Blue Gingham Hanging Dishtowels

   I made some hanging dishtowels with some of the blue gingham that I used to make the kitchen curtains.  I love these.

    I have plenty of the blue gingham fabric to make a cover for my stand mixer.  I'm going to make that as soon as I get the coordinating white solid and navy solid fabric I ordered a couple of weeks ago.  I want to make the cover in the patchwork style like the one I made a couple of months ago  using 2.5" squares.  I will probably make some potholders as well.  Then I have to think of something else to make with all the leftover gingham.

   I've also been knitting some dishcloths.  I'm making a kitchen set for a niece who got married last fall.  I know it's late but I just decided the other day that I wanted to do this.  I will knit her a set of dishcloths, sew up  a couple of potholders and make a couple of hanging dish towels for her.  I wanted to show you the pot I use as a yarn bowl.  My daughter bought this strawberry pot for me about 12 years ago from someone who throws pots in Indiana while she was on vacation.  I have never used this for any plants.  I have been using it as a decoration and as a yarn bowl for years.  It's kind of fragile and I wanted to keep it nice.

I Love This Fabric

   I mentioned that I bought a fat quarter bundle of Bake Sale by Riley Blake.  Well, I actually ordered two of them, even though I didn't know what all the fabrics looked like, I fell in love with the background colors and some of the obvious designs, like the gingham.  The other designs include flowers, mixing bowls, cake stands, recipes, cherries, and some stylized dotty fabrics. I took pictures of all the color groups and fabrics in it.  I had to share. 

This fat quarter has two color designs on it.  I had never seen that before.  So fun.

More colors.

    Some of these fabrics will end up as hanging dish towel toppers because, hello, kitchen scheme.  I don't know where the rest will be used but these fabrics will be used carefully and thoughtfully because I am in love with this collection.

Reminiscing and Making

    One day about five or six years ago when I was just getting into quilting, I started to recall my very first real sewing project in my seventh grade home economics class.  I never had any formal sewing instruction before and I had never used a real electric sewing machine, I had only sewn little doll projects with a needle and thread by hand and they were not pretty.  I was a very eager student, and even though my projects were not perfect, I was always happy with my makes and I would wear them.  I took sewing in place of cooking whenever I could.  I only took cooking one semester and it was because the school made me take it.

    The teacher was starting from scratch with most of us and she had a genius half apron pattern that was made with gingham fabric that she taught us.  I can't recall what size gingham it was, I want to say it was 1/4".   We were told to buy a certain amount of fabric in whatever color 1/4" gingham we wanted.  I remember I picked out a lovely lavender color. 

    To make the pieces for the apron we measured by counting squares of the gingham.  It was a one size fits all pattern.  It was super simple and all the students had a finished apron at the end.  It was a easy way to learn how to cut pieces for a pattern. then the teacher could concentrate on teaching us how to use a sewing machine to sew our pieces together.  I have looked on the Internet for an apron pattern like it but I can't find anything.  Darn it.

     I was so nostalgic for that project, that I decided to create my own half apron loosely based on that gingham pattern.  I cut a large rectangle of fabric for the skirt, large enough to gather it up to give it some flow and make it feminine.  Then I cut three long narrow rectangles about 6 inches wide for the waistband and ties.  I even put a patch pocket on it.  I ended up using every inch of the piece of this fabric I had.

     I thought this dachshund fabric was the cutest.  It was designed by M'Liss Rae Hawley.  It was about this time that I learned a very valuable lesson about designer fabrics and that is once a design of fabric runs out, it will probably never be available again.  That was a sad realization, because sometimes I find fabric that I want to make into everything so now when I find a fabric that I love I try to buy enough to make bags/potholders/towel toppers or whatever else and also have enough to add into scrap quilts so I don't feel deprived.