Quilts made from blocks from others

Reading Paula the quilter’s comment on my previous blog post:

That is such a wonderful idea to make a block like that. I suppose if one kept the background the same or similar a whole quilt would be the result. Our guild doesn't do blocks like yours does but cuts simple quilt kits for donations.

reminded me of a really neat setting for blocks that were contributed by many quilters.  If you will go to the Electric Quilt blog
http://www.doyoueq.com/blog/?m=200910 
and scroll down to Oct. 27 you will see the pic of a quilt that was made from blocks from quilters around the world.  Each one of the contributed blocks is certainly made of fabrics that are different from one the other, so there is no way that those blocks would have the same background.  Unless is was quite by accident.

The whole quilt comes together as a planned quilt because of that layout.  My eyes are drawn to the diagonal setting and then I see each individual contributed block.

My block is the first block in the 5th row.  Here’s a photo I took of it

The palm tree is thread-painted on top of appliquéd patches.  The sun is turned under appliqué, hand stitched.  Bottom row of 9patch background is paper-pieced.  9patch background is sewn together with bumpless intersections.

Little mini gifts

I’ve been working, here & there, on some little gifts.The above is a “Travel Tray” from Angie’s site  
http://ajpadilla.com/freebies
I think it will come in handy on trips to hold things that might otherwise get misplaced.  There’s velcro in the corners which makes it possible for the tray to lay flat. 

Once you make one, you can figure out how to make them in any size.  Angie suggests to use a solid color fabric for the floor of the tray, but, I chose a fabric that “reads” solid and I like that.

And here’s Angie’s “15-minute Flower Brooch”.  I must say, it took me a little longer!  I am very pleased with the way it turned out, especially with the little beads I decided to sew to the center.  This can be used as a brooch as there is a pin sewn to the back.  And when you pin this brooch on your shirt, it becomes very handy to stick some pins in while hand sewing as the center is stuffed.  Sure beats sticking pins in your shirt!

I wrapped a gift in a Fat Quarter and pinned it shut with the brooch.  It made a nice presentation.

I made myself one of the Travel Trays, too.  And am going to have to make a brooch for me, too.   Or maybe I’ll try one of Angie’s “Finger Pincushions” made from a 3-1/2” fabric square.  Or maybe both!

Many mini Projects from Angie

Are you running out of ideas for little gifts to make for Christmas?  Well, not Angie!  She has got a whole slew of projects that will be just the thing. 
http://ajpadilla.com/patterns/bom/christmas-all-year-round

Lots of the projects are free.  Look around her website – Angie is some talented lady!

Sign up for Angie’s newsletter and she will send an email each time she puts up something new --
http://ajpadilla.com/newsletter/subscriptions

Halloween Gift Bag

This is not meant to be a Trick or Treat bag, it is a gift bag – to put in special “spooky” things for a special “trick or treater”.  It could be used for a Trick or Treat bag if the treats aren’t real heavy.  

Start off with a plain paper bag and iron on some shapes.  I got the plain bag at Joann’s.  I’m sure the Party Supply stores would have plain bags, also.  The above bag was from last year for my grandson.

I found the above design by searching for “pumpkin carving stencils”. The design I downloaded was not the right size for the bag, so I took the image into EQ6 and drew (traced) it from the design.  The beauty of EQ6 is that you can make the design to your specs  and I could put the moon and bat where I wished.  I made the windows and door “crookedy”.  And could print out the templates any size I wished.

I cut the shapes from fabric fused to “Wonder Under” (or “Heat & Bond”).  Same as you would if making an appliqué for a quilt.  Then iron the cutout shapes to the bag – no sewing involved. 

I’m going to make another decorated paper bag this year cuz last year’s was neat.  I think I’m going to use the skull stencil I found at
www.sun-sentinel.com/halloween

Another source for images to use on the bag would be from a Desktop Publishing program on your computer. 

Gift bags with ironed-on stencils can be used to decorate plain bags for any occasion.  And makes them very personal.

Christmas Shopping Bag & EZ shopping bag

I wrote a tutorial for a Christmas Shopping bag last November.  Thought I’d bring it back now, in case anyone would like to make one for this Christmas.  They make nice gifts.  The can be used to “wrap a gift”.  Make one for yourself to put your Christmas shopping items in.  http://anotherpatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/christmas-shopping-bag-tute.html

And if you want to make some super-easy-to-construct Shopping Bags that are good give-aways, here’s a link to my bloggin’ buddy Sunnie’s http://patchworkpie.blogspot.com/2009/08/fabric-bags-e-z-way.html tutorial.

Project gone wrong!

Did you ever have it in your mind to create something and then as the sewing progressed, you realized it just wasn’t working out?

