Pink Flowers
Last night I was at my mom’s house just as the sun was going down. And she has some of the most beautiful flowers growing in her garden. I couldn’t help but take pictures of them. Though I wish I had a scratch and sniff app so you could smell them too. Because the smell of peonies and iris are two of my favorite early summer smells. A lot of you have mentioned in your comments in the pink week giveaway that flowers are some of your favorite pink tihngs. So these are for you. Enjoy.
Ruffle Quilt Tutorial
Pink and ruffles just go together, right? Right. And since I’m on this out of character quilt making kick lately a ruffle quilt seemed just the way to go. The woman that owns the little quilt shop I work at was working on a similar quilt to this one, and I helped her figure out the pattern and dimensions to make some kits for the shop. And that afternoon when I got home from work I pulled out all my pinks to see if I had enough to make my own ruffled version.
I think it’s a success. It is now by far one of my favorite things I’ve ever made. Ever. I wish I’d thought of it three years ago when I was making baby quilts for Creamie. The ruffles have a great texture, and I bet a baby would LOVE to play with them. (I’ve got a non-ruffled boy version whirling around in my head that I’ll post as an addendum sometime this summer. Sewers for boys, never fear!)
What I love most about this quilt, besides rows of pink ruffles, is the large white space around the edge. My friend Melissa at Sew Shabby Quilting filled it in with beautiful flowers and swirls and I couldn’t have dreamed up something more beautiful!
Alright, let’s talk details.
- 1/8 yard x13 fabrics for ruffles
- 1 1/4 yards white
- 1 1/3 yards backing
- 1/3 yard binding fabric (This is for a straight cut, not bias binding)
You’ll need:thirteen 4″x42″ strips of fabric for the ruffles. I was happy I had enough pink scraps to do this quilt almost completely from my stash. I choose to do mine all different, but you could repeat a few fabrics if you’d like. I thought of doing an ombre effect, but didn’t have enough of the dark pinks. (The ruffled quilt kits we have at the shop are blue/turquoise, greens, gray and yellow and are so so pretty!) I would suggest choosing dense/small prints, or one’s with allover color. I have one ruffle that was a large pink flower on white, middle of the bottom row below, and though I love the fabric I don’t love it as a ruffle because it mostly just looks white. I should have switched that fabric for something else.
If you are buying fabric for this quilt 1/8 yard will do for each ruffle. (An 1/8 yard is 4.5 inches, and you’ll need to trim them down to 4″ wide.) I pieced a few of my ruffles together in the middle because I didn’t have a long enough strip left. And that’s OK too. You’ll also need 1 1/4 yards of white. I used Kona snow. The white I had in my piles was too white, and the cream I had was too cream. Kona snow is a great not bright white, not cream white option. That’s it for the front! You’ll need 1 1/3 yards for the backing fabric. I pieced mine together from bits left over from this project and a big, but not big enough piece.
After you’ve cut your ruffles, let’s cut the white fabric to size. You’ll need one large 21″x21″ square, and two 11″x21″ strips. Cut your remaining fabric into two 11″xwidth of fabric (42″ish) strips.
Sew one 11×21 inch piece to each side of your 21″ square and press the seams open on the back. Then fold it in half and press a fold down the center in both directions. This will help you get your ruffles sewn on straight later. Let’s make ruffles! They aren’t as hard as they look. A long time ago a woman in my neighborhood who was teaching a sewing class for the young girls at church showed me an easy trick to turn long skinny things right side out. I’m sure a few of you have heard of this before. But at the time I thought “Wow. Why is this not printed on billboards in front of every single sewing store!”
For this part you’ll need a roll of ribbon, or a long length of it. I don’t cut mine off the roll, I just roll it back up when I am done. So here’s my not so secret trick to make long skinny ruffles easy!
- Take your 4″ strip of fabric and lay your ribbon across the top with about 1/2 inch hanging off one edge.
- Fold your fabric right sides together and pin the ribbon in place. Make sure the ribbon is laying down right next to the fold. You don’t want to catch it in your seam. Sew a 1/4 inch seam along the raw edges.
