I found Bolt, a fun fabric shop that I keep hearing about from Portland bloggers. I had a lot of fun looking at everything and picking out a few things that I just couldn’t resist.

I realized that my fabric stash is lacking in solid colored fabrics. I thought these would do nicely! Okay, so they aren’t really solids, but close enough.

Since I knew my sis-in-law would love so many of the fabrics in the shop, I just couldn’t leave without getting her something. It was really hard to narrow it down, but I loved these and thought she would, too. Yes, Carol, some of this is for you!

Since I could easily go broke in a shop like this, I narrowed things down to these two designs that I really just couldn’t resist. I love them and can’t wait to put them to use!

Well, it seems to be thrifty thursday and that fits just nicely with what I was going to post. I found this fun banner a few weeks ago but it took a while to get it photographed.

It has some really fun parts, but definitely doesn’t work as a whole for me so I will not feel any guilt about cutting into it and using it for something else…. can’t wait!!!

We also walked from our hotel to Milo City Cafe for breakfast this morning and stopped at the Goodwill across the street on our way back. I found this fun table cloth. I know it is quite hideous, but I can’t wait to combine it with some other quirky fabrics I have.

I have a project stirring right now. Too bad it will all have to be hand sewing. I couldn’t justify packing my sewing machine, but I still couldn’t leave the house without needle, thread, and my sewing scissors.

Actually it was the boy who finally donned his supersuit… the one I promised him before Christmas while I was making them for his cousins. He was quite excited about it and wore it to the airport to drop us off. So, I am actually the one who did the flying, unfortunately it was in a plane and not because of any special super powers. Here he is showing it off.

Here he is testing it out. I don’t know why I keep making capes for him. He always wants to watch them flutter behind him and has been known to run into cement walls while doing just that. But, this looks safe enough.

I followed the man to Portland. He is here for a big geek conference. So I am enjoying spending more time than usual with him and get to explore Portland while he is busy. Woohoo! Sorry, I am behind on my email. So many nice comments I haven’t been able to respond to yet.

I spent the day wandering around here finding such amazing inspiration!

I spent the day with this amazing women, who is also an inspiration. Our fabulous husbands (who happen to be brothers) decided to take our kids camping and leave us to our own devices. I am in heaven and trying not to feel too guilty about it! She brought her sewing machine, too! Can’t wait to get busy tomorrow putting all of that inspiration to good use.

This time it was just work.

Going from white scratching post fabric (not really, that is just what the cat thought!) to new white didn’t give me the same euphoria I get from doing something creative.

I kept imagining these chairs dressed in something much more funky. But this job wasn’t for me, so I didn’t get to decide.

I did still think it was fun to take it all apart and figure out how they made it, then put it all back together nice and new.

After reupholstering my sofa, I still hadn’t gotten around to making some pillows for it. So I started experimenting. Here is what I came up with.

I am not sure I am going to keep this one for long, but it was a fun so I thought I would share. I dug through my scraps and came up with this combination, but I wasn’t as happy with them as I thought I would be. It is just a little too boring. After a few false starts, I figured out how to piece it together in curved instead of straight lines. I am kind of excited about that and trying to figure out what to make next with this new skill. Here is the easy peasy part. I cheated… I used an already made pillow cover. Here is how I did it. You can click on the image to see it bigger.

After I pieced my new front for this pillowcase, I laid the pre-made pillowcase down on top and cut it to be the same size as the pillow. I trimmed another 3/8 of an inch off of that so it would lay flat for the next step. Then after turning the pillowcase inside out, I laid my new pillowcase front inside and pinned it all the way around so it wouldn’t slip while I was sewing. If you try this, you have to make sure that it lays flat and goes all the way out to each edge, and you also need to be able to see your new front looking at you through the zipper opening. When that was done, I made a new seam about and inch from the edge so that the edge of my new front would get sewn into the new seam. I turned it right side out and Viola! New pillow with a zipper and everything!

Since most of what is available at the store for carrying a laptop is black vinyl, a friend commissioned me to make her a backpack for her laptop. She wanted it to be held vertically, instead of having a backpack converted messenger bag. So here is what I came up with. Click on any of the pictures to see them a little bigger.

The freeform wavy lines I used to quilt the whole thing were inspired by the asian print.

You can kind of see the flap over the hidden zipper for the front pocket that I put in the flap. It was a fun challenge to line up the prints and line up my quilting lines.

And here is the inside view. All padded and cozy just waiting for that laptop. There is another pocket in there for holding the battery and power cord. I really love the way this bag turned out and, Christy, if it isn’t working out, I would be happy, happy, happy to take a return :-)

Since the Whiplash theme this month is conveniently “bags”, I am entering it into the competition. Check out the list of links on the Whiplash site to see all of the amazing entries. Fun! Fun! And since I have to choose a category, I guess it is going to have to be SKILL since it doesn’t seem to fit any of the other categories.