One More Valentine Decoration

   I like to hang garlands from two set of spotlights in my ceiling for holidays and seasons.  It's a great way to keep decorations from prying kitty noses and paws.  I found some ultra cute red gingham hearts at Hobby Lobby yesterday and I had to have them to make a garland for Valentine's Day (even though they were not on sale).

   These hearts needed loops and I know the easy way would be to get some red ribbon and glue that to the hearts, but I don't have any pretty red ribbon, so today at 5:00 a.m. I was rooting around in my fabric stash looking for some red fabric to make loops.  I wasn't sure I would find any because I don't have a lot of red fabric because of the dye running issues it has, so I usually stay away from red. 

   I was lucky I found a piece of red with tiny white polka dots on it in and that became the fabric for my loops.  I cut the fabric into 2" x 4" pieces and folded it up, ironed them, and sewed the folded edge closed..  I plugged in the glue gun and glued the ends together to make the loops and glued the loops onto the back of the hearts.  This project took about an hour and a half from fabric finding to finish.  So easy, fun and adorable.  I'll be stringing these up with some jute twine.

Birthday Gift Shopping and Wrapping

    It's that time of year again.  Time to think of birthday presents for DD.  I will not be doing any sewing for her this year because we have several secret projects we are sewing together in the next few months and I don't think I will  have time to make her anything super cute this year, so I bought her a couple of gifts.  Her birthday will be special this year so I wanted to make sure I had them ready to go when her birthday comes.

    The gifts arrived but I didn't have any pretty birthday wrapping paper for them so while I was shopping in Hobby Lobby last weekend, I bought a yard of cotton fabric with the cutest print on it and I wrapped my boxes up in the fabric.  Instead of taping the ends to secure them, I sewed them together with some contrasting thread and big stitches.  It was so much fun to do and the gifts look so cute with coordinating ribbons on them.  I will definitely post a picture after the gifts are given.

   Don't hesitate to use fabric for wrapping.  It's fun and so unexpected.

Flower Garland and Wedding Gift

     I'm going to use up all the spool pin doilies I haven't given away and make a garland to hang in my living room for spring.  I ordered a dark green cotton thread and I'm going to crochet a chain adding flowers as I go.  I have approximately 129 spool pin doilies made and I'm going to keep crocheting a chain until I run out of green thread.

   While I'm doing this, I'm knitting yellow dishcloths and making some pretty potholders for a special niece who is getting married in the summer.  I ordered two yards of this lovely fabric to make the potholders.  My DD and I had already purchased gifts from her registry, but I decided that she needed some homemade things in her kitchen.  She is not expecting this so this will be a nice surprise for her.

    Here's the fabric for the special potholders.

    I'm still working on my hexagon quilt top, or should I say, not working on it.  It seems I'm finding all manner of different projects to do that take me away from that monster.  I'll get back to it as soon as I finish my potholder dishcloth projects.

Okay, This Is One Quick Project

  I made this purse from more of my souvenir fabric last night after work.  It took me about an hour and 45 minutes.  Love this.

   And I made this one this morning.  More souvenir fabric.

Fat Quarter Time

    I did some fabric shopping on Etsy.  I finally found a fat quarter bundle that I couldn't live without.  I bought two fat quarter sets of Bake Sale by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet for Riley Blake.  Those colors and prints are perfect.  I'm planning lovely napkins and hanging dish towel toppers with these fun kitchen prints.

 

Finished Lace Scarf and Starting A Hat

   Finishing this scarf makes me want to make a bunch of these in lots of colors.  Love the simplicity of the pattern and the finished scarf.

    This is not a flattering picture but I was trying to get the full length in the picture.  I think I stopped knitting at just over 6 feet in length.   I did not use the full skein of the second skein that I started, so I have leftover yarn, but I still love the scarf.  This scarf fits doubled around the neck perfectly.

   And this is close up of the stitches and how pretty they are.

