Table Runner Kits...

The holidays are gaining on us and we need to be ready! I know that we are all working hard to get all of our gifts completed and decorations made. At the shop we have some new kits just to help you with those trimmings around your holiday table.

They go together fairly quickly and are just a snap! Here's the one that I am making for a sample and I have a few tips.


First, be organized! Once you measure out your fabrics in your kit to see which color are for which pieces of your project, get them organized so you can see how things are going to go together.

 

 

Second, lay it all out. I sometimes have a hard time seeing things when they are on point. This runner is a good example of that. I guess my brain just doesn't work that way, so laying things out so you can ensure your pieces are going the correct way is a big help.

 

 



 

 

Lastly snip! When you have all these little piece of fabric coming together it can be a challenge to get your project to press flat, so it will lay nice. Ann has a wonderful technique that can alleviate this problem. You simply snip the fabric where the seams all come together. See photo.

 



 



 

 

 Then when you press, you get this cute little four patch. It may be a pain to snip all those intersections, but in the end your project will lay nice and your quilting will be better because you won't have all those large bumps of fabric to go over! Be sure to NOT snip all the way through your stitching!!

 

Well I hope you are enjoying your sewing for this holiday season. And if you need a new runner for yourself or a gift, pop in and pick up one of this nifty kits! Not in love with our choice of fabrics? That's OK, pick out your own and we can cut you a kit you'll adore!

 

 

Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full! My next post will be a tutorial to make a table topper out of our newest Moda Candies! So stay tuned...

 

 





Wake up to Breakfast!

ISN'T IT WONDERFUL TO wake up to a cooked breakfast? The weekend is almost here and I want to be able to get right to work on those holiday projects! So having a breakfast I can stick in the oven the night before, that will be ready for the 'herd' in the morning will give me more sewing time!! Aren't I bad!?!

Here I will share with you my "clean up left overs" strada! This is also great for the holidays when you have guests for breakfast.

I purchased these lovely pretzel rolls at Costco and my kids just loved them on our road trip to the family reunion. However I still had a few to use up, hence the strada idea! I cut up 5 rolls for this size casserole dish. Threw in some fresh mushrooms, spinach, and onion. Mixed up the eggs (8) and cream/milk (3/4 cup) and tossed some cheese on top and in the morning we'll have a lovely breakfast dish!

What do you like to make for breakfast? I guess I've spoiled my kiddos because they love a cooked breakfast. In fact my oldest almost considers it punishment to eat cold cereal. I think he's odd, but I guess I've created this some how. So "put together the night before" breakfast are genius to me! After all breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Not to mention this is a wonderful way to use up bread, veggies, left over meats, etc!

Now that you have a great meal for the morning you can get off to your sewing feeling accomplished and get those holiday projects DONE!

Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Sunflower Hill...

Now that autumn has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest you may want to find time to work on something sunny! Do we have the kit for you. Sunflower Hill is an adorable fun quilt to work on when wet and dreary outside.

This lovely quilt features the country village of "Sunflower Hill" and showcases five sunflower themed houses. The sunflower and crow applique block and picket fence border complete this adorable quilt. The project is machine pieced with fusible applique accents. The finished quilt measures 70 x 70 and would be a great autumn or winter project to work on while you're dreaming of warmer weather.

We have this wonderful kit in the shop, so stop by for a visit or order yours online today!

Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Three Fat Quarter Child's Apron...

I think aprons are a wonderful gift for children. Now that we are getting closer to the holidays and holiday baking aprons come to mind for the wee ones in my life. So the other day while I was playing around with my fabric and came up with this Three Fat Quarter Apron. It's the perfect size and it's so quick!! So if you have wee ones in your life and I know you have a stash of fat quarters, whip one together! I know they'll love it!!

Here's what I did...

 

 

First you will need your 3 fat quarters, ruler, rotary cutter, Best Press and sewing supplies.

 

As always, press your fabric and square up your fat quarters. If you're not sure how to 'square up' see my past post here...

Once you have your fabric prepared, you're ready to place two fat quarter right sides together and mark off the front part of your 'bib'. For my toddler the width needed to be 6 inches for my 5 year old it was 8 1/2 inches. Be sure to measure your child to get an idea of width for the 'bib' area of the apron.

 

Next I marked my fabric for my cut lines for the 'bib'. Since I needed the bib to be approximately 6 inches wide, I measured 3 inches from the middle of the fabric. The best way is to fold your two fat quarters in half measure half the width you need from the fold and mark. On both children I discovered that whatever the width of the bib needed to be was about how far down the arm cutouts should be, so I measured 6 inches from the top of the fabric and then made an arch connecting the marks. I had to trace it in with my mouse since my pencil line was to light for the photo.

 

 

Then cut on your line to make the arm cut aways. Now from the cut aways you can make two double sided pockets. Like so..

 

 





 

Now that you have a cut square, sew your two pieces of fabric together making your pocket. Leave a whole in the bottom to flip out your pocket. Make two.

 

 

Next press and sew them to your apron fronts.

 

 

 

Set these aside for now and go on to make the ties for your apron. Out of your third fat quarter you will be cutting six 2 1/2 inch strips for the ties.

 

 

For two of the six strips you are going to press the strip in half, then press the sides into the center crease and then in half again. See photos...

