Are you in the midst of Handmade Holiday making yet?! I am! There's a knitted blanket, a quilt, napkins and other smaller projects all taking up space on my to-do list. Among those smaller projects is this one - fabric coasters! I've already made sets for birthday gifts and a few to sell over at The Artist Place as we'll be having a Holiday Bazaar soon to help fullfill some Chirstmas shopping needs. So, I thought while I was at it I could write up a little tutorial ofr those of you that need a little easy something for gifting too! I'm not the first person to come up with this pattern, I have no idea who the original designer is, but after looking at a set of coasters my sister-in-law owns, I devised a plan...
I should also mention I got a fancy new phone and attempted to use it to photograph the steps for this post - Let's just say it wasn't my best decision ever - but I think it will work for such an easy project. At least I hope so! What you'll need:
{For a set of 4 Coasters}
2 Fat Quarters
12 - 5 inch squares of Fabric A
8 - 5 inch squares of Fabric B
4 - 4 3/4 inch squares Lightweight fusible interfacing
Sewing Supplies (scissors, iron, ruler, thread, pins, sewing machine) What you'll do:
-Fold 8 Fabric A Squares and 8 Fabric B squares corner to corner, wrong sides together, to create triangles. Iron flat. -Lay out the last 4 squares of Fabric A and iron on the fusible interfacing to the back of each square following the directions that came with your interfacing. These will be the backside/bottom of your coasters. -Turn your interfaced bottoms right side up and lay the triangles on one at a time. It doesn't matter which fabric you start with, just alternate the fabrics as you go around the square. You will use two triangles of each fabric for this. -Line the triangles up with the edges of the base as you go. -When you lay on the last square weave one end under the first triangle. -It'll look like this... -Pin your sides so they don't shift too much as you sew around your coaster. Use a generoius quarter inch seem to ensure you're catching all the edges of your layers. Sew all the way around, don't forget to backstitch. -Trim your corners, and trim up your sides if you are so inclined. -Opening the x where you overlapped all your triangles turn the coasters right side out and iron flat.
-Pat yourself on the back and go grab a cold beverage to set on your fancy new coasters because you might just want to keep them for yourself after you get done! -Then you can grab a couple more fat quarters and do it all again for gifting...Happy Coaster Making!
A doodle stitching that didn't end up as a journal cover is somewhat exciting. A new project bag to add to the inventory at The Artist Place is a good thing. Finishing a project while also doing laundry is a happy morning. Happy Monday!
Is seems like all the making going on around here recently has been quilting. I have lots of 'other' projects that I could be working on but lately the sewing machine & fabric are getting the workout. Do you have creative seasons like that? Where it seems like one medium is getting all the attention? I go through phases like this alot - sometimes embroidery is all I think about, then it switches to knitting & right now it's that crazy Q word. Here's what has been getting stitched... I had begun this quilt top a while ago intending it to be a Christmas gift for a family on my list. Then, as the fires all over Colorado raged a local quilt store, The Sewing Circle, asked for blocks & tops to make quilts for all the families that lost their homes. These quilts went from being for families in our area to going to families all over the state of Colorado. They also wanted to collect enough kid sized quilts to give one to each child - so with that heavy on my heart as I stitched the last borders on this guy I decided really it was intended for fire victims all along. Off it went on a journey to its new owner the next morning. I also got the biggest thrill when I went to pick up my new too-big-for-our-bed-quilt from the longarmer not too long ago. As soon as she started unfolding it I was snapping pictures & declaring it would be bound & in use on my bed by the end of the day. And, it was. This giant 104" x 104" square of jelly roll goodness just made my heart sing. Here's a closeup look at the fancy quilting on the backside, the sunflowers echo a design in the fabrics from Sweetwater's Hometown collection... I got stitching on that binding just as soon as we got back to my mom's house! Sleeping under that lovely blanket has been such a huge joy. Most mornings I don't want to leave the handmade nest of my bed. As you can see we had a really hard time finding a place large enough to lay it out... it covered (and then some) my mom's loveseat. Soon I'll get better photos of it laid all nice and pretty in the grass outside, but I'm reluctant to drag it off the bed! :)  Recently I've been playing with the idea of quilting words in a graphic way. I doodled some ideas in my graph paper notebook trying to figure our a simple clean way to do that. Then after rolling the idea around in my head a while one morning I just decided to try it out. With 2 inch squares I played around until I made a little Hope wall hanging.
After that lived on my wall a day or two I decided it would be cool to make it bigger, like - lap/throw sized bigger. I have a friend who has been going through some very heavy & difficult medical challenges recently & in light of wanting to just encourage her & send her some love I thought that maybe a big ol' quilted hope blanket to wrap up in might be just the thing. I pooled some help from E. who agreed to do the hand-quilting on it, and set out to expand my little hope to a big hope....
The Hope to the left is 14" x 20" & the lower one is 46" x 64".
And, I gotta say - I really like my Hope BIG! How about you?
