I've been productive

I was so excited to post today, actually I could have posted sooner but Little Sister got sick this week. She's been running a fever for the last 2 days. Hopefully we have seen the worst of it. Yesterday evening her fever hit 103.5F! Of course I panicked and called the Dr. I got the after hours answering service and the Dr called me back within 5 minutes, which was great (I've had other Dr's that would take forever to call back.) Basically she told me not to worry, toddlers apparently tend to run fevers a lot higher than adults (up to 104-105) and still be ok. That seems a little high to me but I was reassured nonetheless. She gave me some instructions on alternating Tylenol and Motrin. After a nice bath my daughter went to bed with a much lower fever. I was relieved! Today she has woken up a little warm but in a much better mood than she was in yesterday.

This morning one of our toilets started bubbling! Yikes I have no idea what that means! All I know is we have a septic tank and I don't want any problems! My husband thinks we just have a clogged vent. Or maybe something to do with all the rain we've gotten, he thinks the lines might just be water logged (for lack of a better description.)

So anyway I've been thinking all week long about what to post and believe me, I came up with plenty of ideas. I better save some for future posts or I might run out of things to post!

First an update on my DQS6 quilt. I need to get an updated picture because the one below is a bit old.
The good news: I have finished all the quilting around my shapes and now need to do the background quilting. The bad news: Somehow, (I have no idea how) I got a mystery stain on my quilt top! It's like a black grease stain. One minute I'm quilting away and the next thing I know... wham a stain on my quilt! I was so mad when I saw it, but try as I might I could not locate the culprit of said stain. It pretty much hindered my progress as I tried to figure out a way to deal with the stain. The solution: Luckily my little crafty brain has come up with the perfect solution. I won't post my solution until I get a current picture (so you can see the problem) so stay tuned and you too may be able to one day save a quilt!

The other thing that has kept me busy this week is that I have been painting the trim in my kitchen! We actually never did it when we moved in about 1 year ago. Lately it's really been bugging me. Especially the laundry room door. It was disgusting, and no amount of wiping and cleaning it made a difference.

Before: Super dingy

After: Bright and cheery

Well I had a nice little tutorial all made up with tips on door painting... apparently it didn't save! Pooh! I could have sworn it saved, I'll have to search my hard drive for it. It's not that hard to repaint your trim or doors and it makes a world of a difference! So check back later in the week!

One more thing! Check back later in the week for a great quilting tip and my first giveaway!!!

WIP: Recipe for Friendship quilt and $5 design wall

This is #4 on my "projects list" I started this quilt a couple of days ago after I realized that my daughter does not have a quilt yet (she'll be 3 in may.) My son on the other hand has 2 quilts. I guess it's a trade off because I have made lots of little dresses for my daughter but only 1 shirt for my son!

The picture is taken on my new $5 design wall! I was tired of having my blocks "rearranged" by my husband every time he came into the office. So I bought a cheap vinyl tablecloth that measure 70"x70" and thumb-tacked it to my wall with the backing facing out. The backing is perfect for grabbing fabrics since it is meant to keep the tablecloth from sliding off your table. The only suggestion I have is to find one that is a neutral color on the front (white off white). Mine was a bright red valentines one and the color peeks through to the reverse side. I'll be getting a white one when I can find one! But for 5 bucks I can't complain because it works so well and keeps my blocks in the right order off the floor and wrinkle free! Hooray!

In this picture only rows 3-8 (all the way across) are sewn together.

Bird Pillow

I'm so excited to share this finished project with you. I found the tutorial on Kellie's website: Don't Look Now. I fell in love with her style the moment I laid eyes on her site. How awesome is it that she shared the pattern and tutorial for free? Well the moment she posted the tutorial I knew I had to make one. In fact I went out and bought the material when she announced she would be sharing the pattern.

