My Blue Jean Purse

  So I finally sewed up the blue jeans purse that I cut out from the legs of the blue jeans I bought to make my garden apron.  I found lots of youtube video tutorials on how to make a blue jeans purse.  I needed one that I could use my leg fabric and the one I found was perfect.  I love the shape of this one.

  Here is the link to the tutorial:  blue jeans purse.  The maker does not speak English so I watched it through to see if I could follow it.  The maker placed written notes in strategic places when they were making the pattern and after that it was easy to follow the video showing the cutting of the pieces and sewing up of the bag.  It's a 13 minutes video but it's really done very well.  It took me 3 hours to make the purse from making the pattern to the last stitch.  

   Here is my purse.  Blue jeans with navy blue gingham lining.  I love it.

  Next up I have to finish quilting my Grandmother Flower Garden quilt.

  I pulled out the fabric for my next quilt (purchased over a year ago) that I want to start.  I do that to give myself incentive to finish my current project.  I an incapable of working on more than one quilt at a time.  I will work on smaller projects while working on a quilt but I won't have more than one quilt on the go at one time.  I don't have the brain capacity for lots of quilt projects.

From T-shirt To A Great Fitting Hairband

I love this hairband and it's so easy to make.  Here's the LINK to the video tutorial on youtube.  This hairband doesn't take that long to make and it looks great and fits even better.  I had an old black t-shirt and make this one in about an hour (maybe less).  I don't use the glue gun to secure all the ends and attach the cover, I sew it by hand.  I just think that sewing it makes it more secure.  I don't trust glue on fabric that I want to wear.

My Favorite Tutorial For Joining My Binding Ends

   I wanted to share my favorite youtube video tutorial for joining my binding ends.  It's really simple and it works every time I use it.

    In case you can't get it to play from my post, here is the link here.

One Last Halloween Decoration

    I've been waiting a couple of months to make this witch hat.  I found this tutorial back in the beginning of August, but I had to wait to make it because dear daughter wanted to make one too.  We had to coordinate our fabric buying trip and our sewing day.  We finally got the hats made today.  I love this project.  It was really simple to make  and lots of fun to decorate.  I used the tutorial you find HERE.

    Here is the hat I made.

Secret Sewing Is Done, On To Selfish Sewing And Making

     I can't believe it's August already.  This year is flying by.  I've only made one trip to the beach this summer so my summer season has not been filled with fun and excitement, just working and doing regular household and life maintenance.   I am trying to schedule more beach day trips before the end of September.

    I'm so glad that I I finished five secret sewing projects last week for dear daughter's birthday in November.  It's hard for me to do secret sewing because I can't share it on social media until after it is gifted.

     My selfish sewing projects start with this adorable snow family fabric.  I found this at JoAnn's a couple of years ago and I made some hanging dishtowels with it to give away to my Christmas day hostess.  I have been wanting more of this fabric ever since.

    I found the snow family fabric again last weekend and had to buy it.   I made this quilted pillow with a whole cloth piece of the cute snow family fabric so I could see all the little family members.  I especially love the kitty and doggy in this print.  I cut the fabric a little bigger than my sixteen inch pillow form to allow for the quilting and I cross hatch quilted the top piece with a scrap of 80/20 Heirloom batting and a white muslin backing.  Then I joined this quilted top to an envelope backing.  It was really simple and I love it.

   The front of the pillow.

   The back of the pillow.

   Close up of snow kitty with a redbird on its head.

    I found another YouTube pieced pillow cover tutorial that I just love.  I have purchased red and green Christmas fabric to make one for me.  Here is a link to the tutorial:   quilted pillow cover tutorial.  This tutorial is really well done and I used the dimensions to make the whole cloth pillow cover that I made above.

    I still have to make the tote bags from my Hawaii souvenir fabric and that fabric is sitting on my ironing board waiting patiently.