- After you’ve sewn your ruffle, start pulling the ribbon tail. It will start to scrunch up, and you’ll just need to use your fingers to help it flip inside out.
- This is what it will look like when you are finished. It only takes about 15 seconds to flip this whole long ruffle inside out. Tada! Magic.
- Carefully snip off the ribbon right at the seam on the outside (But don’t cut your fabric!) Then you can reach in and pull out the 1/2 inch tail from the inside. Then you’ve only lost 1/2 inch of ribbon and 15 seconds of time for each ruffle. Not bad at all!
Repeat for all thirteen ruffles, and then take your stack over to the ironing board. press each ruffle with the seam down the center. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but try to keep it in the middle to give yourself a guide for gathering them up later. When they are all pressed take them back to the sewing machine and using mostly matching thread (I wish I’d changed thread for the darker pink ruffles) stitch a long gathering stitch down the middle of each ruffle. (Set my stitch length to it’s longest setting, mine is a 5, and don’t back stitch at the beginning or end.)
Now it’s time to start pinning on the ruffles! Find the center of each ruffle by folding it in half and marking it with a pin. Then line up your first ruffle along the two center lines you pressed earlier. Pin it in the center, and then very carefully pull your bobbin thread to make gathers. Do one side at a time, the pin in the middle will help keep your gathers even from side to side. I used about 8 pins on each side of the center to hold my ruffle in place, and as straight on that center line as possible. Pull your thread gently, if it breaks you’ll need to pull it off and redo the gathering stitch.
Stitch that ruffle right down the center. Make sure to leave the selvedge edges hanging off your white background square. You don’t want those to show up in your quilt! We’ll need to trim everything even when we are done with the ruffles anyway. And tada! You’re first ruffle is done. Now add one to each side, using your first ruffle and your pressed center line as a guide to keep things straight and even.
You’ll want to butt those ruffles right up against each other. Pack them in tight or they won’t all fit inside the square in the middle. (And see, that darker pink ruffle at the top would have looked a lot better with dark pink thread instead of light pink. Oops.)
Continue adding ruffles, one on each side until you’ve gathered them all up and sewn them all down.
Every couple of row measure the distance between the side seam and your ruffle to make sure you are still straight. My seam is under the blue line, and thankfully my rows were still straight. If they aren’t, just adjust the way you pin on the next one to compensate for a little bit of slanting in one direction.
I just used my regular sewing foot to sew these down, but if you have a walking foot you could use that too. I have a ruffler foot too, but since I needed these to be a very specific length I decided it was just as easy to gather them by hand.
And tada! All those ruffles are sewn down. Try to keep the edges of the last rows of ruffles inside the side seams. This will keep your center square of ruffles a true square. Now it’s time to trim down the edges and add our other white strips.
Measure the length of your center panel from edge to edge. It should be somewhere around 42″. Trim your remaining white strips to the exact length of your quilt x11 inches and pin them right sides together at both ends. Lay everything out evenly across the ruffles and carefully trim off the selvedge ends. Then carefully pin the raw ruffle edges into the seam allowance. I used one pin on each side of each ruffle. Which was more pinning than I usually do for anything, but I didn’t want any of those raw edges to escape the sewing machine. You want them sewn in really well so they don’t pull out and fray. Do the same thing on the other side and you are done with the top!
Tada! Having those big wide borders makes for a really fast quilt. I didn’t have a piece I liked for the backing that was big enough, so I added a strip of scraps to add the length I needed. I actually think I prefer scrappy backings better. They are more interesting I think. And maybe one day I’ll get around to putting a label on there somewhere…
Now do whatever it is you do to quilt the thing together. Me? Don’t enjoy that part at all. And my friend Melissa is a LOT better at it than me! So I took it to her. And she did an amazing job.
