'Monogrammed' Pillowcase

I've mentioned here before that this year I'm making pillowcases as Christmas gifts. Well, the completed count is at a grand total of 2. I just finished the one above yesterday. I wanted to personalise it, but I calmed down a little from my previous and too fancy design and I still ended up with something I'm really happy with.
It's 'monogrammed' as you can see. I asked my son what the 'M' might stand for and he said Mommy ;-) ... the actual 'M' who this pillowcase is going to is my niece Molly.

Music is a big part of my brother's (Molly's Dad) life, so I thought this fabric would be just perfect. It's an older out-of-print Alexander Henry fabric. The pink fabric is a Moda fabric called Love. The turquoise dots are Sherri Berry.

And the letter is from this panel from the out-of-print Peas and Carrots line by American Jane for Moda. I was fortunate to pick this up recently at a local flea market when a lady was having a fabric sale.
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I'm participating in Fabric Tuesday. Just click here if you'd like to see lots more lovely items made from fabric by other bloggers!
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Thanks for stopping by!

The Selvage Snowman Saga: Making Headway

Just a quick photo post to let you see the tiny bit more I got done. I'm hoping for some sewing time this weekend. The snowman is starting to get more challenging and interesting to work on now ... So what do those LOOK (hint, hint) like in the photo above ? ...
Leftover fabric from my Selvage O'Lantern quilt will be making up the carrot nose ...
Lots of small bits ...

Not eyes this time ...

Eyes, nose and mouth ...

My method is to build these parts up with selvages to get nice squares or rectangles that are easy to sew together. The nose may be a little tricky, but the mouth and eyes are easy ... there will be no corncob pipe, but there will be a hat and scarf. I saved my black selvages for a top hat and my red ones for a scarf.

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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating today south of the border! And as always, Happy Quilting!

Pretty in Pink Quilt Finished

First off, yes, that is a sprinkle of snow on the ground!

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So this the Pretty in Pink Quilt I made for my daughter Tess for Christmas. She's three and it will go on her toddler bed. This is my first project completed and crossed off my Christmas to-make list. Yay!

It is made of 130 squares (5 inches each). It's kind of I-spyish with quite a few novelty fabrics mixed in. Some fabrics only show up once in the quilt, but other ones that I really like show up 4 or 5 times.

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I quilted this myself with straight lines both horizontally and vertically just off to one side of the seams. This is the first quilt I've quilted on my new machine and I am pleased with it. I will say that I had to pick out my first row of quilting three(!) times and was getting quite frustrated -- even with soothing Christmas music playing in the background. I think the issue was that along with my lack of practice at quilting, I am not a good baster. I had pinned too far back from the seams so the fabric was pulling crooked. After the third time of picking out the quilting I pinned and pinned and pinned, and from then on it was fine.

For both the backing and the binding I used Woodgrain by Joel Dewberry. I use this fabric a lot. It's just one of those friendly fabrics that seems to get along well with others. Know what I mean? I have this same print in orange and in a greenish colour as well.

The finished quilt is approximately 45 by 60. Now I'll tuck it away until it's time to wrap it up for Christmas.
And, off the topic of quilts, look at the view out my dining room window the other day -- at about 10:30 AM. I was just typing along on my laptop when I noticed these guys out of the corner of my eye ...
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Want to browse some other crafty stuff, and maybe get some handmade Christmas gift ideas? I am participating in Made by You Monday. Just click here to see the master list of everyone else participating! Or, if you want to see some other nice projects made of fabric, just click here for Fabric Tuesday participants!

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Happy Quilting!

The Selvage Snowman Saga: Still Rolling Along

I'm still having lots of fun working on my Selvage Snowman! No frustrations yet, knock, knock. The bottom snowball is about 20 inches wide now and is probably almost done. Things were getting a bit uneven and skewed as it rolled bigger (just like a real snowball sometimes, right?) so I was careful with the spacing of the last few rows of selvages, making adjustments when necessary, and things got much better.

