Tea Bag Tote Pattern

This is my TEA BAG TOTE pattern. Hearts to Holly has kits and also the pattern (pattern is only $2!). You can also get it directly from me (www.northerndeb@ymail.com).

It's quick and easy... and SO FUN :) I made loads of them already. They're great little gifts... add in a pretty vintage tea cup, some tea bags and maybe even a matching mug rug....wrap it all up in some cellophane and you've got a great gift for a friend, mom, grandma, etc. I use the tea bag tote to keep my favorite tea bags with me in my purse. Make it up in a doggie print and store treats in your purse for your favorite pooch. It's also a great size for baby's pacifier. You'll find dozens of uses for it!

Don't forget my contest! You could win a pattern and a fat quarter of "Sunkissed". Just become a follower (if you're not already one) and leave a comment.

Contest and a new pattern for BEGINNERS!

I've been working on a project for the last couple of days... a pattern for brand new quilters. While working at the quilt shop, I've had a few ladies come in looking for a VERY easy quilt pattern... something to make for a baby that would be quick, easy and perfect for a beginner. Since we didn't really have one, I explained how I made my first quilt. After showing a few people how to do it, it hit me... just write it all down in a pattern. So here it is:

It's SUPER simple and very reasonable to make. The pattern uses 5" precuts (one pack or two), a little extra yardage if using one precut pack, some batting and backing. The sample is made using a Moda charm pack, "Sunkissed". Hearts to Holly has the charm packs and this pretty backing. They also carry the batting, which I tried for the first time. It's a very soft and fluffy, poly. It'll hold up well for lots of washing and feels SOOOO good! The sample will be hangin in the quilt shop if anyone is out that way and wants to feel it. There's no quilting or binding for this quilt, just turn and tack. It could be tied (like we did in the old days) but I found tacking quick and easy. You can get the pattern at Hearts to Holly or email me at northerndeb@ymail.com.

Wouldn't this be a cute quilt for a new puppy or kitten? I think I might just have to make one in a doggie print.... ohhhh... and FLANNEL?! Nice :)

Just a note: The rocker in the photo? It's a child's rocker... was my mom's when she was young. It's been up in the barn for a while and I decided it needed to be in my daughters old room now that there's extra space. Someday, I'll have some grandchildren that will use it .... I HOPE!

SO,the CONTEST?!!

Just become one of my followers and leave a comment for a chance to win this (or one of my others, your choice) pattern plus a FQ of SUNKISSED. Leave a way for me to contact you... your blog address or email.

I'll draw a name in two weeks... June 15th... GOOD LUCK :)

Ahhh... SPRING!

Spring has come to the north, FINALLY! All of our flowering trees are beautiful. The apple trees, cherry trees, bradford pears and crabapples are full of white and pink blossoms... boy do we have the bees :)... sure hope they're doing they're a good job of pollinating.


This week we celebrated Jon's birthday.. he's a great guy (and maybe will be my son-in-law some day). Jenn and Jon, Al and I, all met up at Pearls on Wednesday. It was the crawfish festival there and Jon dove right into a 1 pound plate of those goodies (I'm saying that sarcastically, since they look like overgrown bugs to me..uck). BUT according to him, they taste somewhat like lobster...hmmm, might have to give them a try some time...NOT!
That's Al and I in the above pic and Jenn, Jon and me in the bottom picture.


Okay... that's it for now. I'm working on a little quilt (to put away for grandchildren) using the corn and beans block. It's a fun little scrappy. I'll post pictures of it as soon as I'm done quilting it. It has a wool batting which is a first for me. It's kind of fluffy so I split it in half... and I'm glad I did. It's still nice and soft and puffy. Perfect for a little boy (HINT, HINT... yeah I mean you two... get married already and give me some grandbabies!!). In the meantime, this quilt will be my entry for the Hearts to Holly Challenge.

Mom's Day

I had a wonderful Mother Day, yesterday. Jenn bought me some underthings (Boy, I needed these!) After breakfast Jenn and I spent some time working in her boyfriends backyard, doing landscaping. I love gardening, it's so nice to work outside playing in the dirt (even if it's backbreaking sometimes).

We stopped by a shop to pick up some flowers (for her) and veggies (for my garden) plus dirt, compost, chips... all the regular stuff. She bought me lunch and then we headed back to town.

Al dug out an apple tree from our back. He ran out of room in the orchard so this one was waiting in my garden, waiting for us to find it a spot. Jenn decided to give it a home. The tree is planted and so are some daffodils from our backyard, a clump of irises, a foxglove she bought and a few other extas. I should have taken a before and after picture... it's looking really nice.

