Needles and a Pen » Knitting, Sewing, and Nursing School

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  • Welcome to my blog!

    Hi! I'm Traci. I'm a Registered Nurse who loves quilting, knitting, cross stitch, and the great outdoors. In my pre-scrubs life, I owned Real Photography, and you can still see my old wedding and portrait photography site here .

    I've created a map that shows links to our camping/hiking/general family fun review posts that you can find here. It's pretty much the coolest thing on this site. Thanks, Google!

    I great big puffy heart *love* comments, so please let me know you visited! I try to always reply!

Make Nine 2020

I love resolutions, goals, plans. Somehow I am only finding out about the Make Nine hashtag on Instagram now, in 2020, but I am On Board!

For my Make 9 2020 I am planning to make the following:

  • Quilt: in particular, finishing the ‘yearbook quilt’ I made as a senior in high school
  • Christmas project: I have some gorgeous Christmas fabric that I never actually play with. 2020 is the year I bust out the Christmas fabric during the Christmas season!
  • Dress: finishing the Comic Con dress I just need to put the various hems on. Coverstitch machine, I will learn to not be intimidate by you!
  • Sewing cabinets: my sewing nook is a mess all the time because I’m constantly waiting to put a row of cabinets along the back shelf. In 2020 I will devote time and money to this Ikea-based pursuit!
  • Sweater: I have a nearly finished sweater that has been sitting in a bag for years and years because I wasn’t happy with the first neckline and ripped it out. This sweater will be finished!
  • Album: Complete the 2019 Week in the Life album (extra credit, complete the outstanding 2015, 2016, and 2018 albums, too!)
  • Shirt: Sew a knit shirt using some coverstitch skills I’ll learn by finishing my dress
  • Jesse Tree: Finish the Jesse Tree ornament collection once and for all!
  • Garden planters: built two trex garden planters this winter for the spring/summer growing season

Rifle Paper Company Fabric Makeup Bag

I adore this Rifle Paper Company floral canvas and it makes it VERY hard to cut into my stash of it!

Luckily I think it’s amazing with the Hobby Lobby canvas and the new rose gold zippers I picked up, so I was willing to cut into my precious floral canvas for this makeup bag for a friend’s Christmas present.

No pattern for this one, just basic bag with lining and zipper construction skills and cutting things to about the size I wanted them.

Another Noodlehead Pouch

A third noodlehead pouch? Yes.

You barely sew and then you make three of the exact same thing? Yes.

But really, when something gets as big a reaction as my first noodlehead pouch, it begs for a concert style encore that lasts longer than the original show.

The print fabric is a Cotton and Steel Spectacle line, the cork is from Hobby Lobby. I used a basic canvas for the lining. The zipper is from an etsy seller that sells zipper tape and pulls, and you then cut them to the length you need. I thought that installing the zipper pulls might be a nightmare, but it’s incredibly easy and an amazing way to get much classier zippers than are available at my local big box craft stores!

Noodlehead canvas pencil pouch | bag pattern review

noodlehead canvas pencil pouch tutorial review gift cork fabric hobby hobby

While we were in Taos last month, I picked up some beautiful women fabrics from Common Thread Textiles knowing they would make beautiful bags. I got brave enough to cut into them for my friend’s birthday present. I made the noodlehead canvas pencil pouch, a gorgeous (and free) pattern/tutorial.

noodlehead canvas pencil pouch diy bag pattern review cork fabric hobby lobby craft gift

Pattern notes: Since I didn’t have a 10″ zipper I used my usual zipper insertion method versus the one in the tutorial, but everything else was per pattern. It’s a gorgeous bag and I will definitely make more…mostly because everyone at my friend’s birthday party immediately hinted that they needed one. Since Christmas is coming, it is good to have a popular pattern in your back pocket!

diy pouch gift bag free pattern tutorial review

Supplies: Woven fabric from Common Threads, Cork fabric from Hobby Lobby

noodlehead canvas pencil pouch pattern review

Repairing West Elm Weathered Cafe Paint on Patio Furniture

west elm portside weathered cafe paint touchup repair match

If you have West Elm furniture, you have no doubt discovered that it is less durable than you’d hope. After just one year outside on our COVERED AND ENCLOSED ON THREE SIDES north facing patio, our portside low sectional in Weathered Cafe looked awful.

west elm paint weathered cafe retouch portside furniture review

I contacted customer service to see if they sold touch up paint or could assist me in obtaining touchup paint. They were unable to help.

I decided to try Sherman Williams paint matching. For less than $20 and in less than three hours (including time to drive and purchase the paint!) the furniture looked like new! I chose their premium outdoor paint and added enamel to help it last longer this time around.

Tip: I unscrewed one of the legs off the coffee table and took it with me to be color matched (versus dragging in an entire piece of the furniture).

retouching west elm portside low weathered cafe furniture paitn match

To prepare the area, wiped it down with a damp cloth and used a basic cleaning brush to get any paint flakes off. For painting we used a foam brush and a regular paint brush (mostly because we didn’t have two paint brushes). The foam brush was good for quick coverage, but I did go over any foam brushed areas with the real brush to keep the texture of the wood.

The good news about this not-yet-a-year-old-but-needs-a-touch-up is that the texture of the furniture couldn’t be more ideal for retouching. You don’t have to worry at all about brush marks and the whole thing looked good as new when we were done!

how to repair west elm outside portside low furniture after paint chipping