After I got it home I realized that it needed some quilting in the middle of the quilt too. A 21″ square is a lot of space to not be stitched together! So I added a few straight lines between each ruffle to help hold all the layers together. If you send it somewhere to get quilted, you can ask your quilter to do this part for you. I didn’t think of it until after I started binding it, so I added these few rows of quilting after it was completely finished. I should have used my walking foot, but I really hate putting it on my machine, and I figured if it puckered or wrinkled then the ruffles would hide it anyway. Just make sure you don’t catch a ruffle in your stitching. You can either hold them out of the way with your fingers (my lazy girl solution), or you can pin them down so they don’t get caught in these rows of stitching. Don’t those rows of ruffles just make you want to touch it!
I bound my quilt with a solid pink, not cut on the bias. Here is a really good tutorial from Amy at Diary of a Quilter on bindings. I should have read it before I bound all those quilts a few weeks ago. She has some good info there and shares the secrets to making square mitered corners.
If you make a ruffle quilt, please let me know! I’d love to see your version, even if it’s not pink. You can add any projects you make from my blabberings on to the pinksuedeshoe flickr group. It’s still a little lonely. And boring. It’s only got my stuff in it. So if you have any projects you’ve made from my tutorials please add them! My pictures could use a little company.
Introducing Pink Hair!
I did it. Pink Hair. All of it. Permanent Pink. I LOVE IT!
Up until yesterday afternoon my hair was untouched by any coloring products. I was as all natural as they come. But I’ve been thinking about going pink for a whole year now. Last year I got a few pink stripes, but they were just extensions. Nothing was done to my real hair. And a few weeks later they slipped out and I was back to my regular self. And I’ve missed them ever since.
So yesterday I went to visit my stylist cousin Jess and I came home with pink hair. Shocking pink hair in fact. I wasn’t really planning on that part.
Neither of us were really. And if I look a little deer in headlights… well I kind of was. But a happy kind of deer in headlights. So the thing about going pink when you’re already really blonde and have never done a thing to your hair other than wash it is that it holds a lot of color. Apparently.
But a few trips through the non color safe shampoo cycle and it is a lot more pink, and not quite so red. Because red? Red just wouldn’t do for today.
It’s not even been 24 hours, but I sometimes forget that my hair is newly pinked. She gave me a new haircut as well, and I keep running my fingers through it (everyone does that, right?) and I’ll catch a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. And it’s surprising. A happy surprise. My favorite reaction so far was my mom. I went over to borrow some cupcake pans from her last night and after the standard “Oh my goodness! It’s pink!” (I didn’t tell her I was going to dye it.) She looked at me and said “You probably should have dyed your eyebrows too.” Ha! I love her!
I decided a long time ago that if I ever was going to put color in my hair I wanted it to be something I would notice. None of this “one shade lighter than my natural color” stuff. And I decided to do all over color as opposed to just chunks because I thought that might look less punk rocky. I’m not a punk rocker dying my hair pink to make a statement. I am the anti punk rocker actually. Even though I usually wear jeans with holes in them. I just kind of like pink, that’s all.
Now, I’m off to enjoy the rest of my morning playing pink games with Creamie and finishing up the last minute bits for my Pinkalicious Party this afternoon. (I have my all day blog party today PLUS I’m hosting a pink cupcake/popsicle/pink lemonade party for 150ish people at a park this afternoon. I ended up a little busier than expected today…) Happy Pink Day to you all. Next up is the secret behind those rows of cryptic ruffles I posted last week. Eeek! I am so excited!
Pink Strawberry Smoothie
I am kind of an ice cream fanatic. And usually when I make my smoothies they turn out more like shakes. You know, a lot of ice cream and a little bit of fruit. But I’ve been trying to cut down on sugar lately. So this strawberry smoothie has made the rounds at my house. I still prefer lots of ice cream, but this is delicious too.
I am making these for breakfast this morning. Along with some pink heart shaped biscuits. And then I might eat them for dinner too. You can never really have too much ice cream sugar free low fat yogurt in your life.
So my big secret isn’t really a secret at all. I like my smoothies icy cold so I freeze my yogurt in an ice cube tray so that it is ready for my smoothie whenever I am. If you don’t like them icy cold then you could skip this step.
