Sewing along, summer 2019

A lot of what I sew, I sew for me. The rest of it, I sew for others, either to sell or give away. That's the way it's been so far this summer. I've been thinking of Halloween and winter holidays. I go through my stash and see what moves me. And I end up with things like this:

Baby balls hand sewn using pentagons, then filled with fluff and in the center is a noisemaker that jingles ever so slightly when it's moved. Machine washable and one of a kind. I'm not doing hand sewing right now due to recovering from a quickie hand surgery, but I'll be back at it soon.  I posted about making the balls earlier. There are also instructions here and there on the internet for sewing with pentagons.

Along with balls, I made a couple of bibs with upcycled denim and bandanna fabric. I've made these in the past, saw a picture of one, and decided to try a couple more.  I think they're too cute for words. These two are a bit small and the next ones will be a little bigger and have Velcro closure instead of tie.

Trick or Treat bags are a fun way to use Halloween fabric. I have a lot of ribbons, fabrics, and trims and put a few together. 

There are more, but you get the idea. The last one was made completely of ribbons. When I was very young and very broke, I bought assortments of ribbons and make things out of them. This bag is a throwback to an earlier time. Never say never!

And, of course, my go-to sewing - pot holders, this batch for Halloween and Hannukah. All are backed with what started as a 9-patch denim square cut to the circle shape and filled with InsulBright. The bias binding is all homemade. It's just easier and less expensive to make my own than to try and match store bought bias tape.

I've also been cutting denim squares of several sizes to use and to sell, made placemats, have done some repair work on my own and others' items needing mending, and started a Cathedral Window project made of bandannas and denim.

And sew, I sew.

How 'bout you?

Summer sewing

It's getting really hot outside here in Virginia, and I'm spending a bit of time inside. Add to that the fact that I've officially retired, and you know how I'm going to spend that extra time - s e w i n g!

I think I'm done sewing baby balls for a while. I got into a potholder binge and have made several recently. Here's some of what I've been working on:

You can never make enough tote bags, right? And if you have a wedge ruler, it's fun to make a Dresden plate design. The cotton is from my stash of interesting calico type fabrics and the blue cotton edging the plate is a cotton faux denim that I also use for bias binding. 

A potholder using scraps of denim and some M&M fabric. I back my potholders with what started as a 9-patch recycled denim piece. I'm all about upcycling jeans, ya know.

 

 The front of these potholders is near and dear to me. I worked for years doing a hand pieced hexagon quilt top and then made another one! They came out to about twin bed sized, but we don't have a twin bed, so I made a decision to put the two together and make a larger coverlet/quilt with them. I ended up with some extra hexagon fabric, so I reinforced the pieces with zig-zag over the hand stitching, used the 9-patch denim back, and created some bias binding with the faux denim cotton. 

With all potholders I make, I use InsulBrite as the filling. It is not heat-proof, but it's about as heat-resistant as you can get. I also make the circles about 8-1/2" in diameter. The denim squares I use for the back start as 4" squares. I prefer round potholders because you can machine stitch one side of the binding and then hand stitch the other.

I also have made a doll quilt using M&M fabric triangles with denim triangles, and just yesterday, finished a lap blanket with patchwork and using fleece as the backing. I don't call it a quilt because there's no batting; the fleece serves a dual purpose of batting and backing, and it's super warm. 

Lastly, I'm working on my Cathedral Window quilt every day. I don't plan on finishing that for 5 years. 

Whew. What are y'all sewing?

Happy New Year my sewing & nonsewing friends

I've been a sewing fool, it seems; so much so, that I haven't taken time to share it with you!

Christmas meant making Christmas stockings, a lot of them, and other stuff. Here's a sampling of what's been whirring in my machine and by hand. So easy, all of it, and fun to look at and give as gifts.

After Christmas, I took the Christmas mug mats/coasters up and the table looked empty. I remembered my stash of yellow and blue fabrics, but them into 1-1/2" strips, and created log cabin mug mats for myself. The binding is some left over blue bias tape and the back is made from a scrap fabric. I still have some leftovers of the blue and yellow fabric. Who knows where it will end up next. These are a little over 4" in circumference. 

