Napkins for Easter

Easter is a lovely low-key holiday around here, providing me with the perfect opportunity to whip up some new napkins for our annual breakfast with the neighbors. Such a simple project, and yet one that I had never bothered to try before. I so enjoyed it that I will probably make them for every occasion and every-day use too.

For today's breakfast I wanted something with a slightly spring-y pattern but I'm not crazy about pastels or typical spring motifs. I had this fabric, called European Taupe by Kinkame (Japan) in my stash and it seemed perfect for a spring breakfast. (European Taupe is no longer in production but has been followed up by equally beautiful and similarly styled European Taupe collections II - V.) With the help of a favorite book of mine, Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross, a project was born. (This book unfortunately has lots of errata in the instructions but no matter, it's still a visually inspiring book with lots of great projects and yes, I would recommend it to anyone.)

I used two different prints for the cotton tops and because I wanted to conserve the print fabric I decided to back them in solids. For the European Taupe I used a linen-look cotton from Joann (frustrated as I get with that store, it's useful sometimes) and on the green print (also from Joann) I used a Kona cotton in off-white. I adore the look of the linen knock-off with the floral, though it is a bit thick and my napkins don't lay quite right. I've decided to come to peace with the imperfection I achieved and call it a day.

Heather's pattern calls for 2 fat quarters but after pre-washing my fabrics they were slightly smaller than 18" on one side so I used 17" squares to start with. I don't think anyone is going to be measuring my napkins for size standards, so I'm perfectly fine with the end result, which is a little over 16" square.

Happy Easter to you all! Hope you are having a lovely low-key (or high-amp if you prefer) kind of day.

Kate

More Magnets & A Puppy

Well hello there. You may have noticed that I haven't been all that active lately. Or rather, that I haven't been active at all in the last three weeks. Photographic evidence of my serious distraction follows. But I'll get to that in a minute. What I have managed to accomplish, and yes, it's not a huge accomplishment but right now I'm happy to have something, anything, if not something particularly significant in any way. I so enjoy this little patchwork pillow magnet project. This time, instead of using Bliss, I used some Cloud 9 polka-dot in a lovely aqua, Joel Dewberry's Modern Meadow, and...oh yeah, Bliss. The white on white dots are from the Bliss line. But don't they work well with these other two fabrics? I'm in love with the aqua dot to the point of not wanting to use it because then it will be gone. I do that all the time and then I'll end up being sick of it before I ever even used it. I really need to get over that and go use it up. Maybe I'll use it to make a tote for myself or to make the Henny Penny and her 6 Chicks pattern from Anna Maria Horner. But I digress...

So here they are, a few more of the many patchwork pillow magnets in the works. And then there's this:

Meet Avery. Our Bernese Mountain Dog puppy who came home 3 weeks ago today. She is now 10 weeks old and has already grown so much that I get sentimental over it. Not that that is a stretch, since I get sentimental pretty darn easily. But still, the point is, we have a new furry member of our family and we are in love. And tired. Puppies are tiring. Did you know? I thought I did. Now I know for sure.

She wakes up at 5 am and goes bonkers for 2 hours and then does this for about 8 hours.

She's a love.

And now do you understand why I'm getting nothing done?

Kate