Getting Squiggly With It

A new blogging friend (Cindy) asked about the squiggly quilting on the Magic Nine-Patch Santas table runner I showed you yesterday.  She said she'd like to try it out and wondered how I do it!  I do it a lot.  It's my "go to" quilting design.  Check the top of this basket I made for a dear, dear friend:

I put a little cable's worth up there at the top.  All I do is use my walking foot! Feed dogs engaged, nothing planned, no thinking, just slide the item you want to quilt under the walking foot and do sort of a bobbing and weaving thing. It helps to sing "La la la la la" while you're doing it, so you stay loose, but if your Studio or sewing space is on the same floor as, say, your husband's office, you might want to sing it in your head.  Or quietly.  Just... ya know.  There will be no video available on this.  Ha ha ha!

If you don't have a walking foot - I highly recommend getting one!  They make them for most machines.  It's probably my favorite foot.  If your layers are secured well, you could probably do it with just a "regular" sewing foot.

And yes, that was another Christmas gift!  Just when I thought I had them all covered!  I made it following the same tute I used for the basket at this link, only decided I could improvise a bit.  I would have done another group of squiggling in the desert camo stripe but, wow! That fabric did NOT like me at ALL! Maybe I was using the wrong needle ... maybe it's the rip-stop fabric ... I'm not sure, but I stuck to the canvas parts of the basket.  I LOVE how it came out - and REALLY loved giving it to my friend -- especially because I got to give it to her in person!!!

Thanks for reading!  And Cindy, I hope you give it a try!  Just remember the "La la la la la" part and it'll all come together.  :)

Wrapping Up Christmas Gifts

Ha ha ha.  I crack myself up sometimes.  (Please see title of this post...)

OK... so where was I? I sent my sister a very cool table runner I had made.  I decided she needed a cool fabric basket to go with it, too. Years ago, when I lived in Korea, one of the other wives went to Thailand for Christmas (?) and brought home the CUTEST fabric baskets for the rest of us. They laid totally flat, but have ribbons at the corners to tie ... and when you do, it becomes a cool basket. I've used mine every year since for Christmas cards. I thought I could mentally dissect it and make one for my sister to go with her runner.

I call it a "Thai Basket". Ha! Get it? Thai - Tie?  I know ... I'm easily amused. It was so easy to mail, too. Very cool. Of course, the whole thing would have been MUCH easier if I had found this tutorial (look for Morning Call Table Toppers) BEFORE I made the one for my sister ... but hey! It was a good mental exercise figuring it out myself. Right?  Yeah...

So ... remember the Santa table runner I made a là Magic Nine-Patch?  I finished that before Christmas ...

...and decided it should go to my Mom.  It almost stayed here.

I love how the quilting came out:

I made sure to label everything - I've been getting way too slack about that lately!

In the background, you can see another table runner I showed you a while ago.  Here - let me lay it out on the table for you ...

Doesn't it look at home in my dining room? Oh... and see that tree in the background? That's our patriotic ornaments Christmas tree. Makes the table runner seem even more at home, doesn't it? I thought so, too.  So did the hubster.  So... um...  Merry Christmas to us!  Hey, why not, right?!?

Hope you find some inspiration in all of this!  Thanks for reading!

Gift Card Holders

I think I'm going to have several more "Christmas Gift" posts.  I love giving hand-made gifts and did so as much as I could this year.  Still... sometimes there's nothing like getting a gift card to Beth Bath and Beyond (❤ that place!) but I wanted to do a little something extra to go with those.  I found a great tutorial for little gift card holders here and had to make a couple!  Here's what I came up with:

Mmm... coffee...

Just large enough to hold a few cards; easy to throw into your purse or stuff into a pocket!

Great way to use some cute scraps and a cool button!

I was really happy with how they came out - thought the tute was very easy to follow!  I will definitely make more of these!

Thanks for reading!

Runner and a "Basket"

Ever have one of those fabrics that you just don't want to cut into small pieces?  (Let's not talk about the ones I don't want to cut at all...)  I've been toting around a LOT of fabs like that, to include a great Christmas fabric in lovely mauves and teals and golds that I bought in Korea. In like ... 1994 or 5 maybe? I was saving it for JUST the right project!

