Celebrating Grandma

Last week Grandma, who was 105, passed away very peacefully.

Many of you know that she was the one that taught me to sew... years and years ago. I think I was about 7 when she first sat me down at her machine (so about 50 years ago...WOW!).

 

There are so many things that she taught me over the years but sewing is what I'm most thankful for. There is hardly a day that goes by that I'm not stitching on something. It's so much more than a hobby.

 

My parents, cousins, siblings, and other family and friends celebrated grandmas life this weekend. We all had wonderful memories and stories to share. All the old pictures came out which sparked more memories (and lots of tears) of her and grandpa. She had touched so many lives in her 105 years and we feel so lucky to have been able to call her our grandma.

 

Much of the family is spread out around the country so there were some that just weren't able to make it. And the weather! Bitterly cold with lots of snow...felt like Minnesota (that's where grandma was originally from). How appropriate.

 

I had a chance to visit with my cousins, Laura and Eric, from "out west". When we were young, we would get SO excited to hear our WESTERN cousin were coming to visit. You know kids...we pictured them living on the wild west, with cowboy hats and horses...:)  Laura and Eric flew in for the funeral. I am so happy they did! We had a good chance to talk and catch up but mostly share memories.

 

All of us loved the "picnics" in grandma's yard. She had a HUGE garden and lots of lawn for us to run around on. Grandma let us climb around in the house attic (with the secret pull down stairs), the barn attic and the potting shed (what a great playhouse). We would play dress-up with her old hats and dresses. We'd eat tomatoes fresh from the garden (take the salt right out there). She'd make the best potato salad, baked beans, deviled eggs and desserts. It's funny that those picnics were just about everyone's favorite memory.... something so simple. Grandma, you'll be missed. 

 
 

Deb, Lisa and cousin Laura

Green Quilting- Making a quilt from old shirts and scraps

This is a quilt on my design "floor"... just playing with the placement at this point. Do any of you remember Happy Blocks from Block Central? Well, that's all these are!

 

These are very simple blocks (even easier than a 9 patch). The sizes of the happy blocks are 3" (finished size), 6" and 9". I choose these sizes because they all work together (multiples of 3's) to form a large 24" block.

The quilt will have TWELVE 24" blocks (3 across, 4 down) when I'm done so that my quilt is 72" x 96... and no borders :) That should give this quilt the vintage look I'm after. And how will it be quilted?...Still thinking about that...probably something very linear. 

Here's what I'm starting with:

Lots of 100% cotton shirts (all striped ones), a few leftover pieces of striped fabric and my box of solid scraps.

A few of the shirts weren't completely cut up yet so doing that now too.

From this shirt I'm getting 2-1/2" wide strips, a few 3-1/2" wide strips and plenty of 1-1/2" wide. After cutting strips, I sub-cut into top and bottom pieces or side pieces (of my blocks). Then I find a solid that works with my stripe and cut centers. The centers need to stand out so sometimes they match and sometimes they don't.

Here's a navy center on a light green stripe. The center will really "pop" and bring the eye to that block. I line up the center pieces so that the stripe is sideways and then make sure that the top and bottom pieces have their stripes going in the opposite direction.

Stitch the middle, then the top and bottom and the block is done. EASY! Press to the outside when making these blocks and they'll lay nice and flat.

Just in case you want to make this quilt too, here's what you need to cut....

For a 3" block you need:

(2) 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" striped strips (make sure the stripe is going the short way!)

(2) 1-1/2" striped squares and

(1) 1-1/2" solid square.

For a 6" block you need:

(2) 2-1/2" x 6-1/2" striped strips (make sure the stripe is going the short way!)

(2) 2-1/2" striped squares and

(1) 2-1/2" solid square.

For a 9" block you need:

(2) 3-1/2" x 9-1/2" striped strips (make sure the stripe is going the short way!)

(2) 3-1/2" striped squares and

(1) 3-1/2" solid square.

 

Just roughly figuring, I'm thinking I'll need about 36 nine inch blocks, 70 six inch and 150 or more 3" blocks. Seems like a lot but in two days I have about 1/4 of the quilt blocks done.

This is a drawing of a few possible ways to place the 3, 6 and 9" blocks together to get a 24" square. Sometimes it's going to require a set in block.

While writing this blog, I noticed that the bin of striped shirts hasn't gotten any smaller even though over 50 blocks have been made from it. Hmmmm.... that always seems to happen. Make a quilt to use up stash or scraps and usually you'll end up with about what you started with. It's one of the mysteries of quilting!

Shopping in naples florida

Getting my fabric fix today at a great shop on Pine Ridge in Naples called Flash Quilt and Sew. really enjoyed my time there... Nice people, great fabric choices. 

Here's Al patiently waiting for me to get my purchases rung up...they need a club for all these wonderful husbands of quilters.

This is some of the fabrics I bought at the first shop.... The Kaffe was 1/2 off! Got enough for a back. The gray is a batik....hard to find really light batik backgrounds and then in a nice gray plus a good design. Thrilled with this!

