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.  

Jute Twine Crocheted Stars

   So I made seven of the white cotton stars (that's all I could get from one 120 yard skein of Peaches and Crème Cotton) and I took them to dear daughter's home and we ended up making a garland to put on her china cabinet in her dining room.  She added some battery operated fairy lights to it and  loves it.

   I am now making seven more stars in jute twine to make another garland to layer with the white star garland.

    This is what they look like in jute twine.

Breaking Out My Crochet Hook

Saw a crocheted star that I had to have.  Used my size H hook and some Peaches and Cream white cotton yarn.  Used the tutorial here.  Each star took about 15 to 18 minutes.  This was a fun easy project.  I'm going to make more.  Of course these will go to dear daughter for her Christmas tree.

I Made A Quilted Christmas Table Runner

   I have been planning this table runner all year.  I made this one for my dear daughter.  I am going to make a second one for me. 

    Trying to find the best block to use in this table runner took me almost all year.  I knew I wanted to use solid pieces of the pretty Makower fabric alternating it with a pieced star block, I just couldn't find one a block I was in love with.  I finally found a block in one of my Civil War quilting books.  I found the New England block in "Civil War Sampler" by Barbara Brackman.

     Here is a picture of the runner out.  It's 84 inches long and 12" wide.

    I think the New England block looks like a Christmas gift wrapped up and it still has star points.  I love it.  The book only includes cutting instructions, so I was careful with my piecing.

    Here are the individual blocks up close.

 

A Quilted St. Patrick's Day Decoration

   I'm calling these St. Patrick's Day Stars.  I made these small wall hangings in green, orange and white for me and DD.  We love to decorate a little bit for the holidays and I like to make her little things to put around her house with the holiday color.

    I used a free paper piecing star pattern from the Carol Doak website.  The link is here.  It's the star pattern that is called Introduction to Paper Piecing and it's about half way down the page.  I've used this free pattern before I love it.  With the borders and binding they measure appoximately 13" x 13" square.  I gathered my fabrics for this project right after Christmas.

    These were fun to make and DD loves it.

Easy Christmas Tree Decorations

    I found these cute Christmas tree ornaments on Facebook and made three to give to my dear daughter.  Here is the link to a similar tutorial made with scrap ribbon.  Link to fabric Christmas trees. 

     I made mine a little different.  I used a dowel that I cut up into three different sizes.  I filed the ends of each piece to round off the edges caused by the cutting.  I painted the dowel stick, then I cut up 1.5" wide strips of fabric into 8" long pieces and I also used some green ribbon I had.  I tied the fabric to the dowel and trimmed it into a triangle.  I found the wooden stars at Michaels and painted them with some silver glitter paint I had.  I glued the star to the top and added a piece of twine for hanging. 

    These were easy and fun to make.

Number Five. Another Finished Quilt Top.

   I have to say I love, love, love, love, love the Carpenter's Star Quilt pattern.  This quilt was so much fun to put together and I think the result is very pretty.

   I now have five quilt tops to be sandwiched, quilted, and bound.  I have the batting and I bought the backing fabric for four of them yesterday, so finishing five quilts is next on my sewing list.

 

I Finally Finished My Scrappy Big Star Shower Curtain

   I had a hard time getting a good picture because the bathroom is so small with no window and I have to keep the door shut to keep the kitties away from the toilet paper.  But here is a picture of my shower curtain that I made from my stash.  I made the first border strips 6" long and how ever wide I wanted and the second border strips were 7" long and how ever wide I wanted.  The entire shower curtain is about 77" square.  It turned out better than I thought it would.  I'd like to make another to cover the shower doors in my master bath, but with different fabrics.

Found A Quick Way To Make My Shower Curtain Quilt

   So I'm sewing along on my tote bag projects and watching videos on the computer and I found a great way to make quilty shower curtain.  I love the Big Star quilt pattern and last year I made a quilt using the pattern.  I made the stars with 10" and 5" squares.  So easy and so much fun to make.  This is a picture of the quilt top before I sandwiched it.

