Valen”tiny” Pillow

My Guild challenged us to make a Valen”tiny” something just for ourselves.  Any size up to 24”. 

I had a 12” pillow form kicking around forever.  It’s quite old and quite solid.  Time to give it life. 

Anyone that knows me knows that I love collage.  Whether it be with paper or fabric.

Even though it has hearts on it, I tried to keep it on the generic everyday side more than strictly for Valentine’s Day.

It was a fun time putting this together.

After finishing the cover and stuffing the pillow form inside, I looked at it and immediately noticed that I didn’t include a selvedge!!!  How could I, of all people, forgotten to include a selvedge?!

Well, my mind has mostly been elsewhere, so “stuff” happens. 

Japanese Inspired Quilt

A Japanese inspired quilt.

These fabrics were so nice to sew with.

The colors are so rich and bold and laced with gold.

The backing is a quilting cotton, not a Japanese fabric.  With the gold speckles, it went with the Japanese fabrics beautifully.  It’s a lot of red, but so pretty.

There were enough scraps to make a pretty 20” pillow cover.

**the cover is just lying over a pillow for the photo**

More of the scraps make up the backside of the pillow cover.

With still more scraps, I made a snap pouch and wristlet keychains.

The fabrics are a bit heavier than quilting cottons, so they make into a nice weighted throw quilt ready to cuddle under.



I’m trying to avoid continually accumulating scraps.  There are just some bits left.  Enough to make a postcard or two.

Eclectic Quilt and Giveaway

I’ve joined in with the “Show Your Stripes” blog hop.  Many thanks to Carla of 

Creatin’ In The Sticks for allowing me to join and all her hard work of organizing a successful blog hop.

My stripes project began with a smallish quilt.  55” X 60”

Using a bundle of Tim Holtz fabric fat eighths that I have had stashed for a few years.

I pulled out the bundle, plus considered a few extra pieces to add to it.

I cut the pieces into 2.5” strips.

I arranged a line-up and stitched the strips together end to end.  I made the top using the jelly roll race technique except in a controlled manner.

Because I’m terrible at accepting the unknown.  I had to have some control.

I squared it up and quilted it.

Added the binding.  I know, shocking that it isn’t a striped binding!  Who would’ve guessed for a stripes blog hop that I wouldn’t use a stripe for the binding.

Hand stitching the binding to the back is my favorite part of quilting.

And DONE!



I love including selvedges in my quilts.  I stitched the few selvedge strips end to end for a fun narrow row.

That’s another stored project OUT of storage.  It is my last long stored project.  What a super feeling to have ZERO planned projects in storage.

I also don’t want to keep making scraps to store.  I had some strips leftover.  They became a pillow.

But there are STILL some strips and pieces of strips!

Too hard to just toss them out.  And I can’t just keep keeping them. Too many scraps become too chaotic for me.  So I stitched them all together.

Then cut that slab in half, stitched it end to end and I now have a long hot pad for the table.

That’s it.  I always find it amazing how far a fat eighth collection will go.

The Giveaway...

I have a striped fabric postcard that I will send to one of my followers.  Simply include in your comment that you’d like to receive this postcard in your mail.  I will contact the winner for mailing info.

Check out my fellow bloggers sharing their striped projects today to inspire your sewing creativity.

Tuesday, February 23rd

Life in the Scrapatch

Stitchin At Home
Websterquilt

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Karrin's Crazy World

Quilt Schmilt

That’s Sew Kerry

SameliasMum

Annie's musings

Bah-Humbug Christmas Quilt

It was about time for me to have a Christmas Quilt.  This is it and just in time to enjoy it for a few weeks this Christmas.

I used Leila Gardunia’s Scrappy Triangles.  A collection of 53 paper piecing blocks.  I was hoping to use up some of the Christmas fabrics that have been in my stash for a long time.  Using some up is the perfect excuse to shop for some new pieces...right?

I loved sewing the blocks and watching the design come to life, all the while listening to Christmas music...since just before Halloween.

I’m not one that names my quilts.  But, this is when this Christmas quilt got its name, Bah-Humbug!

The first column I stitched together on the right end revealed two blocks a bit smaller than the other six.  That was not going to be good for this design.  I was so upset thinking how many more will there be?  I just wanted to throw the whole mess away!  I already had so much time invested in the blocks.  Within the hour I decided to sew it all together (trying not to notice how the blocks wouldn’t line up nicely), quilt it and donate it somewhere.

BAH-HUMBUG!!!

The other thing I didn’t like was needing to keep the papers on the blocks until they were all sewn together.  (I started removing some paper from a few blocks but quickly realized I was going to have an even bigger struggle than just mis-sized blocks).  I did remove the seam allowance papers to make it easier to press the seams.

Guess what?  There were no other mis-sized blocks!  Only the two on the end.  That made me happier.  I was also very happy to get those papers off.

But then I began quilting the thing.

It seemed like a lot of black.  I thought I’d give the black some interest by stitching with red thread.  I worried about it for awhile before starting.  My fear was realized just as I knew it would be.  I cannot sew a straight line to save my own life let alone someone else’s.  It really shows on the solid black.  I knew I gave this quilt the right name!  At this point I couldn’t wait to get it done and get it out of my sight.  So much so that I had to take a break from it and try a Christmas pillow instead.

For the pillow I used the smallest Triangle Ruler.

I just used scrap bits left after finishing the quilt blocks.

 

This was calming my upset over the quilt.

I don’t really know how I feel about the design for a pillow, but I do know that I liked it better than the quilt, mostly because it was not near the trouble the quilt has been.

When I was finished with quilting the quilt and it was no longer just 12 or so inches away from my face, the crooked straight line quilting stopped bothering me because it wasn’t noticeable.

As I was hand stitching the binding, I realized that it was the exact detail the quilt needed.  At that moment I fell in love with this quilt!

I think it’s bold and subtle at the same time.  I love that.

This quilt measures 58” square.  Just right for cuddling under to watch Christmas movies.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Are you happy?

And then one day I decided I wanted to cross stitch again.

But I had a project yet unfinished on the scroll frame.  Another 25 year old unfinished project!  With only this much left to do...how sad is that.

It was going to be framed and hung in my young daughter’s bedroom.  But she isn’t that young anymore and I lost interest in finishing it.  And, it was an area of so many color changes.

I forced myself to finish it before starting a new project.  I knew if I took it off the frame it would never get finished.

The quote is one of my favorites, by Abraham Lincoln.  The design is by Mary Engelbreit.

As I was working on that last bit of stitching I didn’t know what I’d do with it when it was finished.  Then I remembered the antique child’s rocking chair I have from my great aunt.  I don’t know the rocker’s real age but it is definitely well over 150 years old.  The cane seat was worn out and had to be replaced.  But the rest of the chair is in it’s original but not perfect condition.  I decided this stitched piece as a pillow could sit on that rocker.

How happy am I that another languishing project is finished and being enjoyed!

Also while working on that stitching, I found I wanted a pin cushion for all these cross stitch needles I have.  So I stitched a quick cushion top.

I stitched some x’s around the design and fabric frame.  I didn’t get them right, but I figured that out along the way.  They were good enough for this project.  Next time I do that I’m hoping they will look better when done properly.

Ah, much better than needles floating around here and there and everywhere.

Be happy!