Sewing Archives - Yearning to Create

Rag Quilt for Kat

My Kat was turning 7 so I made her a blanket for her birthday.
There were three reasons for this:
1) I realized I had never made her a blanket,

2) she was seriously outgrowing her little Disney Princess blanket, and

3) I had all this cute fabric I had found at a garage sale last summer (it was even pre-cut!)

Isn’t it cute? It’s called Free Spirit and cost me $4.

For the backside I simply used fleece – just wanted something soft for her to snuggle up with! The pink came from scraps that my friend Shirley had given me. I was able to cut 24 squares from it. I bought the yellow from Walmart for $12 and . . . love this part – after I had cut out the 72 squares that I needed, I had exactly none left!!! Don’t you just love it when things work out perfectly!

I bought three fat quarters – needed a little more fabric, and raided my stash for a little bit more. So this whole project cost me just over $20 – how awesome is that!!!

Let me mention here that my guy strongly dislikes all this fabric – the colours and the patterns. I’d show him things and gush over how cute it was and he’d just roll his eyes and say things like “Looks like the 60’s”, or “Our house is in earth tones, why are you doing this?” He was a little better once he realized it was for Kat’s room – he thought it was going in the living room!

My squares were 6 1/4 inch and I had 96 of them. 12 rows with 8 in each row.

I arranged them all on the floor to make sure the colours and patterns were evenly spaced apart. This photo was very handy to refer back to once I started sewing – just to make sure I was putting things in the right places.

Let me mention that Kat got very good at averting her eyes whenever she would come into the room and see me working on her quilt. With her being home-schooled, she’s always here, so there was no way I could keep it a secret from her. So while she did see bits and pieces of the production (even picked her Top 10 favourite squares!) she never did see the completed quilt til her birthday.

Before the sewing began though, I had to create my little sewing oasis. I put this desk in the closet in the office. During construction I had a light and outlet installed in this non-closet closet just for this purpose. Now all I need are some shelves on the walls.

It’s sew nice to be able to have a spot where the sewing machine does not have to be put away! (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun!)

That paper and pencil was the little pattern I made of how to space my pink squares evenly throughout the yellow. How would you mix 24 pink among 72 yellow? I’ll show you how I did it in a minute!

This is the easiest quilt ever – which is why I make it!

After cutting out all your fabric, just sew a top piece to a bottom piece by sewing an X through it. If you want it thicker you could put some batting between the layers (like a sandwich). But cut your batting a little smaller than these squares so the edges don’t show in the rag part – unless you want them to!

I just eyeballed my lines, going from one corner to another – and didn’t even need to worry about backstitching.

Do a continuous strip from one square to the next – no stopping or backstitching needed.

Then you’ll get a nice a long strip (thanks for holding it Jen!). I cut these apart and then sewed them again, doing the other side of the X. Then I cut them apart again and now had a nice pile of 8 squares that needed to be sewn into a strip. Be sure to keep them in the right order – I referred to my picture a few times!

I forgot to take pictures of the next part. I sewed my 8 squares together (5/8 seam allowance) into one long piece – with all the raw edges showing on the top side (totally opposite of what you usually do!). Don’t forget to backstitch for this part – you need to secure these seams!

Then sew your strips of 8 to each other (that photo came in really handy here to make sure I wasn’t sewing anything backwards!).

When it’s all sewed together, put on a good movie and start clipping all your edges – be sure not to clip any of your stitching!!! That would be bad.

This kind of quilt is great for novice sewers like me because if your squares don’t line up properly, no one can tell! It only shows on the bottom side, which is fine because – it’s the bottom!

I only had time to wash and dry it once before her birthday – it’ll get shaggier with more washing. I just used my own washer – it didn’t make too much of a mess because the fleece doesn’t really fray. I shook it outside though until my arms were going to fall off to shake off excess threads.

The outside edge is simply stitched around (5/8) and then clipped as well.

Okay – I think it’s totally adorable!!! Love all the colours.

Can you see my pattern with the pink/yellow fleece?

Here’s the back view.

I did three yellow between each pink, with staggered starts. It looks like my corners matched up pretty well for the most part – phew!!!

And what did the birthday girl think of her new quilt . . .