I started another knitting project with a yarn I have had for at least two years when I bought six skeins of it because I loved it so much.  I made a couple of items with it in 2016.  I made a knitted neck warmer and a crocheted scarf with it and now I need a hat to complete the set.  This is Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable yarn in the Cappuccino colorway.  It's so soft and pretty.  To use up this yarn I decided to make my go to hat pattern "The Boyfriend Hat" by Stephanie Nicole.  The pattern link is here.  I'm going to use up the last four skeins of this yarn on this hat so I'm knitting this with double strands and I will knit this hat until it's gone so this will be a stocking cap style hat.

Planning Another Quilt Top

     Uh-oh.  I went on the Connecting Threads website again and found some fabric that I just love.  I thought that these fabric would make a very pretty pinwheel quilt.  They were on sale for $3.56 a yard.  I couldn't resist.  I purchased a yard of each of these.

   I also bought 3 yards of the same fabric in white.  The white was not on sale but it still was a very good price at $5.96 a yard.  All of the fabric plus shipping was $37.11.  Not bad for a quilt top.

 

Incoming Fabric

    As usual, while I'm working on quilt tops I get the itch to plan for future quilt tops.  Today I went shopping and I couldn't resist buying some pre-cuts.  I bought a layer cake of assorted floral shabby chic fabrics from an ebay seller and a jelly roll of Lizzie's Legacy fabrics from Green Fairy Quilts.

   This layer cake will have 48 - 10" floral squares in it and I will add one more 10" square of one of my stash fabrics so I can make a 7 block x 7 row quilt top.

   Here's a picture of the fabrics:

   The jelly roll is a collection of 40 - 2.5" x 44" strips from the Lizzie's Legacy collection by Betsy Chutchian for Moda Fabrics.  I love the soft colors and the old fashioned prints in this collection.  I will be making a jelly roll race quilt with this.  I plan on adding a solid square in between each strip to give the top some interest.

   Time to get back to my scrappy string quilt blocks.

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.

Pretty Fabric To Enhance My Stash

   I received these four pieces of fabric in the mail yesterday and this morning I hand washed them and threw them in the dryer so I could add them to my stash.  So pretty.

Floral Square QuiltTop Is Assembled

 

  After making all the little odds and ends that I finished in the last couple of weeks, I finally got this top together.  It's about 56" x 56", there are 100  5" floral squares framed by 1.5" green floral tone on tone fabric.  

 

I found that as random as I tried to be putting my squares together, I still had a problem putting the rows together.  I found these three pink blocks hanging out together.  I won't be taking any of this apart to separate them since this quilt is just for me.

   I've ordered the batting for this quilt and I'm going to start working on piecing my backing together in the next few days.  

Floral Squares

      I've started a new quilt top with fabric I bought in January.  I posted about my fabric purchase on January 22, 2015.  I bought the fat quarters of the floral, then I realized that wouldn't be enough material, so I bought some charm squares to make sure I had enough fabric.  The floral fabric is from the Roses & Chocolate line from Sentimental Studios.  The 5" squares are framed with 1 1/2" strips of this beautiful olive green fabric I found at Marshall Dry Goods, it's 108" backing fabric.  I'll be using 100 squares for this top.  I have 17 made so far.  I'll be placing these squares on point for my quilt top.

New Fun Fabrics Coming Out

 
   This is one of the fabrics from the Time With Friends line by Lynette Anderson.  Those doggies and kitties are super cute.  I love Lynette Anderson's designs.  I have her book, "It's Quilting Cats and Dogs" and although I haven't made anything from the book, I love looking at it and dreaming.

    This is Elizabeth by Tula Pink.  I pre-ordered a yard of this (this is the tart colorway) from an etsy store this morning.  So pretty and so pink.  It also comes in sky colorway and plum colorway.

Pretty Tools Make Me Happy !

     I love a good, sharp seam ripper.  Today I found and bought a beautiful wood handled seam ripper at this etsy shop.  These hand carved colored wood handles are super cool.  I have one seam ripper with a hand carved handle that my daughter bought for me a couple of years ago that is the sharpest seam ripper I have ever had.  I try not to use it too much because I want it to last forever.  This seller carves the handles and injects them with color resin for a pretty look.  His shop is full of pretty tools and accessories.  I love that he also carves beautiful handles for awls and crochet hooks as well as carving the entire crochet hook.  I wish I could buy them all.

