Stitching in the Barn

 Tech pouch for a TI-Nspire CX II calculator. Project from this episode of Missouri Star Live by MSQC. Fabric from Connecting Threads. It's a little too snug but it'll do for now. Great project!    

  Finished stitching in July 2020. A Dimensions kit. Still needs finished, most likely as a wall quilt. Started when my husband was in the hospital for an extended stay. Finished 2 years later.

 Made from the information from The Fabric Patch found on their You Tube channel here . I love this pattern it makes the perfect fitted mask. It is supposed to contain 30 sizes.        Applique added to the black one above for my son. Just a font from MSWord enlarged, fused then later stitched.

Here's my completed Dresden Wreath for my MIL. My daughter got sick so she didn't get to embellish it but it still came out nicely with the different fabric textures. The solid bright red hearts are satin, the one on the lower left has texture, and the rest are cottons. I realized while finalizing this project that I don't know how to make bows and bought the wrong ribbon to make one. I ended up doing a magic bow like in the directions in this Craftster post from 2007 . (I had totally forgotten about this board and I used to be on it all the time back in the day. I can't even remember my user name but I hope I can find my old posts to see wheat I was up to back then. It looks like Craftster just went into archive only mode on Dec. 19th. and moved active participants to a new site.) The bow I made is kind of derpy looking and isn't sized right for this wreath but I'm sure my MIL will put on a nice one, she's great at making bows. I included a pai...

 I described a bit on how I made this quilt larger in the last post. If you look closely at the photo of the front, in the corner at the edge, the batting shows. I cut some small pieces from the scrap and folded over 2 sides. I used glue to stick it down and appliqued the pieces through all the layers. Why did I do it this way? Two reasons: 1) "Babies don't care", 2) I didn't want to trim the sides down to match. The quilt came out remarkably square and I don't currently have the space to trim this. I added the last two borders mostly as described in Marti Michell's book Machine Quilting in Sections. The final corner looks good enough for a preschooler. You can only tell that the piece below the red planet is appliqued on because the glue is still there and shining from the light. It shouldn't be there anymore because I washed it. Also the quilting line doesn't go to the end because I decided to do this after I quilted it. I...

I made this quick and easy fabric wallet in an evening to match my Zip Zip bag . It uses very little fabric and I had plenty left over. It was late when I finished, so in the morning I had to unstitch some. I had a little problem with the folding but it wasn't a big deal and I won't have the same problem again. This is the outside when it's laid flat. There's a small Velcro closed coin pouch there where the colors contrast. This is the inside. There's 2 card slots on the right and a Velcro pouch for money on the left. I still need to add a sew in snap but it stayed nice and closed in my purse and pocket when I went out the next day. These would make great wrapping for gift card holders and money. I'm planning to make more of these. You can find the pattern free on Craftsy and the instructions here at Sew Can She's Blog. I'm managing to get at least one small project done a week. This is amazing to me! God has come into my life a...

I was looking at my old Craftsy account and noticed I put some free baby shoe patterns on my wishlist ages ago. There have been 2 babies, a boy and a girl, born into my family recently so I thought these would make great gifts.  Then the JoAnn's ad came in and Simplicity patterns were on sale. So after looking at their website catalog, which is in the middle of being updated, I saw they had several baby shoe patterns to sew. When I got got the store, there were only 2 available so I bought those along with pink felt and fleece, on sale, and some fusible fleece to make them. I absolutely fell in love with view G on Simplicity 1677. They are the cutest little felt and fleece Ugg style booties and I knew I'd have to sew these up right away. It was only 3 pattern pieces but it took longer to sew than I anticipated. I made them over a couple of days and I stayed up too late to finish them. The color is best in the first picture.

I got my order in the mail from Connecting Threads Thursday and bought the supplies I needed that night to do the Zip Zip bag in Pen and Inked . I cut it out Saturday and constructed it Sunday. I took some shortcuts by buying black bias binding and using a strap that was in my stash from an old lunchbox. This area was a bit tricky to turn the corners and sew. I broke the tip of my titanium needle somewhere around this area. Fortunately, it didn't fly into my face and I was near the end. The ugly corners were folded to the back in the end so that hid it. This was an easy gratification project. I loved the easy construction and wished I had thought up of this pattern. I feel so accomplished!  It's a good size, maybe a bit long for me. As my kids have gotten older, my purses have gotten smaller. I transferred my purse contents to this one that night. It was a tight fit and I think I travel light. I think it's because it's so flat. I might have to hang...

