Craft Apple

Last week I decided to have my sewing student start on her first quilt - a small doll quilt made up of 20 pieced squares.  As she was working on it, I realized that it had been a long time since I’d made a real quilt and I missed it. Then, further spurred on by Sew, Mama, Sew!’s Quilt Month features, I decided to make a baby quilt.   

While I love all the quilts I’ve been seeing, for some reason the ones that I tear out of magazines for inspiration are always pieced squares.  I looked through my inspiration folder and pulled out this picture that I had saved from a catalog.  I went through all my scraps and pulled out any and all fabrics that looked like anything resembling pink and started cutting 3-inch squares.  365 squares.  The oldest pieces of fabrics are 7 years old.  Then newest just a couple of months.  I don’t think the fabrics look like they go together up close

or even far off,

but the quilting lines seem to pull everything together.  I backed it with large panels of pink from my stash:

And for the first time in years my stash is amazingly pink-free.  I have a couple of friends that are expecting.  I’m really hoping one of them has a baby girl that can enjoy and spit up on this quilt!  :o)

My method of wrinkling (that I’ve mentioned before) is below.

1. Pre-wash your cotton fabric first.

2. Use Warm&Natural batting. 

3. Piece, quilt, and bind

4. Throw it in the washer on warm.

5. Dry on low.

I made myself another dress using McCall’s 8108.   It says it takes 1 hour of sewing time, but with my adaptations, extras and incredibly lower-than-average sewing speed,  it actually took me much, much longer.  I finished off all the edges with an overlock stitch, made the entire pattern a size smaller, added a closure on the neckline in the back and learned a few things along the way.  It was really nice to be able to finish a dress and wear it to church the next day.  Sewing clothes is becoming more and more fun! 

I learned how to sew darts and do a handpicked hem.  Traditionally, I think a handpicked hem is meant for lightweight fabrics, but it worked just fine on this heavyweight cotton dobby (more on this fabric another time).  I have an aversion to hemming things.  When I made myself curtains a few years ago, I left the bottom unhemmed for so long that my mom finished them up for me when she visited (thanks, Mom!).  But a handpicked hem is actually quite fun.  I think I could actually start to like hemming!

Hand-Picked Hem  (In the pictures below, I am using a swatch of fabric, not an actual skirt hem.)

First, you fold and press the raw edge toward the wrong side (1st fold). 

Then you fold it over again and press (2nd fold).

Next, (and here’s the counter-intuitive part, at least for me) fold the whole hem toward the RIGHT side (3rd fold), making the edges of this fold flush with the first fold and pin into place, but do not press with iron.

Now all machines are different, but on my machine (Bernina 440QE) you use the blind hem foot (#5) and use the blindstitch (#7).  Line up the edge with the midline guide and start stitching.  The blindstich is 4 straight stitches on the right of the guide where the needle is falling through the air, not catching any fabric, and forming a chain of thread along the edges,

followed by a zig zag stitch.  The zig zag catches the layers to the left of the guide and returns to right side for the 4 straitght stitches.  Using my blind hem foot, the zig zag stitch goes over a metal pin, allowing more thread per zig zag so that there isn’t any pull on the fabric when it is flattened. 

This is the result from the wrong side,

and the right side.

Pretty, isn’t it?  With closely matched thread, it would almost be invisible.

This weekend I got a chance to play around with some of my new favorite prints:

• Tina Given’s Zazu - chandeliers and florals.  Swatches are at Free Spirit.  This fabric is just beautiful.  I look at the chandeliers and wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?”  Of course, if I had thought of it, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to draw it.  Ha!  But still.

• This cute floral print from Kokka .  I think it goes magnificently with the solid Kona cotton in Candy Pink on these Mini Patchfolios.

• And, of course, Amy Butler’s Nigella that goes stunningly (yes, stunningly, I say!) with Kona Cotton in Coal.  This is the latest car organizer prototype.  Pattern progress is coming along.  This model is the most sturdy so far, but is still in need of some tweaking.   Construction is still not as simple as I would like. So I’m plugging away.