In a blender add one tray of frozen yogurt cubes (about 1 cup ish) about 15 to 20 washed and hulled strawberries (or raspberries/blueberries/blackberries/a combo of everything), a banana, about 1 cup of crushed ice. You’ll need to add enough liquid to make it the consistency you like. I used about 1/4 cup fresh squeezed lime juice, a little orange mango juice from the fridge and then about 1/2 cup of milk. The frozen yogurt cubes make your blender work a little harder, but I like the creamy iciness that they add. You know, kind of like ice cream.
This recipe makes about 36 ounces of smoothie, which I divided up into three cups (Creamie was munching on hers and wouldn’t give it up for a picture). Then I topped each one with a dollop of whipped cream (thereby ruining all sugar free fat free work the yogurt was doing) and a fresh strawberry. Yummy. And Pink!
Pink Vintage Dresses
I started collecting pretty vintage dresses last year. I pick them up at thrift stores for a couple of bucks each. It’s cheap retail therapy. Which is the very best kind! I have them all hanging up in Creamie’s closet, though there are a lot of them that aren’t her size. I realized the other day that I have more than 50 pretty little dresses, all lined up in the closet. (photo inspired by Rachel‘s vintage here, vintage there photos.)
My little collection of pink dresses are my favorites. I mean, how can you go wrong with little pink ruffles and polka dots and puffed sleeves? You can’t. That’s right, you can’t go wrong.
I can’t pick a favorite, I like them all. But I find myself particularly drawn to smocked dresses.
I think more than half of my dress collection are smocked. I think they are a classic that never goes out of style for little girls.
I took this picture of Creamie wearing one of my old dresses last September. (You can read that post here). When she grew out of it I passed it onto my little sister. Her little girl is just a few months behind Creamie and my sister wore this dress all the time when she was little too. ( And L-face, when you are done with this dress and if you aren’t planning on keeping it for your children’s children, you better give it back. I have a good home for it.)
I found these two dresses at different stores a few months apart. But they both have the same little flowers embroidered on them. And the dress on the left is in a larger size, it will probably fit Creamie when she is four or five. I’m not sure why, but vintage dresses for older girls are a lot harder to find. Everytime I visit the thrifts I can find a dress for a smaller than my 2.5 year old. But it’s only once in a great while I find one a little bit bigger.
National Pink Day 2011 Begins!
I have so many exciting things to share today, I can hardly wait! But I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy Pink Day! It’s kind of like New Years, you know, at straight up midnight you start the real party.
I kind of wish I was having fireworks, but all the small children in my neighborhood are sleeping and I’m pretty sure the fireworks I am most interested in are not legal in my state. This pink wreath hangs on my front door almost all year. And what better way to welcome you to my Pink Week Party. So come in, hang out a while. I hope you enjoy it. I have had so much fun planning this party for the past year little while
Pretty and Pink
I am a total Pinterest addict. Looking at thousands of beautiful images in just a few minutes is something I never knew I needed in my life every single day. It does me more good than TV, reading blogs or drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. It has quickly become a few minutes of my day that is very hard to give up. Here are some of my very favorite pink images. You can follow me on Pinterest here, or if you just want to see all the pretty pink things I have pinned/repinned they are all right here. These pictures are all from my Pretty and Pink board via Pinterest.
[ photo by Oliver Scharzwald via Pinterest ]
[ Pink Gingham Trench from Modcloth (sold out. boo) via Pinterest ]
[ via Pinterest ]
[ Hello Kitty Hospital in Taiwan via Pinterest ]
[ via pinterest ]
[ via pinterest ]
[ Pink Slim Angle Camera, $35, @ Poketo via Pinterest ]
[ Tilly and the Buttons via Pinterest ]
[ ImageSpark via Pinterest ]
[ Kate Landers Events via Pinterest ]
[ Collection Globes via Pinterest ]
See, look. Pink really does make the world go ’round.