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As you can see, I've started the middle snowball too. It will be just slightly smaller than the bottom one probably.

Here's the bigger one close up.

And the smaller.

Now, look at this pile of selvage treats. The fabulous Kelly of Pinkadot Quilts volunteered to send me "some" selvages ... well, little did I know that "some" selvages would mean this wonderful huge assortment of Christmas fabric selvages!!! She's totally the selvage Santa!!! And she sent some fabric too. See that snowman print? I'll be using some in the border of this quilt! Anyway, Kelly makes great stuff. Surf on over and say "Hi!"

Just for fun, I thought I'd show my couch. You know, black couches and lots of loose thread strings everywhere go so well together ;-) ... This couch is in my home office/wannabe sewing room. I work from home, but lately I've been staying out of my office and working up at the dining room table, so I'm not tempted by these selvages ... or by the pink squares that are lying on the floor there ... or by the plastic cabinets full of fabric ... or ... you get the idea ...
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Happy Quilting!

A Little Pink Progress

I've managed to arrange the blocks for the Pretty in Pink Quilt I'm making for my daughter for Christmas. I'm definitely an over-arranger. I could switch and move around blocks forever it seems. I can always find some reason why two blocks shouldn't be beside each other ... are you like that? Eventually I have to just tell myself to leave well enough alone. As long as the basic colours and patterns are distributed all right, and no two squares that are exactly the same are beside each other, it's fine.

I have the first ten rows sewn across the width. I've done very little sewing over the past several days. Sewing those rows probably took about an hour and a half done in little increments of 10 or 15 minutes here and there. (I also managed to sew a little bit on the Selvage Snowman.)

In the last post I said I thought I would need 140 squares, but I actually only used 130. It's 10 by 13. I have lots of squares left and have tucked them away. Some time during the year the quilt guild I just joined makes little baby quilts for the hospital. I think many of these fabrics would be just sweet for a neo-natal quilt, so I'm saving them for whenever the time comes.

Above is one of my favourite fabrics in this quilt. It's Girl's Toile by Free Spirit. It has the sweetest expressions on it and has a nice big repeat. I have lots of squares of this in the quilt and they're all different.

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Happy Quilting!

Lots and Lots and Lots of Pink Squares

I'm making my daughter a quilt for Christmas. She's three and this is probably the last Christmas she'll be in her toddler bed (Waahhhh. Sniff. Sniff) so it's my last chance to make her a nice small quilt for it. I've decided to make a pretty and oh-so-girly patchwork quilt of all pink squares. I have basically cut 5 inch squares from every pink fabric in my stash and scrap bin. I was also fortunate to have received about 30 good pink squares for this from a swap.

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I need 140 squares I think and I already have more than enough cut with tons of variety. I have been cutting a few now and then over the last couple of weeks whenever I had a few spare minutes.

There are lots of flowers.

I love that Moda "Love" fabric.

And I also had lots of fun novelty prints.

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I am keen to get these arranged and sewn up. It is tempting to start by chain piecing them, but I really want to choose the place of every single square so I'll likely lay them all out first. There's certainly lots of time until Christmas.

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Happy Quilting!

The Selvage Snowman Saga: Rolling Along

So the first snowball is well on its way. I'm pretty happy so far. It has been going great with really no frustration -- yet, knock, knock. I said I would discuss missteps and mistakes here, so I would like to point out that the middle little fussy-cut snowflake is changed from my previous post. I changed my mind after I only had about 4 selvages on the first one, so it wasn't much at all to change.

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In the photo above, the outside ring of selvages isn't sewn on, but they are just lying there. My method is to choose the selvages one complete ring at a time, then sew a round of eight pieces in place.

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I have been ironing after each round to keep things flat. Or close to flat anyway.

So after I pick my eight selvages I pile them up in order and head to the machine.

