My First Attempt at a Fabric Holiday Bauble

Hello, Happy Friday!   I saw this handmade fabric bauble tutorial on Sew We Quilt. (Thank you Sonia!)  I had all good intentions on following the pattern, but I started this project way too late after an especially hard day at work and sleep deprived.  Well, I got stumped by the print out of the template.  For some reason it seemed to print out really big (meaning the template was bigger than the 5 inches of the background fabric).  Then I wanted to use the fabric with a face on it, which meant fussy cutting. Anyway, I thought I got the concept and thought maybe I could fudge the template to make it not so big. After sewing I thought the face would read better if I stuffed it. It was getting late in the evening and it was with just sheer determination for me to get it done, even with the many interruptions from my girls, who seemed to be needing their mommy a lot tonight. Because they wanted mommy to help them brush their teeth and to cuddle with.  I wanted to make this to give as a gift for the get together on my husband's side of the family this weekend.  I think I'm going to keep this one and will try again to make another one to give away.

My second bauble.  I'm going to throw away that gold ribbon.  I keep wanting to use it and it's not user friendly.  My sister-in-law has a Springer Spaniel.  Wonder if she will like it, hmmm?

 It looks whimsical to me. The possibilities are endless.

May you find some whimsy in your life, even if the bags under your eyes feel like luggage.  Because who needs sleep when you could be sewing.

It's off to Duluth, MN for some Holiday Cheer.  Hope to get some fun pictures to post later.

Coaster in a Minute

I should be cleaning, but I had to whip up this fun idea from Sew Wonderful Dreams called Coasters in a minute.  It takes six 4 x 4 squares, three from two different fabrics.  One for the  top, bottom and four folded in triangles to put around the sides to encase the wine glass, and some batting on the bottom.

One of my fabrics has Rudolph and the other some complimentary green Christmas fabric.  If these fabrics looks familiar it is because I've made a snowflake from these materials.

The wine glass gets snuggled in the middle hole there.

I just had to buy this pattern at a sewing convention because, I like to drink wine occasionally and I thought other wine drinkers might get a kick from getting four of these as a gift. 

May your glass always be half way full, even if you've drained it empty and have rosy cheeks.

Talking of rosy cheeks.  Check out my little munchkins having fun.
Have a Joyful Holiday Season!

Crochet Book Marker

Do you ever see something on the blog and think that is so pretty?  Then you notice a free pattern link is in the description.  This is what happened to me when I happen to be looking at this blog crochetconcupiscence.com five must have items for coffee lovers.  And so I went to the link and made this book marker.

 I went to this link:
crochetroo.blogspot.com

I wish I could find the coloring that had blue and green, but oh well.  I had to learn what a picot was.  I'm riding this crochet craze I've been on, but I did find some stash of fabric from long, long ago and it got me wanting to quilt again.

Audrey & Jamie testing their toddler shovels.

A Fun Way to Use up Christmas Stash Making Snowflakes

These fabric snowflakes are "no sew" flakes.  Using Steam A Steam2 double stick (not the lite one) and dare I say a glue gun.  They are fun to do and you can get instructions from, yes you guessed it, You Tube.   I didn't have a chance to photo all my flakes so I will edit this post later to show how they look with different fabric.  This combination (above) is slight boring as the colors meld together, but the dots and stripes make it interesting.

These can be made in different sizes.  They all involve six pieces cut and glued and glued some more. This one uses six 4x4 block pieces.
Snowflake on You Tube


If you are a purist and a glue gun has you cringing in dismay, try out this beautifully written tutorial, I just discovered myself.  Might have to try it out.   Be forewarned, it is hard to get the needle through the fabric, so get your thimble ready!
No glue tutorial

The first one I made was with 2x2 blocks and it was small enough to hang on my tree.  I glued a plastic bead in the middle.  Red on one side blue on the other.

 My husband said it looks like fall colors when I was wondering why I chose these colors.  He said my girlfriend could enjoy it past Christmas.