Found some pretty blue and white, some little 30's pieces, a little Minick and Simson on clearance and finally a snap bag kit with more Minick and Simpson...half off! Also bought some paper piecing hexies....forgot my hand sewing at home. I've been going through withdrawals for the past week. This will give me some hand sewing to do on our way home to Michigan.

Tomorrow we start the trip home. I'm excited to get back to my sewing room but not to the snow and cold. It's 80+ degrees here... and about 8 at home....brrrrrr.

Busy day... now everyone's resting

Jenn is here with Harry for the weekend to sew and visit. Today we finished up a bunch of Xmas gifts. She made two of the 10 Minute Table Runners, I made another of the stuffed Christmas Tree Ornaments, a pillowcase, a block for a swap and worked a little on my Hexagon Christmas Tree pillow. Harry was outside running around a little, once with Al, once with Jenn and once with me... he gets plenty of attention when he visits. Here's the finished stuff:

There's also a couple of coasters...made the same way as my mug rugs but smaller.

 

 

So now everyone's resting... Harry is sleeping by Al on our bed (Al is on his I Phone)...

Jenn is relaxing on the couch (with her phone)....

and I'm at the kitchen table playing with my laptop :)

TUTORIAL: How to make Hexagons using the English Paper Piecing Method... EPP

 Recently I made a little Hexagon Christmas Tree pillow using the English paper piecing method. It turned out so cute that I decided to make two more... one for my other daughter and one for myself. This tree will be all in shades of green... the first one had some red mixed in.

SOOOOO... I thought I would do a tutorial for anyone wanting to make one or anyone that just wanted to learn to do EPP. WARNING: It's addictive!!! The paper above is the size I'm using for this project. It's a 1" Hexagon paper. You can buy these at most quilt shops or at www.paperpieces.com. You'll find lots of other projects on the website plus there's a great section with pictures of projects people are working on... some are downright AMAZING!!

Okay, so back to the tutorial. You'll need 22 papers... 21 for the tree and one for the trunk. You can also make a smaller tree using 11 papers... just stop after the fourth row and add the trunk.

Here's the piece of fabric I'll use to make my next piece. It measures about 2-1/2" square. You can fussy cut a design if you would like.

 Lay you paper on the wrong side of the fabric square and pin it to it. I know some people who punch a hole with a paper punch into the center of the paper hexagon and put the pin in at that spot... this keeps you pins sharper but I'm not too concerned so I just pin through the paper.

 Trim off the excess fabric... again only if you want to... some people leave the extra... doesn't really hurt anything. I trim so that I have a generous 1/4" all the way around.

 Now knot a thread and fold back one seam... put your needle though all the thicknesses and baste the edges down... use REALLY LARGE stitches because you'll be pulling these out later. Once all the edges have been basted down, just run the thread through a couple of places to secure it... don't knot it... it'll hold well enough. Take out the pin.

 I'm about halfway done with my hexagons...10 more greens ones to make and a brown one but I'll show you how it goes together.

 Butt two pieces like I did below. Where they touch will be the first seam. This is row two... I start my trees with row two. Put the two hexagons right sides together....

 Take you knotted and threaded needle... go through the back seam... coming up at a corner....

Then catch the corner of the other piece to lock them together ...lining them up and whip stitching across... just keep going in one and straight across into the other. You'll get a ////// type of stitching. Knot it at the end of the row but don't cut your thread...

 

You can add your next piece on now. I lay it down... make sure I know where I want the next one to go... then start adding that piece. I'll add the top piece now (If I had a cute green fabric with a star that could be fussy cut, I would use that instead of this one).

 

 So here I am adding the top piece ...first to the green. I'll knot at the end of the row... cut the thread and then fold the pieces over so I can stitch to the yellow hexagon. This is really hard to explain but if you do it along with me, you'll understand. Knot again at the end. Cut the thread and get ready to start row 3.

 I line up my rows just to see what piece I want to use next... probably will be that darkest green of row 3... then the middle one. Every so often you have to knot the thread and cut it. If I wanted the smaller tree, I could stop at the end of row 4 and then add my brown piece to the center of the bottom row. You need to end with an EVEN row so that the trunk is centered..... so 4 or 6 or 8...

 My background piece is from the Bluebird Park fabric line. I cut a piece about 15" square... and trim later when I have my tree appliqued down.

I'll show the applique process later but once your tree is made and the trunk is on... spray the whole piece with starch BACK and FRONT. Press VERY WELL. Now you can remove the papers and the seams will stay to the back. Lay your piece on the backing square and applique down. You could use invisible thread to zig zag it down ... or you could hand applique it. The other option is to leave the papers in, hand applique it and then cut away the back and remove the papers.

To remove papers cut your basting threads and just gently pull them out. The papers can be reused about three or four times.

Note: I used YLI Wonder thread for the invisible zig zag stitching I did on my first pillow.

