Search This Blog

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Solids Yellow Brick Road Quilt

 

Solids allow Brick Road Quilt

     A fun quilt to make is the Yellow Brick Road quilt.  For the lap size, it uses 12 fat quarters plus 2 yards for the border and binding.  I found a fun solid Fat Stack and a matching print at Patched Works in October of 2019.  

Cornerstone

     I used the extra blocks for cornerstones in the border and the final one I used to make my label.  I did cut the borders so the the 'diamonds' were all going in the same direction.

Block

     Joni increased the density of the stitching pattern I chose to really highlight the pattern.  I really like how it adds so much to the quilt with all the solid fabrics.

Label

     The backing fabric is flannel from JoAnn Fabrics.  I will definitely be making another quilt from this pattern one day. 

Backing


Wednesday, May 18, 2022

A Pair of Purple Pillowcases

 

A pair of purple pillowcases


     A set of pillowcases that I had made for our bed many years ago was starting to fray around the edges plus also the fabric was splitting in the middle of the pillowcase.  It was time for new pillowcases.

Stitching the design

     What really spurred me to do this was a sale on some fun designs at Embroidery Library.  For my husband's pillowcase I chose 'If you love me, let me sleep'.  For my pillowcase I chose 'Steal my heart, not my blankets'.  

Let me sleep

     I went to JoAnn Fabrics to buy the fabric as they had a sale going on.  Unfortunately they did not have any white Kona cotton, my standard for nice pillowcase fabric.  I wound up buying the lavender instead.  Then I found a fun piece of fabric for the accent strip.  I pulled out the aqua color for doing the stitching.  I hooped sticky stabilizer in my largest hoop and stitched out the designs.  Then I sewed up the pillowcases using the hotdog method that I have used to make all of my grandkids' pillowcases.

Steal my heart

     In a couple of hours I had brand new pillowcases without any holes.


Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Grommet Pillow

 

Grommet pillow

     I had seen a pillow with grommets on Pinterest.  I decided I wanted to try to make one myself.  The fabrics were in my stash from previous projects.  The grommets I bought from Home Sewing Depot.  They are plastic but look like wood.

Testing the grommet

     I knew that I needed to add some body to the accent strip piece so that the grommets would not come off.  I backed the fabric with a fusible stabilizer from Rowley Company.  After doing a test, I found the grommet would still unlock so it could come off.  I asked on Facebook about a solution.  Some suggested I use buckram like they use in drapery panels.  The problem was I didn't want it that stiff.  I decided to just use Rowley's fringe adhesive when I applied the grommets.  That seemed to do the trick.

Accent strip

      I knew I wanted the grommets to be a prominent feature on the pillow so I needed to make a larger sized pillow.  I used a 27" x 27" pillow form.  I made the accent strip wide enough to accommodate the grommets but not so wide as to overwhelm the pillow front.  I figured out my spacing, keeping the top and bottom grommets slightly further from the edge than the space in-between.  This made sure that those grommets were not lost on the top or bottom.  Since I was going to cut away the fabric and the edge would be under the grommet, I just used a regular ink pen to draw my circles.  

Stripes behind the grommets

     I played around a little with the placement of the accent strip.  I liked it best when the stripes of the fabric were centered in the grommet opening.  I topstitched the strip in place with contrasting thread, mimicking the stripes of the fabric.

Top of pillow

     I cut the back to match the front.  The covered cord was made from the same fabric as the accent strip.  I made sure the zipper placket also lined up.

Bottom of pillow

     This was a fun sample to make.  Let me know if I can make some fun pillows for you also.

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

Cosmetic Bags

 

Two cosmetic bags

     I had a fun time making these two cosmetic bags.  I bought a kit from Patched Works that included pre-sewn white zippers and printed batting for two bags.  I bought these in March of 2021 and I chose white as I wasn't sure what fabrics I was going to use.

Old kimonos

     When I was ready to work on the bags, I was searching through my stash and found a bag of old kimonos that I had bought by the pound many years ago.  There were five different kimonos and the pattern called for six different fabrics.  I found a piece of 'sequined' fabric in my stash that matched so now I had my six different fabrics.  At first I was only going to take apart the kimonos just enough to get what I needed for the bags.  After starting I then decided to deconstruct all the kimonos completely, thus having the fabric available for future projects.  That took a couple of weeks to rip out all the seams and press all the pieces.

Kit with pre-sewn zippers


Printed batting

     Following the directions I cut the sized pieces I needed.  I used the lining of one of the kimonos for the lining of the bags.  Even though it warned about not pressing until all sewing was completed, I did press out the wrinkles from the batting.  For the first piece I did forget to stitch around the outline to secure the lining in place, it made the last step harder.

Sewing on the pieces


      Then came the fun of sewing the pieces/strips on, it was similar to paper piecing but here your pieces were cut to the exact size needed and you sewed with a 1/4" seam allowance instead of on the line.  I did opt to do some embroidery on one of the pieces from the larger bag.  After the final outline and trimming, I did use an overcast stitch on my sewing machine to finish off the edges. On the smaller bag I used some ribbon from my stash and a decorative stitch at the bottom of the zipper piece.  For the larger bag, I chose to use a decorative stitch to sew on the zipper piece.  Unfortunately my machine skipped stitches occasionally so it didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped.  Guess the machine needs to go in for some TLC.

  
Small bag

     This was a fun project that I wouldn't mind doing again.  It is a good way to use up small pieces of leftover fabrics.

Large bag