Craft Hope's project this month was for Haiti By Hand & since I'm a big ol' fan of aprons & making & giving handmade you know I hopped right on that band wagon & got to work. I pulled fabric and sewed pockets & thought about how getting a handmade gift is such a treasure & how giving one is such a blessing. I'm also excited to get to add a little note in the pockets to the ladies who will recieve my aprons. (There's going to be someone there to translate it!) What will I say? That's easy. Hello, friend. I love you. If you've never tried a Create & Give Back project I highly highly recommend it. It doesn't have to be expensive - I used my stash. It doesn't have to be time comsuming - maybe 30 minutes for one of these aprons. It can be anything you want - sewing, knitting, quilting, crochet - & if none of my links lead you to what you're looking for I encourage you to do a little online search. I'd bet that there is a way to Create & Give Back that fits you too!
As I've been working on my current charity project ( that last Knit For Kids sweater) I've been keeping my eyes open for what I might take up next. But when I came across the current Craft Hope project I knew I couldn't wait to finish that sweater before I picked my next project. The deadline is coming up fast & I don't want to miss out on participating! Craft Hope's Project 16: The Littlest Warriors is about making beanies & bags for some super awesome kiddos. Kids fighting cancer. Since I'm not really a hat maker at the moment bags are on my agenda! I dunno how many I'll make yet, as many as I can before the March 12th deadline. I'll want to ship the a week before that just to make sure they arrive in time. I have a couple plain canvas bags that I think I bought intending to decorate but never did. I'm using those blank canvases for my first two bags, and am stash busting with my fabric & supply choices for all the bags I make. I'm super excited to make some cute totes for these superhero kids to take with them to the hospital! { Our Creative Spaces} { Stash Bash}
The original Inspired To Create Tutorial to sew up an earbud zippy!
I actually used this idea one other time & hated the results, so I didn't count it till I used the idea again & decided it was great inspiration. It's a Zippy Earbud Pouch. Here are my first hideous results... What I did wrong was 1. improvised instead of reading directions, and 2. rushed and didn't think it through. So, I used it a bit, it started falling apart, and I set it on my cutting table to remind myself to go back and try it again. And, I did. But with my own twist. The HST BOM has got me thinking up things to put Half-Square Triangles on, so I decided I wanted a little HST pouch for my earbuds instead. I made some little 2.5 inch squares from scraps and turned them into 2 inch HSTs that I played around with to find a pattern I liked...a pinwheel? a diamond? a hourglass? So many ways to rearrange! I finally settled on a chevron design for one side... and hourglass for the other... Now that is an earbud pouch I can admire! It also is not that much bigger than the little circle - only about 3/4 on an inch taller & wider. I used a little extra piece of zipper to make the loop which I kindof like & will do again in other projects. Yay! The original Inspired To Create Tutorial to cover your earbuds!
I'm also using this idea to fancy up my plain black earbund to go in this little pouch. I used to do this wrap and knot technique for friendship bracelets in junior highschool so I just dumped out a bunch of embroider floss I thought I might like to use up and got to work. This one will take a little bit to wrap all the wire but it's an easy something to do in front of the TV. I also didn't get fussy with colors choices, but you could totally color coordinate your earbuds with their zippy or phone or purse. EDIT: This post was formerly 'Using a Pin' & linked to Pinterest. But, now...I've decided to delete myself from Pinterest & go back and post a link the original sites where the ideas I used were found. I love the idea of Pinterst, but all the legalities of photo ownership & lack of good credit for all the people with these great ideas bothers me. Plus, do I really need another thing to do online? No. I need to spend more time in real life creating rather than endless hours gathering millions of ideas I'll never use. I already get lots of photo inspiration over at Flickr, which I have used for a long while & can continue to do that. If you happen to know of a different or variation on the source I use please let me know!
I should pre-face this post by saying I am really just a big kid. I'm a ten year old in a thirty-somethings' body. I am not above annoying & begging to get my way.... So, on Wednesday...Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve...I'd already been asking for several days if my hubby wanted to open a gift early. I argued that we should spread out the wealth of happy & open one every day. He managed to hold me off for a long while & then finally relented that we could open one, & I (of course) wanted the exciting one first. The unknown one, not the one I had a pretty good guess what it was. I wanted the surprise right up front. And oh what a surprise it was!
