Hi, I'm Sarah.
I'm a happy girl. :)
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I didn’t really mean to sew anything this morning. Still, I ended up at the sewing machine and about 20 minutes later I had this nifty little fold over clutch. I found the not-sequins fabric at Joann’s and fell in love, even though I have absolutely no occasions that require a shimmery purse. You may see me carrying this to the gym.
I had planned to spend a good chunk of the weekend quilting and binding this just finished quilt top:
But sometimes life throws you a surprise, like your daughter asking you to take her to the fabric store. Seriously! It happened! One of my non-crafty, video game playing daughters asked me to take her to the fabric store. So I dropped everything and took her shopping.
She set up in my crafting space and spent the weekend making Scalemates, cute little dragon-ish things from Homestuck … this thing she reads. I don’t know. It’s kind of like we live in the same house but speak different languages. But thanks to Scalemates, we found common ground. Here are the two she made this weekend, completely sewn by her own gamer girl hands:
If you’d like to make some, there is a lovely tutorial by Metroidhat. My daughter actually said “whip stitch” and knew what it meant. I’m so proud. :)
Since she had taken over my crafting space, I started something more portable based on this embroidered United States map seen on In Color Order.
I’m not sure what I’ll do with the finished map. Maybe a quilted wall hanging? A pillow?
So quilting had to wait, but it certainly wasn’t a wasted weekend!
I love cut chenille baby blankets! Layers of flannel are sewn into lines across a pretty cotton fabric. Cut, bound and ready to wash …
it frays up so nicely into a thick froth of chenille.
This style is so easy that it would make a great first quilt for a new quilter, yet it makes a plush, incredibly soft blanket.
This type of blanket is perfect for those fabrics you like so much, you don’t want to cut them up. Show them off!
You can see more about cut chenille blankets here. In the near future, I hope to make another one of these for a little sports-fan-to-be!
I posted a tutorial recently for making half square triangles, the basis of this quilt and pillow, if you’d like to try it for yourself. I plan to use half square triangles for a very different style of quilt for another upcoming little one soon, but for now I’ll just enjoy the feeling of accomplishment from this one.
Have a great day!
I made this little purse sized sewing kit for a friend and then completely forgot to send it to her. Oops! Then I saw Sew4Home repost their World’s Cutest Felt Sewing Kit and remembered — Doh!! I altered their design slightly to fit the little sewing kit “ingredients” I was able to find, and personalized the outer design for my friend who is from and dearly loves our beautiful state of West Virginia.
Click through to see Sew4Home’s cute cat design, but keep in mind that it’s an easy design to adjust. These make wonderful gifts IF you remember to send them! (Sorry, Lori!)
I started the new year as I intend to go through it — making quilts! So many things I sew are given away as gifts, and after the flurry of Christmas sewing I was ready to be selfish and make something to keep. I made this lightning quilt as a wall hanging for our family room to soften up a space dominated by the TV and computer screen. My eyes need a break from all the technology! This quilt gives just enough “homemade” to relax me.
If you’d like to try making one, here’s a link to the tutorial on Jenn of All Trades. It was her first tutorial and she did a great job! (Leave her a comment and tell her so if you agree!) It really is a simple design, and she’s explained it very well. She made hers as a doll quilt with 3.5″ squares, but I used 5″ squares for my larger wall hanging, with fabric strips 2″ to 2.5″ wide for the lightning. You’ll want them to be a bit wonky, so don’t stress too much about measuring those strips. Wing it, it’ll look great.
Since this was meant to hang on the wall, before binding I added a couple little “pockets” in the upper corners and across the back.
I had a piece of PVC cut to fit used a couple Command adhesive hooks to hold it up. (Some of the left over PVC pipe went into another bit of craftiness that I’ll share with you later.)
I might make this design a couple more times. I have some fabric from Kenya and think this might be a great showcase for it, with a solid cream background and colorful African wax prints as lightning. (It would be auctioned or sold to raise funds for MFFO.org.) This would also make a great baby quilt for a little boy, wouldn’t it? I’m picturing a dark blue sky with bright yellow lightning. Don’t be surprised if you see this again!
Half square triangles are amazing — one of the most beautiful and versatile quilting blocks, they’re also among the easiest to make. I especially love the look of a values quilt done in half square triangles. The contrast between the colors of your triangles allows you to create visual interest and depth. Here are some photos to show you what I mean. The squares are in the same position in each of these photos, just rotated so that the light and dark sides make different patterns.
You can see more variations of half square triangles in finished quilts in this Flickr gallery. Ready to try it yourself?
You’ll want to start with simple squares. I like to use charm packs, packs of precut five inch squares that usually include prints from an entire line of fabric. (The fabrics used here are Fossil Fern by Benartex, a fabric line that’s been in print for an amazing 15 years!)
Sort your squares into three piles by color value: light, medium and dark. Then pair up colors by taking one each from two different piles, placing the lighter on top with right sides facing. Draw a diagonal line from one corner to another. (This line won’t be seen, so feel free to use a regular pencil if you like.)
Use the line as a guide to sew a quarter inch seam along one side,
then the other.
Cut along the pencil line and you’ve got two new squares.
Press the seam open. Don’t worry about those wonky little bits that stick out, they’re about to be trimmed off.
I’ve started with a five inch square, but I’m going to trim it down to 4.5″. This will allow me to even up the square nicely. I like to use a square template for this because it’s got handy lines for me to follow, but you can also use the lines along your cutting mat. For the first cuts, I line up the center seam with a diagonal line on the template and make sure the fabric under the template is still larger than 4.5″, then cut along the right and top edges. Having that perfect center line will make piecing much easier later.
Flip the fabric around so the two uncut edges are at the right and top again. Line up the center seam with that diagonal line and make sure the bottom and left edges are at the 4.5″ marks. Careful cut the top and right sides.
This will give you a half square triangle made of two perfect triangles.
And then you’re ready to set them out in different patterns and see how you like them best!