 Anywho... a friend of mine (thank you, Bobbie) described how to make a fun table runner that would allow me to keep a good piece of the fabric intact - and I just thought it would be perfect! Take a look:

The colors aren't as harsh in person as in that photo.  I paired it with a white with gold metallic fabric that really lets the ornaments shine!  I just think it's gorgeous!

Click here for instructions for a very similar way to make your own.  It's REAL close to how I made this - except for the 10-minute part.  Please.  10 minutes?  I don't think so.  It takes the Guide Dog for the Color Blind and me that long to choose fabrics, let alone a coordinating quilt thread!  But that's pretty much how I made this one.

I thought the colors were a good "fit" with my sister-in-law's decor, so I decided this should go to her and my brother!  I had some fabric left and thought it would be fun to make a little fabric basket to go with it:

Perfect to hold Christmas cards, ornaments, greenery and lights ... ANYTHING!

Really, really fun to make!  I hope my s-i-l and brother enjoy them!

Thanks for reading!

Golf Anyone?

So... yeah, I know.  Let's dispense with the "where have I been"s and just get right to the post, OK?  Let's go!

My husband is an avid golfer and has a great collection of golf hats from all over the place.  Oh, not a "sit them on a shelf" type of collection, he wears them.  And wears them hard.  I mean - he golfs when it's over 100 degrees out there, so yeah, they get kind of funky.  So I wash them, he wears them ... and I wash them, he wears them ... and before we know it, they really have out-lived their usefulness.  But some of the logos are just SO COOL - so what to do?  I thought long and hard on that for a while, then it hit me.  If I can cut logos out of t-shirts and make a really cool quilt, can't I do something with golf hat logos?  ...except that they're quite crunchy and hard and embroidered on thick, thick canvas ...

So how about a bag!?!?

I cut all the logos out, grabbed some heavy-duty canvas, and started playing around.

Seriously, some are just way too cool to toss out.

I stitched them onto the canvas, grabbed a cute golf-themed cotton fab for a lining, and made a drawstring bag:

Mike thought it would be great to hold "range balls". I'm not a golfer myself, so I only have a vague idea what that means, but that's OK!  I was just thrilled to have a purpose for the cute designs!  :)

After I had the bag together, I thought it would be convenient to have a D-ring at the top, so Mike could hook it to his golf bag with a carabiner clip.  It would have been better had I come up with that idea an hour earlier than I did ... but it all worked out.

I did some ripping, inserting, then re-stitching.  It was worth it - the D-ring is very handy.

When I inserted the D-ring, I also inserted one of my KZK tags.  Upside down.
But if it's hooked to your golf bag, and you look down on it ... it's right-side up.  Right?
ARGH!!!

I used some cording and one of those cord-lock things from an old backpack.  I think it's a great touch - I think I need to buy some of those; I like them!

Thanks for reading!

Infinity Scarf Tutorial

Merry Christmas to all!  I know I've slacked off on posting again.  I've been busy finalizing Christmas gifts, etc. - so I hope you'll forgive me!  I've made a few really cool infinity scarves this year and thought I'd do a little "how to" tutorial for all of you!  They are so fun, easy and really spruce up an outfit -- and/or block the cold from coming down the neck of your parka!

It all started when I posted a pic of the flannel infinity scarf I made to FaceBook:

Warm, fuzzy and my favorite colors! That led to requests for everyone's favorite redhead to model it.

He's a pro. Seriously.

That started a "how do you..." and "I'd love one" and ... etc.!  I made a bunch more, then thought I'd put together a step-by-step so you can make your own. The following one is made from a quilt-weight cotton, but you could use cotton, flannel, fleece ... whatever!  I'm a visual learner, so there are tons of pix.

You'll need a yard of fabric.  Cut said fabric 30 x 36".  Fold that so that it's now 15 x 36" -- right sides together.  Like so:

Sew that long side, using 1/4" seam allowance, forming a long tube.  Iron your seam open and give everything a good pressing.  It should look like this:

Reach into one end of the tube, and bring that far end inside the tube, matching it to the other end.

