do them following any of the tutorials that come up when searching for “quilt corner tutorial” for example, like this mitered corner video tutorial.

It’s time. Let’s have a I-Finished-A-Project-Celebration^TM and do a Little Happy Dance! Join me!

If you don’t feel like dancing, please have a cookie:

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After all that Travel Journal Inspiration in my earlier post I have been sewing happiely away in all kind of papers! The sewing machine can take it, but the needle will need to be replaced after a while (though not yet!). I’m making spreads, adding illustrations, sewing, folding and having a blast over here!

Sewing book pages to size. I’m using all kinds of small papers and sewing them together so that each page is about the same size. Talk about recycling. The smaller the paper the more sewing I have to do! My soon to be Travel Journal is going to be crazy heavy I’m afraid, I can’t stop making pages now…

In there you can see some painted watercolor papers.

And also acrylic background with a spray painted pattern. The papers I’ve made myself are even funnier to use than the bought ones.

Also sewing in some illustrations that I think will fit the theme of the travel.

Folded spreads with lots of scrap booking papers. Finally a great way to use all those papers I’ve been given!

One pile of folded papers finished! I choose this square size because I wanted to fit an ordinary postcard on the pages in both directions. I will see if I find some fun postcards while away.

I got a lot of great advice on my last post about the Travel Journal, thank you girls! I will try not to bring to much art material, because I usually never feel inspired to paint or draw when I’m not at home. I will bring Gelly roll pens in different colors to write with, tape, a glue stick and then look for stamps, stickers and ephemera on location of course.

Maybe I should bring this tape glue that I’ve been trying out lately? It works great for adding home decor images to my Sketchbook and craft idea articles into my Inspiration Book! Love it!

I think I will bind my book together when I get home since I made so many spreads and I’m only going to be away for 7 days. I don’t want to hold myself back when I fill it afraid that I will write it up before I go home. And I don’t want to come home with a book that is only half filled, that won’t be a great Travel Journal will it? So I will bring lots of signatures and bind them together when I’m back home.

Further travel reading & inspiration:

* J’adore Voyager: Barcelona Journal - Lisa Sonora Beam’s very cool travel journal!
* How to create a travel journal from the fun eHow on how to journal so you don’t forget the fun you had.
* Create a More Vivid Travel Journal - 10 Tips to Enliven Your Writing by David Cox
* Ancient Egyptian Cartouche Lesson - just for fun…

Mandala is a concentric diagram having spiritual and ritual significance.
In common use, mandala has become a generic term for any plan, chart or geometric pattern that represents the cosmos metaphysically or symbolically, a microcosm of the Universe from the human perspective. [quote from wikipedia.org]

My mandala is pretty graphic, and very different from what I usually make:

I like it. It’s different and happy. A mandala is a symbol representing an effort to reunite the self, I read in my favorite book Artists’ Journals. I don’t know how much luck I had with that, but here it is, my first mandala try.

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I made a red bag with a white bunny print lining. I love how it looks, but my journal doesn’t fit inside. It will end up in my etsy shop for sure.

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There are several books in the Pretty little-series from Lark Books and I’ve been browsing through them lately. They are perfect gifts for yourself or a creative friend that wants to sew but are not that advanced (yet). My favorite is the one on bags, so I’ll write a review on that book today. Enjoy!

Well, I love bags! I’m a bag addict. And in the book Pretty Little Purses & Pouches, there are several that I totally want. Want to make, want to own and best of all, want to use.

The photos in all of the books are great and the sewn up models are in colors and fabrics that has me drooling. Everything is styled in a way that makes me really want to get sewing!

Each book starts out in a similar way, going through the basics; tools, materials and techniques. I think this is nice for the beginners, but also a bit irritating for the more experienced. I guess it’s a necessary evil in this kind of book, and it’s a good thing it’s so easy to flip a couple of pages into the book and get to the juice stuff; the yummy designs!

Each project was submitted to Lark online so most of them are made by well-known bloggers we already know and admire! In the end of the book you can read more about each designer and go visit them online. It reminds me of one of my favorite craft books that came out a few years ago, The Crafter’s Companion (tips, tales, and patterns from a community of creative minds), which has presentations of one project from each person but also studio pictures and interviews with the crafter about what inspires them etc. Cute projects and lots of inspiration, just as the Pretty little-series has!

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• Thrifted doilies - orange and pink. Cheap awesome material that makes me happy!
• Field tote - a tote to take out to the field, with a field of flowers on. Pack a bottle of water, your digital camera and your field note journal and go outside. Take a walk with your new tote, sing to the birds and scare them away. Smile and try laughing out loud to the forest around you. Look for flowers (little signs of spring) to portrait.
• With flower power - the power of nature is immense and great. It can transform, lift you up, clear your thoughts. The power is within and around you. Girl power, flower power, the power of creativity.
• Creativity is my religion - amen to that sister!

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I got this cute tote for my embroidery stuff. Mom made it using a Gudrun Sjödén table cloth thrifted and cut up.

I love the colors of my new tote! Pink, red and orange - the best combo ever! And green on the inside… Yummy! But my cat Smillis does not understand the concept of a tote…

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There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents,
the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love.
When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
/Sophia Loren

♥ Many times we buy new notebooks because they have such cute fancy covers. I adore cool layout and beautiful design. Alluringly beautiful!

Notebooks with covers that I’m just not drawn to don’t get used at all, at least not until I change the covers to something I like. I got a notebook from my kind mother last year. It has great blank pages and is sturdy and a nice size, but the cover is boring. It’s a washed out black and white velvet with a pattern that just don’t make my heart sing. So I designed my own book cover, with lots of lace and love…

It’s now my everyday writing diary. I really like it now.

I made the cover on the sewing machine but then hand embroidered on top of that. Stiching here and there, and adding my name in white on white.

I love white on white a lot! It is romantic and subtle but also very persuasive and strong. This diary belongs to a creative girl, you can tell.

More details of the closure and backside;

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I add new blogs to my Link Love Page all the time, as I find them. I’ve done that for years so my list is huge by now. When I add a new to me blog I change the name in my blogroll so that it has a star (*) in front of the name. In this way I’m marking it NEW to me. I’m removing the stars now and starting over. I’m posting these as the lookabout inspiration today, because I love to share. I don’t want you to miss these gems among the others! All of these blogs are fantastic!

Life and craft is one

Art tea life - is a blog filled with art journal pages that sparkle.

Pink Penguin - Ayumi is Japanese blog full of sewing and beautiful quilts!

November moon - Cathy is a productive artist that makes art dolls, machine embroidery and drawings. She posts way to much for me to keep up, but I adore her art work and style.

Dancing Mermaid - a woman that takes romantic photos of children, art and life. I love her idea of addressing the year in a New Year’s Letter (dear 2008 new years letter), that’s what I did too this year.

Craft actually is Helen’s blog where she posts a lot about her new baby right now. Helen is the one who made my green and pink knitting needle holder. Mmm!

Life Unfolds - Jennifer Lee has that kind of blog I just need to follow because it’s about creativity, business, writing and art all at once! I wish I knew how to do it and make it sustainable for me. Find the balance in the flow. Listen to Jennifer talking about visions too, she sounds sweet [from the Have fun do good blog].

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