Email me if you have any questions... I love hooking people on EPP... ;)

Let It Snow Table Runner Finished :)

 Today I finished up my table runner from the book LET IT SNOW. There were a lot of cute things to make from this book. This one was super simple... took much longer to quilt this than to sew it up.

 I added the binding on the opposite way we usually do, put it on from the back and folded it to the front. This way I could machine stitch the binding down on top... follow along the edge so that it looks good from the top without being bothered if it misses a little on the back.

For the quilting, I followed along the inside of the trees using 1/4" seam.. getting smaller and smaller. Then just did swirls in a meander around the rest of it.  

Christmas trees and other goodies

 Today I'm working on Christmas items... These cute little stuffed trees will be decoration at Demo Days. The shop carries the book that has this pattern and lots of other cute ones.

 These trees are small... not a lot larger than my spool of thread. We're going to make quite a few and string them like garland.

 This pile of strip scraps is being turned into a second Christmas quilt. I'm doing one in just Christmas fabric but using the pattern I used to make my Blue Strip quilt. If you haven't tried strip piecing, you should! MINDLESS (my favorite type of sewing).
 

 These are some of the strip blocks that are done and trimmed. Some of the fabrics are from the 80's... time to use THOSE up!
Below is how I'll put them together... every 4 strip blocks put together like this form a diamond...  4 diamonds across and 4 down (64 blocks total). It should be about 72" square which is a pretty good size for a lap quilt. Since I build my blocks on muslin, I won't need to use any batting. I'll probably find a nice flannel for the back.... that will make it cozy.

 

 And if you know how I sew... one project at a time is unheard of! SOOOO... I'm also working on this tablerunner that is on my ironing board. The light aqua is the background of the triangle trees... there will be an aqua border with tree trunks built in and then maybe another border after that. This is also in the book that has the little stuffed tree garland. I can't remember the name but they will have it at Demo Days at Hearts to Holly. I could have made about 5 things from that book... cute wall quilt... nice pillows... a snowman lap quilt... just lots of great items. When I find out the name of the book I'll update this post.

And here is my only purchase when I went to another quilt shop in my area... I was looking for something different to add to my Christmas quilt and found this pretty string of lights fabric. Bought a 1/2 yard of it... just enough to play with.

Hexagon Christmas Tree pillow

 

Al and I are PUP sitting for our daughter's dog, Harrison (Harry for short). She and Jon have taken off for London to get in a last trip before starting a family. They know once they have children, the trips won't happen... at least not for a while. So Harry is here for 10 days or so... 10 LONG days. He's a bundle of energy!

Al is working today so I'm the entertainment committee for the day. We played catch and fetch and tug-a-war............ and now I'm pooped. Figured I could do some hand sewing while he relaxes on a quilt.

 

 

 

This is a Christmas Tree Pillow that I'm making as a shop sample. It's just 1" hexagon pieces put together in rows of 1, then 2 then 3... continuing until row 6. Add a final brown hexi as the trunk. This is an English Paper Piecing (EPP) method (you can see a how-to at with this link)... applique the tree to a background... layer with batting and a muslin backing. Quilt using floss through all layers. Then turn it into a pillow and stuff. You could add sparkly beads at the hexagon junctions... but with a puppy here, I know he'd just try to nibble them off. I've already pulled pins out of his mouth when he grabbed one of my pincushions.

 

 

 

I'll post of picture of the finished pillow when it's done.... WITH ANY LUCK, that will be today :/

UPDATE, same day evening: Finished up the pillow with lots of help from Harry (yeah, right!). Here it is...

 

Did a little machine quilting too... I like adding swirls of snow or wind. Harry didn't want me to add the piping... he was having too much fun grabbing it and running.

 

 

FREE Mug Rug Patterns and Ideas

While I was working today, a lady came in asking about MUG RUG patterns. I mentioned that I have a few free ones on my blog. This COULD be one... with all the work that went into it, I call it a mini quilt but it's mug rug size.

After thinking about all the mug rugs I've made, I thought maybe I should have a page that tells where they are because even I couldn't find them easily.

SO, here it is:

Aqua & Red Hexagon Flower Mug Rug












Dr. Seuss Mug Rug Ideas

More Dr. Seuss Ideas

Dr. Seuss Crazy Quilt Mug Rug

 


Christmas Ornament Mug Rug Free Pattern

64 Patch Mug Rug Idea - This is just 1-1/2" squares stitched together to make an 8" block then turned into a mug rug.

Teapot Paper Piecing block to make into a mug rug - Sometimes I use these paper piecing block (if they are about 8") to use as the front of my mug rug.. and sometimes I add a small border first.

Paper Pieced Coffee Cup Mug Rug Idea - No pattern for this but I found a free paper pieced coffee cup block online and added a strip to all sides to create a mug rug.

Hope this helps. As I do more or find more, I'll add them on here. Pretty much any small block can be bordered and then finished off like a miniature placemat to make a mug rug. I grab them all the time to use on my coffee table. They hold so much more than a coaster (you know, all the cookies and treats that go with coffee;).