. . . well, she was hugging it before she even opened it up to see how it looked. She was actually very excited about it – which was nice for me because, face it, a blanket isn’t the most exciting thing for a seven year old to get on their birthday!

And as for my guy . . .

. . . he tolerated the colours and patterns to have a snuggle with Kat for a birthday picture.

There she is in bed – g’night Kat!

Isn’t it fun to make things for your family? Although, my oldest daughter will soon be Maid of Honour for one of her friends and needs to sew a dress – eek!!! That’s a little out of my league! Hope she does a good job! She’ll be calling gramma for advice.

Back to the rag quilt, the size I made fits the top of a twin size mattress – doesn’t hang much over the edges. She’s on a top bunk so we didn’t need edge hanging, but if you’re copying my sizes, you might need to add some extra rows.

The Maple Leaf Forever

I love our Canadian symbol of the maple leaf. It’s magnificent!

There is a song called “The Maple Leaf Forever”, and we really don’t hear it much. Sometime in my past I must have heard it, but the only part I remember was the title line at the end of the chorus. So I did what anybody would do these days: I googled it!

You can google it too if you want more info, but this is the chorus of the original version of the song (which was never our National Anthem, but was often played as if it was):

The Maple Leaf, our emblem dear,

The Maple Leaf forever!
God save our Queen and heaven bless
The Maple Leaf forever!

And here is the chorus of the more recent version, which was actually sung by Michael Bublé at the 2010 Olympic Closing Ceremonies:

Long may it wave, and grace our own,

Blue skies and stormy weather,
Within my heart, above my home,
The Maple Leaf forever!

Anyway . . . about ten years ago I made a quilted Maple Leaf wall hanging at a little quilting class in town.

I didn’t do too badly here in my first attempt at quilting anything, but don’t look too closely!

It’s thirteen squares across and down. I love the non-traditional flag colours.

It was easily quilted to look like veins in the leaf.

I even found little maple leaf buttons for the corners.

Long may it wave, and grace our own,
Blue skies and stormy weather,
Within my heart, above my home,
The Maple Leaf forever!

Missionary Christmas Stocking

The most exciting thing happened!!! My second daughter decided to serve a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

She was called to serve in the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission for a year and a half. For the first six weeks of her mission, she was in Provo Utah at the Missionary Training Center (MTC), where she learned how to teach the gospel, and began learning how to speak Spanish. We took her to Utah on December 11, so she was going to be spending her first Christmas away from home in the MTC. It was an awesome experience for her!

Once I realized she’d be gone for Christmas, I started thinking about the first package we’d send her – a Christmas one. I wanted to make her a memorable stocking, yet a humble stocking, and this is what I came up with.

It actually turned out super cute and now I want to make one for everyone in my family, with different quotes/scriptures on them.

First step was to choose what I wanted it to say. For a missionary “Called to Serve” was a pretty good choice! But I was also debating using her favourite scripture “Trust in the Lord” (Proverbs 3:5).

I got my artistic daughter to write out the words and I copied them in pencil on to the drop cloth. Yes, the stocking is made from a drop cloth (what you throw on the ground to protect your floor while painting!). That’s pretty humble fabric!

Then it was simple embroidery in dark brown floss over the letters.

I lined my stocking with the green plaid fabric because I didn’t want the embroidery floss to get snagged when Santa stuffed the stocking.

I lined up my fabrics and sewed them together, overlapping the green over the front of the stocking at the top.

Then with the right sides together, I sewed my stocking together.

I added some gathered eyelet ribbon and a piece of jute string to hang it with.

The final touch was this light brown ribbon/lace trim.

Love how it turned out – and it didn’t cost me a cent. Made it all from stuff I already had.

Santa stuffed it full before shipping it off to her.

Our missionary unpacking her Christmas package – it got to her before Christmas!

Next Christmas her companion is going to have to fill it!

Our missionary’s first Christmas, with a Charlie Brown tree.

Perfect for one who has been Called to Serve the Lord!

Mr. and Mrs. Pillows

I saw some Mr. and Mrs. Pillows on Pinterest (just search for it and a bunch will pop up) and I thought they were pretty cute. We have a king size bed now and needed some new pillows. These are perfect – we never forget which side of the bed is ours!

My first task was to make the stencil. I printed off my Mr. and Mrs. in the font and size I wanted.

