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! 

It's A Picnic

Another quilt from the book by Kim Brackett. However, I made a few minor changes. I added the white strips in between the squares that I think look like flowers. So, maybe it should be called "Flowers for a Picnic". I made this for Lauryn's wedding (my youngest daughter) which was during the summer of 2012. Oh my goodness, it was an undertaking unimaginable! It is a queen size quilt made by someone who really didn't know what they were doing. I love how this quilt turned out. I tried to pink colors that reminded me of my daughter (she's always been partial to pink). It's bright, happy, and gorgeous! What a fun pattern! 

Herringbone Quilt

This quilt took me a while (when I say "a while" that's in Rachel Quilting Time. RQT). One reason is that I didn't want to pay $100 plus to have it quilted. I get that when you make a quilt that takes a lot of time, you want it finished professionally. I understand that completely. But I also like to save money when I quilt so that I can use that saved money for, you guessed it, more quilting! My mom mentioned that a shop owner near her rented out her long arm quilting machine by the hour. I decided that I would quilt this myself using a long arm machine. I wasn't scared at first, until I went onto youtube and watched some videos. Holy wow! Some of those people are AMAZINGLY good!! I was SO nervous that I had nightmares about ruining my quilt, I was getting anxious and sweaty when we went to the shop. Turns out, I have SO much fun! I loved doing it! Once I finished my quilt I started thinking about the next quilt I could bring in. Then I decided I wanted my own machine, except that's not going to happen any time soon! It was a great experience and I'm really happy with how this quilt turned out! 

 

I have a short little video of my first time quilting with the long arm. I printed out a pattern and then followed it with the light. I think it would be a lot easier to use the handles on the front, if I were confident enough to do it by free hand. Maybe one day! 

LONG ARM MACHINE QUILTING 

The pattern I followed on the quilt. 

I had to follow the lines using that red laser light. It was pretty difficult.

 Minky on the back, the best for kids' quilts

Find the tutorials for this quilt here:

HERRINGBONE 1

HERRINGBONE 2

Find more quilts here:

SUMMER DAZE BABY QUILT

EASY BABY QUILT

STRIP QUILT

HERRINGBONE QUILT

VALUES QUILT

GRAY & YELLOW QUILT

BROKEN MIRROR QUILT

MINKY RAG QUILT

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! 

Ovenly Easy Mitt

Cheap! Quick! Fun! Easy!
1st: You need pattern, I copied one of my oven mitts by tracing around sides making it about 3/4" bigger.
2nd: Cut out four patterns of fabric, two pieces of the Insul-Bright and to make it extra thick, but you certainly don't need to, two of cotton batting.
3rd: Attach batting to the wrong side of lining pieces and attach Insul-Bright to outside gloves. I quilted through fabric and batting/Insul-Bright so they wouldn't move around.
4th: With right sides together sew lining pieces together using a 3/8" seam, do the same with the outside pieces.
5th: Trim off excess batting/Insul-Bright. I actually sewed around seams twice for extra holding spower.
6th: Clip seams around corners being careful not to trim through seem.
7th: Leave inside lining (do not turn it), but turn outside mitt so that it is right sides out.
8th: Slide lining into outside glove.
9th: Cut a 2" wide and about 2" longer than top width of glove out of fabric. (My glove measures 12" around top so my piece was 14"). Turn one side under 1/4" and press.
10th: Sew facing through all layers of top of mitt with a 3/8" seam. Turn facing down and sew around edge so that there are no raw edges.
11th: Bake something fabulous whilst wearing your super attractive apron and oven mitt.

More Super Cute Aprons

Um... I think it's safe to say that we have an apron fetish. I've got so many, they're bursting out of my cupboard (really!). Here are a few of the latest. They're all super super cute and I love them all! 

Summer Daze Baby Quilt

This quilt was made for my granddaughter Ruby Jane. Her mom said she wanted purple and green so I went scrap diving (similar to dumpster diving, only much more fun). I did end up buying four fat quarters and of course the fluffy purple for the back. Quilt is from the book Scrap-Basket Quilts by Kim Brackett (free advertising). It calls for 32 - 2 1/2 x 6 1/2", 64 2 1/2 x 4 1/2" and 128 2 1/2 x 2 1/2" rectangles. I left off the borders because I wanted the quilt to be baby-sized.

Thanksgiving Wall Hanging

I've decided to make a wall hanging for every month! Now that it's November 1st, I've already got my Thanksgiving one ready to go. I started with the same background as my Halloween wall hanging 

PUMPKIN WALL HANGING

Cut out  35 squares that are 4 1/2 inches by 4 1/2 inches. or to save on wasting cute fabric, I 26 squares and made 3 srips that we 4 1/2 inches high by 12 1/2 inches long.

 I then drew my pumpkins on freezer paper, making sure they were big enough to cover up my three middle strips that I didn't want to show.

Cut out your pumpkins and your stems.

 After I cut out my pumpkins I added a layer of batting to fluff my pumpkin. Use your freezer paper cut out, pinning it to the batting (don't iron it on!! It will pull and stretch the batting when you take it off). Cut it a little smaller so that it won't poke through when you sew it on. 

 Now pin the pumpkin onto your background, pin it really , really well so it won't move around. You can use basting spray if you want it really secure.

 I zigzag stitched my pumpkins on using my machine, tucking the stems in before sewing the tops of the pumpkins. 

 I decided that it needed a little something more. I couldn't decide between "Give Thanks" or "Be Thankful". I really wanted to go with "Give Thanks" since it was shorter and therefore less work, but I like "Be Thankful" more. I printed it out from my computer using the font I liked. Cut the letters out, using regular scissors. I left a little around the edges so my letters would be a little fatter, making it easier to sew on.

 I pinned the letters to my fabric (I don't know who Ben is, but he fit perfectly on my strip), then cut them out with my sewing scissors.

 

 Now pin them to your fabric 

 Very, very carefully stitch you letters on with a zigzag 

 Once I had my letters on, I realized that they blended in a little too well with the rest of my quilt. I decided to stitch an outline around them in black. If I had been smarter, I would have done this when I zigzagged.. So I spent the morning hand stitching (I'm a slow hand stitcher). Next time I will use a more contrasting fabric so I don't have to hand stitch, or I will use a darker thread when I stitch it on. 

 Once I had the outline around my letters it was time to machine quilt! I wanted my pumpkins to have a different deign and different colored thread (I like to make everything super complicated for myself!). I used a chalk pencil to sketch what I wanted to do, if you look closely you can kind of see.  

 Love the crisscross quilted stitch on this pumpkin. 

 Finish quilting and bind it, and ta-da! Thanksgiving here we come! I can't wait to make all my favorite Thanksgiving foods!