I started on Jan 5th and finished yesterday evening (Jan 13th.) So it took me little over a week to finish this project. It would have been done sooner if it wasn't for little things like sleeping, cleaning, cooking, and toddlers to get in the way! Actually I'm surprised I was able to finish so quickly. I had a few set backs such as not having the right free motion foot for my machine. I ended up using my brother 270d because I was able to get the tension set up better than on my Kenmore. However when I started practicing I realized I would have to go and get a clear free motion foot as opposed to the metal one that came with the machine for the embroidery function.

I'm actually surprised I finished it so quickly. I love the way it turned out, and more importantly my daughter loves it. Over all not too shabby for many firsts: first free motion project, first time sewing on the binding completely by machine, first applique "quilt", first time using my blanket stitch, and first pillow! (unless you count the quillow I made for my son.)

So here are the progress pics and don't forget to go over to Kellie's site so you can make your own pillow. One note, the tutorial is for a 20x20 pillow, I made mine 18x18 since I already had a pillow lying around. So I cut my panels 18.5"x18.5"

The front panel after I fused all my shapes to it:

The front panel after I blanket stitched around all the flower stems, and free motioned around the flowers and bird (no background quilting at this point.)

Here is the front panel all squared up after I completed all the free motion quilting. Everything but the stems was done free motion.
Here is a picture of the back front panel. As you can see my free motion skills are very "sketchy" at this point.

Here is a picture of the finished front:

And the finished back:

Tips:

• Wear snug fitting gardening gloves with the no slip palms and fingers (the little white dots)
  
• Use a clear free motion foot
• Practice first on a scrap quilt sandwich
• It helps to have a larger area than just the machine throat to work on. So either get an extension table for your machine or use some flat hardback books behind and to the left of the machine.
  
• Use light fusible web otherwise your needle will not got through the heavy stuff.
• I used this method by Sharon Schamber for doing the binding by machine. The video shows bias binding but I used straight grain binding. It seems tedious but I got perfect results and I was done in 1 afternoon, otherwise I'd still be slip stitching the binding on as we speak!
  

Presser Foot Organizer

About 1 week ago I moved my 2 children into the same bedroom. That left me with an empty room to finally have my own space for sewing. Right now my sewing room is a mess as I try to reorganize everything and get new furniture in there.

Not knowing exactly where to start my mission, I started in my presser foot box. It was just one of those small Rubbermaid type of bins with a lid, about the size of a small box. It starts out with just presser feet in the container but by the end of the month I've got pins, scissors, thread and what not in the box. Plus I always spend 5 minutes searching for the right foot. I had seen a "sewing supply bag" on the Sears website for $30, but I have never actually seen it in the store and looks rather bulky to me. I really like the way the pockets are clear. That's about the only thing I like, so I decided to make my own.

Here are general instructions for making your own presser foot/accessory organizer. Enjoy!


You will need fabric and some vinyl. I used one of those bags you get when you purchase a comforter. for fabric I used some upholstery fabric I had lying around.





Step 1: Lay out all of your presser feet/accessories you want to put in the organizer. Group them by size.

Step 2: Decide how big you want your organizer to be mine measures 7"x30" (add seam allowances.) Hem all edges of your organizer (I used my rolled hem foot)


Step 3: Cut out pieces of the vinyl larger than the size you need, you can always trim it later. Starting at the bottom (with your largest pieces) sew the plastic on. Then sew channels to form more pockets. Pin the plastic often and sew slowly to avoid puckers.

Start sewing at A (back-stitch) go to B, then, C, then D (back-stitch.) Then sew from 1 to 2 and back-stitch at both (Repeat this if you want more channels)


Step 4: Sew the rest of your rows. Make sure you fill the previous row with your presser feet before you determine where to place the next row. This way you can tell how far away to stitch your next row with out having puckers.

Finish it off anyway you want! You can add grommets to the top so you can hang it on your wall, add a magnetic clasp so it stays shut (this is what I plan to do) or tie it with a ribbon. This conveniently fold to about 5"x7" Mine is about 2" thick.



Tuck this baby in with your sewing bag and you're ready for your next class!