Sewing Out Samples

I have been very busy sewing up a Quilted Toddler Jacket and Hat pattern and a new Quilted Toddler Bib pattern for this wonderful quilting and embroidery site, Ann The Gran. They are going to sell my patterns and asked if I would sew up a few items using their machine embroidery designs. So that's what I have been doing. The bib pattern was a tremendous amount of fun to create. I used their Jacobean Style embroidery designs and let me tell you, they sew out beautifully! It was especially fun for me to make that bib since I have a new granddaughter named Lucy. She was born on December 8th and we just got back from spending nearly two weeks up in New York with Lucy, her big sister, Madelyn, and their parents.

Here is the jacket I made for a little boy using Ann The Grans Zoom Zoom design pack. I was nearly knocked out of my chair at the detail and precision that these designs sew out with. They are amazing and I couldn't have been more pleased to put these on a finished jacket.

The font is Arabesque from Ann The Grans web site as well. It happens to be my favorite embroidery font and I use it all the time. I actually bought this font months ago, long before we were in talks about them selling my patterns on their site. It is fabulous!

I would also like to point out the condition of my lawn. I am sure that if you have read this far down the blog, you are saying, "What is wrong with these people. Their lawn looks like a hay field." Well, let me tell you what's wrong with "these people." My husband decided to "go green" and buy an electric lawn mower that you plug in and charge, then you unplug it and mow. Well, you can see by the height of our lawn just how reliable this "green" lawn mower is. Since day one it hasn't had enough charge to mow all of our incredibly small yard. Our lot is only 50 feet wide and 100 feet deep. On that is our house, a shed, a double driveway and flower beds. That doesn't leave much lawn space. So, suffice it to say that when you "go green" and buy an electric lawn mower, you literally "go green" because in no time at all you have a hay field!

"Dreams of Santa" Pillowcases

I found this fabulously fun fabric and had to think of something to make using it! Being that I live in Florida, and my grandchildren and nieces live up north, is seemed especially appropriate for me to make something showing the southern side of Santa. I made these pillow cases and sent them up north for the girls to open on Thanksgiving. Doesn't every little girl need a special pillow case to lay her head on as she dreams of Santa and all the magic of Christmas? They take little more than a yard of fabric, much of which you can pull from your stash, and less than 30 minutes to make! I found several free pillowcase patterns online. Here are links to a few pillowcase patterns from the Ohio LongArm Quilters, The Mother Lode Quilters Guild, and Quiltmaker Magazine .

And here is my Granddaughter, Madelyn, holding her own pillowcase and standing on her baby sister's! It is amazing how I am able to work a photo of her into nearly every post! I do so love being a Grandmother!

Christmas Apron for an Angel!

The night before Thanksgiving, I truly had something to be thankful for. My sister-in-law and darling niece came down from Chicago to spend the holiday with us. Prior to Lily (she's the niece!) arriving, I had spoken to her on the phone regarding the Thanksgiving menu. She informed me that she really didn't like pie, but she sure did like Chocolate Chip Cookies.... Well, that meant that when she arrived we had to make chocolate chip cookies!

Lily is now four and a half, so I got to thinking that she was probably old enough to start to learn to sew. I knew it had to be a fast project, what with 4 year old attention spans being what they are and all, so I came up with a special apron for cookie baking. Lily sat right on my knee as we sewed the apron, she handed me all the pins, and helped guide the fabric through the machine. She even helped choose the fancy stitches for the pocket! The best part for me was that she was very proud of the apron she "sewed!" I am shamelessly cultivating future quilting and sewing buddies. Success and pride in beginning sewing projects will help. It is a wonderfully simple project and can be made from scraps. I made my pattern up as I went along, but at the bottom of my post is a list of great links to free apron patterns for the wee ones in your life!

This is Lily and her wonderful Mom showing off their great Pilgrim Hats for holiday.

Quilt Block Apron Pattern

Reversible half apron

Better Yet! Here is a site that has an amazing list of 54 free apron patterns!

Happy Sewing Everyone!

