Valentines Day Vintage

This is what I woke up to this morning. I am a lucky girl and I have a super thoughtful boyfriend.

Over the weekend we headed out to Montclair to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of a friends Vintage Boutique called Garnish.

Talk about coveting everything in a store! I love my friend Lisa's taste and the way she had the store laid out so neat and adorable totally gave me shoppe envy! I could have walked around in there for hours just looking at every last little detail of every item.

I seemed to have recently begun this obsession with old mechanical clocks. I think it has something to do with my obsession with old mechanical sewing machines, but who knows. They're just pretty cute too.

Anyway - I saw this clock and fell in love. I  totally couldn't justify my purchasing it cause I just don't need it. I kept shopping around to find a little something a little more practical to spend my money on that night. (HA - practical.) Not sure if I can call what bought practical, but I guess they are a bit more useful than the clock

I wound taking home a baking book from 1961 and a mechanical egg beater. Again - am loving anything mechanical that is not electric these days!

Here they are:

Saturday Morning, I immediately had to make something from my new book. (see - totally practical!)
I knew I had some poppy seeds in my pantry, so lemon poppy seed pound cake it is.
Oops, no recipe for that in my new cook book. But that's okay, I will happily make do.

I used the Basic Pound Cake recipe found on page 116 and added some lemon juice and poppy seeds and all was well and right in the world.

Here is the recipe in case you are interested:

Basic Pound Cake

A delicious, old-fashioned cake, especially good toasted (from the book, not me)

6 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
(I added the juice of one lemon, some zest & half a bottle of poppy seeds)

Set oven to 350 degrees. Grease a deep, 9 inch tube pan and dust with flour.
In a large bowl, combine eggs and sugar and beat for a minute. Set bowl over a saucepan of hot water. Place saucepan over low heat for about 10 minutes, or until eggs are slightly warmer than lukewarm. Don not let water boil. Stir eggs occasionally while they are being heated to prevent them from cooking on the the bottom of the bowl.

While eggs are warming, cream butter and flour till light and fluffy. Add vanilla.

When eggs are lukewarm, beat them until cool, thick and tripled in bulk.  Quickly stir 1/4 of beaten eggs into creamed mixture. Pour mixture over remaining beaten eggs. Fold in gently. Be careful not to overmix.

Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake about 50 minutes, or until cake is golden brown and pulls away from sides of pan.

Megan Side note: All that business about warming the mixture over the hot water was skipped in my version. I just made sure the eggs weren't cold when I mixed them with everything else. I did this by letting them sit under warm water coming out of the tap of the sink. I also didn't really beat the eggs as they said. I beat them with the sugar with my new beater, but then procedeed to add all the ingrediants and bake it.

The more I think about it, I really didn't follow the directions at all (suprise, suprise). But my turned out okay. I had to take it out of the oven a bit early cause I had to head to work so there was some oozing batter when I cut into it later that day when I tried a pice. This was because it wasn't quite cooked all the way through. But I have to say, I am a big fan of any cake just a little bit underdone. Is that gross?

The stuff dreams are made of... when you're six.

We had to share some photos with you with a project we finished up for Christmas. This pink, dreamy canopy was commissioned for one of our favorite 6 year old sewing students by her mom. In all our holiday frenzy to get orders finished up, we did not have a chance to photograph the finished project. But luckily her mom sent me these photos of the canopy hanging in Ruby's room.

Gosh, I wish I had one of these when I was six.

Mini Quilt Inspiration

We'll be offering the Mini-quilt workshop again this Saturday from 11am-1pm. This workshop is a classic in our studio so I have added some inspirational photos to this slideshow to show you just what you can do in a 2-hour workshop.

The quilts may be small, but they are oh-so adorable. And making one in this class gives you such a sense of accomplishment. Take a look and feel free to sign up here. There are only 3 spots left.

What is Applique

We have an Intro to Applique class this weekend and I was just thinking, perhaps people don't even know what applique is. So I googled it to see if I could find a nice little definition and here is what I borrowed from the about.com site.

Question: What is Applique?

Answer: Appliqué is a kind of patch that is applied to clothing. While patches are used to repair clothing, appliqué's are used to decorate. Many patches are often put together to make an object or scene. Different fabrics are selected for the individual patches to add texture, contrast and style.

 In the class, we are going to teach you easy techniques for learning how to cut out your own designs and add them to just about anything. You'll see just how easy it is to do. You just need to practice to make your designs look professional.

Hoboken Guide @ Design Sponge

A fellow business owner here in town passed along a link to a Hoboken City Guide on the Design Sponge Blog. I am soooo honored to be a part of this piece, as I absolutely love Design Sponge!

"Welcome to Hoboken. A vibrant New Jersey town just a hop, skip and jump over the river from Manhattan. Hoboken was made famous as the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, the filming location of the Marlon Brando movie On The Waterfront and the music venue “Maxwell’s” where Bruce Springsteen filmed the video for “Glory Days.”

Hoboken is also the town of many firsts, including inventions like freeze-dried coffee, bubble wrap and ice cream, as well as the first organized baseball game and the first brewery. It boasts the most bars and restaurants in one square mile of its town’s boundaries, and the indie/designer/art scene is on its way up due to many artists and musicians living here. It is also home of the infamous Cake Boss from the Lifetime show."

And here is what they had to say about us, under the category Art, Craft Supplies & Galleries:

"M. Avery Designs — Also home of the Hoboken Handmade Collective. If you love fabric, this is the place to visit. They also host classes and socials and offer open studios for use of their sewing machines. All items in the store are handmade and gorgeous. 266, 7th Street (at the corner of Willow Ave.)"

