New Living Room Wallhanging

 I had to replace my living room wall hanging.  I recently washed the old one and it shrunk up on the corners.  I should not have put that darn thing in the dryer.  Doing dumb things.  That's me.  

The replacement is a big star.  I used Missouri Star Quilt Company's video tutorial found here.  It a super easy block and it a lovely large size.  One block makes a gorgeous wall hanging.  The cool thing about this pattern is that if you adjust the size of your squares to any size you can make the block the size you need.  Using 10" squares of fabric for my block, I have a star that is 24" square.  

I love stars and this big star is easy to make.  The light blue fabric is the fabric I used to cover my ironing board, so my wall hanging matches it.  I made this in about 5 hours from fabric cutting to adding the hanging sleeve on the back.  

The Fifth Anniversary

    I started this blog on October 17, 2014 to I can keep track of my crafting projects.  I just recently spent a few hours going back over my old posts to see if I had left anything out.  Nope, it's all there, warts and all.

Here are a few items that I recently completed that I want to show you.

   A proper turquoise ear warmer knit with my original ribbed pattern.

 

  Three new shopping bags made from three yards of home decor fabric.

 

   A couple of crocheted cotton coasters.  The top one was made using Jayda in Stitches YouTube video tutorial.  Link here.

 

    I found some extra fall kitchen towels I bought last year and lots of the black cat fabric in my stash and I made some fall hanging dishtowels and potholders for a friend.

    I made another water bottle carrier.  It's too tall but I don't care.  I was playing with resizing the pattern.

    I also made a lovely find on Amazon.  I found these fun needle threaders.  I love the flowers and the pastel colors.  These came in a pack of 50.  I haven't used any of these yet so I don't know how sturdy they are, but the wire feels like it is secure in the plastic flower.

      No update on the hexagon quilt top.  It's in a state of limbo for a while.  I have been finding all manner of small projects between sewing and knitting to take up my quilting time.  I may not start working on it again until next year.

Homemade Kitchen Gifts

   I finished making the potholders, hanging dishtowels, and knitted dishcloths for my niece who is getting married in June.  I sent a picture to her parents last night to let them know what is going on and to verify an address to mail and her Mom said she will love the colors.

   I made one change to the potholders binding.  I cut the binding 2.75" wide and it fit a lot better since it was binding two layers of fabric, two layers of batting, and one layer of Insul-Brite.

    This is eight knitted dishcloths, 4 quilted potholders, and 4 hanging dishtowels.  It turned out to be a nice set.

Two Quilty Items

Here are two quilty projects I have shared before.

This dresden plate wall hanging was made to fill up the alcove.where my TV sits.  It was originally supposed to be a fireplace, but I wouldn't use a fireplace so I elected not to add it to my mobile home and they gave me a nice alcove instead.  It's the perfect size for a long dresser and my TV and small stereo live there.  I made the dresden plate using four turquoise fat quarters, the dark blue was from stash and the backing fabric was a piece of batik from stash.  I didn't quilt this piece, I just hand sewed the plate to the brown batik and hemmed the backing fabric making a casing at the top for a curtain rod.

  

   I made this block into a small quilted piece to decorate my front door in between holidays.   I can't remember where I got the block from.   This one is quilted and bound.   Edited to correct my previous statement.  This is a Missouri Star Block and I got the tutorial from the Amanda Rolfe at Three and Three Quarters Blog.  Here is a link:  Missouri Star Quilt Block Tutorial

Christmas Kitties In The Kitchen

   I found this cute, cute, cute dishtowel at Hobby Lobby last weekend and had to have it.  I think it was 40 or 50% off.  Score!  I love the cat on this one.

I was going to cut it up into two hanging dishtowels then I got an idea.  I decided to keep it as one towel and make a hanging dishtowel that is doubled.  I folded it in the center and pleated it so the cat would show up real well on both sides.  Then I added a cap of the fabric below with two ties.

I love this old fashioned toile Santa/Christmas fabric.  It's so turn of the century, 19th/20th century.  Here is my finished hanging dishtowel.  I made this one with ties so I could tie it onto the refrigerator and I love that it's doubled so my hands will dry quicker.  I may make all my hanging dishtowels doubled from now on.  This took me about 30 minutes to make from first cut to last stitch.

I hung the kitty from the freezer handle so I could get to it better and see it all the time. 

I've Been Making More Hanging Dishtowels For Holidays

   I made some hanging dishtowels to keep and share for the Thanksgiving holiday.  This is a picture of four the the six that I made.  The other two are gifts and are going to get mailed later next week.

  The towels with the white background have doggies on them and they look like this:

    I'm share these towels with dear daughter and she will get hers tomorrow.

Pattern Purchase

   I had to have this cute pattern.  I'm going to put this on my to do list for next fall.  This is called Patchwork Pumpkins by the Crafty Quilter.

Halloween Hanging Dishtowels

I made these dishtowels for dear daughter to help her decorate for Halloween.  I love the black and cream homespun fabric on these.  The other black fabric has the deathly hallows symbol on it from the Harry Potter story.