It’s been a while since I’ve exercised regularly.  A few weeks ago I was thrilled to find an adult ballet class in my neighborhood.  I’ve always thought ballet would be fun to take.  So now, once a week I’m prancing around feeling a tad uncoordinated.  I’m blessed to have 2 girlfriends to take the class with me.  And it feels SO GOOD to move!

And on a crafty note, I’m thinking maybe I should sew myself some ballet shoes. 

I made myself a quilted toolbelt for the craft show I had a few months ago.  It was really nice to have easy access to my receipts and a pen.  It reminded me of my waitressing days in college without the, “Hi my name is Linda.  Would you like to start off with some hot tea?”  I worked in an Asian restaurant.  Korean & Chinese, actually, and that is where I fell in love with BiBimBop in a hot stone bowl.  Yum, yum!   

So I had also made a few quilted toolbelts to sell at the show as well and they sold rather quickly.  I’ve said before that I find craft shows incredibly unpredictable.  There’s no guarantee that if I do the same show next year that anyone would want one, but I decided to make some up anyway (feeling quilty about having an empty Etsy shop), and that’s when I found the last post’s sewing tip quite handy.  Here are a couple of the toolbelts I made last week:

I was in contact with a magazine editor and submitted this pattern to a quilt magazine.  We’ll see what happens with that.   For now, I’m just waiting.  And as for the picture above?  I’ve been playing around in Photoshop, trying to teach myself how to work with layers.  All you digital scrapbookers out there have me impressed and awed by your talent!  The picture above took me an entire hour and I still see things that need fixing.  See the pretty charm necklace?  It’s a lovely gift from Tinker.  Thank you!

I love to quilt, but it’s a rare event that I actually make a whole quilt complete with binding.  Rather, I like making quilted stuff:  Things that involve quilting that I can incorporate into an item, like a purse, or a Patchfolio.  Small panels are SO much easier to quilt - no sweating or tachycardia involved.

I only JUST discovered that I can save a lot of time by quilting several panels at the same time.  I’ve done up to 3 Mini Patchfolio covers at the same time.  Less turning around time = less overall quilting time.  This works great, especially if you are just quilting with straight lines.

I laid the panels out on the batting, then pinned them in place. Then, I cut the batting slightly larger than the pieces and started quilting. When I was sewing across the length of the panels, I just kept sewing over the batting until I was sewing up onto the other panel.

I use Warm ‘n Natural batting for all my quilting projects. I’m not sure if this method would work if you were using thin polyester batting because it isn’t as dense.

So far this New Year hasn’t been so craftfully successful.  I’ve had a series of bag failures that after a week of trying, I finally gave up.  Last night after throwing the 8th bag on the pile, I decided to try the next thing on my list:  a car organizer.

What we have had up until now is a catch all bag that holds everything, including the car trash which includes countless wrappers from post-soccer-game sweets.  (Side note:  I just don’t get why my boy’s soccer games have to be followed by fat and sugar.  I’m all for a healthy snack, but an ice-cream cone?  Sigh.)  So when I hear this:  “Mommy!!!  Can I have a Kleenex please?”  I have to dig through the mound of germy hand wipes and old snack wrappers to get to the Kleenex.  And because the bag is such a mess, stuff gets piled onto the passenger seat in the car.  Come Sunday, hubby drives and I climb into the passenger seat, put all the extraneous stuff on my lap and start sorting through it on our way to church.  Half of it goes into the hold-everything disaster bag and the rest of it goes onto the floor.  Behold the bag that wasn’t working:

And the replacement:

It has 2 compartments:  one for trash and one for wipes and Kleenex.  On one long side is a pocket to hold my JoAnn’s and Michael’s coupons.  I’ve never made a divider in the middle of a bag like that so that was fun.  I learned something new and made something functional.  Perhaps it will turn out to be a craftilicious year after all.

There’s certainly room for improvement, but for now, it’ll do the trick.

