Sep 1, 2014

Coin Quilt


My daughter Lindsay made this pretty coin quilt for her best friend and I offered to quilt it for her.
I laid it on the floor and pinned it before I quilted it.


The light on my machine is really bright!



Since the quilt is "scrappy", I thought the binding would look pretty scrappy as well.


I think the finished quilt looks really cozy :)


 Here's a closeup of all the pretty scrappy fabrics.
Do you recognize any that you have in your stash?
As I sewed, some of the fabrics took me back to the time when my daughter and I went to quilt shops together.
I quilted l/4" inside each side of the vertical sashing.
I quilted a wavy stitch down the center and across each of the horizontal rectangles.


This is my favorite place to photograph my finished quilts, on the tree in our backyard.



I love the back, and Lindsay put some coins at the bottom too.


 The quilt's in the mail, Lindsay will be excited to see it :)

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Aug 29, 2014

Layer Cake Lemonade Quilt


Layer Cake Lemonade Quilt is a free pattern from Fat Quarter Shop, you can find the link and info here.
Here's my finished quilt!


I used a really soft minky for the back, and found it at fabric.com.


I love the geometric pattern, and you can see my stipple quilting.


Outdoors is a great place to photograph my quilts, the light is great!
I only have the quilt top and the minky back, there is no batting.
This makes for a very supple quilt, and the minky still adds a lot of warmth.


I tried to be creative and lay on my back to take this photo.
Unfortunately, I found little bugs crawling on me afterwards!


I made my quilt from Lori Holt's Millie's Closet.
My mother in law is a vintage type of girl, so I think she'll really like it!


All rolled up and tied with a bow, ready to mail.


I had to show you this box, the words are so fun!!!

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Aug 27, 2014

Travel Pillows


This is such a cute little pillow, the size is 12" X 16".
This can be a little pillow to travel with, to decorate your bed, to use as a doll pillow or even a little dog pillow :)
I use mine to put behind my lower back on long car trips, and also for long flights.
I have a tutorial I made a while back, with all the measurements, and I have a boy version without a gathered ruffle.
You can find my travel pillow tutorial here.
I made this pillow out of Sarah Jane's Wee Wander collection.
I wish I had bought this line, I only have a couple of fat quarters.


This pillow is from Sarah Jane's Let's Pretend fabric line.
Little crowns, aren't they cute?
The ruffle is from Sarah Jane's Children at Play fabric line.


This little pillow was made from a Japanese print.
It matches a quilted wall hanging I made, you can see it here.


I love all the little people and animals and strawberries and details.
The ruffle is from Lori Holt's Gracie Girl fabric line.


These travel pillows are so much fun to make!
You can see more pillows I've made, here, here, and here :)

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Aug 25, 2014

Sweet and Simple Table Runner


Welcome to my Scrappy Summer Sew Along!
It is being hosted by Lori Holt at Bee in my Bonnet.
I posted about making this table runner here, in July.
The part finally arrived for my sewing machine and I'm able to use it again!
I quilted the table runner with my walking foot and added a scrappy binding.


I save all of my leftover bindings, they are perfect for a scrappy look.


Voila, it's finished, I'll be mailing it to my daughter in law tomorrow.
I'm going to ask her to take a photo of what it looks like on her table so I can share it with you.


I backed the table runner with a "happy" fabric to make it reversible.


The weather is so warm and sunny, I had to take an outdoor shot.


The table runner is fluttering gently in the soft, Delta breeze.

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Aug 22, 2014

Patchwork Please!


 I made 2 little Triangle Patchwork Box Pouches from this book by Ayumi, you can find her blog here.


Sorry for the yellowish photo, I took it at night.
I auditioned all of my color combos to make sure they looked great together.



I made this box pouch once before and I paper pieced the triangles.
You can see my tutorial here.
 This time I cut out triangles and sewed them all together by chain stitching.
I should have watched my own tutorial!
I don't paper piece very often and always have to refresh my memory before attempting a new paper piecing project.
The points are beautiful and crisp with paper piecing and I can't always guarantee perfect points otherwise.
I know some people who can, but I'm not 100% there.


Sewing the zipper was soooooo easy!
I just topstitched them on.
See the little twill tape on each end?
Do you ever shop at Anthropologie, one of my favorite stores?
Those ribbons are the handles from their shopping bags, I always save them :)


Ayumi gives you extra fabric in the measurements, so I trimmed mine off and they are perfect!
The whole bag is lined with quilt batting which gives the bag great body and sizing.


So cute!!!
Colorful goodness :)


The lining looks a little large in the photo, but it actually fits perfectly.


Even the sides are done in patchwork.
I love the red geometric fabric, but I don't remember the name of it.
I bought 5 yards on sale once, used it for a quilt back and have been using scraps of it ever since.
I'll be sad when it's all gone.


Squeel!!!  The bottoms are in patchwork too!


Each of the sides of the box pouch have different patchwork.


These pouches are a little tricky to make the first time, but after completing one, the second one was easier.


I'm going to fill one of these bags with goodies and give it for a gift to a quilty friend.


The other bag will go to a friend on her birthday.
I hope she likes it :)

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Aug 20, 2014

Guitar strap with tutorial link


My son Sean recently traded in his trumpet for an electric guitar.
He had everything except for a guitar strap, so I told him I'd make him one.
I looked through all of my "girlie" fabrics in pinks, reds, oranges, etc, and found a few rather "masculine" looking pieces.
Sean chose this one.
I found a tutorial link and pinned it to my "random tutorials" board on Pinterest, you can find it here.
The tutorial is by "one shabby chick", and you can look at her blog here.


This guitar strap is so quick and easy to make.
Notice the nice hardware?
There is a link on the tutorial, where you can buy a guitar strap for about $5.00 and use the hardware that comes with it.
I prepared the strap and used my walking foot to stitch it together.


Once all the lines were sewn on the strap, I wove the strap through the buckle and zigzagged the end to the strap.
This step secures the strap and finishes the end.


There were 2 other pieces of hardware that I attached, it was really just that easy!


Isn't this the most handsome guitar strap you've ever seen?
Ha ha!  I hope you might have a need for a guitar strap someday soon and that  this tutorial will be useful to you :)

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Aug 18, 2014

Scrappy Cross Roads

I made two scrappy cross roads blocks a few weeks ago, you can see them here.
I have a scrap bin with 2 l/2" wide scraps in it, grouped by color.
It wasn't as time consuming to make a block, I already had lots of 
2 l/2" squares, or 2 l/2" strips that I could cut into squares :)
I made 2 more blocks, making a total of 4 which equalled a beautiful square!
It was so much fun using all of my happy scraps.
The color combinations are endless.
I'm thinking of making one of my daughters a blue one to go on her dining room table.


I had enough squares cut out to make a 5th block.
Wouldn't this make a beautiful quilt?
I think I will make a mini quilt from my 5th square :)














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