Tomorrow is the big blog party! Yay! I am spending today finishing up the last of my projects for tomorrow, and then I’ll spend my evening making cupcakes. I am having a Pinkalicious party for my friends and neighbors, and I think I’ll need at least 150 pink cupcakes. And lots of popsicles and pink lemonade. I can’t wait! I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures and I’ll post those on Friday as soon as I go through them all. Happy Pink Week! (And don’t forget to enter my pink week giveaway.) Also, I was thinking that if any of you would like an invite to Pinterest, just let me know in the comments and I’ll try and get to those today. I’ll send out invites to the first 13 who let me know they are interested. I am all about putting all my favorite things today at the same time. Pink. Pinterest. Thirteen. It’s going to be a great day.
What’s in my [PINK] bag
Since today is officially the first day of summer it was high time I traded out my very fallish dark purple leather for something a little more, well pink, frankly. Most years I carry pink year round, but last fall I found the perfect purple bag at Ross for about 80% off retail and it was big enough that I could tuck my stuff and Creamie’s stuff inside. And I didn’t have a pink purse that fit those two requirements that still fit in with winter. Long story, blah blah blah. It’s summer, and I have a pink canvas summery bag ( I think I got it at Target a few years ago on clearance.) that fits both my collection of stuff and Creamie’s collection of stuff. Which means no more carrying a diaper bag too. Awesome.
Oh, and Creamie is big into purses. She has at least half a dozen and takes one with her everywhere we go. She comes by it honestly. I take one with me everywhere I go too. Go figure.
So here are the details, roughly moving down in each row, left to right: Pink Fossil wallet, from my sister in law a few years ago. I Love this thing, and even though it doesn’t hold all my credit cards/gas cards/grocerystore cards/library cards/mexican restaurant punch cards/frozen yogurt coupon blah blah blah, I still don’t want to replace it. Crayons collected from various kids meals at different restaurants, 3 of the 4 in here are yellow. Why do they give kids yellow crayons! Pink striped mint tin from Victoria’s Secret, at least 10 years old. I keep hayfever medicine and tylenol in here. My favorite pen, which is not pink ,and has some random apartments for rent add on the side, but I love how it writes. iphone with pink shock resistant case. Full of games to keep Creamie busy in the car so she doesn’t take an unexpected nap and completely ruin my evening by staying awake until 1 in the morning. Neutrogena Hand Cream. At the top again: Hand sanitizer and a package of vintage pink ric rac I found at the thrift store for fifty cents a few days ago. Pink fingernail file, a 1/4 yard of solid pink fabric for a project I’ll post on Thursday, plus I found my favorite earrings and necklace in the inside zip pocket of this purse. They’ve been missing for, um, a while. Pink measuring tape and pink thread I picked up for a different project and a pair of fingernail clippers. Next column: a hair elastic for me and two for Creamie. Nothing more annoying than having her lose one of her ponytail elastics and have that random post ponytail hair on one side of her head for the rest of the day. Sunglasses, thrifted, and Scott’s very old Razor phone which Creamie pretend to talk to grandma on in the car. Or Cinderella, or Captain Hook. She has a lot of friends. A cute notebook for keeping lists and ideas, and to let Creamie color in when she gets bored. Keys and little leather zip pouch for all the rest of the cards that don’t fit in my wallet and any cash/coins I happen to have on me. Which is not much and not often. I am not a cash carrying kind of person. Last column is two pacakges of fruit snacks (those and the hand sanitizer are the only reason I can stop at as many thrift stores as I do.) Emergency diaper and wipes, a half eaten package of smarties, bubbles and kiddie sunscreen. And that’s the contents of my summertime pink purse. I’m sure by the end of the week there will be a random assortment of mail, receipts and empty fruit snack wrappers. There usually is.
I love the big outside pockets on this purse. I am forever losing my phone and keys somewhere near the bottom and it drives me crazy. In my opinon all purses should have one zippered pocket inside (that’s where I keep the little tin of medicine, with the zipper safety pinned shut so she can’t get to them for a few more years at least) and two bigger pockets for keys/chapstick/phone. I don’t care if they are outside or inside, but it is amazing to me the lack of pocket room on most purses. Appalling.
