This is a static export of a blog I put on ice many years ago, that still has personally relevant content. No promises can be made around linkrot, styles, or working functionality.
This has been a pretty big year for changesāwe adopted Moof back in March and now we have our new house, complete with an actual mantle in the living room! So, of course, Moof needs his own stocking to hang.
I donāt know which of us actually came up with the idea, but Carl and I were joking a few weeks ago about how Moof chews on pretty much anything, so if we got him a stocking, itād probably be chewed up. We thought it would be funny if he had a pre-āchewedā stocking with child-like lettering.
Most of my gifts are going into basic paper gift bags (yes, Iām too lazy to gift wrap soft stuff or box, then wrap, it all), especially since I already made the gifts themselves, but there is one present Iām excited about that I decided to whip up a quick gift bag for.
The gift
A young friend is getting her first sewing machine for Christmas, so in addition to advising the giver on basic sewing tool kit stuff, I thought it would be great to give a quick first project for her to work on (she does have a bit of experience from whatever they call home ec class these days).
So, I bought a pajama pants pattern (which also comes with the pattern to make a dog sweatshirtāhow cute!), two spools of thread (hey, it was bogo, why not?), the elastic for the waistband, and the fabric for the pants. In other words, everything she needs to make the pattern, that isnāt in her sewing kit.
The awesome people over at Generation Q Magazine and Thomas Knauer put together a bit of a challenge for 30 lucky peopleāincluding me. Thomas sent us 40 2.5″ squares and challenged us to create whatever we wished using all 40 squares, adding only solids.
My brain has been in organize, organize, organize! mode, so rather than a quilt or pillow of sorts, I ended up making an organizer for notions, so that I can easily tote around the ones I use regularly. Itās approximately 7″×11″ when folded closed (but a bit bulging, when full).
Iāve seen a few gift card holder projects popping up lately (for instance, Julie from Jaybird Quilts has one in Quilting Arts Magazine). Well, once again, I missed a nieceās birthday, and another is coming up in a week and a half (sisters), and since I have plans to make crafty things for them for Christmas, I thought Iād go with my fall-back gift card plan for now. And, I was inspired to whip up a fabric holder for them.
So, with the help of three charms from various charm packs I had on hand, a bit of flannel (or interfacing, if you prefer, for stiffness), 4″ of ribbon and a button each:
I made two different holders to add to their cards.
Iāve been abandoning the Farmer for a few weeksā¦ hopefully Iāll get back to it soon, but I just havenāt been feeling it. This week, during the time Iād normally spend on those blocks, I decided to whip up a bag for my youngest nieceās birthday, which is tomorrow. (My cards are never on time. Bad Aunt Rachael.)
Iād like to say I have a tutorial in the works, but inspiration hit, I started working and an hour and a half or so later (plus time to bandage a knuckleāmy brand new 28mm rotary cutter does not have the safety features I take for granted on my larger one!), I had a finished purse.
As part of the housewarming gift I recently made, I created printed fabric gift tags. If you use store-bought printable fabric sheets or handwrite your own messages, they are quick and simple to make.
Two weeks ago, I posted a tutorial on napkin rings that coordinated with napkins I made. Now I can show you all the rest of the gift those were a part of.
This is an Itās A Wonderful Life-inspired housewarming gift for friends/coworkers who recently moved into a new house.
Itās not all home-made (if only I knew how to make wine, Iād likely be too sloshed to sewā¦), but in addition to the napkins and napkin rings, I made the fabric box/tray and tags for the bread, salt, and wine.
Thank you to everyone who entered my first giveaway. Iāve enjoyed seeing some new names and new blogs to take a look at. So, without further ado, the winner according to random.org isā¦
Since I am getting the hang of applique so long as I donāt need to turn any edges under, I decided to face another fear of mineācurved piecingāin the most fearful (that is, not actually confronting the fear) way possible: using applique to give the look of curved piecing.
