On My Sewing Table Friday

Another snow day = a little sewing!

I love these little clips that I ordered from Amazon a few weeks ago.  There are a lot in this cute tin, but I only use a few at the time while sewing down the back of a binding on a quilt.  They make the process so much easier.

I don't know if you noticed, but the old red truck with a Christmas tree in the back has been everywhere and in every store during Christmas.  I saw a few things during Christmas of 2016, but this past Christmas, they were on every kind of Christmas decoration you could think of.  I love them, so I made this Mug Rug, or small quilt.  I didn't have time before Christmas to get one made.  I'll put this one away until next year.

The back:

Here's a red truck Christmas decoration I bought before Christmas from Dollar General.  I also bought 2 dish towels with the truck on them, but they are packed away too deep for me to get out for a picture!

My husband loves the 1953 Chevrolet Truck, so I bought him this small model a couple of years ago for a gift.  He would love a real life size one, but oh well,.....

I love sewing Christmas items and I have a large plastic tote full of Christmas fabric.  I already have 3 Christmas Quilts, but I am thinking of making another one.

I would love to make some Christmas items all along all year.  Once November gets here, there's no time for it!

Practice first.... Sew once!

I worked on the monogrammed bags I am making for Christmas gifts over the weekend.  I had already been successful with one bag.  The monogram came out really well.  So I continued on with working on some more bags.  I was not happy to discover that different letters of the alphabet need to be spaced differently, depending on the shape of the letter!  I'm afraid I messed up two of the panels that would have become bags.

Here's the one that I made weekend before last came out great on the first try.

But this one is Bad!  That "W" is way too close to the center "S".

It turned out much better on this practice piece.  I wrote down the numbers and can now monogram the bag correctly.

This one is kind of hard to see, but the "J" on the right is just not right.

This practice piece is much better and I did write down the numbers for future reference!

This one came out ok the first time, thankfully!

Here the machine is set up to go.  Hopefully the practice pieces and numbers I have written down with make this bag a success!

I will definitely do practice pieces from now on before sewing on the fabric I planned to use!

Christmas Sewing!

I was able to  finish one of the Christmas gifts I have been planning and love the feeling of accomplishment!  My plan was to make monogrammed bags and to purchase items on sale, with coupons, etc. to go in them.

I went "shopping" in my stash and found enough of this fabric to make four bags.  I am choosing the monogram color based on what I "think" is the recipient's favorite color.  Not really sure about a couple of them.  The colors are blue, red, green and purple.  I am choosing the lining fabric to coordinate with the monogram color.

Some colors to choose from.

Several years, in the early days of my blog, I posted a 5 part "pocketbook" tutorial, and also a "fabric reusable grocery bag" tutorial.  I  went back and read the posts and this bag is a combination of the two tutorials.  The tutorials are listed on the bottom right hand side bar of this blog, if you are interested.

So far the goodies in this bag are shaving cream, razors, body wash and two lotions.  I also have several candles and will add one of those.

My "dream" plan if time allows, is to also make a small, zippered, monogrammed cosmetic bag to go in the bags.  In the zippered bag I plan to include small items such as chap stick, lip gloss, etc.  The possibilities are endless for ideas to fill the bags.  A personalized key fob would be a nice touch also!

 I ordered lotions, body washes and candles from Bath and Body Works when they had a big clearance sale a couple of months ago.  It was a great sale!  I had some high value coupons that I applied to the shaving cream and razors at CVS and through Amazon Subscribe and Save.

Are you making any plans to make any Christmas gifts?  I hope this post has given you some ideas!

Soup Bowl Koozies - Gift Idea

One of the quilt shops we visited on our recent mountain trip gave me a free pattern for soup bowl koozies.   All you need are two 10 1/2 inch squares of fabric and a 10 inch square of quilt batting.  Add some darts and a couple of straight quilting lines and its done.

Your soup bowl fits down in it while being microwaved.  Then you can easily pick the hot bowl up using the koozie, and in my case, take  it to the couch to eat in front of the tv.  The koozie protects your hands from the heat of the bowl while you eat the soup.  Even if you aren't microwaving the soup and are just getting it out of a pot on the stove or crock pot, the koozie would make eating a hot bowl of soup more pleasant.... and cozy!  They are completely washable and dryable, so any spills would be no problem.

I made these three as gifts to take my coworkers as a thank you gift for covering for me while on vacation.

These are easy to make and would make nice Christmas gifts, especially if a bowl was included with them.  I found THIS YOU TUBE VIDEO if you want to make some.   If I were still buying teacher's gifts, these would definitely be on the list.  I plan to make a few more for some of the people on my list.

Dish Towel Crafting

I bought a couple of good quality dish towels with a simple Christmas embroidery design already on them. Then I embroidered Walt and Eli's name above the design.

Now Walt has a bib that covers him up really well when eating.  I used some stretchy knit fabric that I found in the remnant bin at Joann's for the neck.  It pulls over his head easily.  I considered cutting down the width of the towel, but his Mom was happy to have lots of coverage for his shoulders.  After all, that's the main purpose of a bib.

Eli is still too young for a big bib, but he's a big spitter upper, so I left his as is, to be used as a burp cloth.

The bib and burp cloth can be used all winter since the design isn't too Christmasy.