(Oh – these instructions are perfect for people without fancy machines that easily make stencils for you! lol)

I used a permanent marker to trace my letters on the shiny side of the con-tact paper. It’s Rubbermaid brand – stuff you’d line your cupboards with.

Use your trusty exacto knife to cut out your letters and voila – you have a stencil!

I made my pillow covers out of drop-cloth fabric (so many uses for that stuff). I just did a simple envelope style – cut a long rectangle and fold the ends in. Pin it and sew up the sides. I didn’t even need to hem the edge you see – I used the finished edge of the drop-cloth!

My pillow forms came from a thrift store at less than $2 each. It’s so easy to slide into the fabric envelope.

With my pillows made, it’s time for the letters. I peeled the paper off the back side of the stencil and placed the sticky side down exactly where I wanted it.

And then I painted it – use your stencil brush and use small amounts of paint so it doesn’t seep under the edges of the stencil. I should have put a book under the fabric so I could be painting against a firmer surface – the pillow was too soft!

In order to fancy the pillows up a little, I bought some piping to put along the seems. This was the most expensive part of my project at $0.69/meter – and I needed three whole meters!!!

Don’t you love my method for applying it? I glue gunned it on!!! Actually, this was just my way to hold it exactly in place. I did loosely stitch it on too. Doesn’t it just give the pillows a little boost?

There’s how much of the three meters I had left. First I asked for two meters, and as the salesperson had her scissors open and was ready to cut, I yelled “Wait! You’d better give me three meters.” Great estimate!!!

I’m really loving my new pillows!

Maybe next I’ll need to make an ampersand pillow!

There they are! I wanted my Mr. and Mrs. big enough to easily be seen, but not too overpowering in size.

This is how they usually look – with my bear Mason instead of the ampersand. My two-year old loves to jump and Mason is much softer for when she bonks her head.

Loving my new pillows – and especially loving the fact that both of them together cost me less than ten dollars! And . . . I still have my Mr. and Mrs. stencil!!!

Map of Canada Pillow

I home-school my kids from Kindergarten to Grade 3. So, I like to have educational things around, but I don’t want my house to look like a classroom (unless it’s the actual “school room” like we had in one house). But most of our learning seems to happen right on the couch so the old teacher can be comfortable!!! So, a Map of Canada Pillow seems like the perfect addition to our home school – comfort and education in one!!!

Somewhere in blogworld, I’ve seen two maps of the USA. They were both wall hangings – one was fabric and one was paper. (Sorry, this was before Pinterest so they were only “pinned” in my mind and I have no link to send you to!). But they were my inspiration to make a map of Canada. Let me just say that 10 provinces and 3 territories is just a wee bit easier than 50 states!!!

The first step is to find a map you like. I found a ton on Google and any regular person could just print a map out. I’m not a regular person and decided to make this project take a little longer by tracing a map off my daughters school agenda.

(Actually, I don’t have a printer right now!)

Now, listen carefully: I used Heat and Bond (my second favourite thing after Mod Podge!), and the image you trace on the Heat and Bond needs to be backwards. So, I traced my map with a marker that went through the paper, so I had the reverse image on the back of the paper. And then I copied it, but you don’t need to do that.

You trace your reversed image onto the paper side of the Heat and Bond and then roughly cut it out.

I initialed the provinces because when they’re backwards its easy to get mixed up. These are all pressed now onto the wrong side of the fabric (follow the instructions on your Heat and Bond!)

Now you cut them out properly.

Place them in their proper spots. I kept the little Prince Edward Island to the last because I didn’t want to lose it. I’d love to visit PEI someday (yes, I’m a big Anne fan!)

Once everything was placed in its proper spot, I peeled the paper backing off the fabric and put the piece back in its place.

I double checked the exact locations of those east coast provinces with my map. Gotta teach my kids correct geography! When everything was exactly right, I ironed it all on – again, be sure to follow the instructions on your package. It’s probably only for a few seconds and if you over iron, it won’t stick.

My family likes to throw around pillows – crazy I know and they most certainly don’t get that from me! So I knew that I had to do some reinforcements to my pillow before it goes flying around the room.

I slowly stitched around a lot of the edges – not every edge, that would have driven me insane!!!

Each piece has enough stitching on it to securely hold it in place. I even changed to blue thread to stitch around the Great Lakes!

