Christmas Quilt

It's not Christmas yet, but I've been singing Christmas songs since June! It usually happens when I'm sewing too.... This is was my first Christmas project. I bought the fabric and pattern after last Christmas. I love the non-traditional Christmas colors. Pinks, light blues, light green... I didn't know how to embroidery so this was me just faking it. I'm sure a professional could have done a much better job. The embroidery took the longest!! This would be really cute as a bigger quilt instead of just the throw. I changed mine a little from the pattern. I only embroidered my 4 favorite squares and then placed them in the middle. Although I might use the other embroidery templates for Christmas pillows, stockings, place mats, table runners, etc. The possibilities are endless!! 

PATTERN HERE

Oh and look how cute my quilted snowflakes are!!! Is it Christmas yet?!??!

Minky rag quilt (Easy)

My friend Christen finally decided to have a baby girl, which meant that I could finally make a quilt for a girl! I decided to try out a minky rag quilt since it looked so cuddly and warm. It looked easy enough. All you have to do is make squares with batting and backing. Sew an "x" into all squares (wrong sides together). Sew all squares together (wrong sides again so that the seam is on the OUTSIDE). Then cut the seams. Boom! Easy right! 

 I started off by buying a pack of 11 fat quarters. I cut 6 1/2 inch squares out of my fabric and my minky. OK I would tell you the exact amount of minky I bought, but I cant recall. Here is what happened. I put one fat quarter in my purse to that I could match it to other fabric. I then proceeded to make the quilt, all while this fabric was out of site out and out of mind. Once I had all my squares cut, I "found" this missing fat quarter and about screamed! I could have omitted it completely but it was so cute... I just had to go buy more minky. Don't do what I did, don't stash fabric in your purse and forget about it! The finished quilt is about 45 1/2x45 1/2 inches (this does not include the solid strip), I would buy about 1 1/4 yards of your minky. For your batting you can get away with 1 yard (which should be plenty) because when you cut your batting, you need to cut it smaller than your minky and cotton. You don't want batting coming through your ragged edges. I cut my batting out at 5 3/4 inches. It was small enough that I knew I wouldn't cut into it. I was also doing 1/2 inch seams since minky is kind of a pain to sew, and I wanted a nice ragged edge. you want to sew all your blocks with an X through them. If you chain sew your pieces it goes really really quickly. I also used a basting spray to hold them together which was wonderful (no pinning). I ended  up with 49 blocks that were 6 inches once they were all sewn together.

OPTIONAL~ I then decided to add a strip of solid pink so that I could applique on the baby name and some flowers. I bought a half yard and adjusted to fit at the height/width I wanted. Which ended up being 15 inches for the width and about 39 for the length. (PLEASE NOTE, the batting and minky measurements do NOT include the solid strip, since you can add it optionally or make it any size, I left out the measurements)

I added a strip to the back and I decided to show off the cute fabrics even more. I got my solid pieces that I had left over and made a strip the same size as my solid pink. I also had this cute little label left over from another fabric line. 

I had seen a lot of quilts with the solid strip and a place for a name. Naturally, I had to copy that look. I printed out letters from WORD in the size I wanted. I chose a font that wasn't too wavy or difficult since I had to cut it out in fabric and stitch around it. I also cut out some raw edge flowers that I stacked together, and sewed a button in the middle of. 

After it was all put together it was time to cut! There are scissors you can buy that spring open after you cut (less work and less stress on your hands) but I just used my small sewing scissors. I watched a movie (or 2) and cut out all my edges. I didn't measure it. I eye-balled it. My cuts were about 1/2 inch apart. Make sure you don't cut through your seams!!! I accidentally did, but luckily it was on the edge of the quilt so that I could easily resew my seam. You need to be careful! When you're done cutting, throw it in the washer a couple times. You want the fabric to get some texture to it. Plus you will get a lot of lose thread and fabric that you don't want coming out when the person you're giving this to washes it!

Cute minky quilt! You can make this into any size if you add more or less squares. I have a tendency to make HUGE baby quilts, but this could be done smaller and it would be even more quick and easy.

Rag Quilts are so cute and easy! If you make your own I'd love to see it! Post any pictures and show off your sewing skills!

Cheers to quilting!

Love what you see? Check out these other quilt tutorials
SUMMER DAZE BABY QUILT
EASY BABY QUILT
STRIP QUILT
HERRINGBONE QUILT
VALUES QUILT
GRAY & YELLOW QUILT
BROKEN MIRROR QUILT

Yes, I Can

Funny play on words, don't you think? Well, after all I do spend my days trying to teach students how to become writers. First of all, we picked the apples off my tree, and then we picked some more and then we kept picking. Three huge boxes and seven plastic grocery sacks later most were off the tree. This is only a small amount of the total number! Luckily, my son Nicholas and his wife Laura bought me this groovy gadget for peeling and slicing apples, one of the coolest tools ever. You can buy them at CalRanch, Walmart and most other big box stores. They can also be found on line. Cost is about $20.

After peeling, we cut out any bad spots and put them in water containing lemon juice so they wouldn't turn brown. Our first batches were bottled for use in pies. Here is the recipe. 6 cups sugar, 2 tsp. salt, 6 tablespoons lemon juice, 10 cups water, 4 tsp. cinnamon 1 tablespoon nutmeg. Place all these ingredients in a large pan and bring to a boil and cook for 1 minute. Pack apples tightly into jars and then use a funnel to pour enough juice so that there is only about 1/2" space at the top of the jar. Clean around the top of jar with a warm clean rag and then place lid on jar. Do this until you have enough for your water bath.  

 Bottles need to process for 20 minutes. And then take out using the jar grabber thingy and place on a towel. If they haven't already sealed they will as they cool down. Little tip: my mom used to set her warm iron on top of lids that didn't seal and it really did work to seal them. Ahhhhh so many apples and so little time. Oh course, we are not done, but, we also put apples into the Vitamix blender and pureed them. Then, we poured the liquid through cheese cloth and squeezed all the juice out and that made apple juice. It was delicious!!!

  We put a little cinnamon and nutmeg in our juice and then bottled it the same as the apples. If you are going to can try to do it with family or friends; much faster and so much fun to talk and laugh together. Oh yes, I must add one gratuitous granddaughter picture. She LOVED the apples as long as they were peeled first.