 I was wondering what this combo would look like above.

This blue one is for my coworker who is Jewish.  It has the star of David and other symbols on the white background cloth that celebrate Hanukkah.  Photographing them not hanging up is doing them injustice.

May the Holiday Season bring you a little bit more of your Wonderful Self!

Dressing up Water Bottles with Yarn

Greetings fellow humans, how goes it?  The holiday season is upon us and I have been busy making homemade gifts.  I've made 10 of these water bottle cozies. Unfortunately for the first few people who got theirs didn't come with this cute flower, which I learned to do after I got a book from the Library.   I got the main cozy pattern from You Tube.here

The flowers are from here:

Don't you hate it when you can't remember if a water bottle is yours because they all look alike?  There probably is good chance no one will have a water bottle cozy like this if you make one.  They make cute gifts too.

My twin girls Audrey & Jamie showing just how cute you can look when you are holding a water bottle cozy.

Crochet Pot Scrubbies

I recently saw a post on pot scrubbies as I was checking out Penny's blog, who was a guest on Sew We Quilt.  I wound up buying a PDF on pot scrubbies from her. (This tutorial is free on on her blog Sew take a Hike) I made the PDF tutorial and was surprised at how annoying it was to crochet with netting.  I made the scrubbie one night when my husband was at his videographer's club meeting.  The next evening after work I visited my father in rehabilitation and when I came home he had cleaned the dishes and the entire kitchen using the scrubbie.  Later that evening he saw me making one and told me Audrey, my daughter, told him I made it but didn't believe her.  I'm thinking there is some magic in my scrubbie because next thing you know he is cleaning thoroughly the entire refrigerator.  My poor scrubbie was used and abused with all sorts of gunk.  I happened to be replacing my fridge baking soda so I poured some on my scrubbie and then poured a little bit of vinegar on it.  It bubbled and fizzed and after a couple of times, my scrubbie was free of gunk.  They can also be tossed in the laundry or dishwasher.  Well the story goes that when dear husband's father was visiting, they got to cleaning out two of the cupboards, one with my spices and the other a variety of things.  Grandpops cleaned the entire surface of my stove.  Maybe they did this because I've spent almost the entire month after work visiting my father in the rehabilitation center, but I like to think it was the special magic of these scrubbies.

I wound up watching four different you-tube tutorials and I started doing these scrubbies my own way, which was a little bit easier for a beginner like me.  You can tell with a few of them I didn't know what I was doing and they turned out wonky.  But I figure they get a little wonky after a few times of use so who cares.  Mine are double-sided and big like a big hamburger patty.

Here is a picture of my multicolored pot scrubbies.

This a picture of the back of them.  Four of the better ones are gone already to relatives and so were not included in the photo. 

I cut the netting into 2 inch strips.  Rolling them into balls helps soften them a bit and makes it easier to crochet with.  I use a J crochet hook and paid $8.00 for a hook from Clover Needlecraft to make my life easier making these.  The head has optimal shape for smooth crocheting.  I no longer find crocheting these annoying, but rather relaxing and addicting to do.

I intend to give one of these to my four coworkers in a goodie bag with some Stila lip gloss and See's chocolates. 

The first two peoples to leave a comment gets one of my magic scrubbies. You can even customize the colors you want.

 And swirling patterns can be made too.

Happy Halloween to you!!

Shared Information on Free PDF paper foundation

I saw this link from Sweet P Quilting and Creations blog.  I'm not sure why I felt I just had to share this.  Maybe because triangles can be so tricky with all that bias and stretching.  I think the paper foundation would help in keeping distortion to a minimum.

Here is a link to free pdf of half square triangles in any size.  Quilting and Whatnot

The directions given are:
To use the pattern, place two fabrics right sides together and place the paper pattern on top. Just stitch on the diagonal dotted lines and cut on the grid and between the stitching. Tear away the paper and use your half square triangle units in the block of your choice.  Enjoy!