I know I said I would stop knitting dishcloths, but I can't.  I knit dishcloths all the time now.  It's the perfect waiting room knitting.and I'm really enjoying using the dishcloths in my own kitchen.  I found that I like them a lot better than the crocheted dishcloths I have been making.

Aqua

   I sewed up some hanging dishtowels using some of the pretty fat quarters from the Riley Blake Bake Sale fabric collection.  These three hanging dishtowels are going to live with dear daughter.

   I love these patterned buttons.  So cute.

 






   

More Kitchen Accessories

    I took some time out this week to make some hanging dish towels.  I bought the brown towel to make hanging towels for my hostess on Thanksgiving.  The chicken towels will be mine.  I found the chicken towel in my stash and I love the colors in it, so I had to make some hanging towels for me. 

    These lovely potholders were made on my Harrisville 7" loom with Harrisville cotton loops for my daughter.  She told me that she loves these potholders because they fit her smaller hands better than the bigger ones I make with big squares of cotton and batting.  I made some of these potholders a few years ago for her and since she loves them so much I thought it was time I made her a few more.  I will definitely be teaching her how to make these for herself sometime in the future,   Each one only takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to make.  They are easy and fun to do.  I love picking the colors and putting crazy colors together.

    You guessed it, no progress on my Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top.  I'm still working on row three.  I've been having too much fun finding other things to make. 

Christmas Hanging Dish Towels Are Finally Done

   I finally sewed the buttons on the Christmas hanging dish towels that I have been making for a couple of months.  I ended up with six of them and I'm giving away five.  Dear daughter gets three of them, she will keep one and give two away.  I'm keeping one and giving two of mine away.  I'm so glad I started early making these because they took way longer than I expected them to.

    I wanted to put green buttons on the top, but I couldn't find a button in a good green color for these, so I ended up using some of the red buttons I have.

    Here is a picture of four of them hanging on my oven door.

Christmas Is Coming, Believe It Or Not

    I thought I would get an early start this year.  I hate giving Christmas gifts, I have a hard time deciding what to give anyone.  I do know that my daughter and my brothers like the hanging dish towels that I make, so that's what I will make to give to them.   I will make five of these pretty dish towels and I should have them all finished by next week.

    I bought the fabric and the towels for this project last month.  I bought two huge white tea towels and cut them into quarters.  I hemmed the one cut side on my sewing machine and then I put the towel into the hoop to add the embroidery to it.  I only got one embroidery made tonight but I love it.  I will embroider the rest over the weekend then I can start adding the fabric toppers to each one.

    Here's the embroidery design I'm using on the towels.

     This makes a nice break from hand sewing hexies.  I really miss my sewing machine when I'm doing a hand sewing project.  I love pressing down on the foot pedal of the machine and sewing at full speed.

No Paper Piecing For This Project

   I planned to make a paper pieced star block for my living room wall hanging.  I printed the instructions yesterday but they were way too intense for me.  I looked around for a pieced star block and settled on the simple sawtooth saw block for my wall hanging.  I used the instructions here  for the 12" blocks.  I did make one change,  I switched out the print center block for the light center.  These blocks were quick and easy to make.

   I made twelve flying geese for the points of three star blocks

   Then I put them together like this with a nice frame around the whole thing.

   I had a half yard of each of these two fabrics and I used up just about every last bit on the top of this wall hanging.   Now I just have to sandwich it, quilt it, and bind it, then it will be ready to hang.

Cutting Christmas Tree Appliques

  I have cut twelve Christmas tree appliques for my Christmas tree decoration wall hanging.  I drew the wonky Christmas tree pattern myself.   I was going to put a couple of trees on several wall hangings so I could put them all over the house, but I have decided to put all twelve trees together on one wall hanging.  I'm going to give each a brown fabric trunk, and I want each trunk to be a different fabric.  I need 9 more pieces of brown fabric to finish the trunks and it will be ready to assemble and sew up.


   Here are the twelve trees.

Evening Sewing

 

      Tonight I made some more hanging dishtowels for me and dear daughter.  I resisted the temptation to use Christmas fabric on these.  Instead I wanted to make something we could use all winter long.  The green fabric has tiny metallic embellishments on it.  I think these will be pretty enough to give those dark winter days a little lift.

    The fabric cost me about $3.00 (I only needed 10" x WOF), I bought two regular size dishtowels at Tuesday Morning for $4.99 and the buttons were $.20 each.  So I made four hanging dishtowels for less than $10.00.  They took me about  2  1/2 hours to make from start to finish.

Hanging Dishtowels, The Finish

      Yeah, I know, you are probably completely bored with the hanging dishtowel project, but I had to show the last of the towels sewn up.  The shorter towels are the remains of the one towel I cut in half.
      One more sewing note, my template for the fabric top that was drawn from tracing around my iron is the perfect size to get the two fabric pieces cut from a 10" square (think layer cake).  

     These were so much fun to make and really cheap.  I wish I had some more dishtowels.

