Hooded towels

I'm very late with this post...it seems I have wonderful intentions and then get sidetracked by life.

Every year for Easter I make baskets for my two grandbabies.  I try to be good and fill them with things they will use/need.  I may sneak a little candy in but for the most part I'm pretty good about following my rule.

I love my embroidery machine and don't use it near often enough.  I think my problem lies in the fact that I really only have one sewing machine and that's my Singer Quintet.  I know a lot of people somewhat look down on the Singer machines, but I love my machine.  Once I figured out all the little quirks, she and I fell in love.  Anyway, I use her (Barbara, after my mom) for all my sewing.  I do have an old Kemore, but it's been relegated to the basement.  There's nothing wrong with it, I just don't care for the way it sews.

 I do have a sweet vintage Singer given to me by a wonderful friend, but for some reason I'm intimated by it and haven't gained the nerve to take her for a test drive.  She sure looks pretty sitting there in my sewing area though!

Since I only have the one machine, it seems I'm always sewing instead of embroidering.  It's really not hard to switch back and forth, but it would be nice to be able to embroider on one machine while I sew on another.  So I really need to start saving for another machine.  I've been watching our local buy sell trade Facebook group, Craigslist and garage sales, but haven't seen anything exciting yet.

Wow, it's amazing how quickly I get sidetracked!  Back to the Easter baskets and embroidery.  Every year I make hooded towels to put in the Easter baskets.  My favorite place to get the designs for hooded towels is www.appliquecorner.com  Her designs sew out beautifully.  My problem is always picking out which ones to make!   They are really addicting once you get started and get the hang of them.  Just how many hooded towels does a 3 year old need?

If you have never machine embroidered before it can be intimidating at first, but if you take the time to follow the instructions and go slowly with trimming it's fairly easy.

I won't go into too much detail, it's a process and has quite a few steps.  That's a tutorial for another day.  The picture above shows trimming around the applique.  This part is probably the most stressful for me. Sometimes there are tiny areas that need to be trimmed.

Almost done!  Sewing the final satin stitch around the seahorse!

See the stitching along the right side?  That's where I need to cut and stuff a wash cloth in to make her fins.

All done!

I'm not the greatest at taking pictures of the process or of taking pics of my finished pieces either!  But here are the others I made this year for the kids:

See the little blue line between his tusks?  That's one of the  marks I make to line up the towel on the hoop.  It will disappear with a little water.

I love this little monkey!  After making him I think I should have gotten a different color wash cloth for the ears though.

I actually made two monsters, but forgot to get a picture of the other one.  The other one is blue with orange ears.  My granddaughter wasn't sure she liked him.  I think he scared her a little :(

Here are a few more I've made in the past:

I enjoy making these for my grandkids and they seem to love them too. 

 Of course I forgot to get a picture of the finished baskets!  I really need to learn to keep my camera with me all the time!

Happy Sewing!

Lori

Here Fishy Fishy

My daughter wanted a fish rag quilt for her son (our first grandson).  I'm not creative at all so I had to find a pattern.  The only one I could find was for a clown fish, Simplicity pattern #3955

I wanted to take that clown fish and try to make it look something like this:

I know I'm not skilled enough to change the pattern so I just changed the colors.  I also used flannel instead of fleece. This is my version:

I'm happy with how he turned out, my daughter is happy and my grandson loves him!

Happy sewing!

Lori

Car Seat Quilt

I've been tossing around an idea in my head for a while, trying to come up with a quilt for my grandson's car seat that he couldn't constantly kick off.  I got my inspiration from http://www.modabakeshop.com/2012/02/sophie-car-seat-quilt.html    After trying several different ideas, this is the final design.

 I wanted it to be warm and cozy since it was going to be used in winter.  The fabric I chose was left over from several other projects.  All the fabric is soft and cuddly and also difficult to sew.  Every time I sew with minky or any of that soft, stretchy, cuddly fabric, I swear I'm never going to sew with it again....but I always end up loving the final product and decide it wasn't so bad after all. 

 I wanted to make the quilt a quilt as you go (QAYG).  I thought it would be quicker and easier with this fabric.  I cut my backing approximately  30 inches by 35 inches since I wanted the finished quilt to be about 25x30.  I cut the batting the same 30x35.  For my strips, I cut varying widths making sure I had enough to go the length of the quilt.  I laid the first piece down and sewed across the top close to the edge.  Then I laid the next piece right sides together on the bottom edge of the first fabric, sew and fold down, repeating this process until the batting is covered.   Missouri Star Quilt Company has a great tutorial https://quiltingtutorials.com/tutorial/how-to-quilt-as-you-go

Use lots of pins with this fabric, it likes to move!

Almost done!

Last strip added and sides trimmed.

 The Moda Bakeshop tutorial used ties to attach the quilt to the car seat.  I was afraid they would come undone or take too long to tie and untie so I used velcro and made wider tabs instead.  I made the tabs about 1/12 inches wide by 5 inches long.  I measured around the handle of the car seat to get a length I felt worked.  I'm sure each car seat may be a little different.

I measured down about 13 inches and sewed the tabs close to the edge of the quilt.

 Things I learned from making this quilt:

Basting spray is your friend.