Christmas Sewing - Co-worker Bag Number Two

I'm in the process of making three quilted tote bags for my co-workers for Christmas gifts. Here's number 2. She likes doughnuts a lot! She knows where the best doughnuts can be bought and if a church member comes by the office selling doughnuts for a fundraiser.... she always buys them. So when I saw this fabric in a bag of gifted fabric, I knew I would make something for my doughnut friend.

Here are two of the bags.  The first one was for the chocolate lover!

 

I've made so many bags using my REUSABLE FABRIC GROCERY BAG TUTORIAL, that there is no telling how many.  Years ago, I made a fabric pattern that I use over and over that does not require any pinning. 

 

1/2 yard of fabric is enough for the bag and the handles.

 

 

I've already finished the third bag, which is made from NC State fabric, but haven't taken any pictures yet.  I'll show it soon.

Christmas Stocking Number 2

I finished Walt's stocking this morning! I love the country, homespun look of it. Some small rusty bells or other rustic embellishment would be cute hanging from the bottom of the cuff. I will be on the look out for something when the Christmas decorations are put out in the stores.
 

Here's Eli's from an earlier post this week. I plan to look for tiny snow flake ornaments to hang from the bottom of the cuff for a little more embellishment, aka, bling. :o)

What a blessing to have 3 grandsons this year.

Also, what a blessing it will be to already have these made and not to be trying to make them at the last minute!

Gift Ideas - Personality Bookmarks

I got the inspiration for these bookmarks on the Prudent Homemaker Blog HERE.

This idea appealed to me because I felt like it was a very personal gift and cost very little.

I've heard that the sound of one's own name is a beautiful thing. So I thought having your name on a bookmark with lots of nice and interesting things about you would be nice.



I used different fonts on the computer I use at work. Can you believe I still use Word Perfect 6 and not Word! I still like it, even though its out of date and eventually won't work any more. Anyway, you can use fonts from any word processing program.



I already had a package of card stock from several years ago.



I bought a roll of transparent shelf liner to cover them with. I also borrowed a paper cutter from work and used a hole puncher I had for the hole.



The tassels are made from embroidering thread.

These are just a small gift I plan to include in some Christmas gifts this year. They could even be used as a gift tag.

*****Personal Notes

Mama is back in the hospital and has been there for a week. She has had a mild case of pneumonia for a while that had been treated with antibiotics in the nursing home. But, it was getting worse, so they transferred her to the hospital to get an antibiotic through an IV. She is slightly better, but not able to return to the nursing home yet.

Making the personality book marks got me to thinking: What would people put on a bookmark about me? I hope that I live my life in a way that it would be good things! I hope they wouldn't put things like: irritable, procrastinates, lazy, hateful, etc. LOL Of course, when I was brain storming for ideas to go on the ones I made, I avoided any undesirable personality traits that came to mind. But, everybody has some!

What would go on your bookmark this morning?

Friday Night Christmas Sewing

Its finally here! Friday Night Sew In is this Friday, January 21st.

As I posted earlier, I'd like to make Christmas gifts during Friday Night Sew in each month during the year. One idea I have is to make pillow cases to fit the individual likes of my children and grandson.

So, this week, I will make an "Appie" pillow case. In case you aren't from Western North Carolina (I'm not either!), Appie is short for Appalachian State. One of my sons-in-law is an Appie graduate and played football there. I already have Appie fabric and the pillow case instructions printed out. So I'm good to go.

I made my son-in-law a Christmas Stocking for Christmas 2009 from this same fabric and he really loves it. Since he only gets to see that stocking for a few minutes on Christmas Day, I think he would love a pillow case that he can use every day.

Here's what the stocking looks like.




Here is a pillowcase I made for my son last year in camoflauge fabric. I love the way it turned out. There are no raw edges and its very professional looking. Of course I will need to make my son's pillow case from a different fabric this time! Here's the camoflauge pillowcase.



HERE is the link for the pillow case instructions.

If you want to join in Friday Night Sew In, go HERE

Another Great Gift Idea

Here's another great gift idea! Yesterday I made a hooded towel using an easy and quick tutorial found HERE and HERE at Obsessively Stitching. All you need is a bath or beach towel and a hand towel. The hand towel is cut in half, so one hand towel is enough to make two hooded towel gifts. If you want to be a little more fancy you can add trim like the John Deere fabric shown in the second link.

Now is a perfect time to make this project for gift giving, either for the pool/tub/beach for warm weather use, or for a Christmas gift that can be used by a child after a bath in colder weather. Beach towels work great and have kid type themes. These are available everywhere right now and will be marked down on clearance within the next couple of weeks. You know as soon as July 4th passes, all the summer things start being put on sale and clearance to make way for back to school things. So I plan to watch out for clearance priced beach towels.

My model was more interested in playing with his cars and trucks!





The hood used in this tutorial is made from half a hand towel which fits the child much better than putting a small triangle on the corner of the towel.



I can think of several children who would love one of these.

One Small Christmas Gift Made!

Its still June and I actually made a Christmas gift! I'll admit its small, but its a start.

I searched the internet recently looking for tutorials for gifts to make. THIS TUTORIAL is for a cute bookmark that uses cute scraps. I love using scraps and have lots of them, so its a perfect idea. Its also really great that they are a quick project and use the small scraps that are hard to find a use for.

I made this first one as an experiment. My sewing machine has a hard time going around the corners, but I'm going to work on that problem. These will be cute for stocking stuffers and other small gifts.





I am having a good time going through my scraps putting together color combinations and themes.