Super Cool Hanging Dishtowels

   I was going to make these tomorrow, but I couldn't wait and started them tonight after dinner.  The tutorial is perfect in its instruction and I had no trouble getting these handy hanging dishtowels made for my dear daughter.  The only item I bought to make these towels were the bar mop towels.  I paid $5.48 for 6 towels at Walmart.  I had the top fabric, interfacing, thread, and buttons in my stash.

   One note I will make about this tutorial is that bar mop dishtowels should not be cut in half because they are shorter than a regular dishtowel.  Cutting the bar mop dishtowels in half make sections that are too short to make a good drying towel (ask me how I know, hehehehe).  Cutting 2" off each towel works much better and gives you just enough length for a nice hanging dishtowel.  So instead of using one towel to make two hanging dishtowels, you would use one bar mop towel for each hanging dishtowel.

   I love having hanging dishtowels in my kitchen and I'm really happy that I tried this tutorial.  I use my hanging dishtowels to dry my hands when they are wet and I like using bar mop towels for this kind of project because they are pretty cheap.

    I did take the pieces of the one towel I cut in half and made two little hanging dishtowels for me, but the terry sections on those two hanging dishtowels are really small, but I couldn't waste those two pieces of towel.

   Just in case you missed the previous post talking about these hanging dishtowels, I used the tutorial at Our Secondhand House blog, link here.

   I no longer hate making buttonholes.  Buttonholes always seemed so complicated and I would try to avoid them, but after making 10 buttonholes on my shower curtain the other day with my new Janome Horizon 7700, I feel like I could make buttonholes all day long.  I won't be avoiding buttonholes anymore.

       I have three more dishtowels left and I'll be using those to make three more hanging dishtowels.

An Ohio Star Block Decoration And More

     I made this Ohio Star Block to hang somewhere.  This block was a lot of fun to make and I enjoyed stash diving to find the fabrics for it.  I used the instructions in a video by Amanda of 3and3quarters blog.  The link to her video is right here.

    This is a nice big block.  It finishes at 14" x 14".  Later I'll be making a door decoration using three of these blocks and some stash fabrics.  I would love to make a quilt using this block, but I have several quilt projects on my list already, so that will have to wait.

   I have a pile of fabrics on my cutting table waiting to be cut for fabric trees, two will be made with cute Arctic Antics fabric I made my rag quilt from.  See a picture at this post here.   Another tree will be pink for my bedroom made with fat quarters from the Far, Far Away fabric line (see picture below), and one will be made with some miscellaneous blue fat quarters I found (picture below) to make a sewing table decoration.

    Today I picked up some bar mop kitchen towels to make some new hanging dishtowels for DD's kitchen.  I will be using some of my precious Time With Friends by Lynette Anderson fabric (see below) to make the fabric section to create the button holes.  DD asked for gray, maroon, and white fabrics and this is the perfect combination plus she loves dogs and cats.

 

     There are tons of tutorials on line and the last time I made some I used a tutorial that had me make bias binding for ties.  I want to make one with a buttonhole this time, because I just learned how to make buttonholes on my Janome machine and I'd like to get some more experience used that cool foot, plus you don't need all that extra fabric for buttonholes.  Let's face it when I make bias binding, I waste some fabric and I'm not going to waste any of the only yard of this lovely Time With Friends fabric.  Here is the hanging dishtowel tutorial that I will be using for this project.

       

 

Rag Quilts Are So Much Fun To Make.

  I finished my rag quilt this morning after snipping all the seams to help them fray.  It was awesome!  I washed the quilt this evening (cleaning out the dryer vent every 12 minutes).

 Snipped but not washed.

Washed and officially ragged.

I also made these two blocks into wall hangings.  They came in a panel of 4.  They measure 17 3/4" x 17 3/4" before binding.  I've had them stashed for a few months.  I wanted something feline for the wall in the hall by the cat's room, one will go there, the other hang on the inside of the front door.  These were fun to quilt and bind in one afternoon.

Blue Wallhanging

   I bought this kit from an ebay seller last year.  The pattern for the table runner was actually stars made with a 9 patch and the points were supposed to be made with half square triangles.  Unfortunately, all the pieces for the pattern were all pre-cut and they cut all the squares the same size which did not work for half square triangles making the points of the stars.  The half square triangles came out too small.  So I changed the pattern and just ran the white gold fabric around the nine patches I started.

    I made this to hang on the wall in my living room.  My favorite part of this project is the quilting.  I did something I haven't done before which was pretty easy for a small project.  I drew a simple flower pattern on tissue paper.  One thing I can draw is a simple flower.  The flower is the size the block that makes up the runner, there are three of them, each block is separated by sashing,  I pinned the tissue paper where I wanted it and free motion quilted the flower in each block.  I had a good time doing it and it came out pretty good.

   I quilted the sashing and the borders with a wavy vine and some pointy leaves on each end.  Easy to do and worked great.

   My quilting buddy, Taffy Morgana, loves it.  She said, "Nice work, Mom!"