RJ Ward Design

Thanksgiving seems to get lost in the shuffle everywhere you look. I see Halloween and then BAM! we're right into Christmas. Since I have alot of decor that is more geared towards fall than Halloween I like to keep it out but I noticed that I don't have a Thanksgiving Tablerunner or some pillows for outside.   You have to love Pinterest for all the beautiful ideas that are just a click away. The turkey layout was inspired by a pin from here. I had the bright colors left over from Spamalot and the tablerunner was pre-made from Pottery Barn. We usually head to our cottage for Thanksgiving but since it's still over a week away this gets us excited for Thanksgiving and spending time with our family.   The pillow above is just appliqued onto a canvas drop cloth that I made into a pillow form from Home Depot. I love having the porch decorated!     The acorn pillow has been pinned to my Pinterest account since the beginning. I pinned it fr...

  Whew! What a whirlwind these past few weeks have been. It started when I went to a Drama Boosters meeting for Monte Python's Spamalot for my son's drama class and the teacher asked one little question: "Can anyone sew?" I slowly and hesitantly raised my hand. All along I've told my son to never volunteer me to sew any costumes and here I was raising my hand. What was I thinking? The teacher was giddy with excitement that she found another volunteer to help sew 11 costumes. That night she gave me a cheaply made costume from the Renaissance period that was a skirt, peasant top and vest that she liked but wanted burgundy for the skirt. Knowing that I have never heard of the play, she also instructed me to look on youtube for inspiration.   All 11 girls were different sizes so I bought Simplicity 5582  pattern and used the largest size I could. I decided that elastic was going to be my favorite way to fit all the girls with a one ...

I have been sewing but not anything quilting related. I've been sewing for my daughter. I haven't sewn for my children since they were little and I was making Halloween costumes and matching Christmas outfits. It felt so good watching her come downstairs to see the pieces of fabric turn into a beautiful dress.   This was our inspiration: Simplicity Pattern 3878 by Jessica McClintock. Her choice in color was teal. We both decided all the roses that are glued/sewed onto the dress just was not going to be her. She wanted sparkle and glitter. We found the tulle that had glitter all over it and let me tell you that stuff gets everywhere! We've had glitter all over house! The pattern was pretty much very easy to use. I found I had a few questions on how the pattern read when doing the bodice but I quickly figured it out. I had more of a hard time with the fabric being so shiny and slippery that I really had to go slow and take my time. There is boning in the dress a...

Wow - life certainly has a way of getting past you and I'm totally shocked that I haven't written a word on this little blog since April. Good thing this little blog is just my way of seeing my own improvement and not out to get the highest number of hits. Life certainly has been busy in my neck of the woods is one reason I have not blogged or even really sewed anything for that matter. My eldest daughter had a seizure in the middle of the night in May and my main concern has been to make sure she is fine - which she is! Medically the neurologist can not find anything wrong with her after numerous tests and are saying that this is a very common occurence in teenagers (she's 19). It can be caused by stress or even a hormonal imbalance. So . . . needless to say I'm now her designated driver along with my other 2 teenagers. So sewing and even blogging has become a back burner on my list of things to do. I have been eyeing the beautiful charm pack of Reunion from Diane ...

I'm behind a week with my NY Beauty QAL but I finally squeezed in some sewing time to do it. I didn't use the tutorial that was used on this block because it was pieced a totally different way that I've been doing it so far. The tutorial also didn't have any dimensions to cut the fabric so I had to measure and figure out my own way. I was very cautious the way I measured my squares because I want to be able to have enough of this fabric to finish. For anyone else that is contemplating doing this block I measured the height and width of the points and added at least 1/4" all the way around. This seemed to work well for me. On the smaller points near the end I used scraps since they were such tiny points. Of course no sewing can get done without ripping apart some seams or starting over and I did have to do that a few times. This is a learning curve for me and I'm plugging right along. So here is NY Beauty Block 3. In other news I've been honored to win...

The pictures are way to dark when I took this even though the sun was still out so you'll have to see purple and white not black and white. This block went together so well. I can see I'm starting to run low on my leftover material from my girls dresses that I'm so hoping I can get these done. We only have 4 blocks more to go. All my seams have come together without a flaw and the points look really good. I can honestly say I'm improving on this technique. Here's all the blocks that I've done so far. In other news we spent our Easter at our cottage in Northern Michigan. It was so nice to be able to get away and know that in 4 weeks we'll be putting the dock in the water. The lake was so peaceful and calm. I have so many projects in my head that I'd like to start and I'm hoping I can find the time to get to them. I took a job that is 3 hours a day being a Parapro for Autistic Impaired Pre-Schoolers, so hopefully I can find the time t...

I've been a paper piecing fool! For 3 days straight I've been playing catch up to get caught up with the NY Beauty QAL. Since work and family life has occupied my time I needed to get to my sewing machine pronto before I got even farther behind. Since I'm technically doing each block 4 times it took me almost 2 days just to cut and sew. I decided early on since I had so many blocks to do that I'd just get all the paper piecing done first and then put the blocks together. I didn't want to take the time to keep switching my needles and stitch lengths everytime I got a block done. This is Block 1. At first I was going to add a solid as the 2nd color. I made all of the pieces with the 2nd color to finally come to the conclusion I'd rather keep it a 2 color block - white and my purple print. So I technically had to go back and start over on the piecing. I'm glad I did because it makes the blocks more elegant looking without the 2nd color thrown into the mix...