I’m back and Last Minute Quilts

I’m back from vacation. It was great to spend some time with family. I was so happy the everyone liked the gifts I made, although for next year I really need to start making them much earlier so I’m not stressed for time. My one brother-in-law and my sister’s fiancé both loved the marshmallow guns we made (my husband did most of the work on those). I wish I had taken some pictures of them playing with them.

The last few items I had to finish up before Christmas were three quilts. I made an I-Spy quilt for each of my kids and a patchwork quilt for my husband. Patchwork quilts aren’t to sew but they are quick and easy.

As I piled flannel bolt after flannel bolt into my cart I received all sorts of looks and then was questioned by the associate what I was making when I asked for only 1/4th of a yard of each. It was so fun to find the fabrics. Oh and if you plan to do this don’t forget to check the remnants racks for a good deal. I backed both quilts with two microplush throws (they were only $2.99 at JoAnn’s on Black Friday). I had enough of the microplush fabric left over to make matching pillowcases.

I used boyish printed flannels for my son’s quilt.

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and I used girlish printed flannels for my daughter’s quilt.

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Then for my husbands quilt, I just pieced the quilt blocks together and then printed off the letters and pinned them onto a strip of grey fleece. I then separated the letters (not actually cutting the letters out) and then pinned the letters and grey fleece onto the quilt. I then did a straight stitch around the letters following the lines on the printed paper. After I sewed them down I was able to remove the paper and trim the excess fleece close to the stitching. It was pretty easy!!!

Hope everyone has had a Wonderful Holiday Season!!!

Kitchen Tile for Grandma and Vacation

How time has flown.  I’ve been plugging away at my Christmas gifts trying to get them all done in time.   Not much time left.

We’ve all seen these tiles with vinyl on them, but here’s a different little saying I came up with to give to my mom (sorry I ruined the surprise mom if you read this before Christmas).

I still need to go grab a display stand!

I will be gone on vacation and so I probably won’t be getting any posts up until sometime next week!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!

Scrolling Blog Buttons

I received a question on how I got my scrolling blog buttons so here's the answer:

I found this tutorial over @ Jenieshell's Design Challenge. She has tons of other tutorials for designing your blog, so go on over and check her blog out!

The only suggestion I have for you when doing this is to open up a word or notepad document and insert all of the individual blog button html onto it first then highlight them all, copy them and insert them into the code for the scrolling blog buttons.

Enjoy your new trinket, I love mine. Oh and if you have a blog button I would love to add it to my list. Feel free to grab mine and leave me a comment so I can grab yours!!!

50 Followers!!! A little treat for you!!!

To celebrate reaching 50 followers and thank all of my loyal readers I’m going to make available my tutorial for No-Sew Stockings!

These do hold up a fair amount of weight and would make for a fun family activity. If you can tie a knot you can make these!

Materials Needed:

An old stocking to use as a pattern

1 yd fleece material

½” matching ribbon

Hot Glue (optional)

Fold your fabric in half and place your old stocking on the fabric making sure you have around 3 inches of extra fabric all around the stocking. Cut the stocking out about 3 inches from your old stocking (pin the old stocking in place so it doesn’t move on you. Then cut the fringe from the edge to where the old stocking is (be careful not to cut the other stocking). Cut the fringe all the way around the sock except for at the top. Then make the ribbon lacing slots as shown in the picture below (each cut is about 1/2” apart). (you can click on the picture to see a larger version)

Once the sock is all cut out, follow these instructions (click on picture for larger image):

Thank you again to all of my readers!

Apron Redo and matching towels

I bought this plain apron and figured I could make it a little more stylish. 

At first I thought I would just add a little bit of trim to it but then I came across this Halter Apron by Heather Bailey and wanted to try to convert the apron into this style but I didn’t want to buy the pattern for just one apron so I decided I would try to wing it and this is what I came up with:

Here’s a brief overview of how I did it.

Materials:

Basic Apron

2 Fat Quarters

Solid cotton scrap about 64” x 4” that matches the fat quarters

Cut down the center of the top.  Flipped the two pieces of the top so the armholes then became the neck line.  Then did a little tapering to the outer edge of the top making it go smaller as you head to the top of the apron. (be sure to remove the side ties but leave the neck ties attached)

Then cut your fat quarter in 4” x 21-22” strips.  You will need five.  Three for the waist and ties and 2 for the ruffle on the bottom.

I sewed the three strips together and then attached the fat quarter strip and the solid strip to the top of the bottom portion of the apron so that the right side of the fat quarter strip was facing the right side of the apron and the right side of the solid strip was facing the wrong side of the apron.  I sewed all the way around the strip except leave an opening at the top wide enough for the top portion of your apron to slide in.  Turn the strips inside out and then press.  Make sure to press the opening so that the edges are folded inside.  Now slip the lower edge of the top of the apron into the opening and stitch the opening closed.  I did a stitch from one end of the ties all the way across the top to the other edge of the tie.

Then trim up the bottom of the apron to the length you would like.  Sew the other two strips of fat quarter together and then press it in half, right sides out.  Do a basting stitch along the raw edge to use to gather the fabric.  Pull one of the threads and gather the strip so it’s the same size as the bottom of the apron (make sure to do a rolled hem finish to the ends of the ruffle so you don’t have any raw edges showing).  Then pin the  ruffle lining up the raw edges on the right side of the apron.  After stitching it in place and went back and did a zig-zag stitch to finish the edges.  Press and your done!!

I used the remainder of the second fat quarter to make 2 matching towels.  I got the towel idea from Sew 4 Home here.

 

***on a side note I didn’t wind up attaching the top of the the apron as I wasn’t sure how it would fit her so I left it off making it only a half apron instead of a full apron***