cover up.

when i bought my sewing machine, i vowed to make a cover for it. how hard could it be, right? no problem, except i would have to put aside my three million other projects to tackle that one. such an easy project, yet it always got relegated to the back burner. five years later i finally reached the moment when it was time to make the cover. i pondered my stash of fabric...not wanting to use my "good" fabric for such a mundane project, yet still hoping for something adorable to stare at when the machine is not in use. enter mrs. nipper knapp of my mom's a nerd.

some of you are probably wondering who on earth is this mrs. nipper knapp lady that keeps cropping up in my posts. well, i met her two years ago at the wedding of one of my best friends. she was the photographer, but also the wife of the groom's cousin. i had heard that she was crafty and when i met her i thought she was perfectly lovely, but we were at a wedding, not a quilting bee, and she was busy photographing all the festivities. we did not have a chance to dive into our shared interests. after the wedding we became facebook friends and it was quickly evident that our aesthetics are closely aligned. and she makes stuff. all kinds of stuff. and she has a project list that rivals my own. but most precious to me, she too is spellbound by fabric, nifty sewing projects, and quilts. at first i was afraid she would think i was stalking her, because i was enamored of all the projects she spotlighted on her blog. but then i gave up any pretenses and just gushed my excitement for everything. since then i have happily helped her with some of the technicalities of sewing and quilting and she has provided ridiculous amounts of inspiration. she has a superb knack for discovering hidden gems and has singlehandedly doubled the list of things i want to make. so of course, when it was time to design my sewing machine cover, it was one of her finds that led me to the dark side...turning a project from super simple to ridiculously complicated. and i would not have it any other way. thanks mrs. nipper knapp.

a close-up view of the sewing machine cover.

the find is a tutorial on comfortstitching for an applique of a girl on a tree swing. i decided to take the "easy" route and skip the girl and the tree, but i used the featured applique technique. i created a colorful strip with  all my scraps of fabric and used it as the centerpiece of my sewing machine cover. the whole project took six hours, which even i will admit is ridiculous for an appliance cover, but the results are super snazzy. i share a bedroom with my sewing corner, so this is one of the first things i will see every morning. not a bad way to start the day.

the two sides of the sewing machine cover atop its precious cargo.