Very Merry Christmas Stars

Christmas is coming and Ray is getting fat....(she's pregnant with twins)! So, what have I been up to? Making a Christmas quilt, because that is what one does at Christmas time! Actually, I've also been making receiving blankets, bibs, burp clothes and a variety of other incidentals in anticipation of the wee ones. But, I wanted to post this because it turned out very festive and because it is yet another project which used the Easy Angler triangle maker.

Stained Glass Christmas Quilt

It was love at first sight (yes, I am into romance and fabric). I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to Christmas fabric. Who can resist the reindeer, trees, and snowflakes? I for one, can not. I love Christmas fabric more than all (well Christmas and Halloween, and all cute fabrics!). When I found this moda 25th & pine, I knew I had found the love of my fabric life!!! Now I just had to come up with the perfect pattern for my new loves! 

Christmas tree wall hanging

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, it is December and I have not done any posting! All year long I make Christmas quilts, then when December hits, I am MIA. It's been a busy time of year, and I just finished a couple Christmas presents for some good friends. I have SO many Christmas scraps, SO many, and I saw this super cute free tree pattern on pinterest, so I decided to start making trees. One tree turned into four, and I thought they would make adorable presents (instead of hoarding them all for myself because I really love Christmas fabric!). I've made a quick tutorial so you can make your own, or if you're more giving than me, you can make them as gifts.

Easy Triangle Christmas Quilt

I finished! 

One more Christmas quilt to go, maybe some fun Christmas wall hangings, and all the reusable Christmas bags I need to make... then I will be ready for the Holidays (and by holidays I really mean Christmas because although I love Thanksgiving ((I love pie)) my heart belongs to Christmas) 

This quilt came together very quickly (maybe because my mom was helping me sew???). I used up a bunch of Christmas scraps (you would never know that looking through my Christmas stash though), and I love the traditional Christmas colors (I'm not big on traditional holiday colors, I usually insist on adding blue to all my quilts..).

Triangle Christmas Quilt

It's summer, which means it's time to start sewing for CHRISTMAS! 

I celebrated my birthday yesterday, spent the day sewing and hanging out with family. All day long I kept thinking "I want to give away a free pattern for my birthday!". Unfortunately I never got around to it (where does the time go!). SO today I am happy to blog a free Christmas pattern! Why Christmas? Because I LOVE Christmas and I LOVED making this super cute Christmas quilt. This is a SUPER easy pattern and great for beginners!

15 Minute Table Runner

Need a quick Christmas gift?? I've got just the thing for you! A table runner, that is a snap to throw together when you're in a last minute gift giving bind! No machine quilting required, no batting, & it's easy to modify to suit your needs! Let's get started. 

You will need:

1 piece of fabric for your top that is 5/6 of a yard

1 piece of fabric for the bottom that is 2/3 of a yard

*Remember, you can make this ANY size! If you want it wider, or more narrow, you can do it! Just make sure your top fabric is 6 inches bigger (width) than your bottom fabric. 

1 piece of fusible interfacing, 5/6 of a yard

Step 1- Press (with starch, not water!) and iron your fabric

Step 2- Iron your interfacing onto the WRONG side of your top fabric (5/6 of a yard). Follow the instructions that come with the interfacing 

 Step 3- Place fabric right sides together, and sew along the edge LENGTH wise, 1/2 inch seam. 

Step 4- Now sew along the other edge LENGTH wise, your bottom piece will not line up exactly because it is SMALLER. That's how it is suppose to be. YOU WILL NOW HAVE A TUBE OF FABRIC WITH THE ENDS OPEN. 

Step 5- Press open seams

 Step 6- Turn tube right side out

Step 7- Iron your runner with the top fabric making a border on the bottom side. Mine ended up being 1 1/2 inches on each side. Make sure you measure. NOW YOU SHOULD HAVE A FLAT, IRONED, TABLE RUNNER WITH RAW ENDS

 Step 8- Trim ends so that they are equal (I had to cut the selvage off my ends)

 Step 9- Fold your runner in on itself, top sides together, and pin together lining up evenly, do this on both ends. Sew together using 1/2 inch seams 

 Step 10- Now open your runner flat, and press the seam open (looks like a hood!)