 

 

 

 









Now you're going to take these two strips to the machine and sew down a 1/4 inch seam to make the neck ties. Remember to fold one end in before you stitch so you have a finish end.

With the other four strips you are going to sew them right sides together. I like to make the end a little nicer by making a point. For this I sewed a diagonal line from corner to edge of the strip and then cut off the corner. See photo...

 

Once you cut off your corner, you are ready to sew the 1/4 inch seam around your tie. Then use a chop stick or in my case my 'Purple Thang' and turn it out.

Now press and sew a 1/4 inch seam around your ties to finish them up.

At last we are ready to put it all together!! Pin your ties to the appropriate places in between your two apron fronts. See photo...

 

Next stitch the 'apron sandwich' together with a 1/4 inch seam, being careful to keep the ties out of your way!! Leave an opening at the bottom to flip it out. Then press and stitch another 1/4 inch seam to give your apron a more finished look and close the opening at the bottom and you are DONE!!

 

Now your cutie patootie will have a cute little apron made by you! Get ready to have your little helper assist you with your holiday baking!!

Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Toothbrush Rug Class...

We offered a new class last night and we all had a load of fun! The Toothbrush Rug was a new technique to all of us. There are several ways of doing these kind of rugs and they are all wonderful! It was fun to sit and visit and work on this new project. It was very successful and hopefully we will be offering class one again soon. Here are photos of some of the fun! Watch for photos of the completed rugs, coming soon!

Doesn't it look fun?! Click here to view our full calendar for new offerings in the months to come!

Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Playing with ideas...

Hope you had a wonderful, sewing filled weekend! I've been tossing around an idea to create a Christmas Tree Quilt made out of 'twists'. The ones that you use the 'twister' tool to make. What gave me the idea was the pattern for the 'Twisted Heart' in the book 'Let's Twist Again'.

So I laid out all my squares and was excited at having it all come together.

After sewing all the squares and thinking that I had a good chance of achieving success, I began 'twisting'. Well, I'm not totally unhappy with what I created. However, it's not really a tree. So I guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board and try again.

 

Can you kind of see my tree, now that I've given you an out line?

Some folks use paint, some use clay, I guess I use fabric. It doesn't always turn out the way I see it. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, but all in all it's fun. Share with us what you've been working on. We'd love to see your photos and read any comments you'd like to share.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend of sewing and creating! Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Jelly Roll Quilt Tutorial...

Have you seen or heard of the 1600 Jelly Roll Quilt? Well, if you haven't or if you've heard of it but haven't given it a try, I'm here to tell you it's one the quickest quilts I've put together so far! I think that it only took, maybe two hours to have the top done, and that was with TONS of distractions!!

So find your favorite jelly roll and let's get sewing! Need a jelly roll? Click here and pick one up at our on-line store.

For this project you will need:

1 Jelly roll
sewing machine
cotton thread (we used 50wt)
rotary cutter and mat
marking utensil

8 1/2 x 16 quilting ruler
iron and ironing board

 First you'll need to unroll your fabric and mix it up. If you're a little OCD, which I think really we all are, get over it this quilt is supposed to be random! So mix up your fabrics and then choose your first two strips. You will be sewing these together at an angle like you would for binding.

So place your strips like so and then get your ruler. You need to place your ruler on the strips so that your 45 degree line is on the strip that is vertical. This will give you a line corner to corner to mark and sew on.

Once you have your ruler lined up, mark your line with a pencil and pin if you need to. Then take the strips to your machine and sew just a smidgen to the right of the line. Then cut your 1/4 inch seam.



Next you'll take these strips and press your seam open.

The quickest way I found to accomplish getting all these seams sewn and pressed was to lay out my strips in an 'L', two by two. Chain sew all the sets, then trim and press and then lay them out again until I had one long strip.

Now that you have one long strip, you cut off the first 18 inches and you just fold in half, right sides together and start sewing.

Once you get to the end, you trim off the fold and press.

Then go again and press. Repeat this process until you're done!





 Here's another one done by one of our customers in the Halloween fabrics!

So there it is! Easy as pie! Happy stitching and may your bobbins always be full!

Aprons!

Looking through gift ideas, I keep coming back to aprons. I love aprons, especially home-made aprons. The ones you find in stores just don't always give me what I'm looking for, so I'm always looking at apron patterns. Over the next few weeks for our feature of 'Gifts Under $30' I will be offering quick apron tutorials.

Just as an FYI of what's coming up. We will also be featuring designer Erica Plank of Unseen Hands. We will get to pick her brain and tour her studio! I can't wait!! I am also putting together a tutorial to make your own 'color catchers' so stay tuned. A great way to keep up with what we are doing is to become a 'Lovely Reader' over to the right! We will also be offering specials exclusively to our 'Readers' so you don't want to miss out!



Back to aprons... in the shop right now we have this adorable panel to make this quick apron. I took it one step further and backed mine and made the ties wider. I'm also thinking of just using this as a template to make others just the same. They are so quick and you can make them more appropriate for a female OR male, which is also a nice plus!

This panel also comes in this great fat quarter tower, so you could make other things to coordinate! Mug rugs come to mind or table toppers... just get creative!!

Hope this helps you to get your creative juices going!! Happy sewing and may your bobbins always be full!