I gotta say, my Starbucks has the BEST customer service.  I left my name and # with them asking them to call me if they decided to sell their Christmas decorations and looky here, I’m gettin’ ready for Christmas 2008:

Yep, they called me.  Everything was $5 except the big tree.  It was FREE.  The fact that these are made with paper is so ME.  Even though I just purged 80% of my stamping stuff and gave it to a friend.  My first love is still fabric.  Hmmm…maybe Starbucks will add some fabric to their decorations next year?  One of these wreathes is going to Cindy.  She’s the one that noticed them in the first place.  Happy New Year Cindy!

Now speaking of customer service, I’ve had a couple of patterns returned to me (due to post office errors) since I’ve started Craft Apple Creations and each time they look like they’ve been run over by a truck.  Does anyone know if this is this normal?

Now on to 2008.  I’ve decided I’ve got to get organized.  I’ve somehow let myself think I can do it all and this is just not possible.  Instead of starting 4 new things, I really need to just focus on one at a time.  Having my fabric laying all over the floor doesn’t help things.  You see, I need to see my fabric.  I need to walk by it and get inspired and the floor (or the ironing board, or the back of the couch) is the only way I’ve managed to do this until now.

I found this handy magazine rack that I can hang my fabric on, especially those fat quarters, no?  I put it up on Jan. 1.  So I guess it could just be a reflection of what’s ahead.  My sewing room really isn’t a disaster, but I could spend some time organizing in there.  When it’s clean I’ll see if I can get the guts up to post about it.

And aren’t those metal numbers great?  Yep, I did some shopping over Christmas break.  :)  And I noticed that this craft organizer is on sale. (1.7.08: just noticed that it’s now sold out.  Any commission PB would like to give me for helping sell this product would be appreciated, thanks! ;))  It’s a lot like the one in this post that several people asked about.  So I’m not trying to tempt anyone to shop if they shouldn’t, I’m just passing the word along.  Now back to the metal typography.  I’ve been wanting to put the word “Welcome” in my entryway for about a year now.  The chip board letters just didn’t work out for me.  So even though it’s not all that crafty, I’m posting one thing I got done this week. 

Happy New Year!

It’s been a pilowcasey Christmas.  Here is a sample from the 10 pillowcases I’ve made over the past few weeks.  One for each of my friend Em’s 8 kids and 2 for December birthdays.

And for my pastor’s 3 girls, jewelry display frames.  I was a pastor’s kid and missionary kid and remember all the nice things people that I barely knew would send us during the year.  It just feels right to give a little something to our pastor’s kids, just like others did for me.

Fabrics are (from left to right): Anna Griffin’s Bailey, Moda’s Full Moon Forest, Amy Butler’s Charm, Michael Miller’s Feelin’ Groovy.  Aren’t those little flower pushpins from Target cute???

I am thinking about making one for myself.  One of the results of having my 3 babies in 2 1/2 years was that I quit wearing earrings (I mean who had time to do something so frivolous like put in earrings???) and at some point between feedings and diaper changes, my ear lobes healed themselves.  It was like going down memory lane looking at the earrings I had - which ones were given to me, which ones I bought in Taipei’s Shilin Night Market (a great picture can be found here - oh I miss that place!), which ones I wore to my friend’s weddings, etc.  I think I might like having some of them hanging in the closet or the bathroom where I can see them.

And now the holiday sewing/crafting is done.  It’s time to relax!  Wishing you a blessed Christmas!

I admire all you women out there who craft with your kids.  I consider myself crafty, and think my kids are crafty, but usually we are doing our own crafty little things.  The kids draw, I sew.  The kids play with Play-Doh, I sew.  They wrap yarn around their toys to hang them here and there,  I sew.  Do you see the trend we have?  So I’ve been trying to do better.

When Timo (pronounced Tee-moe) turned 6, I started teaching him how to sew.  I didn’t know how interested he’d be but he seems to love it.  It is, after all, a big machine with a dangerous needle going up and down - 2 very appealing things for a young boy.  He turns the speed down and I make sure the biggest presser foot is on there and away he goes.  He’s made more pirate eye patches and stuffed balls than I can count.

Then this week we made snowmen.  Little hands working hard to wrap the wire, and little faces serious in concentration.  It was very sweet. 

This Christmas craft was brought to us by Lera, who sent me the little wreathes that I couldn’t find locally.  Thanks so much!  The kids and I had a lot of fun!