spring

Spring Burlap Wreath – Try Something New!!

February 26, 2013 by Wendy Cohen Leave a Comment

I have been admiring all of those burlap wreathes on Etsy…there are some here and here and here. They are beautiful and stunning. So, I decided to try my hand at them.

I just so happened to have some burlap wide ribbon on hand. Imagine that!

All you need for this project is some burlap ribbon; wired ribbon is preferred, a wire wreath frame and some floral wire.

You start on one end by securing the ribbon to the frame. You then work from the back and pull up small loops of the burlap through the wire frame. I pulled up one per row and stacked five per section. I am so sorry, but I got so into what I was doing that I failed to take any photos until….

I was done. Once you work all of the burlap through the wire wreath frame, then you open up all the ribbon and fluff as you see fit. Now that I have it finished, I realize that I could have made the loops much bigger and fuller as I have seen in other examples.

I then attached some cute primitive carrot bundles that I have had in my Easter decorations for a long time.

These are just attached with some floral wire through the back of the bundle.

It turned out pretty cut for the first time try…The best part about this is that I can take the whole thing apart and try it again any time I want. It is all one continuous piece of ribbon and one two or three floral wires holding it all together.

Spring Burlap Wreath

Have you tried something new lately? It’s worthy a try!

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Filed Under: color, craft, create, garden, home decor Tagged With: burlap, burlap wreath, carrot wreath, Easter, easter wreath, spring, spring wreath, wreath

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Jasmine Quilt All Finished!

June 10, 2012 by Wendy Cohen 15 Comments

I started this create spring quilt that was inspired by jasmine back in late April / early May. You can see the first post on this quilt here. I have been working on this quilt little by little on the weekends and really tried to take my time. Well, it is now finished. Yes, it is finished. I tried to take my time on every step of this quilt and as always, tried something new.

As a reminder, this is the fabric that I started with from Simplify by Camille Roskelley.

The pattern is from Fresh Vintage Sewing by Fig Tree Quilts.

Quilt Pattern

One of the great parts about this quilt is that the blocks are very large and the quilt comes together fairly quickly for such a large quilt. The one thing I might do differently next time is pick a slightly darker color for the inside of the star blocks. I selected a light green dot on white background fabric which doesn’t show well unless you are in person. This is the quilt top below before any borders were added or before Baja the yellow lab curled up in this chair!

This quilt has two borders; first a smaller framing border followed by a larger and wider border. Check out an earlier post for my method of measuring and making your borders perfect. You can see this post here.

Here is the finished quilt top. This is when the next step begins of adding your batting and backing. This was such a large quilt that I had to find just the right place to layer the batting and backing. Here’s the link to the tutorial on how I create my quilt sandwiches…

Finished Quilt Top … Before Quilting

Here is the quilt in the midst of quilting. I quilt my quilts on my Bernina machine which sometimes can take some muscle given the throat size of the machine and the need to navigate a large quilt through. I quilted the entire quilt over a series of two days so that I didn’t wear out my shoulders.

Quilting the Top

I typically use a stippling pattern to quilt most of my quilts simply because it is what I am most comfortable with. Over the last two years, I have branched out and tried some different patterns. This time, I decided to quilt some designs that just seemed right for this quilt.

Quilting Close Up

Here is the completed quilt with the binding added on. You will see that I used several quilt methods throughout the quilt including using some special quilting in the blocks themselves as shown above, stippling on the border and a wavy pattern on on the corners near the appliqué. The tutorial for my appliqué method is on a post a few weeks ago and you can see it here.

Jasmine Quilt All Finished

I used a scallop/stripe fabric for the binding in a green fabric which turned out really well. I tend to love stripes for binding as they add just the right element to the edge of a quilt. It’s like a good picture frame.

Close Up Applique Detail with Blanket Stitch

And, here is the finished quilt hanging in the fresh air.

Jasmine Quilt All Finished

This was a fun quilt to make. I even added my own elements of appliqué to the quilt which were not included in the original pattern. I was inspired by the blooming jasmine in my yard initially and my inspiration turned into this. Take not of the inspiration in your everyday world….you will be surprised what you notice.

Jasmine Quilt All Finished

If you are interested in purchasing this quilt, you can now buy it on etsy. Check out my etsy store here.

Filed Under: applique, create, flowers, garden, inspiration, quilt, sewing Tagged With: create, jasmine, quilt, sew, spring

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Easter…Hopping into town…

March 25, 2012 by Wendy Cohen 2 Comments

Easter is one of my favorite holidays. I really have no idea why, but it is. Maybe is because some magical bunny is supposed to come in the middle of the night and leave a basket of fun stuff. Or, maybe it is because my mom was always so creative on Easter with the small little trinkets that can fit into an Easter basket. It seems better than Christmas because it all had to be contained within that little basket which made the small finds even better.

The older I get, the less “stuff” I keep around to decorate for each holiday. The reality is that I have just kept and continued to collect the things that I love rather than just a bag of “easter stuff”. It makes each holiday worth looking forward to and makes the unpacking of all the little treasures even more fun. So, rather than decorate my entire house, I pick several key areas and create small vignettes. It makes it fun and challenging.

One of my favorite Easter things is this tree that my mom got for me over five years ago. It is great with it’s painted eggs and other items I have added over time. I kind of think every holiday should have a tree….don’t you?

Here is a closeup of the painted wood eggs.

I used the chandelier over the table to drape a cute egg garland.

And, a few of my favorite Easter accessories. A crunchy old rabbit and some stuffed carrots that I placed in some decorative glass bowls on either end of the spring table runner. I even crunched up a green table napkin in the bottom for a little extra color.

A close up of the egg garland.

I added some wicker/weaved charger plates and some colored napkins to the kitchen bar in bright spring colors. It brought a whole new life to the kitchen without much work.

Here’s a bigger view of the table.

I also spend a little time decorating the inside of my china hutch with some colored eggs placed in the vases and a little easter garland. It really added a nice touch without much effort.

What are your Easter traditions? What are your favorite decorations?

Hop Hop