   So I went stash diving yesterday to find big pieces of fabrics to cut 20" squares for my shower curtain star.  My star measures 52" x 52".  I'm going to add borders to make it bigger.  I want it to measure  at least 68 x 68".  To finish it I will add a backing fabric, do some straight line quilting, and put 12 buttonholes at the top to hang it.  Not a good picture, but it's not finished yet.  

   I finished all my tote bags.  I made four of them.  Super fun and really useful.  It was kind of hard for me to get a picture of all of them together.  Now I have some tote bags that match my bedroom curtains.  Fun stuff.

     

   I also finished my potholders that will be my hostess gift for Thanksgiving dinner.

  

    

Disappearing Hourglass Blocks Done And The Rest Of The Quilt Is Planned

  I have 41 black and white disappearing hourglass blocks done.  All pressed and ready to sash and set into a finished top.  I'm planning a top with 5 blocks x 7 blocks.  The rest of the blocks will go into the back.

   I also finally decided on the material for the back.  I bought a solid light royal blue by American Made Brand.

    That material will go nicely with the blue starry material I'm using for the binding and cornerstones.

   This top and back will be fun to put together.

New Chapter, New Project

    My life has changed in the last couple of months.  I left my job of 27 years and I'm taking some time off before I look for work.  I've been thinking about what I want to do for the rest of my life and taking care of some things around the house.  It has been very nice.

      Last year I purchased a low end DSLR  camera and I've just gotten around to taking it out and trying it out.  I took pictures of some of the flowers in my yard.  I have lots of knock out rose plants, drift rose plants, and marigolds in pots. The last picture is of the yellow knock out rose and the fragrance on those yellow blooms is amazing.

    I have started a new quilt top.  I'm making a disappearing hourglass in black and white.  The black fabric is actually a polka dot which I love.  You can get a great video tutorial on the pattern from Missouri Star Quilt Company on youtube at this link.   I love the MSQC video tutorials, they are so much fun.  Here is a picture of my first wonky block.  My measuring and cutting needs some work to get this block to look nice.  I'll be more careful with the rest.

   The work on the quilt top is going slowly, but I'll have more to share soon.

   

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!"

My Barn Quilt - - - How I Made It and Why I Won't Be Making Another

   But, I made myself a barn quilt.  I'm not going to hang it anywhere but I am going to set it on the deck so I can see it from the sliding glass door in my dining room.  My barn quilt started as a almost 2' x 2' piece of plywood I purchased in 2013 for this project.  I finally bought the other materials to finish this on February 9, 2015.  I bought wood glue to seal the edges, a quart of grey exterior paint and a quart of bright purple exterior paint for the design; a quart of latex primer, a good paint brush, and a quart of Spar varnish to finish it.

   This project is really messy and I thought about fixing the messy areas and I even thought about re-painting the entire thing with a different block and different colors.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm going to leave this as is and let this serve as a reminder to me that I hate to paint and I'm not a good painter.  I think one of the worst parts of painting is letting one coat dry so you can paint the second coat.  Boring!

On Saturday, February 14, 2015, I sealed the edges with wood glue, sanding the edges after they were dry.  I painted one coat of primer on all sides of the board and gave it a light sand.

On Sunday, February 15, 2015, I painted two more coats of primer on all sides of the board, sanding after each coat was dry and I drew my hunter's star pattern on the wood.

On Sunday, February 22, 2015.  I painted all the grey sections with two coats of paint.  Then I started putting down my painter's tape in some of the purple sections to paint them.  I gave about 4 purple sections two coats of paint.

On Monday, February 23, 2015.  I took all the old painter's tape off the piece and put more on the purple sections that needed painting.  I gave each of these sections two coats of purple paint.

On Tuesday, February 24, 2015.  I took all the old painter's tape off the piece and put more on the purple sections that needed painting.  I gave each of these sections two coats of purple paint.

On Wednesday, February 25, 2015.  I took all the old painter's tape off the piece and put more on the purple sections that needed painting.  I gave each of these sections two coats of purple paint

Today, Saturday, February 28, 2015, I will paint the back and the sides with two coats of grey paint.