    There is one more Christmas decoration that I want to make.  I have a crochet angel dishcloth pattern that I want to experiment with by making the pattern with worsted white cotton yarn combined with silver crochet size 10 thread.  I want to make a couple for me and a couple for dear daughter for Christmas decorations.  I'll have to see how the first one turns out before I commit to making four.  LOL.

    I have knit 24 dishcloths since the beginning of the year.  I am finished with knitting dishcloths for awhile.  I have plenty to give to dear daughter and keep for me.  I still have to get back to my hexagon quilt top and my crochet blankets that I started.

Time To Think About Christmas Sewing and Making

    It's never too early to think about Christmas decorations.  I'm probably going to start my Christmas ornament making next month.   

     This is a quick post to give you a link to a video tutorial on how to make a cute snowman Christmas ornament.  I watch a knitting podcast on youtube called Craft House Magic.  Ellie has a video on how to hand sew an adorable snowman Christmas ornament.  She even provides viewers with a .pdf template for the shape of the snowman.  Which is great because I can't draw.   Her tutorial is wonderful, she shows you exactly how to make the whole ornament in a 24 minute video.  I have some white wool felt on order to make several of these lovelies for family and friends.

    Here's the link to the video:     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZQ-HVBhHLA

     Have fun.

My First Successful Serger Project

    I made my first headbands.  I bought a yard of pretty floral knit jersey (along with several other knit jersey prints) from Fabric.com.  I made three headbands and I have enough fabric left over to make a couple of scarves with this material, which I'm going to make up after I finish making my headbands up.  I used the Crafty Gemini video tutorial make up these headbands or turbands as she calls them.  The tutorial is here.

Crochet Hearts for Valentine's Day.

   I found a crochet tutorial on youtube that I really like to make pretty hearts.  The tutorial is easy to follow as well.  It takes about 22 minutes to make a heart using the tutorial.  Here's a link to the tutorial I used:  Crochet Heart Video Tutorial

     You can use any weight yarn or thread and a hook size to match the material.  I used some pink Red Heart Acrylic yarn that I had leftover from a previous project (worsted weight) with a size G crochet hook.

    I think these hearts would be pretty with a picot edge.

Another Crochet Project With Colorful Yarn

    Here is another yarn I had a hard time finding the right pattern for.  It is a 70% superwash wool, 30% nylon blend called Chroma from Knitpicks.com.  I bought this yarn in 2011 when I was a new knitter and I fell in love with the colorway called Midwinter.  It's a blend of dark blue, gray and purple.  I have two skeins of fingering weight.  It also comes in a worsted weight and I made my crocheted earwarmer with two skeins of worsted weight in this colorway.

   So I settled on the feather and fan pattern to make a scarf and I tried to knit it but I get frustrated knitting so I switched to a crochet pattern.  There are lots of feather and fan patterns available for free on the Internet.  The free crochet pattern I am using is available on Ravelry (membership is free) or you can go to you tube and find a how to video here.

   I'm using a size I (5.5 mm) crochet hook, which is a larger hook than what is recommended for this yarn, because I want a lacy look and the larger hook is working.

   Here is a picture of what I have done so far.

    I'm planning to use both skeins of yarn on this scarf and I'm about half way through the first skein.

 

Tea Dyeing Doilies

   I made a couple of small doilies from this pattern which also comes with a lovely comprehensive video of how to make the entire doily that you can view on youtube.  The pattern is free and so is the video.

   I made two of these over the last couple of days.  It took me about 1.5 hours to finish each one, it's quicker for me to crochet if I just read the pattern, watching the video seems to take me longer.

 

   I crocheted these in white size 10 crochet cotton thread and I used a size 0 (3.25mm) steel crochet hook.  The hook was a little too big for the crochet cotton, but I was trying to make the doily a little bigger and I think the larger hook help.

