Quilt Inspiration: Cut To Pieces’ Where Bluebirds Fly

(via Tweedledee Designs)
This is the most gorgeous quilt I’ve seen in ages. I’m usually drawn to more geometric patterns, but this just blows me away. Check out Angela’s full post at Cut To Pieces on the story behind her quilt, Where Bluebirds Fly, and lots more pictures!

Posted in Quilting ♥ 08.31.2010 at 6:55 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Card Catalog Inspiration

My boyfriend bought me a card catalog for my birthday, so I’m thinking about how to decorate it. Here are a few bits of inspiration from around the web.

(via bitsandbobbins)

(via Poetic Home)

(via the small object)

(via Design*Sponge)

(via Design*Sponge)

(via Alpana Singh)

Posted in Interiors ♥ 08.21.2010 at 10:47 am ♥  Leave a comment

Yum: Kir and Kir Royale

(image from Pierre Guinoiseau)
The kitchn has an informative post about one of my favorite cocktails, the Kir, and its bubblier counterpart, the Kir Royale. I know what I’m making this weekend. Cheers!

Posted in Drink ♥ 08.20.2010 at 12:47 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Things I Love This Week: August 19

A selection of wines from Sort This Out Cellars

I can’t believe August is more than half over! We’re finally getting some warm weather here in Santa Barbara, so I hope that means our summer will last well into September. Here are a few things I’ve been loving lately.

• Australia and Britain’s Next Top Model: I stopped watching America’s Next Top Model several seasons ago, but I can’t get enough of its overseas counterparts. Both Australia and Britain are in the middle of their respective sixth seasons and I’m loving all of the catty competition replete with adorable accents.
• Everything Scott Pilgrim: I discovered the Scott Pilgrim graphic novel series last year, so have been eagerly anticipating the film adaptation by Edgar Wright, one of my favorite directors (see also: Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, Spaced). Well, the movie was fantastic and stayed true to the essence of the comics. Along with the soundtrack and the video game, it’s been a Scott Pilgrim-heavy couple weeks!
• Book clubs: About a year ago, I met up locally with a few people from Goodreads and we’ve been meeting monthly since and continue to add new members here and there. I read a lot, and it’s so fun to talk about books with other readers and pick up books I would never choose on my own.
• Wine tasting: I always love wine tasting, but I just went over the weekend for the first time this summer. I prefer independent wineries with a laidback vibe, so this time I visited one of my favorites, Sort This Out Cellars, which has a Vegas lounge motif, and found a great new spot, Carivintas, which donates some of its proceeds to animal charities. Both are in Solvang, CA and well worth a visit if you’re in the Central Coast area.

Posted in Loving ♥ 08.18.2010 at 7:19 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Picnic Time

Posted in Fashion ♥ 07.28.2010 at 12:21 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt

After a fairly simple first quilt, I decided to go bigger and slightly more complicated for my second. I chose the disappearing nine patch design as explained at Cluck, Cluck, Sew. To pick fabrics, I started with a grey, yellow, red, and aqua print from the Chloe’s Closet Hello Betty collection and built from there using what was available at my local quilt store. It was hard to choose ten fabrics (nine patches plus binding) that went well together, but I love what I ended up with.

After lots of cutting and sewing, I ended up with 16 big blocks, that I then had to cut into 64 smaller blocks and sew again!

I arranged 63 blocks into a 9×7 grid for a quilt that’s about 60″ by 45″. It took me a while to lay out the design so that none of the same fabrics touched!

Next steps — sewing all the blocks together, basting, and quilting!

Posted in Quilting ♥ 07.26.2010 at 5:13 pm ♥  Leave a comment

First Quilting Attempt

I’ve always loved textiles and have been particularly enamored with some of the modern fabric designs popping up in quilting stores of late, so I figured it was high time for me to try quilting. I chose to start with the Charm Squares Baby Quilt by Elizabeth from Oh, Fransson!, as it appeared straightforward for a beginner. Instead of using pre-cut charm squares, I picked up a fat quarter bundle from my local quilt store, The Fabric Quarter, and cut the required 5×5 squares myself — good practice for my new rotary cutter! Many of the designs are from the Art Gallery Revive and Filigree collections. The piecing was really easy, but I did run into a few snags with the actual quilting. Don’t look too closely at the stitching as the stitch lengths are really uneven in parts! I also decided to only quilt the sashing and leave the designs as-is. I was least looking forward to the binding — I have to hand stitch?! — but it wasn’t too bad. I’m still unsure about effectively tacking down the corners, though, so I will have to play around with it on my next project. Overall, I’m happy with my first quilting attempt and have already made good progress on my next projects!

Posted in Quilting ♥ 07.19.2010 at 6:11 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Pimm’s Cup

One of my favorite cocktails is a Pimm’s and lemonade, made with the spicy British liqueur Pimm’s No. 1 Cup. You can’t find it everywhere, but it’s not too difficult to track down in the U.S. For a refreshing summer beverage, fill a tall glass with any combination of sliced citrus fruit, cucumber, or apples, a sprig of mint, ice, a shot of Pimm’s, and top with Sprite, ginger ale, or, if you’re lucky, true British lemonade. Enjoy!

Posted in Drink ♥ 07.05.2010 at 4:26 pm ♥  Leave a comment

planner envy

For the past three years or so, I’ve been a devoted Moleskine weekly notebook user for all of my life planning needs.

But Gala’s post about her new Filofax planner has my eyes wandering. While I love the simplicity of the Moleskine, some of the features of the Filofax are certainly appealing. It would be great to have a place to keep a pen and miscellaneous scraps of paper that now messily clutter my purse. Hmmm, maybe this pink one?

Posted in Fashion ♥ 06.22.2010 at 7:07 pm ♥  Leave a comment

Yellow Flats

Got these super cute shoes today at Target! I’m really digging yellow this summer.

Posted in Fashion ♥ 06.19.2010 at 4:10 pm ♥  Leave a comment

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