Tomorrow, Sunday, March 1, 2015, I will give the piece two coats of varnish with a light sand in between each coat.

Here it is:

 

I'm Going To Paint A Barn Quilt

   I don't have a barn to hang it on, but I'm going to make myself a barn quilt to put on my deck right outside the sliding glass door in my dining room.

   I have been wanting to make one of these for a couple of years and two years ago I bought the a 24" square piece of wood for this project, but I never went any further with it.  Today I went to Lowe's and bought all the rest of my supplies to finish this project. This is what I bought today:

    1.  Wood glue to seal the edges of the wood.

    2.  A quart of latex primer.

    3.  A paint brush.

    4.  A quart of purple paint (should have bought an 8 oz. sample instead).

    5.  A quart of light grey paint (should have bought an 8 oz. sample instead).

    6.  A quart of varnish.

    I already have the piece of wood and I have painter's tape.

    I'm going to use the hunter star block for my barn quilt.  It will be a light grey and dark purple.  I never bought paint before and I should have bought 8 oz. samples of each paint color instead of the quart of each paint color I did buy.  I'm going to have a ton of paint leftover.  Ugh.

Here's the hunter's star block.

 

   This will be fun.

How To Quilting/Sewing/Crafting Videos on You Tube

 

     I love to watch youtube sewing/crafting/quilting videos.  I just found some quilting videos posted by the Fat Quarter Shop.  I'm sharing a link to a video on how to make the eight pointed star.  I love the eight pointed star block and I've only been able to make it using half square triangles which looks fine, but I really wanted to learn how to make it the right way.  I'm going to be trying this out in the near future.

   So here is the link to the video with Edyta Sitar making the eight pointed star block.


    Link To Video Tutorial On Eight Pointed Star Block

Sunday and Monday - Making Pillow Cases Days

      Last year I made some pillow cases for my room, but they weren't exactly what I wanted.  I settled for using fabric I could afford and some stash fabric.  I've been waiting a whole year to fix those pillow cases.  This time I used Slipper Roses in Pink from the Tanya Whelan line.  This is some of the same fabric I put in the Pretty In Pink Irish Chain quilt I finished a couple of weeks ago.  I love this fabric with the roses, the hint of green and the pink, ah, the pink.  I made four pillow cases using the youtube video tutorial by Jenny Doan at Missouri Star Quilt Company.  Here's a link to her excellent video.  I didn't use a contrasting fabric for the end of the pillow case but I did use a pink gingham (leftover from the quilt) for the two inch decorative flange and I finished my seams with a french seam because they are so cool to make and make these pillow cases perfect.

   Here is the finished product.

 

    Gingham flange.

    French seam make a really neat finish.

   I received the pink yarn for my fluffy afghan and I started it the other night.  So P.I.N.K.  Love it.

    Here is the start of the afghan.

   I was not able to return the embroidery software I purchased that I can't use, the on line store has a policy about not accepting returns on software, but I was able to sell it for a reduced price and get some of my money back and at least someone else will be able to use it.

   I'm in the process of sewing together my charm squares for my Christmas quilt and sandwiching the Union Jack block for quilting.

 

Cat Pillow Done and Another Project Started

I finished the cat pillow today.  I had to dog sit my granddog at my home this weekend.  He is an American Bulldog and he always scares my kitties, so I have to stay with him the entire time he is in my home.  Yesterday I spent my day  setting up my new computer and today I finished one sewing project and started a new one.

This is the fabric before I turned it into a pillow cover.

And this is the front of the finished pillow.  I made the pillow envelope style.  It was really easy once I got the fabric made.  I put a muslin back on the fabric and I sewed the fabric to the muslin for stability.  The muslin also gave the fabric a lot of body.

I started my patriotic door decoration for next summer.  It's a simple star, 10" squares made into half square triangles that is super easy to make.

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I have the rows put together now and the backing is sewn to it.  I didn't put any batting in it, but I am going to bind it with top with the back and I'm using the blue fabric to bind it.

I should have the binding done in a couple of days and I'll share the finish with you.