Pin, Pin, Pin.

Using a walking foot makes sewing this so much easier.

Binding with minky is no fun.


Let me know what you think of my car seat quilt

Happy sewing,

Lori

Jelly Roll Race

A couple years ago my youngest daughter made a jelly roll race quilt for me for Christmas.  I actually helped her make it thinking the whole time she was making it for herself.  Imagine my surprise when I opened my present on Christmas and it was the quilt she had worked so hard on for several months!

My son commented at the time that he really liked my quilt and several months later mentioned it again and said he would love to have me make one for him.  We actually sat down at the computer and I had him look at lots of different fabrics.  I discovered he liked the civil war type fabrics.

I picked out Georgetown by Judie Rothermel for Marcus Fabrics. I quilted it on my domestic machine, stitching in the ditch...well mostly in the ditch.  

I gave it to him for Christmas this past year and he loves it.  This is the only picture I managed to take before he whisked it away.  His bed is a queen size and this is a little small so of course I have a request to make him another quilt!

Lessons Learned

One of the quilts on my wish list has always been an Irish Chain.  Once I really got to looking into how it was made, I realized it wasn't that difficult and decided to jump in and get started.  A couple of things we need to remember 1.  I'm a relatively new quilter and 2.  I've not work with a lot of precuts.

I picked  a bright happy jelly roll.  I thought it would make a great Irish Chain.  I decided it would be perfect for a little girl.  I figured I would start with a small quilt, maybe a crib size.  I can't remember the name of the line or who designed it.

My strip sets

When I started sewing the strip sets together I realized printed fabric had pinked edges and the white I had cut from yardage of course did not.  Now most people may know how to match them up but I didn't.  Instead of doing the smart thing and googling it, I just forged ahead.  I chose to line up the white edge with the inside edge of the pinked fabric which made the little points stick out past the white.  I didn't think it would make that much difference...I was wrong!

I think I've created a mess and not sure how to correct it.  So it's going into my UFO pile for now.  Maybe someday I'll pull it out and figure out how to fix it. As long as I learn from my mistakes I figure I'm good!

Happy Sewing!

Lori

Car Seat Covers

Last week I showed the fish quilt I finished for my DGS.  I mentioned in that post that we originally planned on making a crib skirt, curtains and the quilt.  Oh,  I think she wants a pillow too. Anyway after talking about it more, DD decided against the crib skirt.  Which I'm very glad for because after looking at the pattern, I did not want to make it.  It looked way too complicated!

Since we had so much leftover fabric I decided to make a car seat cover for the summer.  I had made one out of flannel and minky for winter.  I'll try to find a picture of that one, it was red minky and a flannel fish fabric.

I used a pattern my sister found on the internet.

I think it looks rather plain since I used the same fabric for the whole thing except for the placket.  I do love the fish buttons I found!

I like this one better that I made for my best friend's daughter. This one is from Simplicity pattern 1177. 

I am proud of myself for making the white bows.  I found a you tube video that explained how to do it.  Turns out it's very easy.

Next I want to try one made with the new double gauze I've seen in stores.  It looks like it would be perfect a summer cover.

Happy sewing,

Lori

Latest Finish!

My grandson was born over 9 months ago and I just now finished his crib quilt.  To be honest, I wasn't in a hurry since it ended up being a little big for a crib quilt.  I know he'll use it for many years and trust me, he's not hurting in needing anything!

My son in law is an avid fisherman so they decided to decorate his room with fish.  It had to be realistic fish, not any of that cartoony stuff!  My DD and I looked all over for fabric until she finally found this that she loved.   The original goal was to make a crib skirt, curtains and a quilt.  I purchased a Simplicity pattern that had the crib skirt and a quilt, but after looking at the pattern I didn't like the quilt at all.  So I decided to go with the disappearing nine patch. I still consider myself a new quilter and this is the first time I've made this pattern.  I was very nervous cutting up the nine patches but once I saw how easy it went together, I'll definitely make it again.

I made my initial squares for the nine patch 7 inches.  I wanted to make them large to show off the fish fabric. This made my nine patch blocks about 20 inches square!

During the sandwiching process.

I was nervous for the quilting part.  The only quilting I had done was stitch in the ditch and I wanted to do something more this time.  I talked with my friend and fellow blogger Preeti of Sew Preeti Quilts.  She assured me I could do it and encouraged me to take a Craftsy class called Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot.  The instructor is Jacquie Gering.  Here's the link Creative Quilting with your Walking Foot

I took my time and watched all the classes and practiced and what do you know?  I could do it!  It's not perfect, but I don't think my grandson will notice.

I've been told to always label my quilts.  I struggled with this and tried several different ideas.  The one suggestion that stuck with me was to use my handwriting for my labels.  And that got me to thinking.  I love seeing my mothers handwriting and I only have one or two things with her handwriting.  I really, really dislike my handwriting.  I'm a lefty and never was able to master pretty writing in printing or cursive.  So I had to force myself to try and it's definitely not pretty, but it is MY handwriting and I know this is something that will help make the quilt special, long after I'm gone. 

Here's the finished quilt!

The coloring doesn't do it justice.  I'm still learning how to take good pictures for my blog.  Maybe I should take a class for that!