I Need To Make Vinyl Pouches

      I found this fun tutorial on how to make a clear vinyl pouch.  It's so super simple it's ridiculous which is good because I need simple sometimes.  The writer even gives you a tip on how to sew vinyl.  It's gets sticky when you sew it, so you put scotch tape on the bottom of your presser foot and on each side of the feed dogs on the needle plate.  I'm planning on making some and incorporating some of the pretty fabric I purchased recently.  This will be a fun project.  These would make a nice birthday gift for a certain boss.

   The link for the vinyl pouch is here.

New Fabrics On The Way.

   I can't stop adding projects to my crafting to do list.  I'm always finding another pattern or some pretty fabric that has to be added to my list.  I just placed three different fabric orders in three days.   I'm starting to dig on the pre-cuts lately.  I bought that layer cake for my Christmas quilt and I just bought two sets of fat quarters.  I still buy yardage, but when I buy pre-cuts, there isn't a lot of leftover fabric, which can be a good thing, if you don't have a lot of space to store it.

   I bought these fat quarters, Roses and Chocolate by Moda from an etsy seller.  I fell in love with this line a couple of weeks ago, so I knew I was going to get some of this line at some point.

   I bought a couple of yards of this green backing fabric from Marshall's Dry Goods to go with the Roses and Chocolate fat quarters.  This is 108" backing fabric.

I found these fat quarters on sale.  This is Far Far Away by Heather Ross, purchased from an Etsy seller.  I may use this fabric to make a holder for my circular knitting needles.  My circular knitting needles need a home.

   I'm revising my crafting to do list, but it's hard to get things in the order I want to make them because I want to make everything RIGHT NOW.  

Pretty In Pink Quilt Finished

   

 I just finished hand sewing the binding on the back of the quilt and I'm calling it done.  It's not perfect, none of my projects are, but it's perfect for me.  This is the front and a close up of the back showing the blocks I pieced into the center of it.  My Bernina walking foot worked great. The stitching was easy and the stitches were very nice.

   Now on to other projects.  I have to do a few small ones before I start my Christmas quilt.  I have to make my ironing board cover, sewing machine covers, pillowcases for my bed, and the harness for the dog in blue.  I have more but I can't remember them all right now.  And I want to play with the embroidery machine next weekend.  Plenty of sewing and crafts to keep me busy in the new year.

    See you soon.

Update On Pretty In Pink Quilt.

   I finished trimming and ironing the rows on Tuesday night and I just finished sewing the rows together.   Here it is.

       Next week I will iron and piece my already washed solid light pink backing/binding fabric.  I'm going to piece in some blocks from the tops across the back to give it some interest.

       I still have to buy a batt for this quilt project.  I'm going to do some on line shopping for that after the first of January.  My local stores do not carry Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting (my favorite) so I always have to buy them on-line.  I usually order from the Connecting Threads website.  They seem to have the best prices even with shipping charges.

Pretty In Pink Quilt Update

   All the 9 patch blocks are made.  I made 34 nine patch blocks using 3 inch strips for this quilt top.  They will be alternated with solid blocks of the white on white rose print fabric.  I love, love, love the green center on these.  I'm really glad I did that.  I still have to iron and cut the blocks for the solid blocks.  The 9 patch blocks have been ironed and trimmed.

Flannel Purchased for Quick Blanket

    I need one more blanket that I can take from bedroom to living room so I went searching for some flannel.  I found lots of cute flannel on sale, but these panels really caught my eye.  I just purchased 6 of them to make a nice big, quick blanket.  The panels are 24" x 43/45", so three on each side for a double sided blanket will be perfect.  I love the applique look on it.  So pretty.  Five seams and one round of top stitching and I'll be done.  I can fit this project in one evening when I don't feel like working on the pink quilt.

***Edited to update on this project.  I received the flannel on December 18th and it came all in one big piece so all I had to do was wash it, fold it in half (right sides together) and sew up the two long seams and part of the short seam, turn it right side out and top stitch all around.  It took me about an hour to do the sewing.  So easy and it's really pretty fabric.