Okay, thatās a bit of an exaggeration, but the ladies at Viking Gallery were offering a weeknight class to make a āRob Peteā table runner using the Quiltsmart method which uses fusible interfacing and applique to create curves instead of traditional piecing. So I signed up.
And before long, I had fabric that was originally intended to be the bag for the Spring Quilt Along and the Quiltsmart printed fusible interfacing turned into this bit of patchwork:
Itās a bit wrinkly from being stored rolled up for the past couple of days as I carted it around trying to finish the binding.
The printed fusible interfacing pieces look like this:
Since I was in a class, I donāt have any in-progress photos, but the premise is rather simple. You place your fabric and interfacing together (donāt fuse yet!), sew along the stitching lines, cut along the cutting lines and then turn right-side out. This puts the fusible side of the interfacing facing down so that you can fuse your curved piece to the background. Fuse, applique on, and then piece the blocks together and youāre done!
So, aside from a few typos about cutting requirements that were in the pre-publication page previews that Quiltsmart kindly sent (evidently the old book is out of print, but theyāre releasing a new one soon), this was an extremely simple, straight-forward way to make Rob Peter to Pay Paul.
And, since I have no table on which to place a table runner (seriouslyā¦ the table runner is the same dimensions as my coffee table, which is the largest table in the house aside from our desks), I decided to turn this into a very useful item: an ironing mat!
There are a few ways to make an ironing mat, but my approach required three more layers:
Ironing board fabric, which is a special aluminum-coated fabric. I bought mine from the local JoAnn, which had it in the utility fabric section. Iāve heard some people claim you shouldnāt use special fabric like this because it redirects heat back up to your fabric and promotes scorching. Iāve never had any problems. If you associate with the former camp, you can always use plain cotton instead.
Insul-Bright, a heat/cold-reflecting batting-like fabric. This is often used for things like pot-holders or lunch bags and is also available in the utility fabric aisle or in pre-cut packages in the notions aisle.
Natural fiber batting such as Warm & Natural or Bamboo/Cotton blends (I used Bamboo Fusible Batting that I had on hand. The fusible part was a bonus, but not necessary).
Then, you sandwich them all together in this order:
Ironing fabric (backing, silver-side out)
Insul-Bright with shiny-side toward the ironing fabric
Batting
Pretty pieced fabric
Simulation from scraps. Your batting, Insul-Bright, and ironing cover pieces should be approx. 2″ larger than patchwork on all sides to accommodate quilting.
Consider using spray-basting, as the ironing board fabric holds pin holesāwith spray, you donāt need to pin. This was one advantage to using the fusible batting I hadāI fused the patchwork to the batting and the batting to the Insul-Bright, and only had to spray baste the ironing fabric to the Insul-Bright.
Quilt as desired. For mine, I stitched in the ditch along the straight seamsāwhich is pushing it as far as closeness for recommended quilting for the batting, but I doubt this is going to be washed very often.
Then use! You iron on the shiny side, but can flip it over to use as a table runner when itās not needed.
Or, slip some ribbon in the bindingā¦
That ribbon fits beautifully with the eggplant color in the Just Wing It print, but I have no idea where I purchased it. Possibly Walmart at some point or another.
As part of a gift, I need coordinating napkins and napkin rings, so I whipped some up on my day off yesterday. And, dear readers, Iāll show you how to make the same napkin rings. They are very easy; it took me all of an hour to make four, not including the time it took to go buy more ribbon when I ran out. Lesson learned: measure out the full spool before cutting, donāt just eyeball it. Luckily JoAnn carried the same ribbon (my original spool is of unknown originā¦ Iāve had it for ages).
Before you get started, you can download my template (and instructions) as a PDF.
In the downloadable instructions, Iāve provided a template and measurements using both ¼” seam allowances and 1⁄8″ seam allowances so that you can use whichever youāre more comfortable with. I made mine with 1⁄8″ onesāor technically however far the right-side hash mark on my utility foot is from the center needle position. The following instructions use that method.
