Letterpress: My First Try

I asked for (and received from my husband with great assistance from my sister) the letterpress kit that works with an Epic six die cut machine for Christmas.

Yay!  I’ve wanted to try this for SUCH a long time.  I know that the “real” way is to get a vintage press and so forth, but I don’t have money to sink into a hobby right now, so this seemed like a pretty simple way to still try and enjoy it.

I stayed up late the other night to experiment and here is my first Letterpress project:


This was a lot of fun to make.  More of a process than I anticipated (compared to rubber stamps, I suppose) but really cool.  Funny, I don’t even like purple, but this purple with the rich, dark navy blue looks so great to me!

Much as I’d like to play all day, for now it’s a late night project; I don’t want to see what would happen if my toddler had any clue there were tubes of paint somewhere in my office.

I’m excited to make more.  Really excited.  {And it’s nice to have things to be excited about, don’t you agree?}

Hopeful Homemaker

Quilt Along Blocks

One of my goals for 2012 (and I’ll share the whole list on Sunday) is to spend 10-15 minutes per day sewing.  I figured I might as well start with an unfinished project begun last year.  I made the first five blocks for this quilt along and then felt that I’d chosen the wrong fabric for the quilt, mine having some large scale prints and the collection used by the bloggers being full of small scale prints.

Well, I guess fresh eyes can help.  I feel like I’m selecting the fabrics better this time and I actually like the blocks I’ve done.  Here they are:


I’m loving the gray and aqua in this block.  Like a bit of happiness poking through Utah’s gray skies (which have been much sunnier this winter, but we’re also missing snow).


This last block was funny.  I worried as I was cutting and making it that I would hate it, but it turned out so great that it’s my favorite!  Pleasant surprise.


Those bright blue flying geese make me happy.


One pattern is no longer available and two I’ve opted to skip.  I’m half way there, with eight blocks finished.  I have five more to make and will then choose three favorites to make a second of.

Oh, it is nice to be sewing again!

Jennifer P.S.  I got my sister the Farmer’s Wife book for Christmas and I think we’re going to quilt along together on that one.  We’re both really tempted to sign up for an online sewing class together.  I’ve also got another blogger’s quilt along that I’m planning to start.  But I’ve got to get this one done first.  Should be fun!

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