A mini library of my very own! Hello, wonderful Kindle! We'll skip over the fact that I downloaded 30+ books in 2 days & get right to the reason for this story. The case I made Thursday morning. The quilty envelope that now is Kindle's cute new home. Just in case you got something under your Christmas tree that needs a little quilted envelope to protect it, I snapped a few phone photos as I improvised the design to share with you. In the blur above is how I laid out my fabric sandwich. I cut a rectangle 2-3 inches taller than the Kindle & 3 times the width. Then I cut a triangle shape at one end, almost 1/3 of the way in. I laid the lining fabric face down, added two layers of thin batting, (I'd have used only 1 had my batting been thicker.) then laid the outer fabric on top. After pinning all the layers together I improvised I swirly, embroidery thread, quilting pattern. Inspired by Nova & her hand-quilting I really love these wandering lines & the simple design. You could easily quilt it in any design you like, by hand or by machine. After the quilting I trimmed up all the edges to make them straight & clean. I found some leftover binding & finished off the short, straight end. I then folded it up to form my envelope, rechecking the position with my Kindle before pinning them down. I then stitched the binding on, starting at one side near the fold, going up & over the point, & down the other side. Leaving small tails to tuck in when I finished stitching it down by hand. I finished the binding just like I do on any regular quilt. I folded it over & hand-stitched it down. It was pretty chunky & hard to squeeze it down sometimes but I got it all in there & finished up. Lastly, I gathered up a hair tie (because thin elastic was not in my stash) & a button to use as a closure. Placed where I liked them & handstitched down my envelope was all ready for action. Easy, improvised, useful, & free. Love it.
What will you put in your quilted envie?
Holy Snow Day, Batman! Two days ago we woke up to this lovely sight.
We were lucky, all the leaves were actually off our tree.
Know what happens when Fall hasn't finished dropping leaves & you get a foot of snow cover?
CRRRAAACCCKK! Bang! Boom!
Branches fall everywhere! Power lines go down. 60,000+ people are in the dark. Roads get blocked. Cars get smashed. People get hit in the head & go to the hospital. (It wasn't me or my family, Thank God!) It's really not as pretty as this picture trys to tell you it is.
But. Here we are. Picking up branches, chopping wood, surviving our first Snow Day. Oh, and yes, we've already done considerable melting & soon it'll be back to Fall outside. Minus, a few trees & limbs. Welcome to Colorado! In other news... We're not here to talk about snow! We're here to talk about pillows! Pillows, that easy peasy, lovely, cuddly, Handmade Holiday gift you can recreate in a million different ways! How about with some embroidery today? And some more fancy home decorator fabric samples? You can find embroidery inspiration everywhere! Flickr is one of my favorite places. You can also search for Coloring Book pages of any topic to find great patterns. And, don't forget to check out Etsy where you'll find all sorts of cool patterns & project ideas. I'm in pillow heaven. It might be hard to hand over some of these pillows I've been making come December 25th. But...then again...I could just take a little time for making myself a few new pillow covers...hmmm...
I'm a little bit obsessed.
I admit it.
That's half the battle.
Right? I made some pillows last year... here...and here... And, this year I'm at it again! I kinda love it. So easy. I love this tutorial from Brett Bara. Sew easy! So pretty. So practical. The pillow covers are removable for washing, or for changing out as you like to keep life interesting. I made mine from home decor sample fabric that was getting sold off from my local Joann's because they are moving to a larger store & starting fresh. But, you can buy any fabric you like...home dec., cotton, linen...cut it to the size of your pillow, follow the zipper tutorial & snap, bang, boom you have a fancy new throw pillow! You could also fancy it up with a piped edge or other creative goodness as you like. I have another variety of pillow happiness to share with you in a day or two...
mmhmm.
Told ya I was a little bit obsessed!
This week I had a bit of a canvas tote factory going on over at my Mom's house. There is a confirmation class having orientation Saturday & the kids will be decorating the totes to hold all their confirmation supplies. The creation of the bodies of 25 french seamed canvas totes seemed to go pretty fast & easy...It was attaching the 50 handles to said totes that got a little tedious! In the end they weren't the prettiest totes I've ever made (we had some bobbin tension issues) but they are sturdy & ready for the kids to add their own pretty. Which was kinda the point, so I'm very happy. Canvas tote factory success!
We also had some good food while we worked! Parmesan pasta, white cheddar popcorn, peanut M&Ms, chocolate poundcake, pie...OH! & lots of iced coffee. Factory work is hard, y'all - we had to keep the employees happy! :)
I thought I'd share a Quick & Easy "Keylime" Pie recipe with you to sweeten your day! Here's what you'll need: 1 9-inch graham cracker pie crust 1 8oz. package cream cheese, softened 1 8oz. container of whipped topping, soft & fluffy 1 14oz. can of sweetened condensed milk 6oz. limeade juice concentrate (Comes in a 12oz can from the frozen food section so would've been a good idea to double everything else & make 2 pies to use it all up...There's always a friend in need of a pie, right?) a few drops of green food coloring (optional) Here's what you'll do:
mix the cream cheese until it's fluffy add the condensed milk & the juice concentrate & mix set aside 1 cup of whipped topping for decoration (optional) fold in the remaining whipped topping - folding here is very important, if you mix it it will cause the pie to become runny & not set up properly add your food coloring to the desired shade of green pile it all in your piecrust & refrigerate for 1 hour decorate with the reserved whipped topping - you can use a piping bag for a fancy design or just spread it with a spatula for a little extra fluff cut, serve, enjoy! You can also make this with lemonade or orange or any other juice concentrate that sparks your fancy! { Our Creative Spaces}
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