Then I sew. I use white thread. My sewing machine is set on the standard default stitch of 2.5. I sew as close to the edge of the selvage as possible and watch carefully. If I go off a little bit, I go back and go over that area again. If I go off a lot then I seam rip and do it all again. I am actually quite good at sewing the selvages straight now, just from practice.
Then I flip up the selvage I've just sewn on and trim back the underneath a bit to reduce bulk.

Here's what the back looks like.
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I'm not sure how big this will get. This is the snowball for the base of the snowman so it will be the biggest. It's over 12 inches in diameter so far ...

And finally, see the *magic button* my new sewing machine has to fix all your mistakes ... hee, hee. Wouldn't it be fabulous if you really could just press a sewing machine button to fix up all your problems?!?!
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The real purpose of this button is of course to stitch several stitches in place and 'fix' the thread rather than backstitching ... I didn't have this on my old machine and it is a nice new feature.
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Thanks for stopping by! Happy Quilting!

The Selvage Snowman Saga: Prologue

So here's the plan. My next selvage quilt is going to be a winter scene featuring a large selvage snowman. The design, and I use that term sooooo loosely, is above. I'll say that things are already off to a less than auspicious start because when I asked my three-year-old daughter what Mommy had drawn she said a robot. Hmmmmmmm. I laughed and then like any good quilter, I added Robot Selvage Quilt to my To-Do list. Wouldn't that be cool? I can think of about a million potential details for it! But anyway, back to the Selvage Snowman. He's going to be super cool too.
I had this (potentially disastrous) brainwave that I would actually blog along as I go and show my process/progress. It should definitely provide some comic relief around here because the rough drawings above are all I'm going from. It is freestyle from there. I've thought through how to approach the main elements, but there is a big difference between thinking about something and actually doing it ... I want to be as forthcoming as possible in recording what I'm doing -- missteps and mistakes included. Believe me, my seam ripper is at the ready.
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My only timeline for this is of course to finish before Christmas.

I started the tiniest little bit yesterday. Step one was to check out my raw materials -- the selvages above. I have accumulated a few more of my own lately since I've bought fabric for Christmas gifts, but I thankfully have been given some selvages too. I have no idea if I have enough to complete this quilt, but I'm not worrying about that now. I use any section of selvage with a white edge. I prefer the parts with numbers and words, but I also use the plain parts. If I didn't I'd never have enough.
I was looking through my selvages for particular words that I wanted to save for special places in the quilt -- words like snow, snowy, winter, cold, really anything related to the topic. And I definitely wanted the word Christmas, which I knew I had. I dug through my selvage pile for this The Twelve Joys of Christmas fabric by Sheri Berry. Except it says "Cheistmas"!!! The ink is blurred a bit on the selvage above but I checked another couple of selvages from fabrics in this same line and sure enough it's Cheistmas again and again.
Anyway, here's the start of the actual quilt. This will be the bottom snowball making up the snowman. I fussy cut a snowflake for the center. That is a 3 inch square I think (or close).
I used the snowflake as a guide to make my octagon shape for the selvages. I want the whole thing to look like it was rolled up just like a real snowball, so I am putting the selvages on in a log-cabin style. I have no idea how big this will end up, but this is the first part started. Yay! Now I just need to circle and circle, roll and roll.
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Until next time ... Happy Quilting!

Giveaway Winner

The giveaway winner is Commenter #43 Meg! Congrats!

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Thanks to everyone who entered -- I really enjoyed reading all the comments!

Pillowcase Prototype

First off, I am really enjoying reading the comments on my Giveaway post about hand making Christmas gifts. Many of you have mentioned giving pillowcases which I think is a fabulous idea ... leading me to Exhibit A: The pillowcase above. It will be a gift for a family member. I'm about 99% sure she doesn't read this blog, but just in case I'm not giving a name.

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Anyway, to make my pillowcase, I used a store-bought pillowcase as a guide. My goal was to make it as fancy (gaudy?) as possible, while not doing anything out of my skill range or making it too fancy to use and wash frequently. So, this is the result. I dressed it up by using four fabrics, two piping rows, variegated thread and some decorative stitching.

