Updating this and that

I updated the gallery of stuff I've made over the years. The link is to the right or you can click on the link here. Some of it may look familiar as I've been posting progress photos of items like Anna's and Alicia's quilts. The recent placemats photo uploaded are made with machine applique and strip quilting. You can find the placemat strip quilting tutorial in our links too.

Sometimes, I look back and go, "did I really make that?" Yup, I did.

Hashtag Sewing

Good morning Twitter. Let's see what you have for us today! #Sewing

I agree with @lady_worm. Sometimes, we gotta keep that stuff to ourselves :)

@dotcomwoman offers a free pattern for a cool rag quilt. It couldn't be any easier to make from what I can tell. 

Speaking of free patterns, this is one for doll pants for your 16"-17" dolls. Love me a free pattern. Thanks to @chellywood1

Another quote I can relate to. @bellacraftsp has obviously done some real sewing. This is why my seam ripper is my most valuable sewing tool.

Fun tweets from sewing land. Share your own if you like :)

Hashtag Sewing 10/06/17

More from my favorite hashtag! #Sewing

@SewSarahSmith snitched this really cool cutter set from her husband. I have an Exacto knife that I use when making light switch covers. This kit, though, has a couple of handy blades that could be used for button holes. You can never have enough blades, right? 

 I'm loving @quiltingprofits daily quotes. It makes me feel better about my "creative mess."

Broken needles! Argh. I buy sewing machine needles in bulk for this very reason. Thanks for reminding me, @TheHomebirds, that I probably need more.

The sewing box that @VintiqueTree posted is exactly like the first one I ever had. I still have it, but the legs are gone. Alas, it's well loved. 

The Egypt Play

I collected and made various props for The Egypt Play this summer. Included in stuff to make was a mummy. My good old children's clothing model (and my dog), pool noodles, and duct tape got me started.

An old mattress pad and more duct tape started the body formation. There are pillows in the body form and in the head. 

Lots of wrapping and a spray of tea and coffee for aging, and my buddy was done. I used 2 bottles of Elmer's glue too!

Crishawn and Rose had to have a picture with the mummy. Funny, I never named it. 

No mummy is complete without its mummified cat! You can see the cat on the stage in the picture below, just barely.  

This is the view of the stage when the "boat" was not yet a boat and the marketplace was set up. 

We needed puppets that depicted 20 Egyptian slave women. I chose to do them with batting, fabric, felt bodies, and gold bias binding. On the other side are the same women without their garb. Weathered hemp was used to hang them on a black rod. This is one of 3 rows of puppets on the rod that was finally used. 

I had to make a travel guide based on one from the 1880s, and this is now it started. Glue and clothes pins. Bottle 3 of Elmer's glue was opened for this one. 

There was more involved in the play than this (the Nile was represented by yards and yards of light blue sheer fabric), but this is pretty much the stuff that I made. I was on stage for this one dressed in black with a scarf around my head. You wouldn't have known it was me if I didn't tell you ahead of time. 

Theater!

Hashtag Sewing

Twitter sometimes costs me money, like today! #Sewing

I love this quote. I have it on my license plate holder. Thanks to @QuiltingProfits for posting it and reminding me! 

This pattern got me. I saw it and had to have it. Dang you, Twitter! Stop showing me things I want. 

That's it from the tweety box today!

Hashtag Sewing

From time to time, I like to explore Twitter's #Sewing. I thought I'd share with you a few interesting finds:

@QuiltingProfits says it best. Sewing is definitely cheaper than therapy. It's my Zen even!

@MySewingBoxUK is having a 12 weeks of Stitchmas and I thought some of these projects were cute!

Lastly, @Haiti323Project is promoting their sewing classes. I love the intent look on the men's faces. 

Twitter can be fun sometimes! Check out #sewing or stop by here. You never know when I'm going to find interesting tweets to share.

Let there be music, or at least curtains for a musical classroom!

My friend, Jason, teaches music at a local elementary school. He texted me one day to ask if I could help make some curtains for his classroom. I asked him to take some pictures and show me what he needed.

These poor doors have had paper covering the windows for some years. Noooo, this will not do. 

This window by the front door had a black, blah, too long curtain and again, this just will not do.

Jason's first job was to buy some fabric. He also had some of this fabric in his stash and thankfully, with the bought fabric and the found fabric, it was just enough. And the print certainly goes with the theme of the room. Oops, pay no attention to the wayward thread on the fabric when I took the picture. 

Oh, "if you have any fabric left over, can you make a cover for my microwave?" Of course I can. This was made with some black fabric Jason had given me with strips of the music fabric that I had left over. It's kind of a wonky fit, but it looks good on the shelf! 

No more brown paper! 

The small panels turned out pretty much as I had hoped. They look much nicer than the brown paper. 

First fitting of the new curtain on one rod. Looks pretty good!  

Jason got his two rods and here's the final look of the insert curtain.  

Amazing things happen here - and the curtains look pretty amazing and on point. 

Another look from outside the classroom.

I hope Jason and his students can enjoy the look of the curtains for years to come. This was a simple, but satisfying project. I always like giving back to the schools. As a fun aside, I put the rod pocket on the wrong ends of the curtain by the door the first time and had to put new rod pockets on. For color and fun, I used a variegated rainbow color thread for accent and decorations on all the pieces. That also helped tie together the microwave cover with the curtains since I had to incorporate some black fabric. 

What's next? 

Anna and Brian quilt, now known as Catherine's quilt!

The quilt is done (May 28 - October 1, 2017). The baby's been born. Now to bring the two together. It's taken time as I've been working on a play and doing some other things, but here's the result and I hope they love it.

This is a 4x5 block log cabin design. The first fabric I chose was the train fabric, a nod to Catherine's father, Brian. I found muted ROYGBV fabrics at Joanns and created the log cabin around a 2" piece of the train fabric. 

I had plenty of the log cabins left when I was done, so decided to create a small pillow to go with the quilt. I fashioned a ruffle out of strips of fabric and there you go!

The back of the quilt, which was made quilt-as-you-go, is train fabric.  

Here's a closeup of the ROYGBV log cabin. I used 2 strips of each color, but all the prints are different. 

I created binding using the strips I had cut for the log cabin itself. I reinforced all the seams in the binding since the pieces are so small and I want it to hold up to as many washings as needed. Everything except the binding was machine stitched. I like to hand stitch the binding on a quilt. 

And the pillow. I added strips to an original log cabin until I had used each of the color designs twice. That made a nice size (about 12") pillow. But it needed a ruffle! I had plenty of strips left from the quilt itself to make a ruffle. For the log cabin side, I used train fabric.....

....and for the train fabric side, I used the ROYGBV strips. I think it looks pretty cute! 

I'll be seeing Anna soon and will deliver the quilt, pillow, and some other goodies in person. I'm excited to pass this along and hope Catherine drags it around the house, gets it dirty, loves it, and who knows what else with it. It's hers now. Welcome to the world Catherine Jenkins!