Hey, that could be a new puzzle: where did mom start sewing with the green thread, and how did she do it in one continuous line?

I sewed my blue piece to a green piece and sewed all that onto . . . a drop cloth!!! Drop clothes are pretty amazing and can be used for a ton of things – like curtains and chair covers, or, even to throw on the ground to protect your floor while you paint!!! Sorry, got distracted by drop clothes. Back to the pillow – I clipped the green and blue edges and sprayed them with water to rough them up – a rag look.

Looking good, but still a little wet! The edges did curl up nicely.

Here’s another distraction – a cute distraction, but still a distraction!!!

She has to be right in on all the action . . .

. . . and have the best view of everything!!!

Yeah, nap time is definitely craft time. And now I’m often crafting on my bed because she can’t climb up there yet!

The clipped and frayed edges.

To sew the pillow cover, I just did an envelope style. I even used the finished edges of the drop cloth so I wouldn’t need to finish any edges. So easy!

And there is the finished back view!

And the finished front!!!

And yes, we’ve already had a geography lesson and I sewed everything in the proper place!!!

Patchwork Table Runner

I’ve always loved quilted things – and someday I hope to be somewhat good at quilting!!!

Let me tell you how this project came to be. The new home we’re building has an open kitchen, dining area and great room – which is exactly what I wanted! We can add the extra leaf to the table (we already have one leaf in all the time) and seat about twelve people, and the table will just sneak on over towards the great room and borrow a little space temporarily. Anyway, I wanted to use blues, greens and browns for the decorating. Our leather couches are blue, furniture is brown and I just like green along with them, and my plants are green (unless they’re brown because I forgot to water them!). So I wanted something that would tie all these colours in together, and I just wasn’t finding that special pillow, or area rug, etc. So I decided to make something that would tie my colours together.

Here’s Mac deciding to help me. It is so much easier to create while she’s sleeping!!!

The first step was to cut out all the little squares and then line them up the way I wanted them so the colours were mixed up pretty good. Taking a picture of this and printing it was a very smart thing to do, especially if you have little ones around who like to mess things up!!! (see above photo!)

Actually, the real first step was to collect fabric. I’ve been doing this for years – remnant bins, leftovers from other projects, a fat quarter here and a fat quarter there.

After lining everything up, I stacked them into piles for easy keeping. They sat like that for months until I finally got to them.

I found that the easiest way to sew them together was to make a little banner like this. I know it only looks like the wrong side of one square, but there are two squares sewn together (right sides together). Then I cut them apart, every two squares, and that gave me the four squares together to make a bigger square. I know that’s all clear as mud, right?

To recap, I made strips of two squares, then sewed them together to make bigger squares made up of four small squares.

Then I sewed my bigger squares together to make a strip.

The backside. I pressed all my seams to the darker fabric side.

I found that my first two strips of squares were shorter than the rest of my strips. I must have been using a larger seam allowance when I started, and because I did all this in spurts of time when I had it, I’d forget what I did. I ended up removing the first four rows of squares because they just didn’t match up very well. I have something else in mind to use those strips for!

Love the colours!!! I find that I look at the colours and not at the corners that don’t line up perfectly.

And now for the transformation into a table runner . . .

The hardest part was choosing the fabric I wanted to be the edging!!! Obviously, I finally made a decision and cut the strips and sewed them on.

I didn’t have any batting laying around, but I needed to add some weight and stability to my runner. So I decided to use something that everyone has on hand . . .

. . . a raggedy old towel!!! So I lined it up on the table – towel on the bottom, then my backing fabric and then my creation of squares (these two fabrics were right sides together). Then I sewed around the whole thing and cut off all the excess fabric.

Now I’m sure I’m doing lots of things wrong, but I seem to learn best by trial and error. And not knowing how to do something doesn’t stop me (at least not in crafting – haha!!!).

Turning this baby inside out and hoping that I lined things up right!!!

Phew, it worked! That blue towel is my ironing board on the kitchen counters! I do have an ironing board, but I think it’s in the camper (remember, living in transition here and making do with what’s on hand!).

That open part is where I turned it. To close it I just ironed the fabric under and then top stitched over it.

Here I demonstrate my version of quilting – stitching in the ditch. Works for me and holds everything nicely in place. Top stitching around the edge finished it all off nicely.