 Step 11- Flip ends right side out. Your runner should look like this (this is with the bottom facing up). You can add buttons onto the end, or any other embellishments. 

Step 12- Wrap it up to give away, or use it on your own table! ENJOY! 

Bonus Step, Lucky number 13! 

Use a non-washable fabric marker and write a Christmas message on the backside of your runner. I am going to trace the hand prints of grand-kids onto mine and give it away to Grandma! 

Quick, easy, & made with love! The perfect gift for the Holiday! 

Cheers! 

Christmas Bag

Finished Christmas Bag instead of Wrapping, I'm sew Green!
It measures 12" wide by 18" high.

I cut out fabric pictures and also cut out the
no-sew fabric adhesive the same size as the
pictures and ironed it on following adhesive
directions

Then I peeled off the back paper,
placed them where I wanted on
fabric and ironed them down.

Top is folded down 1/8" and
then another 1/8', pressed and
sewed. Next, I sewed down bias tape
about 1 1/2" from top of bag and
threaded 1/4" wide elastic through.

This is what it looked like
after I ironed them down.

Lastly, I turned sewed the side and bottom together with 1/4" inch seam and it was done. It took about 15 minutes to complete. And, all your friends, neighbors, relatives and environmentalists will think you are clever and a lover of the Earth.

Santa's Hat Table Runner

This is a pattern I bought at Pine Needles which is located in Gardner Village which is located in Salt Lake City, Utah... which is perhaps the quilting capital of the world. I altered it somewhat to suit my liking and without trying to insult the creator of such pattern I think mine is stinkin' dang cute! This was also another attempt at quilting with my walking foot. You can't see the stitching, but I did quite a bit and tried to get a little trickier.Oh, yes, and my friend bought me a yo yo maker so these yo yo's are a product of this device. It only took me five practice tries before I got the hang of it. Decided it is easier than making them without gadget so I bought another one in a bigger size.  

Homemade Music Ornaments

I really wanted to incorporate music notes into my tree. I looked for ornaments with a music theme, but didn't find any that I liked. I'm kind of picky once I get something in my mind. I wanted them to look a certain way and match the other ornaments I had. Obviously the only solution was to make my own! 

Step 1 : I went to Michaels and bought big glass ornaments. I think they were normally $5, but 50% which means I got 4 for $2.50, and 8 for $5 bucks! Not too bad. 

Step 2: Remove top, I then used white acrylic paint to make a flower design around the top.

 Step 3: While your paint is still wet, sprinkle with your glitter color of choice. I did 4 gold and 4 silver

Step 4: Allow paint to dry (this will take some time since you painted on glass, I waited overnight)

 Step 5: Find some music that you're not using and cut it into strips. Roll the strips like a scroll and (gently) stuff your scrolls into the ornaments

Step 6: Add a feather because you have some lying around, place top back on, hang ornament. 

 Step 7: Smile because these ornaments were only $5!! (I had all the other supplies already!)

Caution: Since these are made of glass you need to be careful, I was sticking in some music and a piece of glass caught my finger (cheap michaels...). Then the entire top of one ornament came off! I was still able use it luckily. Just make sure you don't cut yourself with these! 

I'd love to see any homemade ornaments you've made, this was my first experience and I love seeing new ideas! 

Cheers

Christmas Stocking

I decided to get crazy and make Christmas stockings. I didn't have a pattern and I didn't want to buy one. So I drew a stocking, the way I wanted it to look, added an inch and half for seams, and voila, I had a pattern. I was a little nervous about how it would turn out (since I had no idea what I was doing). Overall, I think they look pretty dang cute! You can make your own too by following these simple steps. 

Christmas Tree

 Finally Finished, just in time for Christmas!
The finished quilt is about 45*40 inches. I will use it as a wall hanging.