You now have a folded tube with the right sides together.  Sort of.  Line up the seams --

Instead of pinning like that, twist that inner part of the tube that you grabbed a full 360 degrees!

It looks like a mess, but it'll be OK.  Match the seams back up and pin.

Get the two raw edges nicely lined up all around your tube and pin.

Pins are your friends.  Just don't sew over them.  Sew all along your opening, leaving a gap for turning.

I like to mark the stop/start of my gap with double pinning, so I won't forget.  (And yes, I was sporting a band aide.  I scraped the daylights out of the back of my hand when I moved the stove to clean behind it.  Oops.)

Now... reach into that gap you left open and turn the scarf right side out!

Because I love pins, pin the gap...

... then sew shut using a blind stitch.

Here's your scarf!

I made that one and a couple more for a friend.  You can see the others here and here.  The possibilities are endless - as is the scarf.  Ha ha, I crack myself up sometimes!

I also made a flannel one for my husband that is half as wide (cut 15 x 36") just to tuck into his parka to keep the chill out.  Nothing poofy or girlie about it at all.  Then my friend Shelli (AKA the Macon Bag-a-holic) asked if they could be made with two fabrics.  Great idea!  Why not!?!  Cut two coordinating fabrics 15 x 36", sew together ... etc.!  I made one for her and think it looks darling!

I let my Siberian Husky stuffie model it instead of one of the boys - I like to send things out as Sibe-hair-free as possible - even though Shelli has two Sibes and a kit-cat who would have been happy to bury their noses in Zim and Dave's fur!

Here are Sitka and Shelli with the Infinity Scarf!

Beautiful!  (Both of them!)

Let me know if you have any questions on the tute!  Note:  Be careful if you use a directional print!  Make sure it will go the way you want it to!  Good luck and I hope you'll give it a try!!

Thanks for reading!

Laura's Sitia Marie Tote!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I know.  It's been a while.  Miss me?  I have lots of projects to show you - I just need to find the time to do so!  Let's start today with a bag I made for a wonderful friend of mine - Laura!

Laura is probably one of the coolest people I know.  Seriously.  And now she's going to have her first baby!!!  She didn't have the perfect diaper bag lined up, so I asked her to pick one of my designs - and I'd turn it into the bag of her dreams.  Or something like that.  We opted to go for a black, white and red color scheme to coordinate with her stroller!  (I had help, of course.)  Let's get looking at pix!

Here's the front!

Polypro handle, pieced outside, nice long pocket (the Eiffel Tower), and a big, black button.

I love the look of the bag in my bare tree. I have no idea why I didn't shoot the back of the bag that way, but I didn't. It's 20-something degrees out right now, so I'm not re-shooting. I did shoot it up against the house:

There is another pocket on the back, as you can see. Shallower and easy to grab whatever's in there.

I love these big, black buttons! I sewed it on with the same variegated black and white thread I used to quilt the bag. It's an Aurofil thread. Isn't it lovely?!?

Detail shot of the front pocket and tag. Just because.

I thought Laura would need nice, deep pockets in her bag, and decided to pretend I knew how to make pleated ones to add depth:

I think they work! Here they are in the finished bag:

Oh... yeah. That one didn't have a cuff at the top initially, did it? Cute touch though, right? I mean ... it's not like I did that because the pocket came up too high and would have been sewn shut when I top-stitched the bag together.

 ...

OK, that's exactly why it has a cool cuff. Creative solution, don't you think? Oy.

I put more pockets on the other side of the bag, too:

You can't have enough pockets, can you? Actually, that's a divided pocket with another pocket on top of it.

I also thought I'd throw a Huffle Duffle Bag in there -

For a clean outfit for the baby? Or to house diapers, clean or otherwise? (The Huffle Duffle can be tossed in the wash - cold water wash, machine dry on low.)  Or ... for whatever Laura's heart desires!

Here's a peek inside:

I have to say, I totally love working with black and white!!!

And red. It needed that touch of red, didn't it?

Laura, your bag should be there any day now.  I hope you can feel the love that went into making it for you and your baby girl!

I'll post more projects soon!  Thanks for reading!