When I played a You Tube video for my MIL, showing what I wanted to achieve on our next project, the tutorial for this ornament showed up in the sidebar. She was immediately enthralled with it so we went out to JoAnn's and grabbed a few 1/2 yards of fabric. When we brought it back, I realized we bought the exact same fabrics used in the video. I guess they really do help advertise subconsciously.

I did get our dice bags finished last year. This is the first one I did with a pocket on the lining and the paper piecing page for my next block.

Happy New Year!!!! It seems like every year I start off wanting to sew and blog more. I get new quilting stuff for Christmas that I'm excited about and work slows down for me in January. Then, I get sick/depressed/busy again, forget all about blogging and last year I actually didn't get a lot of sewing in. It was a crazy year. I have 6 drafts saved up from January of last year that I didn't get to post because I didn't have the pictures ready and never got around to them. I think this will be my year to change all that. At the end of 2015, I finally got to sew something other than mending! It finally got cold here in DFW after Christmas so my daughter and I had to make our dogs sweaters. We used Simplicity 3939. I bought it on sale for under $2 a few years back. It's for smaller dogs.

I do more than just stitching in my barn. Last weekend I made soap. I never thought about making soap before last year. I never felt like I could live like "Little House on the Prairie", being raised a city girl, but I've got chickens, make my own bread (by machine) and make my own soap. The reasons I do these things is because of my health. Living with homemade products lets me see exactly what goes into it and I make sure there' are as few chemicals in it as I can afford. I use organic flour for my bread because the chemicals they use now on commercial bread are way beyond any that our bodies can handle long term. I've had great results so far cutting out a lot of everyday stuff for natural equivalents that work and cost less, even organic. Making my own soap is one of my favorite ways.

They are finally done!

So after a couple of failed attempts at rotary cutting hexagons,

This is my first post in over a year. Hello, again! I'm back to it and this week I made new potholders for my kitchen, from old scraps. I need like a ton of these! I haven't made any in years and my old ones were starting to look very bad last year! I found this quick tutorial on You Tube last week. The original instructions started with 10 inch squares. It made the too big one on the left. I made the one on the right with 8 inch squares and it's the perfect size. Of course, it called for Insul-Bright batting but I just used two layers of Warm and Natural batting scraps I had and it was plenty, in addition to all the layers of fabric, to protect my hands. The last one, at top, I made from a hexagon template but it's just basically a very large coaster. The design is made by weaving together folded squares. On the hexagon, I used 3 hexagons like the wine coasters I've seen on Moda Bake shop . My daughter said they'd be tempted to put their hands in th...

In my son's middle school, they have restrictions on the size of the bag they can carry around. Last school year I made my own pattern thinking it would be easy but it ended up very involved. I used the one I bought from the school, at the beginning of the year for $15 that was coming apart at the seams as a guide. It was made from cheap nylon and no lining. My remake had a cotton print outside and a ripstop nylon lining inside with grommets in the corners like the original. I used some thick cording for the straps/drawstring and it worked. It took me all day to figure out and 3 hours to make but it held up the rest of the year and his friends wanted to buy it off him at the end of the year.  It was successful but this past summer I saw this pattern at a Jo Ann's and decided to buy it. It comes in mini to medium and the biggest size was within my 17" X 15" maximum limit.

This top was the first time I worked with a knit fabric. I was previously scared of them & I don't have a serger so I stayed away from them. Then I saw this lovely purple butterfly print I just couldn't pass up.  I looked in my pattern stash and on Pattern Review.com and found McCall's 6326 was an easy top that came out good. I chose view C and cut it out in a size 20, one size smaller than the pattern flap measurements. Front

My coworker turns wood and got what he calls an eclipse bowl. There's a small bit of a ring in the bottom you can see when you hold it up to the light. I took it and made it into a big weighted pin cushion. My first idea was to make the cushion into a hexagon flower shape to fit in the bowl.

You can skip straight to the review under the break. I bought Burda 7670 at Jo Ann's when they went on sale for $2.50. I buy most of my patterns when they go on sale for $1-$2.50. They go on sale at different times but usually once a month. Burda used to never go on sale but now they do and this one was one of the first I picked up. Before the sale, I get on the company's website, look through the catalog & write down the pattern number and sometimes a brief description. It saves time but sometimes, when I look at the pattern envelope I decide to not buy it because it looks different in a larger picture. Sometimes, I flip through the books at the store and see patterns I wouldn't have picked because the pictures are so much bigger than online, even though they are the same pictures. I've picked up a lot of patterns for basic things like button down shirts, boxers, pants, jeans and coats. I don't ever stitch them up right away but I do read the instru...

This pattern intrigued me this past spring. The shorts were unlike anything I had seen before so I decided to make a muslin for it. It's a misses size pattern and I cut the biggest, size 22.