Farm Aprons , Patriotic Pennants, Vinyl Front Cross Stitch Project Bags, and Secret Sewing

            I finished the farm aprons that I have been wanting to make since I found this duck fabric in my stash.  The instructions from Cosmopolitan Cornbread blog were very good and I was able to get two aprons cut out in less than an hour.  The ironing, hemming and sewing for each apron took about an hour.  These aprons are perfect for going out into the yard to do a messy job or even in the house for a messy job.  I love the big pockets.  

       It's that time of year when I do a little secret sewing for dear daughter's birthday.  I found some lovely colorful fabric that is being turned into something useful for her.  I will show the finished product after they are gifted in November.

       I have some old curtain panels from my bedroom that will be made into tote bags for me and dear daughter.  These curtain panels make lovely tote bags.  Here is a picture of the fabric I'm using.  I have a couple of these already and I gave about 4 of the tote bags to dear daughter a few months ago.  

I've decided to make a patriotic pennant banner with some red, white, and blue fabrics in my stash.  I drew up a triangle to use as a pattern and I made a fabric string from some red, white, and blue fabric I used in my patriotic wall hanging earlier this year.  I cut the fabric for the string like a narrow binding and folded in the edges and sewed it down.  It's perfect for a banner.  I just have to make the pennants.   I want to make one for me and one for dear daughter.  I don't know if I have enough fabric to make two, but a quick trip to Joann's will fix that.  Here is a picture of the fabrics I'm using for the pennants.

        I never posted any pictures of all the clear vinyl front cross stitch project bags I made a few months ago.  These bags are not perfect  and I did not really enjoy making them, but I have to say that the instructions are super easy and they went together very quickly.  They are so much cheaper for me to make then to buy from an etsy seller.  It's a very good use of stray pieces of fabric and batting.  Each bag has a little mini vinyl front pouch to match and all have zipper pulls either made with charms by me or purchased.

New Tote Bag Finished, A Simple Christmas Decoration

I finally ironed and cut up the fabric for a tote bag from the souvenir fabric from Hawaii.  I love this beautiful purple and pink flower print.  I bought the coordinating solid canvas after I came home knowing I wanted to use it as the bottom of the tote.  I have more of the print fabric left and there will be another bag or two made with this.

I bought some Christmas cards last year to put in frames for decorations this year.  I pulled this card out and found this 5" x 7" frame at Target this morning.  Now I have another Christmas decoration.  I have some others cards that I will be framing.

Cutting Scraps

   I spent some time the last couple of days cutting up the scraps I created from the fourteen project bags I made last week.  I cut the scraps up into 3" x 3" and 2" x 3" sizes.  I ended up with a lot of little squares for a future quilt project.

   I bought myself a tote bag from the Ravelry website to help support a wonderful message board.  I love the crazy artwork on this bag.

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.

  

    

Curtains and Tote Bags

   I haven't broken out my new quilt project yet.  I want to finish up my ugly yellow cotton curtains first.  I finished the living room curtains.  You can see the bright yellow behind Merlin's head in the picture below.  They didn't turn out like I wanted, but they will do until I find something I like better. I thought the yellow would have been softer, more pale, but it is really YELLOW! and you should see it when the sun shines through in the evenings.  I have to make 6 more panels for the dining room which I will finish this week.

   Merlin is sitting on my sewing extension table for my Janome 7700.  He likes to sit there when I'm on the computer.  This morning he was concentrating on doing a mind meld with me and telling me to go into the kitchen to turn on the faucet so he can drink and get wet.  He puts the side of his face under the light stream of water and lets the water run into his mouth.  His face is all wet when he finishes.  That's the highlight of his cat day.

  After I finish the dining room curtains, I'm going to make four tote bags using Crafty Gemini's Must Have Tote Bag pattern.  I bought it for $3.00 from her website.  Here is a link to the pattern page.  It comes with .pdf instructions you can print out and a video.  These tote bags are super fun to make.  I have about 4 that I keep in my car for groceries and I make them for gifts as well.  The pattern calls for a thicker fabric like decorator cotton and I have some fabric leftover from my bedroom drapes that I'm using to make three of them and I also have a yard of decorator cotton that I bought in the spring to make another.

   I packed up my secret Santa package this morning to take to the post office.  Boy I wish I were getting this box.  I sent my secret pal a quilting book (It's Quilting Cats and Dogs by Lynnette Anderson), a wool pincushion I made, some pretty pearl topped pins, 4 - 1/2 yard cuts of fall fabric, 4 1/2 yard cuts of Christmas fabric, 5 colorful fat quarters, a spool of thread, buttons, ribbon, cat charms, a pocket calendar, a journal, a pack of post it notes, a small Boyds Bear, a Christmas kitchen towel set, and the cute scrappy Christmas stocking I made.  This package has to go all the way to Western Australia.  I hope it gets there okay.

Making Tote Bags

       I have Crafty Gemini's Must Have Tote Bag pattern.  It's a great pattern.  You take one yard of decorator cotton and about an hour and a half and you have a super gift for a co-worker.  This time I did something a little different with my gift tote bag, I dressed it up with a pretty embroidery on the pocket.  The embroidery was done with my embroidery machine (I bought the pattern from Embroidery Library) and it was super simple to add to the pocket.  When I learn how to embroider monograms I can start using monograms on the tote bags.

    These tote bags are a great size and are very durable.  I have about three that I made about three years ago and they are still going strong.  The side and bottom seams are finished with french seams and the edges of the pocket are enclosed as well as the edges of the straps so there is no fraying anywhere on your tote bag.


    My gift tote bag for a birthday.

I made an extra one to have on hand.

   I'm currently working on my barn quilt.  I've come to the conclusion that I am not a painter.  I hate waiting for paint to dry.  I should have the varnish on it by Sunday.