Penny Pinching Patchwork Post ~ Re-Purposing Clothes!

The house dress you see above has been hanging in my closet for more than a year. It was a gift from my wonderful mother-in-law and well, I just never wore it. She bought it for me at Neiman Marcus and it was a fabulously soft cotton fabric and even she said when she gave it to me, "I don't know what I was thinking..." It seemed such a shame to never use it so my creative quilter's brain got busy. You will not believe how many useful items and gifts I made from this one article of clothing!

First off, I made the Quilted Toddler Jacket and Hat that is shown above.

Then I made TWO Quilted Toddler Bibs!

And this photo shows you the the entire clothes line full of booty that I got out of ONE unused article of clothing! I was able to make ELEVEN quilted, and very useful, articles of clothing for babies and toddlers. The baby bibs would make darling baby shower gifts and no one would ever know you made them out of re-purposed clothing! A good movie on the TV, a seam ripper in one hand and a hot cup of tea in the other, and before long you have fabric just waiting for a new career! I pieced together the batting from scraps and used old yardage for the backing before I quilted the pieces, and made my own bias binding from stash fabrics. The entire clothes line was made from fabrics that literally were just laying around my house!

If you don't have anything laying about your house that you are not wearing, one trip to the SA Boutique (Salvation Army Thrift Store) and you could have for less than $3.00 enough fabric to outfit a baby's layette. I went there this past week and found several BRAND NEW floor length flannel nightgowns for $1.50 each that would make perfect burp cloths, bibs, changing pads, and jackets. During these difficult financial times it seems to make incredibly good sense to use our creative brains to re-purpose that which isn't being used. Buying from the Salvation Army is also giving to a good cause!

Penny Pinching Patchwork Post - Burp Cloths

I understand very well the current need for all of us to become more thrifty in our quilting endeavors in this financially difficult time. I have decided to start writing occasional posts with thriftiness in mind and do my part. I am going to call them Penny-Pinching Patchwork Posts. This past week as I was staring at my meager flannel stash (don't use much flannel down here in sunny Florida), and loving the softness of the fabric, I came up with a project that turned out a wonderful and functional gift, used up some flannel stash, and used a great deal of the cotton batting scraps that I save for projects such as this one. The project? Burp Cloths!

All of us, after having sandwiched and quilted our quilts, trim off the minimum of three extra inches of batting from all the way around the quilt. What do you do with those long strips of batting? I save mine! Those pieces can be made into a larger piece very easily and they then can work wonderfully for projects such as burp cloths, tote bags, pot holders, etc. You just straighten up and trim one long edge on each piece with a rotary cutter and then butt the two edges together (do not overlap them) and zig zag the pieces together. Keep (frugally) trimming and adding pieces until you have the desired size. Normally I use natural colored or white cotton thread, but for the purpose of illustration, I used purple cotton thread. I made eight burp cloths for my soon to be born granddaughter, Olivia, using nothing but scrap flannel and cotton batting. Next time you have a baby shower or a new loved one about to be born, whip up these ever so soft and necessary gifts!

After I pieced five "all one cloth" burp cloths (they measure about 10 x 2o inches finished) I found I still had some scraps of the fabric left over. None of the pieces were large enough to make one burp cloth, so I pieced four small pieces together four times (four pieces to a side) to get two more burp cloths!

Below you see the entire set, minus the Christmas one I made after I took the photos. Olivia is due December 9th, so when I found a piece of Christmas flannel, I knew immediately what I was going to do with it. Every Christmas baby should have a special burp cloth for that day.

Below you can see some of the fun edge stitching I did on each burp cloth. Prior to cutting the flannel, I washed and dried it to get the shrinking out of the way. Then I ironed each piece of flannel, cut out the shape I wanted from the flannel and batting, and layered with flannel right sides together and batting on top of that. I then sewed the seams leaving a small opening to turn it right side out. Once turned right side out, I ironed it nicely and then topped stitched it with a straight stitch. Inside of that top stitch row I sewed a fancy row of stitching. I found that this keeps the cloth nice after washing and drying it - it keeps the cloths from getting all wonky. Then as a final step I sew one straight row of stitches from side to side across the middle where the cloth would lay across your shoulder. It is a wonderful gift for a new parent!