   When I tea dyed them, I steeped 6 tea bags in about 1.5 quarts of boiling water in a large Pyrex mixing bowl in my kitchen sink.  I left the tea bags in the water for about 20 minutes.  I took the tea bags out of the water and put my doilies in and let them sit for 1 hour 20 minutes.  You are supposed to wet your item before you put it in the tea bath, but I forget to do that.

   This is my result.  They are a lovely beige/ecru color and I don't think I could ever find thread in this particular colorway so I'm very happy with these doilies.

 

My First Proper Round Doily

   I used the videos by Crochet Jewel on Youtube, link here.  This was an easy project and it came out so pretty.  I love doilies.

Crochet, Crochet Thread, And A Doily Video Tutorial

   I think I love youtube.  I was browsing through youtube the other day and I found a tutorial on how to crochet a doily from start to finish.  I found this last week when I was making my braided ear warmers.

   I love crochet but I have never actually crocheted a doily because the instructions just seemed so complicated, but I think I can follow along with a video to get this done.

    Here is the link to the first part of the doily instruction video (there are three parts), the other two parts will show up on the right hand side of your screen for you to click when you are ready for them.

    I have a set of steel crochet hooks and I'll be using a size 1.65 mm hook to make the doily and I bought some crochet thread for this project.  I bought two 1,000 yard skeins of Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet Thread Size 10 from Amazon.  Each skein was $6.40.

   Before I start the doily project I wanted to get used to using a small hook again so I started a granny square using the thread and a 2.25 mm hook.  I enjoy crocheting granny squares and this will make a nice doily when I get it to a decent size.

Four More Fabric Trees

   I finished making the last four fabric trees I wanted.  The gray flannel trees are winter and Christmas decorations.  I made one for me and one for dear daughter.  I made the pink and blue trees as room decorations just for me.  These were fun to make.  The link to the video tutorial by Debbie Shore is here.

Found: Fun Video Quilt Block Tutorials

   I have been enjoying the video tutorials on 3and3quarters.net blog by Amanda.  I watched several yesterday.

   I love the foundation paper piecing tutorial on the friendship circle block, link here.  She does a great job explaining foundation paper piecing and showed me a few tips I had never seen before.

   Another video tutorial I watched was her instruction on the morning star block, which is one of the blocks in her HST sampler quilt.  The link to that blog post and video tutorial is here.

  Thanks, Amanda for the inspiration.

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.

   

Teddy Bears and Rag Dolls

       I have a teddy bear making supply stash.  Here is mohair to make 4 bears and also disks for joints for those bears.

I bought this mohair about 13 years ago and every time I see it I think about making bears and then I move on to something else.  I like making teddy bears, it's fun.  These mohair fat quarters are just enough material to make this bear:

    Thinking about bears got me to thinking about rag dolls.  I was looking at rag doll patterns on etsy the other day and I found a couple of indie patterns that I liked, but then I found this McCalls pattern that I loved because it includes a doll, a cat, a bear, a bunny, Uncle Sam, and clothes to cover them.  This is perfect for me.   I also found a cool YouTube video series that shows how to sew a rag doll, paint the face and make the hair from yarn.  I probably won't be painting the face, but I will try my hand at embroidering the face.  Rag dolls will be fun.

   I

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

One My Favorite Cutting Tools

      It's my ergonomic handle rotary cutter from Martelli's.  I bought one of these rotary cutters a couple of years ago and I fell in love.  These rotary cutters come 45 mm and 60 mm sizes and in right hand and left hand models, which is kind of cool.  The company even has a video on it's website on how to hold it.  The demonstration on that video is pretty amazing because he cuts layers and layers of fabric.

   Here's the link to the website so you can see what I'm talking about.  Link to the Martelli rotary cutter page is here.

  Oh, and I just ordered a second one for my sewing room.  While I'm thinking about rotary cutter, I've resolved to change the blade more frequently so my cutting might be more accurate (and goodness knows I need all the help I can get).\

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.