And what did I get from Lisa? Well, her gift came in the mail today. She bought me a turntable cutting board (Olfa), a hexagon template (one of the only templates I don't have) and some fabrics. What a nice pile of goodies!

Thanks Jenn and Lisa!! You both always find the perfect gifts. I had a great Mother's Day! :)

Where does the time go?!

Wow... where does the time go?


Easter was wonderful... Al, Jenn and I went down to Mom's for a wonderful dinner with the family. Mom made ham, potato salad, RIBS plus LOADS more. Then she made about 8 desserts (there were 9 of us)... so we went home stuffed. It was a fast trip.... We drove down Saturday, came back Sunday. Quick but fun.


My sister stitched me a few goodies. She's a beginning quilter and learning fast. She made me this cute Dr. Suess pillow for my sewing room:

Don't you love it? It's perfect with all my stuffed animals and children's books. And then she made me this cute Easter mug rug:
I have it on my coffee table for now. Looks pretty with all the Easter eggs out. Guess I'll have to put all of that stuff away soon.....

So since I've been back home, I started working on one of my UFOs that has been in a box for... hmmm... years? The block is called "Corn and Beans". The quilt is going to be a lap size. I'm running out of the background color so when I finish up this last row, I'll start on a border or two.. and then bind it up. We're having a fabric challenge at the lqs and I put all five fabrics in this quilt so that I could "kill two birds with one stone"... get a challenge done.. get a ufo done. :)

And here's another item checked off my to-do list. We have the block frenzy going on at Hearts to Holly. The fabric to use in our blocks was chosen by the last winner ... it's Moda's Faith Collection (collection for a cause). OH, I hope I win this time. Your name goes into the draw once for every block you make. Make one, goes in once, make 5... goes in 5 times. I probably should make a few more blocks... So yesterday, I went out to the mailbox and found a wonderful squishy goodie! My good friend, Jenell, sent me some Aussie fabrics. We've been talking about ordering these for quite a while but I just haven't gotten around to it. Jenell, THANK YOU. I'm going to fussy cut one a "happy" man and tuck him into my black and white quilt. The quilt top is already done but I think some unsewing is needed. This will make quite a conversation piece, don't you think?

Chattertime at Hearts to Holly in Charlevoix

One of my good "internet" friends asked about Chattertime. The last time I was there I took a few sneaky pics... We have a wonderful classroom where we can meet almost every Friday morning. Sue provides a treat (her sister is the best baker!) and coffee. We have show and tell. Sue shows us the newest fabrics, tools or tells us about trips, specials, sales, etc. Mostly we chat and eat. OH, we stitch too :) Some of us bring hand sewing.. some of us just come for the food and friends. If you're ever visiting on a Friday morning, stop in and join us.

Making Fans and Plates

We had our monthly guild meeting last night and Hearts To Holly Quilt Shop did demos of popular templates and tools. Since I was doing one of the demos, Sue let me choose what tool or template I would like to show. My favorite (right now) is the Fantastic Fan. It comes in 3 sizes and I've tried them all. This is a quilt center I made using the 12" size (makes a 24" plate): And this is the smallest size that I had... 3" fan (6-1/2" plate):I'm really hooked on making these. The one above will probably be turned into a summer mug rug since it's so colorful.

Catching up on projects plus goodies from swaps

Here's some pretty Charlevoix fabrics that I wanted to use for my second quilt. The first is already half (well, maybe 3rd) of the way done. Yesterday when I was working we ran out of some of my FAVORITE fabric... the light blue waves that are in this picture. I'm now on a search for it because it's the main fabric of this quilt (or was). I wanted it mostly blue and yellow with splashes of the red. Today I picked up the yellow floral. I already had the yellow stripe and the reds. I may have to work in the other blue in place of the waves. I like it but I didn't want to have two florals of the same pattern in the quilt.

Another project finished up today... the rug I've been crocheting using scrap strips. It's finally big enough. It was supposed to go in the girls bathroom but it's been hanging out in my sewing room so long, I think that's where it'll stay. Check off another project FINISHED! Now I need to start on the rug for DD2.

Lately I've gotten some wonderful squishy mail. Pat sent me two beautiful mug rugs, Sharon sent me some pretty green happy blocks I won on scrappyandhappy (yahoo group) and Dorian sent me this cheery mug rug in my favorite color of aqua for the mug rug swap on Quilt and Needle (Thank you so much Dorian). Yup, it's been wonderful getting the mail :)

And now another Happy Block swap has started. It was my choice this time and since I'm just dying for summer to get here, I thought I would do a summery swap. Here's my blocks: Fruits or veggies in the center and picnic tablecloth type designs for the outer fabric. I would love to do a quilt for myself out of these... to take in the summer to the beach.. hmmm.. might have to start another project.