Ooops, that's not sewing! A couple of plates of cookies found their way into my camera. How'd that happen? I make a butter cookie with my mother's icing - confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, food coloring, and just enough water to make it spreadable. It hardens, but does not get crunchy like royal icing. They're so good! My kids said this year I used weird colors. They're right! 

I saw a Christmas tree skirt with dachshund silhouettes on it. That sent me on a hunt for a German shepherd dog silhouette. I found a coloring page that was just right. I traced that onto Wonder Under, changing a bit here and there, fused the Wonder Under to Christmas fabric, and cut them out. They, then, were fused to an oval of complementary Christmas fabric, satin stitched, and backed with a fun cheater quilt Christmas fabric. I made the bias binding out of a bit of this and that and voila, placemats. 

Joanna is a friend of my daughter's. She painted an amazing portrait of our last three dogs. It was my present to my husband this year. I figured she deserved a tip, so Christmas stocking it was!

She's an avid archer, so I printed a photo she had posted on Facebook onto fabric. Then I worked around it with some candy cane fabric strips. 

When I think of archery, for some reason, I think of fringe. I had happened to have some red suede fringe, so there you go - the finishing touch. 

Oh yeah, a few potholders too. The Redskins one was a gift. They still don't play so well, but she's a fan.  

As usual, it's backed with denim patchwork. Love my recycled denim! Plus, it does add a layer of protection along with the InsulBrite.

I had some Steelers scraps, so why not? Same thing. Denim backing. There's a fan out there somewhere that wants this.

My daughter asked if I could make a stocking for her boyfriend. She sent me a picture of his dog Photoshopped into a Christmas scene, and as with Joanna's stocking, I printed it on fabric and worked around it with a variety of strips that I've been collecting. The strips were all made of 2" squares and cut down to 1-1/2" wide. It was fun to arrange them. Here is it half done. You can see my blue marks where I was aiming to keep things on point. I don't always use marking, but I recommend it for beginners. I'm an old timer, but still wanted them for precision.

This photo is of the front of it before it was attached to the quilted backing. I'll have a photo of that some day! 

Overall, my year-end sewing has been fun. There's more, but I haven't taken pictures yet. Where I used to be a potholder crazy person, now I'm a Christmas stocking crazy person. So much color, so fun, great to give away or sell, and the make me smile.

My one resolution in regard to sewing is the same as last year - Sew a little bit every day and continue to destash the sewing room.

Happy pins and needles to  you. Sew on!

Where there's a will, there's a sewing machine!

It's catch up day in my household. I had a few hours to kill, so off to the sewing room with me. I have a stack of potholders ready to sew. They're cut out, the backing is cut out, and the InsulBrite is cut out - All of them have been just waiting for me to do my thing.

I sell my potholders on Etsy and eBay. Guess what? I sold two that hadn't been finished yet! Eeep. That's one of those things that one should not do, but I did. Thankfully, it's a holiday weekend and I have an extra day before I have to mail these out.

I sewed the lattice on the two unfinished pieces and did the machine side of the binding. As I speak, I've finished 2-1/2 of the hand sewn backs. Whew.

Now I'm in a sewing mood. I have some amazing vintage fabrics and patterns that I have lined up for fall/winter clothing. I've cut out one eyelet top and have a striped brown fabric to make slacks. Another outfit consists of an asymmetrically closed top using two different fabrics. No special slacks for that blouse. As always, I have 100 more ideas than I have hours, but I'm going to give it a go.

Thankfully, I got the potholder pile caught up. I'm sure there will be a new pile in its place before you know it.

Potholder-palooza, rescuing dead pillows

So, I have this puppy. She's a delight, but she is still young enough to think everything belongs to her, including shoes, food, pillows, and anything else left on the floor or within her reach. She has an affinity for stuffed things and my sewing patterns. My sewing patterns! What makes them so derned interesting?

Interestingly, my last blog post was about turning a potholder fail into a pillow. And here I am writing about turning pillows into potholders. I sense a pattern emerging!

This is Abbey. She joined our family in November of 2012. She's my mischief maker.

