Thanksgiving Projects

I took Thanksgiving break to take care of some crafty projects I had been wanting to do.

First, remember when I said I wanted new stockings?

Well, I ended up just taking A to the fabric store and let him pick his fabric. I still don't like how goofy and kid-like they are, but at least they are new, the same size, and kind of match.


His


Mine

We also put up and decorated the tree.


AND, I made a new wreath for the front door. I've been obsessed with yarn wreathes, so I did one of those. It isn't perfect, but I think it came out well for my first try.

I'll probably make more for year-round use.

Currently, I NEED to get busy on two gift quilts for Christmas. I'm also making an ornament for an exchange with some of my imaginary internet friends.

I hope all of your holidays are starting off well!

Baste, Quilt, and Bind

I did it! I finished a real quilt. It's small (roughly 36x36) so I'll use it as a lap quilt while I'm watching TV and stuff. I guess I can also take it to outdoor activities. It isn't perfect, but I really am pretty proud of myself.

Here is a picture of the back.


And here is the front.


Clearly I should have ironed it, but there you have it. Go me. :)

Who wants to be crafty?

It's been a while since I pulled out my sewing stuff, but this weekend I had some time and no desire to grade or write college recs. Therefore I spent a lovely fall weekend crafting.

I made some very cute Halloween napkins. I have no idea why as I have no particular love of the holiday, but it was fun to knock out a quick project. Here's the fabric I used.

I think the little skeleton animals are cute.

I also gave a new project a try. I decided to make potholders. This was prompted by two factors. First, our potholders were totally worn out and not pretty. Second, one of Mary's relatives had made some at her shower and I thought it would be a fun little skill to have in my repertoire.

Here's my first go at a tutorial.


You will be cutting 9 inch squares. Here you can see one square of white cotton (the color isn't important because you won't actually see this), one square of fleece, and one square of Insulbrite. The Insulbrite is what does most of the heat blocking, but make sure the rest of the interior fabrics are all natural fibers. Polyester is very bad at insulating heat seeing as it is a plastic and all that.


You also need four 9" squares that are pressed in to half squares.


Finally, you need one square that will be your main fabric for the top of the potholder.

Next, stack the squares with the white fabric face down, followed by the fleece, followed by the Insulbrite.


Place the main fabric square face up on top of the pile. Next, you'll need to basket weave your four half squares. Place them so that the raw edge is facing out and the folded, finished edge, is towards the middle. Like this.


Then you weave the four halves together making sure you like how they are ordered.


Notice though how the edges are sticking out a little funny? Well, to make the potholder as square and straight as possible, square up your sides using scissors or a rotary cutter so that it is perfectly square.

You also want to liberally pin the layers together as they will shift when you start sewing.

Next, you'll line the edge of your potholder up with the edge of your presser foot. This gives about a 1/4" seam allowance, but more than that, your presser foot won't change size, so you know your seam will be straight.


After you sew all the way around, trim the corners and any major excess. You also need to turn the whole thing inside out using the little hole that the four fabrics make on the back.



Finally, use a wooden dowl, pencil eraser, or some sort of not too sharp stick to poke out the insides of the corners. The reason it can't be too sharp is that you don't want to poke a hole in your fabric. I've done it and it makes you sad.


At the end, you have a cute, very sturdy potholder.


I love that you can put your hand through the back to hold on to the hot dishes better.


I ended up making 4 in coordinating fabrics.


After you get your squares cut, the whole process only takes about 15 minutes. So quick, easy and practical. Yay!

More Crafting

Just to be clear, I don't like how Christmas starts in September these days. I used to love going to the mall right after Thanksgiving and seeing it transformed. Now they decorate by Halloween. Nevertheless, with my new sewing obsession, it is time to start planning my holiday crafts. I'm almost finished with my first gift (pics to come,) but I really want to make stockings. My husband has refused to give up his childhood stocking. It is literally falling apart. With that in mind, I want to make stockings for us that match/coordinate.

The tutorial I'll be using is from Diary of a Quilter. The instructions she has are for small, gift bag type stockings, but I will make bigger ones. I think I'll also add an interfacing to give them a little more structure. I worry that just cotton would get too saggy. I'll also have to add a loop to hang them. Thanks for letting me think through all that. :)

Anyway, fabric choices are obviously important. I don't think my husband is quite ready for a true grownup stocking, so I thought I'd make him a fun one. The outer fabric would be the one on the left and the inner fabric the one on the right.





What do you think? Green or red?

I'm planning to make two of these pairings with the hopes that, if we ever get pregnant, the monkey one could go to our child and my husband would be willing to have a grownup stocking.







So, which two?

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I feel the need to be crafty. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I don't ride any more and feel like I need a hobby. I know I can't knit, but I've always been interested in sewing. Recently I saw a link to an easy quilting tutorial on Diary of a Quilter. So, on a visit to my mother in Albuquerque, we decided to give it a try. Now, making a baby quilt wasn't of interest for us (yet I keep hoping,) so we decided to do a table runner.

The first thing we did was order two Charm Packs. Basically a Charm Pack is a set of 5x5 squares from a fabric manufacturer. The patterns on the fabrics are all from one line and coordinate. Doing our shopping that way meant that we didn't have to worry about figuring out scale etc. We decided to use the Chrysalis line because I liked the orange and blue. We purchased them from Crazy Quilt Girl.



The first step was to lay out the squares. Normally I buy runners and table clothes that are 72" long, so we decided to do a runner that was 3 squares wide and 15 squares long. We sorted the squares based on the size of the pattern (small, medium, large.)



Then we laid out the rows.



Then we left it there for 24 hours to make sure we still liked how it looked. :)

Our next step was to sew all the rows together and press those seams. Once the rows were assembled we could sew one row to the next.



We made sure to number the rows so we kept everything in order. At this point we realized that we hadn't accounted for seams (1/4" per square, per seam) so we added two more rows to each end.

Then we took the top to the fabric store to pick a fill and a backing fabric. We used a local store, Hip Stitch, in Albuquerque and got great help. We picked a Joel Dewberry fabric that I think pulls out some of the yellow accents from the Moda patterns.



We then ironed on the batting.



Then we sewed the backing to the top.



And there you have it!





I opted not to do the actual quilting stitches because I thought they would take away from the patterns. I do know how to do it though. Overall it was an awesome experience, and I am so excited to have someTHING to show for my hard work. (It's way more satisfying that cleaning out closets. HA!) So, if you want to try quilting, I would highly recommend the tutorial. It was easy to follow, and I had a great time.