Read more at Design*Sponge  

http://www.designspongeonline.com/2011/01/hoboken-city-guide.html#ixzz1AlrVWDHV

Fabric Covered Corkboard

One pound of fabric doesn't seem like much but you would be amazed at how many projects you can actually make!

In our next sewing meet up group we are going to have a "Project Runway" type challenge.   Each person has been coming by and picking up a pound of fabric from an assortment of beautiful sample squares and remnant pieces.  Each  person will then have to create an item of their choice using only this pound of fabric.  This project can basically be anything from clothing, accessories, home decor, or anything they wish to create.  Then at the next meet up we will all show each other the cool projects we came up with.

So I thought it would be fitting to share this project I found from this great blog Elle Belle that has some fun project ideas.  This project in particular only only requires about a pound of fabric.  This is where I found the tutorial for these awesome fabric covered cork boards. In the tutorial they used 4 pieces of 12  by 12 cork, to create four different boards.  But you can pretty much make it whatever size you want.  Its a great idea for a present, or to add a little something unique to your home.  You can use it to tack up pictures, grocery lists, or as an inspiration board for future sewing projects. Take a look:



*A project by Elle Belle
http://ellebelleblog.blogspot.com/

Supplies:
Cork (I picked up a package of 4 12x12 cork tiles at a big box store for about $8), scissors, spray adhesive, a stapler (if you have a mini one that uses smaller staples so they don't poke out the other side of the cork tile that might save your fingers in the long run), some ribbon, the little adhesive thingies that come with the cork tiles to mount it to the wall, and fabric.


Step 1 - Cover the cork: Cut your fabric about an inch and a half bigger than your cork tiles (mine was smaller because I working with scraps). Lightly coat one side of the tile with spray adhesive and lay your fabric over the tile. Smooth the fabric out with your hand to remove any wrinkles. Flip the tile over and staple the excess fabric around the back.


Step 2 - Embellish: I laid the three covered tiles on the floor in the order that I wanted to hang them and laid pieces of coordinating ribbon on them in a pattern that I thought made a nice over all design and would also be functional for holding notes and such. Staple the ribbon onto the back of the tile.


Step 3 - Finish: If I were giving these as a gift I would cut a piece of card stock about half and inch smaller than the tiles and glue it onto the back to cover all the staples and rough edges. Apply the adhesive squares that come with the tiles (I only needed one in each corner and one in the center). Get out your level and stick away! Or, tie them up with some string and add a handmade tag!




*A project by Elle Belle
http://ellebelleblog.blogspot.com/

We've got you covered - Recovering an Ottoman

I have been meaning to get this up onto the blog for awhile. Here is a pretty cool Before & After job that we did on a pair of chewed & scratched up Ottomans. A woman brought in these (at one point) cute ottomans that her cat had totally destroyed. Since simple upholstery jobs are totally something we do all the time, I said sure, we'll take care of it!

She chose some great chocolate brown microsuede fabric to recover the ottomans. At about $8 per yard and since we would only need about 3 yards to do the two ottomans, this was going to be a relatively inexpensive tune up. (Hooray, says the client!)

The photos speak for themselves.

Before:

 

After:

DIY Fabric Owl Coasters

With the Home Decor Lab Starting tonight I thought I would share a project that we'll be working on in class tonight.

I found the most adorable Owl Coasters tutorial online at Curbly.com. She makes them a similar way to the way we'll be making them in class tonight, and added an adorable owl applique, so I thought might share this easy how-to with you:

How to Sew a Fab Fabric Coaster!

By erinloechner

From Fat Orange Cat:
Jox at The Knitted Blog requested an appliqued coaster tutorial, and I’m happy to oblige. Keep in mind that I’m completely self-taught, so just because I do it a certain way, that does not necessarily mean it’s the “right” way to do it! But I’ve established a way that works well for me, which I’m happy to share.

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1. Cut two pieces of 4.5″x4.5″ fabric and one piece of 4.5″x4.5″ batting. Set aside.

2. Draw or trace a pattern or shape in reverse onto the liner of your double stick fusible web. (First check to see which side of the liner you should draw on by peeling it apart slightly at the corner. You will draw on the side of the liner that’s still attached to the web.)

3. Peel off and discard the side of the tracing paper that you did not draw on. Stick the remaining side to the wrong side of a piece of fabric (it will not permanently stick until you iron it into place, so reposition as necessary).

4. Cut the fusible web and the fabric together along the line that you drew.
5. Peel off and discard the remaining side of the tracing paper, ensuring that the web stays stuck to the fabric.

6. Place the shape — web-side down — onto the right side of one of the pre-cut 4.5″x4.5″ pieces of fabric. Reposition as necessary. When you’re happy with the placement, iron it permanently into place by pressing for 10-15 seconds.

7. Repeat steps two through six as necessary until you’re done with your applique design.

8. Stack your three 4.5″x4.5″ pieces: batting on the bottom, one piece of fabric in the middle with the right side facing up, and one piece of fabric on top with the right side facing down. (This picture is set up just to show you which way each piece of fabric should face. When you’re ready to sew the three pieces together, they should be stacked one directly on top of the other and pinned together.)

9. Sew all three pieces together with a .25″ seam allowance, leaving a 1.5″ opening so you can turn the coaster inside-out. Trim the corners as shown.

10. Turn the coaster inside-out, ensuring that the layer of batting is on the inside, between the two layers of fabric. Gently push the corners out using a knitting needle or a chopstick. Hand stitch the 1.5″ opening.

11. Put something hot or cold on your new coaster. Repeat step 11 as neccessary.