WIP: Thomas the Tank toddler quilt

The Thomas and Friends Toddler Quilt is chuffing along nicely.

Incidentally, I'd never heard the word "chuffing" until watching Thomas the Tank Engine. Not even sure if I'm spelling it correctly.

Must be a Brit thing.

Onto the quilt progress.

I've finished the back (yes, I know it needs pressing, it's that obnoxious pillow ticking)...

...and made some continuous bias tape from the polka dots used on the back. I'll bind the quilt with that.

I've never binded bound made a quilt with binding before. Gramma always had me sew the quilt right-sides together, like a duvet cover, then flip it right-side-out and insert the batting, before tying it and stitching the opening closed.

And speaking of tying quilts, I'l do a combo of tying and machine quilting here. First time machine quilting too.

Project: DIY Retro Bread Box

Please excuse the blurry iPhone photos, I promise better photography in the near future.

I've already shown you the inspiration for this and told you all about how I've wanted a vintage enamel bread bin but can't quite seem to afford one. (And lest you cry out "but I always see them in my thrift stores," here's where I complain that my neck of the woods just does NOT have good thrift shops).

I racked my brain for a while on how to paint letters onto a readily available metal bread box. What kind of food-safe enamel paint would go on neatly? And how do I get it to not look so much like a stencil, just like my inspiration?

But first, the box. I found this cute retro bread box on Amazon, and for the longest time, that was the one I planned on buying... until I saw the one above at Target for about $15 cheaper. The garage-door-style one above isn't exactly the style I wanted, but I couldn't pass it up for the price. I may still buy the Amazon one at some point. Sorry, they longer have this one at Target for me to link to.

And now, the solution to retro-fy it... vinyl stick-on letters. They're a true black and a good font for the look I was going for. They're just permanent enough, but not too permanent that I couldn't preposition them. Yes, they're crooked in the picture below. That's the beauty of it; after this picture was taken, I straightened them out. And then was too lazy to re-take the picture.

These basic black ones I found at Wal-Mart in the poster section for I think about $3.99, maybe even $2.99. But I saw similar ones at Office Depot in different colors and fonts, which might be fun to try also! It looks like Amazon has some too.

DIY Retro Bread Box

Materials: bread box ($17.99 - Target), vinyl letters (~ $3.99 - WalMart)

Total cost: Under $25

This project is linked at:
The Frugal Girls, I Heart Naptime, Under the Table and Dreaming, Sew Many Ways, Petite Hermine, Nifty Thrifty Things, Lamb Around, Homemaker on a Dime, Raising Memories, My 1929 Charmer, Flamingo Toes, Sumo's Sweet Stuff, Making the World Cuter, Craft-O-Maniac, Sew Can Do, Delicate Construction, Mad in Crafts, Creating my Way to Success, KDBuggie Boutique, Tip Junkie, Today's Creative Blog, Vintage WannaBee, Creative Itch, Ladybug Blessings, Funky Polka-Dot Giraffe, Ginger Snap Crafts, Polka Dots on Parade, Lil Luna, Someday Crafts, Southern Lovely

Missing out on fabric: Can You Picture That?

Argh! Can I just say how much I hate fleece fabric?

It doesn't breathe... it pills... it stretches weird... it's hot... it's a turd to sew-- so I hear, I've never gotten that far because up until now I've refused to work with it because...

... if everyone wore fleece for a day we could harvest  the static electricity and use it to solve the world's energy crisis.

I hate static electricity.

But then I was in my local Jo-Ann on December 16th and saw this:

Now, THIS fleece I could make an exception for! I bought an on-sale pattern for fleece (that's going to be a surprise, keep reading) and intended to come back for this "Muppets Packed" when I had a coupon.

And then between Christmas, moving, and everything else, I forgot to go back and buy it.

And this stuff went fast. It was gone when I finally went back for it in early March. Which wouldn't seem that weird, but come on! Jo-Ann's had some of those calicoes in there for years!

So, I went back and forth between ditching this project altogether or picking something else. I'd already bought the pattern, so I went ahead and chose to move forward with a decidedly less cool Kermit fabric. Stay tuned for the project!

Source: joann.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Where to buy a hobnail jadeite cake stand?

Source: themeadowbrookblog.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Doesn't the Meadowbrook Farm have the most gorgeous kitchen? Check out her Jadeite collection if you haven't already...

Thanks to this post, I am getting tons of hits from people looking for places to buy a hobnail jadeite cake stand.

The answer is... I don't know. Which is why I wrote the post in the first place.

The obvious choices are eBay, which will have both vintage and reproduction jadeite cake stands from time to time, as well as Etsy and your local antique stores and dealers.

If you're willing to do without the hobnail, Amazon has repro jadeite stands.

My choice is still, as I mentioned in my previous post, Fishs Eddy, which doesn't just have new jadeite... it also has new stuff that looks like vaseline glass, cobalt depression glass, and blue milk glass cake stands.

Source: fishseddy.com via Elisha on Pinterest

The Pinterest Problem: an update

Apparently I'm one of the only people to talk about Pinterest's copyright issues and other problems, or one of the first to anyway, because my October 2011 post "The Pinterest Problem" continues to get hits-- especially as the site grows.

And apparently it's a hot topic, because Pinterest has updated it's Terms of Service.

Of note, an update relevant to my previous post:

We released simpler tools for anyone to report alleged copyright or trademark infringements.

They're also apparently outlawing Thinspo or Pro-Mia type pictures (I did notice some of those disturbing pics on there last year, amid the chevron-print cookies and DIY chair makeovers) and paving the way for private pinboards. Private pinboards, that annoys me... isn't the point of Pinterest to share and discover new things that others have pinned?

Finally, they pulled a reversal on their previous "NewsCorp buys MySpace" type of service term:

Our original Terms stated that by posting content to Pinterest you grant Pinterest the right for us to sell your content. Selling content was never our intention and we removed this from our updated Terms.

I'll end this post by first pointing out that the site is now getting much, much more attention from mainstream media as opposed to just from shelter, fashion, food and tech blogs. I now have twice as many Facebook friends on Pinterest compared with when the year began. Changes are bound to come with such attention.

And, since I hate doing posts without pictures, here are some of my most recent pins:

Source: sewweekly.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: modpodgerocksblog.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: burdastyle.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: naughtysecretaryclub.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: instructables.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Project inspiration: retro bread boxes

UPDATE: Here's the post with my DIY Retro Bread Box based on the following vintage bread bins.

I've been pining away for one of those vintage enamel bread boxes with the word "BREAD" emblazoned across them for a couple of years now.

It all started when I thought I would get into making my own sourdough bread, and I was looking for the best way to keep it once it'd been made. Metal bread boxes turned out to be the answer.

My sourdough starter died, but my desire to own a metal bread bin did not.

Too bad the kind I like mostly start in the 60 dollar range.

I've pinned a bunch on my kitchen Pinterest board, hoping to DIY one for much cheaper. I've come up with a decent solution, but before I show you the project, I wanted to share some of my inspiration...

Source: sunflowerandrosemary.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: jardinsantiques.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: northerncottage.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

Source: leah-theinsidestory.blogspot.com via Elisha on Pinterest

I've mooooved...

No, not my blog. In person, I've moved off the ranch.

That's why I haven't posted in a while; I'm still settling in. That, and my 10 month old is keeping me busy.

I'm still a ranch girl at heart, and would take rural living any day over urban or suburban. But... it's nice to have a little space of our own after sharing the same house with my parents (and sometimes adult sister and brother) for over two years.