This is Lindsey. She was with us for 10 years. I show you this photo so you can see one of the pillows that I spoke about above and you can see where the fabric for the potholders came from

Now to the potholders. Abbey decided yesterday that the pillows in Lindsey's picture belonged to her. She proceeded to quietly, systematically, one at a time chew the backs to bits. I was able to rescue the tops. The pillows were made from a vintage quilt top that I had bought some years ago as a cutter. My original intention was to make a vest, but there were too many holes in the quilt top. I was able, though, to make the four pillows. I was crestfallen to find the pillows in an after-dog-play state, but if you know me, it won't surprise you to see what I did with the quilt tops.

I took those lemons and made lemonade - potholders. I had a roll of 2" strips of denim, so decided to make a simple back with that. I cut down the pillow tops to 6-1/2" squares with rounded corners, added Insul-Bright batting for heat protection, and strip quilted the denim through all layers. I had some yellow bias tape left over from another project, so I added that by machine on the front side and am working on attaching it by hand on the back. They were photographed on some recycled denim placemats I made years ago and which were on the table and looked like they wanted their picture taken.

Yes, I have a puppy. Yes, she thinks the house is hers. Yes, she tears a few things up. But that won't get me down. I will turn trash into treasure whenever I can. And now, I have four potholders to give as a gift or to use. 

What have you rescued today?

Potholder fail lesson becomes making a cute pillow!

New techniques. Always fun to try, but not so much fun to fail!

I saw a lovely hexagon project where the hex was cut into 6 pieces and then strip pieced before being pieced into the final hexagon shape. Hey, I can do that! I rustled up some primary colors from my marbled solids and made bias binding from a rainbow colored fabric. My plan was to make a hot pad, so I cut a hex for the backing and some InsulBright for the batting. And I failed. But I know why - the 1-1/2" strips must not have been cut fussy enough, the seams must not have been consistent enough, and the matching of the strips upon construction of the hexagon was off. Here's the fail:

Yuck! I started to do the binding and then just gave up. The matchy matchy parts that worked are very good, but the ones that don't match so well, they sort of stand out like a sore thumb. 

Here's the better version (you can click these photos for larger pictures):
I decided to go for another try, using a modified log cabin type of piecing. I started with a small hexagon and strip pieced the ROYGBV around it. What I didn't take into consideration was that it would not be a balanced hexagon using that method. This one wasn't such a fail, though, so I got a piece of recycled denim and appliqued the now primary color flower via machine using variegated thread. Before I satin stitched the bottom, I added a piece of the rainbow bias tape I had made and called it a stem. I made some corded piping with the bias tape and added that around the edge, but not before I used the basic flower/snowflake function of my Bernina to add a little something around the edge of the flower. I used non-bias rainbow fabric for the back and stuffed it with PolyFil. It's no hot pad, but it's a cute 8" x 11" pillow.

The bottom line is that I practiced making bias tape and the piping, and used the embroidery feature of my machine, which hasn't been used in forever. I also took what I called a fail out of the trash and made a dog throw out of it.

Even when I screw up a little bit, I'm learning something and I'm sewing. the creative muse gets put to work whether I want it to or not!

Sewing a memory

My best friend's mother recently died. About a month after, she came by and brought some sewing items of her mom's. One of them was a cross-stitcher organizer. It was a fabric three-ring notebook with floss organizers, pockets, a zipper closure, and handles to carry like a tote bag. She asked me if I could use it. I don't cross-stitch, so was sort of befuddled as to what to say.

Then I looked at it closely. Hmmmm....if I take the three-ring part out and take the pockets off, I could make a tote bag. The pockets would make a great potholder or oven mitt. Hmmmmm. So, that's just what I did. The fabric is quilted, so it's nice and sturdy. I removed the binding and took out the zipper, I discarded the three-ring thing and the pages that were in it. Yes, I do discard things from time to time, rare though it may be.

I folded down the top of the remaining binder fabric and stitched it down, catching the handles in the seam to provide stabilization. Then I sewed the sides together, starting at the top to make sure the top lines matched up. I double stitched this and then turned it inside out. Here's how it looks:

Not bad if I do say so myself!