Surprises in the mail

Look what came in yesterday's mail!! I found two mug rugs from Pat.. we swapped mug rug sets on our Yahoo group and these were two that I was just WISHING we going to be mine. It's a secret swap so we don't know who our partners are until the mug rugs arrive. Pat had posted a picture a while ago and said she had mailed them out... well.. I kept waiting and watching for something to arrive and it didn't.. I figured someone else had been the recipient of these beauties. Then she posted yesterday that her mug rugs were taking quite a long time to arrive at ____'s house but she had confirmation that yesterday they had been delivered. I thought, MAYBE, they would be at my house. I worked till 4:30 then went to a friend's house right from work. When I arrived home around 7 I checked the mailbox... nothing... then the kitchen counter..nothing. Al was at work and when he got home at 10 he had the mail with him. WELL, there was the package for me, FROM PAT! I was so excited!

If you look closely, the roses in the mugs are Charlevoix fabric and I'm nuts about that stuff. Right now I'm working on two coordinating twin quilts using some of the fabrics. One of the quilts is peach/coral with blue. The other will be blues and yellows. Here's a picture of the blocks for the first quilt. Now don't those mug rugs look perfect with it? I think these mug rugs will have to go on the night stands in the guest room where the quilts will be (this will be in the new house). Sure hope no coffee or tea mugs sit on these.. water should be ok. Thank you, Pat! :)Yesterday after work I stopped at a friends house. We trade fabrics every so often. She knows I'm collecting 30's reproductions for my seven sisters quilt so she had me come by to pick some out. She has quite a large collection of them... lots of different ones. We had a great time chatting about quilts and fabrics and quilt shows. She told me how she once got 3rd place (or so) in an ugly quilt contest (her first quilt, before she took any classes). It's hard to believe she could make one that bad because her quilts are perfection! She has loads of beautiful quilts on beds and walls in her house. It was like going to a quilt show.. inspired me to get some more UFOs finished up. Maybe I can get one of these Charlevoix quilts finished by the time we have our quilt show this summer. This is just SOME of the pieces she gave me... aren't they nice?

NOW, since I won the happy block swap on Scrappy and Happy, I get to choose the theme of the next happy blocks. I was thinking about it all day yesterday and decided on doing "Summer Fruits and Veggies". Digging through my stash, I found a pile of fabrics that I think will suit the theme. This should make a nice summer picnic quilt... fruit and veggie centers with dots or checks (think summer tablecloth prints) surrounding them.

Time to get some sewing done... Al is working again today. Chicken soup is simmering on the stove so time for me to get something accomplished.

I Won Happy Blocks :)

Today was a great day... I won the drawing at our Yahoo group for the Happy blocks... This month they were kelly green with yellow centers. These are the four I made. Very springy, don't you think? The colors are better in person. The yellow is bright and cheery and the green is a child's crayon green.. Now the hard part... what to make. Adding a third color to these might be nice but maybe I'll wait till they show up to decide what to do with them.

I made another mug rug, not too long ago. I didn't post it because it was going to my sister and I wasn't sure whether or not she reads this blog... I wanted it to be a surprise. It's pink and cream... very girly (unlike us, right MaryAnn?!). I was playing with some leftover charm squares and decided they looked cute together. So, she told me she's going to hang it up in her dining room turned sewing room.... Another mug rug destined to live out it's life hanging on a wall instead of cozy under a cup of tea...hehe... I should really learn to use darker colors. Who wants to spill coffee and tea on pink and cream? I guess it IS a miniature quilt. Well, off to the sewing room...

Binding Tutorial

Today I worked on a scrappy project... doing the binding on it. The corners of this one aren't 90 degrees and as I was doing them I thought that maybe someone out there would like a tutorial on how to do binding. If you follow this step by step you'll be able to do 90 degree bindings and odd ones too.

I cut my bindings about 1-1/2" to 2" for most projects since I do single layer bindings... in other words, I turn my bindings to the back, turn under the raw edges then stitch them down. Many people do double bindings... they stitch the fabric on double (it's folded in half lengthwise, both raw edges being caught as they go around), then when they turn it to the back, it's already folded on the edge. If you do double bindings, you'll probably be cutting them 2-1/2" or so.

Another choice in binding is cutting it straight along the WOF (width of fabric) or cutting it bias (at a 45 degree angle to the selvage). On this project I cut it straight but I usually prefer bias binding. Either way will work with the tutorial.

Here's a link to it:

BINDING TUTORIAL

Let me know if you have any questions or if I can add pictures to make it clearer. I've helped my daughters to do bindings and I'm hoping that this will help others. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy.