Ironing Board Cover tutorial link and Fabric Organizing

The last time I made a new ironing board cover, was over 3 years ago.

I knew that I had some severe water stains on my ironing board cover, but it wasn't until it started to molt, that I couldn't wait any longer...

My son ironed his shirt every morning before he went to work, maybe that's why he moved out, lol!

(just kidding...)

I think the stains are a combination of steam and starch!
The water stains were beginning to discolor my quilt blocks when I pressed them.

I saw that Jennifer Mathis from Ellison Lane Modern sewing and design blog, had a tutorial for a 30 minute ironing board cover.

I pinned it to my Random Tutorials board on Pinterest, you can find it here.

I bought some insulate at JoAnn's, and cut two thicknesses of warm and natural, and sewed them together.

I also bought some home decor fabric by Nate Berkus.

My new ironing board cover even has some nice padding!

I love it :)

Vicki, a fellow quilter at our Sacramento Modern Quilt Guild, told us how she wraps her fabric around comic book boards, and how wonderful it makes her stash look.

I bought this pack at Amazon for $10 and later found cheaper ones at my local comic book store.

This is some of my stash before wrapping them around the boards.

Not too bad, I try to keep the stacks looking nice.

Wow, what a difference!

I love the look of my fabric wrapped around the boards.

One drawback, is that this way of organizing takes up a little more room, and I don't have enough shelving to display my entire stash this way.

For now, it's a start and I arranged most of the fabric shelves with the fabric wrapped around the cardboard.

There are lots of tutorials online, just "google" wrapping quilt fabric around cardboard and you'll find them :)

Quilty Fun Birthday Cake Banner and Tablerunner

Lori Holt designed this cake block to celebrate the year anniversary of her Quilty Fun quilt book.

pssst....The book is available at JoAnn's.

You can go here to Lori's blog to get the recipe.

The first cake I baked, was Strawberry Cheesecake.

I had so much fun, that I decided to bake a Chocolate Mousse cake.

Red Velvet cake is one of our family favorites.

I baked another Red Velvet in a different color combo :)

Then I baked a strawberry cake, they are pretty addicting!

I baked another strawberry cake with one of my granddaughters in mind, and came up with an idea...

I will bake the cake into a banner, one for each of my grandchildren.

Each year, when it's their birthday, their cake banner can be displayed on their special day.

Charlotte's birthday is April 9th, she'll be five!

It's hard to tell in the photo, but the border looks like sprinkles :)

I appliqued Charlotte's name with wonder under and a machine blanket stitch.

 I made a tablerunner for Charlotte's mom, because she goes all out for birthdays :)

I thought she might like having a table runner for her festivities.

 I used a dotted fabric for the border on the table runner, and they still look like sprinkles!

It may be a while before I get around to quilting it.

I wanted to show you a photo from last week's post.

Here are some of my grandchildren with their dolls and baskets that I made for them.

Here are two granddaughters who weren't in the previous photo.

I didn't get one of their baby sister, because she was sleeping :)

Rag dolls and Quilted Storage Boxes

Amazingly, my husband and I have 11 grandchildren now!!!

We have 2 grandsons and 9 granddaughters.

I was thinking about what I could get them for a little Easter gift.

I was looking through my magazines and found an adorable little doll pattern in this magazine, it's Issue Eleven.

Look how cute she is!!!

I made my first one for a granddaughter who loves purple.

She took a while to make, I'd say about 3 hours.

I decided to make them all at once instead of one at a time.
I thought that would make me feel like I was getting more done, and it did!

This is what the hair looks like before the head's sewn together.

I just sewed the felt hair onto the flesh colored broadcloth, and sewed lines down each one to look like strands of hair.

These are all the dress pieces, I chose each color and print according to each girl's likes and personality.

I was thinking about making each little doll a quilt...but then I remembered the quilted storage baskets in this book.

I thought the fabric basket would be better, because I could make 11 of them, including one each for the grandsons.

The baskets could be like a bed for the little dolls, and the boys could use theirs for storage.

I wrote a tutorial on the baskets here.

I made the baskets with my 3 l/2" wide scraps.

This saved me a lot of time, because the strips were already cut.

I worked really hard every spare moment I had, and finally completed my little dolls in about 10 days.

They look like their watching a movie or something, lol!!!

This little doll is for Reagan Clara, she's 4 years old.

 Her favorite color is purple and she has blonde hair.

I made her basket out of prints, and there are all sorts of peek-a-boo  designs.

There's a dog, a bird, Little Red Riding Hood, an elephant, and so on...

This is Kylie Violet, she's 2 years old.

Kylie loves pink and anything pretty and feminine.

I made her basket in pink and mint green, to match her dress.

Every doll has some of the fabric from her dress, in the basket.

This is Kennedy Grace, she's 7 years old.

Kennedy's favorite color is green, so I made her a green basket.

This is Maisie Louise, she's 4 years old.

Maisie loves pink and purple.
 I used a Mary Engelbreit print for her dress and her basket is pink.

Maisie has a cat named Abby, so I used a Japanese print with cats and birds for the lining.

This is Neo (nay-oh) Kimberley, she's 4 years old.

Neo's favorite color is purple, so the doll and the basket are purple.

I don't have very much purple fabric, so this was a challenge!

This is Lucy Jane, she's 1 l/2 years old.

She's a cute little blonde toddler, so I made her doll and basket in soft  pinks.

This is Isabel Louise, she's 1 month old :)

She has no idea what she likes, so I made her doll and basket in Heather Ross fabrics to match her baby blanket and burp pads.

You can see her baby quilt here.

This is Paisley Louise, she's 10 months old :)

Paisley also doesn't know what she likes yet, so I gave her doll an orange dress and basket.

I really love orange, it's a happy, bright color.

The lining of Paisley's basket is a cute little Japanese print that I hope she will enjoy looking at.

This is Charlotte Leigh, she's 4 years old.

A lot of people have said that this is their favorite doll :)

Charlotte loves strawberries, so there are strawberries on her doll's dress and her basket is pink.

This basket is for Benjamin, he's 2 years old.

His bedroom is decorated in red and aqua, so those are the colors that I sewed his basket. 

The lining is a Japanese print with lots of cars.

I'm putting some Matchbox cars in his basket.

Last but definitely not least, is Bridger, who is 9 years old.

He is our first grandchild.

Bridger is getting a selection of Artemis Foul books in his basket.

He's also getting a copy of the book Wonder.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing all of my projects, they are a labor of love.

Snapshots QAL, sewing machine

I'm sewing the Snapshots Quilt Along, it's sponsored by the Fat Quarter Shop.

The pattern for the sewing machine was available on February 15.

I used my Alpha Bitties to sort out all the little pieces.

If you are interested in getting some for yourself, you can find them here.

Here's my sewing machine.  I'm using mostly Bonnie and Camille fabric for this quilt, from various lines.

The red fabric in the sewing machine isn't Bonnie and Camille, but the rest is.

Here's my cake block from last month.

I think they look pretty good together :)

I pinned all of the Snapshot QAL information on Pinterest.

There is also a Facebook page devoted to the Snapshots QAL.

It almost feels like a virtual quilting bee, there is lots of excitement about this quilt :)

I'm looking forward to March 15 when the "kettle" block is available!