 I went with an aqua blue binding to match my rick rack

 I even did the quilting myself using a long arm machine. I was pretty nervous doing it with out following a pattern, but boy it is SO much easier to use the machine when you're using the handles directly on the quilt. I loved it. I can't wait to try out new designs and patterns. 

 For this I did an easy swirl with an aqua blue variegated thread. You could easily do this design using a free motion foot on your machine. I've used it before on smaller projects (like this table runner CHRISTMAS/WINTER TABLE RUNNER) 

Watch me in action below, I love watching this machine go!

Make your own tree here:

TWISTED TREE

TWISTED TREE PART 2

Find more Christmas projects here:

CHRISTMAS QUILT
TABLE RUNNER

YEAH! Merry, Happy, almost Christmas! 

Christmas/Winter Table Runner

 Another reversible table runner! I had so much fun making my last one that I decided to give it another go.

For a more detailed tutorial please see this post
FALL TABLE RUNNER

 I started out with Christmas fabric, I have loads of Christmas fabric! So I didn't want to buy anymore. I ended up sewing a couple pieces together to make them longer so that I could use them. 

 This is all scraps! I laid it out in the order I wanted it. 

 Then I cut out my winter fabrics. These are not scraps. This is beautiful new fabric I recently bought. I am in LOVE with it! The colors, the snowflakes, the piano music, cherry blossom trees, poinsettia, I'm tempted to just make "winter" the design scheme of my house because I love this so much! I will be making a cute wall hanging with all my leftovers and I can't wait to see how it turns out. 

 Laid out my winter next to my ALREADY SEWN TOGETHER Christmas (the Christmas was the back of my runner). I put some batting in between and then sewed it all together. Quilted, and bound. 

 Let's just admire these fabrics for a moment.. I makes me wish I were living in a winter wonderland. Which is odd since I hate snow... 

YEAH! We have reversible! No wasting fabric on the back that we will never see.

This time around I used a nicer batting and I did some trickier free motion quilting. I really like the 100% cotton batting. It's so much nicer than anything else I've used. But if you want to save money there is nothing wrong with using a less expensive batting since this is just a seasonal decoration. 

Questions? Comments? Let me know! 

Cheers! 

Twisted Tree part 2

I'm up late, laying awake, I can't sleep. Visions of quilts are dancing through my head. I'm getting excited to finish up my tree quilt. I put the border on and now I'm just waiting to quilt and bind! Can't wait to hang it up for the holidays!

TWISTED TREE PART 1

Twisted Tree

 I bought a quilt template called the twister to make a table runner (TWISTED TABLE RUNNER). The nice thing about buying a template is, it gives you instructions for how to use it! I ended up making my table runner with out having to buy a pattern. I hadn't use my twister since until I decided to make this Christmas tree! Dang fabric stores, putting their Christmas fabric out in August! This looks really complicated and it is... Well it's a lot of pieces! Other than all the pieces you will have to put together, it's not hard. I made this in 2 days since I suffer from QCD. I started with 8 different Christmas green fabric cut into 36-5 inches by 5 inch squares. I used 5 fabrics for the ornaments also cut into 5x5 inch. One yellow 5x5 inch star and three brown 5x5 inch pieces for the trunk. 48 white 5x5 inch to outline the tree and 3x3 inch boarder all the way around.

 I laid it out in the design I wanted my tree to be, then I sewed it all together. This part took a lot of time because I wanted all my corners to match up. It already looked SO cute that I didn't want to cut it! How can you cut into such a beautiful quilt??? I felt like I was destroying all my work.

Here is my twister template. It's simple to use, just place it on the lines with your seams, and cut around. YES this was A LOT of cutting!!!! Cutting, cutting, and more cutting (after all that sewing!). 

 The quilt looks ruined! 

 Once you have your pieces, turn them to start making the twists, sew them together (again, this takes a long time!) and you've got your tree!!!

Obviously this quilt isn't complete, it needs a border, to be quilted, and bound. It's just too cute to not show off!