October 2012 – SweetSourMoments

Wall Stamp To Save Wrong Paint Color

Published on October 25, 2012 by sweetsourmoments6 Comments

I am currently decorating the last 2 rooms in the house, hadn’t done anything to them since moved here 4 years ago. For the guest room I was planning a minty green, very light and fresh, I picked the color and had a good feeling about it. Later that day I asked my husband for his opinion, he picked the one that’s 1 shade darker… well, since I asked him first I thought let’s just follow his pick. On the first couple rolls, I could see how dark it is, and after finished I felt like in the kinderganten or daycare room. Totally not what I picture the room would be in my mind. I didn’t want to redo the color, this room has many corners and borders that need detail works and I just didn’t have the energy to repaint.

How to make it elegant and comfortable for the guest ? .. without repaint. So here is what I did. I stamped the wall to get wallpaper effect, the wall where the head of the bed will be, to create a focal point and to distract the eyes from the greens. I used Martha Stewart Gold paint and am planning to add other gold accessories to tie the room together. On the future post I will let you see the finished room, so hope to see you checking my blog again.

1. Draw the pattern in the felt, I drew circle with asymmetric thickness. Cut it and glue to a piece of cardboard with the same shape, then glue a piece of styrofoam for handle.

2. This is the gold paint I used.

3. The stamping process.

4. The gold color really adds richness to the wall, like it!

Honeycomb Blanket – part 2, final

Published on October 22, 2012 by sweetsourmoments10 Comments

Finally I finished the blanket!!! After hours of hours stitching, it’s done 🙂

1. Stitch the fabric to follow paper template shape. I didn’t pierce through the paper, other tutorial suggested it, I think leaving the paper clean will save time when we want to remove it.

2. Stitch link the pieces.

3. Each big piece link.

4. Put the big pieces together as desired.

5. Stitch link all big pieces. This is the picture from the back, you can see the paper templates.

6. Remove the paper templates.

7. I forgot to document the process of putting the cotton batting, the border and back liner, sorry 😦 …

8. Finished.

Honeycomb Blanket – part 1

Published on October 5, 2012 by sweetsourmoments2 Comments

Though popular term for this is hexagon quilt, I prefer name it honeycomb.. to me it sounds much better, less technical. This is my first honeycomb blanket and I don’t think I will make another at a long long period of time, too much work 🙂 Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy making it, but I have so many projects going on this one just takes much more time than I anticipated. At this point I am half way to finish the blanket so stay tune for next post Honeycomb Blanket part 2.

My Ama (my grandmother from mother side) used to make patch blankets from scrap fabrics. Back then, the blanket was made using any kind of left over fabric in any size, it was so irregular, no pattern, totally mismatch. There were sometimes fabrics from old pants, dress, shirt, and mostly polyester. We calls Ama blanket Poor guy blanket because it was so unattractive although it serves its function very well, imagine how warm polyester fabric can be :). Ama always tried to salvage as much fabric as possible, her philosophy was saving! saving! saving! and less spend, similar to recycle, reuse, and reduce … hmmm when I think back of her, she was actually more advance in thinking process then our generation, she’d got this idea! Making my own blanket reminds me a lot of her, all the compassion and values she taught us, my prayer for her always.

I made 2 patch blankets before, both were for presents, so I don’t actually have my own blanket with me… they were not the version of poor guy blanket though, they were in color coordinated soft cotton fabric .. hey, they were presents! had to make sure it’s a nice looking blanket. I learn the term quilting here in US, there are special quilting fabric, quilting book, quilting pattern, quilting class .. wow it amazes me how a simple blanket making that I call patch blanket becomes so fancy. Then I saw this blog about making hexagon quilt, inspired me to make mine, my honeycomb blanket.
Fabric selection.

Cut fabric. I found this blog how to make hexagon quilt without hand stitch each hexagon piece, it’s faster. After comparing several tutorial I decided to go with the traditional method, the one that requires long process but for me it gives puffy look which I like.