While I was dumping out my purse and making the official transfer from autumn purse to summer purse, Creamie decided that she wanted to play too. So here is her purse. Not all this stuff fit in her little purse, she just kept adding things to the pile. So, she has a bottle for her baby doll, a creepy plastic dog/cat/something toy, a large commemorative/insurance agency advertement coin (her “big money”) an empty package of fruit snacks she destroyed with her little scissors, pink bracelet, a plastic doughnut, the sparkly headband from last year’s Halloween costume, a set of measuring spoons, a neon green spider ring and a pile of coins. She always has coins in her pockets. And if you ask her what they are for she tells you it’s to ride the duck. In the Walmart lobby there is a mechanical big bird toy that she would do anything for. In her mind it is the best 90 seconds of her life. And in my mind it is the biggest waste of fifty cents in the world. But she is constantly hoarding money to ride the duck. It’s hilarious.
She was so excited to show me her things. It was adorable. Seriously, have you ever seen anyone so excited about a plastic spider ring?
She decided to empty out one more of her several bags for me to take pictures of. I just found this little toddler backpack a few weeks ago and she thinks it is the greatest thing ever. And today it was holding a mama and baby rubber duck, a tiny green cup from her little kitchen, a jingle bell necklace from Christmas, our old camera, my old pink razor phone, her little green plastic phone and a pair of shoes. One day I’ll have to empty out all of them and take pictures. Yesterday she made a train down the hallway of all her stuff. And there were at least 6 purses/bags/paper sacks all full to overflowing, all lined up and going to the zoo. According to her. I seriously can’t make this stuff up.
The standard evolution of photo taking at my house. There is less than 10 seconds between the far left and the far right photo. Totally fine to total meltdown. Yeah, she’s definitely two. She’ll get over it. Anyway, National Pink Day in on Thursday, and I can’t wait to finally share everything I’ve been working on! You might not be as excited as I am, but you could totally pretend. And if weeklong pink parties just aren’t your thing, head over to Amy is the Party. She is having a blog party all week to celebrate summer. Yesterday I did a guest post for one of my favorite summer treats.
Lime Pie Cakes. Yep, they are as good as they look! Go here for the recipe. Oh, and don’t forget to enter my giveaway for Pink Week!
Pink Week Giveaway!
COMMENTS CLOSED.
It’s a beautiful Monday morning and even though I slept horribly (I should really never watch intense movies before bed) I was really happy to get up and leave the creepy dreams behind. Although somewhere in there I did dream that my dad asked me to show him how to make a quilt… Anyway, I have a pretty pink giveaway for one lucky reader. It took me a long time to decide what to do this year, and finally yesterday afternoon I settled on this cute bunting.
It didn’t take very long to make at all, and I already have fabric scraps stacked up to make about 5 more. It’s cute to work required ratio is in my favor for sure. Anyway, the actual bunting part of this bunting is 8 feet long. It is trimmed with stripey bias tape so it will drape smoothly if you hang it above a window, an archway or on the wall. It has three extra feet of stripey ties on each end so you can adjust the length from 8 to 14 feet.
And because I can never resist the pink journals when I see them, this giveaway also includes one lined pink journal, a pink pen, my favorite color of pink nail polish and a cute plaid vinyl makeup bag to keep all your stuff in.
So here is the whole thing (minus the Christmas tree. You wouldn’t believe how many times I had to go to Hobby Lobby to find this! It has been living on top of my piano for a long time and I loved how it looked with the bunting. But I’m not giving it up!) To enter this giveaway leave me a comment telling me your favorite pink thing. Is it ice cream? Flowers? Your favorite shirt? Anything as long as it’s pink! I’ll close comments on Saturday night at midnight-ish, winner will be announced on Sunday June 26,2011. Happy Pink Week!
Hello Pink Week
So my day has turned out a lot different than I had planned. Nothing major, but it wasn’t exactly my idea of the best way to spend my Sunday, or kick off Pink Week either. Soooooo,.. let’s pretend that Pink Week starts tomorrow.
Come back in the afternoon and that will give me another few hours to get myself put together. Oh, and it’s gonna be awesome. Happy Pink Week, um tomorrow.
pinksuedeshoe 