To finish off my Penny Pinching Patchwork Post, I am including one of my favorite quotes regarding thriftiness:

Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they create character. ~Calvin Coolidge

The Importance of Keeping up with Current Events

Well, this was certainly a few weeks full of lessons for me. As I had mentioned, I will be teaching a Quilted Toddler Jacket class in a few weeks at Country Quilts and Bears. I have been a busy beaver sewing up samples for the shop that illustrate the many methods that one could use to create this jacket. I wanted to show a variety hoping to encourage quilters to sign up and take my class. I had made a bunch of jackets but I gave them all to my beautiful granddaughter like any good Grandma would, so my "jacket stash" was depleted. They were her size, after all. So, in my infinite wisdom I decided that I needed to make a jacket that was suitable for a boy, and another one for a girl. Hmmmmmm, what do little boys like? BASEBALL! Not thinking much farther than that, I decided almost immediately on making a Boston Red Sox jacket because their socks are just so darn cute (and I already had an outline of socks from a prior project) and what a wonderful way to show off my applique skills, right? WRONG!

I worked on this Sox jacket hours and hours before my husband noticed and says in the sweetest voice, "Honey, do you really think that a quilt shop in Tampa Bay is going to want to put a Red Sox jacket on display in their shop? Especially since there is a very good chance that Tampa Bay will actually be playing the Red Sox in the playoffs?" WHO KNEW??? Let's think about those odds for a few moments... I could have died. Cut ahead one week, and guess who's playing who in the playoffs? Yep, you guessed it. It's the Tampa Bay Rays vs. Boston Red Sox.

This past Friday I go marching into Country Quilts and Bears with my Boston Red Sox jacket in my tote bag and showed it to the wonderful owner, Marilyn. Oh, the look on her face. It was priceless. "Oh, my," she says. You see, as luck would have it, her husband and partner in the shop, John, is a die hard Rays fan and understandably this just isn't going to work. So home I go, humbled and laughing, with teal and yellow fabric under my arm, because after all, where do I live? TAMPA BAY! I really must start reading something other than quilting magazines.

So long story longer, here is the Tampa Bay Rays Quilted Toddler Jacket that is now prominently displayed on the counter in the quilt shop in Tampa Bay.....

Pieced Curtains from Scraps!

In addition to working on samples for my upcoming class where I will be teaching the wonderful women at Clearwater's Country Quilts and Bears how to make my newest pattern, the Quilted Toddler Jacket, I have been making some curtains for my little angel's bedroom in western New York. Her mommy thought that pieced curtains would be nice, and that the fabrics and colors from the quilt I made for Madelyn when she was a baby would look great. The quilt is on the foot of her bed, and there is a better photo further down showing Madelyn laying on it when I gave it to her. So, as luck would have it I still had some of those fabrics left laying about and after a quick trip to Country Quilts and Bears I had enough fabric to complete the project. A quick trip to JoAnn Fabrics for lining and I was ready to sew.

I cut the fabrics into 5.5 inch squares, and started piecing to fit the sizes of the windows. Obviously, their beautiful 200+ year old home needs custom curtains because when I measured the windows I found that even when a window is on the same wall, and looks identical to it's neighbor, the measurements can differ by as much as 5 inches! I guess back then they built the windows on site, and didn't order them from Pella.

Never one to miss an opportunity to stick in a photo or two of my little angel, above is my peanut playing in her room. Below, showing how much she has grown, is a photo of Madelyn on the quilt the day I gave it to her.

The last photo, I must admit, I have put in for purely self-indulgent reasons. Isn't she just the cutest thing ever? That is a photo of Madelyn at her first dance class, standing there in her first Tutu with her dance tights drooping around her ankles and her Tutu sliding off her shoulder. Oh, to be that unconcerned with clothing perfection again. She is so excited just to be there, with friends, taking it all in. Big sigh. Grandchildren are the biggest gift of all.