Next to use those pockets. I found an oven mitt pattern on line and put it together. Ooops, the pattern required enlarging and I didn't do that, so the oven mitt was a) too small to turn properly and b) too small to put my hand in it! What now? Potholder! I cut the forlorn mitt into an almost square, rescuing what I could of the fabric. I found some matching bias tape in my stash, made a hanger with a piece of fabric that I "unquilted" from leftovers, and done.

It's not he best potholder I've ever made; it has a seam up the middle and the binding bunched in one place, but I don't dare take it apart! this is one of those "thought that counts" items, right?

I'll be giving these to my friend on Thursday. They're her memories now, and mine because I made them.

Been sewing a bit

I have a ton of Steeler fabric hanging around and it was time to put some to use. I cut out some emblems and pieced them together, than made a quilted potholder with InsulBrite, batting, and denim on the back. I used commercial bias tape for the binding. I have a bunch of that too. When that's gone, I'll go back to making my own. The potholder is about 8" square. I like to round the corners to make the binding a little easier. Is that a cheat? Maybe so :)

General instructions for making potholders can be found in our tutorial. 

This was a really quick project, but I felt good making it. I'm working on some Steeler mug mats similar to the Virginia Tech coasters/mug mats I made recently. These are about 5" in diameter and I used orange fabric to go with the Virginia Tech fabric and some M&M fabric for the back. There is a thin piece of batting in the center. You can learn how to make a mug mat using our tutorial 

I'm trying to get the puppy to understand that mama's gotta sew! She treated me to a lovely pose this evening to show me that she gets it.

Happy sewing! Be safe, my neighbors to the north. You're about to get slammed with a lot of snow, they say. I say it's a good time to cuddle up with your fabric and hand sewing if your power goes out, and if you do have power, hit the machine and do some quickie projects to keep your creative juices flowing.

Stash busting - UFOs - Hand Sewing

We've talked before about half finished projects or items that merely need that last bit of hand sewing done, right? For instance, when I make placemats or pot holders, I apply the binding with machine on one side and by hand on the other. I have a really bad habit of finishing them up to the point of the hand sewing. I bet I am not alone on this!

 

The latest is a set of Peter Max and M&M potholders. I finally finished the hand stitching on the binding on the one bound in green last night. It's been sitting around for about a week or so just waiting for me! I still have remnants of the Peter Max and of the M&M fabric and who knows what comes next for them. For now, I have one more placemat to bind! 

I had a bag that I put all my hand sewing in and took it to the living room with threads, needles, and all the other items I'd need to finish them up. Every night while we hang out, I work on a different piece. I've made a deal with myself not to start something new till these are done. That includes no machine stitching on the Peter Max tote bags I have cut out. It feels good to finally be using those fabrics that I've been sitting on for so long!

One last stash busting note - I sent out five boxes to people from my email group and have three more to fill when I get the postage together. It sure feels good knowing that fabric has found a good home. It has also been an eye opener for me, reminding me what I have on hand and what I don't need to keep. Bust away fellow sewing people!

P.S. for an easy how-to for potholders, I have a generic potholder project/instructional/tutorial for you on the Scrapstitching project page. These are easy, use up all sorts of scrap fabrics, and require very little in the way of buying. The only thing you really need to buy is Insul-Bright Mylar/Poly Batting. The rest of the parts, you already have. If you don't have Fiberfill, use an old towel.

Oh the sewing we can sew

I've got a really fun stash of fabrics, from M&Ms to Peter Max to strawberries, Star Wars, Elvis, German Shepherd Dogs, the Smurfs, Harley Davidson, various NFL teams, and all sorts of designs in between. The last few days have seen the M&M fabric and the Peter Max fabric come out to play. First same these:

 

Everyone needs an M&M light switch cover, right? I made a few of each and put them up on Etsy. 

Then I made these two pot holders: 

 

The log cabin one is on Etsy too. 

 

I love them both, but am particularly fond of the Peter Max one, also available on Etsy. I made sure to capture a signature piece for the strip quilting:

I had some fun sewing these. I suggest if you have a spare couple of hours this holiday weekend, grab up some batting, Thinsulate and some of your fabric bits and make some pot holders. Keep or sell. It's up to you!

That's my fun for today. What's yours?