Well, I had another one of those “project gone wrong” things happen to me.  Yep, there’s been more than one!  I wanted to make a couple of “Bah Humbug Bags” and I didn’t want any raw edges in the bag.  Thought I’d like it to have a layer of batting.  Well.  That just didn’t work out.  Tried Traditional Batt on the larger bag and it was way too bulky.  Tried Cotton Batt on the smaller bag & it was still too much.  And the added bulk of the batting made sewing thru some of the seams with all those layers a bit much.

I don’t have a pattern for the Humbug Bag, but I had made the bag years ago after seeing it on a “Sewing with Nancy” program that featured the bag.  I made several of those, at the time.  They make nice gifts.  And also a nice cover-up for a gift.  Had made one for myself, too.

Well, my 2nd try (bags 3 & 4) turned out better.  There are no exposed raw edges anywhere in the bag.  Got back to basics and used denim for its durability.  No batting.  Nice fabrics for lining and decorating the handle.  The fabric & denim are quilted together with some deco stitches on my new sewing machine.

The bags look just a bit different, cuz I found that I had lots of bulk when stitching the handle in the same place with the zipper insert as on the smaller bag.  So, I moved the zipper insert away from the middle on the larger bag and that did the trick – the zipper insert & the handle are sewn thru separately, rather than all on top of each other.  I even made each end of the handle to be sewn side by side, rather than on top of each other, again, less bulk.

This was a good project to choose for sewing on my new Janome 6600p.  Lots of practice on many techniques, including using the zipper foot.  Even the original idea with the green bags that didn’t work out gave me some nice practice on quilting with the AccuFeed Foot.

The old dog IS learning new tricks!  LOL

The denim bags are a gift for a niece who will be starting college in the fall.  I know Holly will put them to good use, transporting any manner of goodies in them.

The original green bags I will finish up and know I will find some use for them around here.

Stuck on green & Joann coupons

Lately, I have been coming home with green fabrics.

Today’s purchase included green zippers.  To be made into a gift.  Those greens go together much nicer than they look in the photo.

Here’s a Feathered Star in progress --

Greens on a neutral background.

I’m not the only one – a fellow shopper had a couple of greens.  The gal who cut my fabrics said she’s into greens, too.

I haven’t been at my sewing machine for a while.  Been busy with a website re-design.  And now, my sewing machine is in the shop for regular maintenance.  Isn’t that always the way?

Oh, and Joann coupons – did you know that you can turn in more than one Joann coupon (like the 40% off ones) at a time?  As long as the coupons are not the “same”.  They may all say “40% off”, but you have to get them from different circulars and/or online.

Today I turned in 3 Joann “40% off of one regular priced item” coupons.  One from a circular that was mailed to my house, one printed from their website and one from a circular I got in the store.

A helpful clerk from Joann’s turned me on to that money-saving tip.

More Fabric Baskets, nice gifts

I’ve been sewing away!  Made some more fabric baskets that I first found out about at the Pink Penguin blog -- http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html

I like the different looks you get when you pick different colors from the focus fabric for the checkerboard rows.  Four fabrics used for each basket shown above.

If you click on the pic above, you will see a larger version of the pic and you will also see that I am in my “gridded wavy lines quilting” phase on my quilted pieces these days.  The gentle wavy lines are so easy to stitch and so relaxing.  No matter what you do, the quilting comes out looking great.  Try it sometime.  These fabric baskets are a good place on which to practice quilting.

I cut the striped fabric into squares for the checkerboard rows on the basket and when I laid out the rows, I rotated the squares so that a horizontal stripe was next to a vertical stripe.  I forgot to take a pic of it in the flat, but here’s a drawing from EQ6 to show you what I mean --

When I first made a fabric basket --http://anotherpatch.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-lovely-day-after-election.html  I cut the lining shorter so that it would lay better in the inside of basket.

On the stripes and dots basket, I experimented & cut the lining the same size as the quilted piece.  I let the top seam allowance extend up.  Did NOT turn the top seam allowance to the inside of basket.  Much easier to stitch in the ditch through all the layers – no bulk.

In the pic below you can see that the lining fabric shows at the top cuz it is brought to the outside of basket, rather than being turned to the inside of basket.I like the “cut same size” method cuz I don’t have to do any figuring and the lining does lay nicely inside.

Here’s 3 finished baskets:Each of the baskets has a “secret pocket” in the lining bottom – a hiding place for secrets.

Angie Padilla has directions for a cute basket -- http://tinyurl.com/c46c2d  I’m just going to have to make one of those!

I have a few more things that either haven’t been completed or haven’t been gifted and will put them up on the blog when I’ve made it so.