The two rows of piping.

The decorative stitching. It is on the edge of the cuff.

So ... I am really happy with this. But there was definitely a learning curve involved.

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Lessons learned in no particular order ...

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If you are using French seams (this was my first attempt), take that into account and cut everything a smidgen bigger as more fabric disappears into that double seam than you are used to.

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Two rows of piping looks super-cool, but it is also super-bulky at the seams. My sewing foot seemed to travel up a little mountain to get over this area and I went back and over it a few times to be sure everything was sturdy.

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Decorative stitches are annoying, actually-like- capital -A-Annoying, to pick out. Especially flowers. If you leave plain white thread in your bobbin and only use the nice variegated thread for the top, then your finished stitch line has a pretty side and a plain white side. Be SURE when you attach the cuff with the decorative stitches, that the pretty side is up. (I thought I had double checked, but oh well.)

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Make the iron your friend. I pressed this constantly to keep everything straight and even and it really helped. It all matches nicely and lays flat.

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If you use a store-bought pillowcase as a guide to freestyle the pattern like I did, make your pillowcase a little longer to really hide the pillow. Longer is better and somehow seems more deluxe.

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So, now that this practice prototype is done, I think the other ones will go faster.

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Happy Stitching!

Giveaway!

As mentioned here yesterday, in celebration of reaching 100 Followers, I'm going to have a little giveaway. One commenter will win the 4 Heather Ross fat quarters above. These are all out-of-print fabrics. The flowers and stripes are from the Lightning Bugs and Other Mysteries line, the little horse riding outfits are from the West Hill line and the fish are from the Mendocino line.

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The giveaway is open to everyone. International entries are welcome and encouraged. To enter, just leave a comment on this post with a sentence or two on the topic of giving homemade/quilty gifts for Christmas. Is it something you do? A tradition maybe? What do you give? Have you started making the things yet? Or what is on your quilty wish list from Santa? What quilting related item would you most like to get?

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Just one comment per person please. Also please be sure that your email address is either linked to your profile or that you leave it in the comment. I will need a way to contact the winner. Entries are open until Monday, November 8, 7:00 PM AST. I will do a random draw and post the winner on the blog by Tuesday, November 9.

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Good luck! Thanks for stopping by!

Comments are now closed

Something Super Simple to Start

This is the first project I've made on my new sewing machine: a very simple table runner. Each square is 6 inches finished, so the whole thing is 12 by 30 inches. The fabric is 12 Joys of Christmas by Sheri Berry. I LOVE the fabric. It is the only time (besides a couple of charm packs) that I've bought a bunch of fabrics from a coordinated line. When I saw this fabric, I just thought every print was great. It has a wonderful retro/nostalgic feel and reminds me of so many things from Christmases past.
One of the neat things about my new machine that I didn't have before are fancy stitches. Yay! I quilted the runner using a regular straight stitch just off to one side of each seam, and then this little line of snowflakes down the other. They are so dainty and pretty!

For the backing I used what I believe is a Joel Dewberry print (if you're a regular reader of the blog, you'll understand why the selvage with the name of the fabric is long gone ;-) ...)

Anyway, I have plenty more of this fabric and plan to make a much bigger, longer runner for our dining room table, as well as some more smaller ones for gifts. This went together super quick. And the best thing was, the new machine cooperated!!!

Now, on another note, remember the big Nason Family Pumpkin Glow display at our house that I showed a few posts back? Look who stopped by for a snack after Halloween, before I could get the pumpkins to our garden for compost. Don't let that sweet innocent expression fool you. That deer is a pumpkin-eating machine! ;-)
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And finally, I have 100 Followers! Woohoo! It is especially cool because I think I've only actually met 5 or 6 of you in real life (including my Mom). Hi Mom! So, come back tomorrow for a fabric giveaway to celebrate and say thanks. I'm thinking some Heather Ross fabric...
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Happy Quilting!