Coin Purses

I  made several coin purses in Southwest fabrics.

Sewing the frames on the purses is what takes the longest and is the most fiddly to do too.

I added a "Made with Love" charm to each coin purse.

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Cozy Afternoon Blocks 1 & 2

I joined Jacquelynne Steves' Cozy Afternoon Block-of-the-Month. I love the applique teacup and teapot. I finished blocks 1 & 2. You can join the BOM too, but you need to sign up. The links for the blocks will be emailed to you and it's FREE too! Go here to sign up.

I used scraps of batiks for the teacup.

I chose to use some bright spring colors for these blocks.

I love this teapot design.

I still need to embroider the antennae on the bee. I might add some buttons after this quilt is done and quilted. I am thinking of  adding them on the orange teapot base and maybe a larger one in the center of the teapot? I'll see when I get that far along. I used hand dyed and batik fabric scraps for this teapot.

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Felt Ornaments

First, I would like to thank all of you who sent healing thoughts with your kind words my way when my arm was injured and I was in a lot of pain. The pain is now gone and I feel back to normal again and ready to sew and knit more and of course blog more too. I had finished a few things, but I couldn't use the computer very much because it was painful to use my right hand to type and using my left was so slow going. So now that I can type again I will be posting some things I made.

These felt ornaments I made for an upcoming fall class I will be teaching. I made several to show, but will teach how to make either the circle or the heart. It can be made into an ornament to hang or a brooch to pin on a jacket, etc. I will show how to stitch some simple embroidery stitches by hand. The students can stitch as many or as few different stitches as they desire.

Penguin ornament.

This is one of the choices for the class I will teach. The students can add as many circles and as much embroidery as they desire.

Flower.

Santa.

This heart or the one below can be made in the class.

A simple heart can be stitched with some basic stitches with a few stitches or densely embroidered as desired in the class.

All the felt ornaments together.

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How to Turn Your Child or Grandchild's Art Into a Treasured Quilt

I wrote a tutorial that is free on Craftsy, about how to paint on fabric with crayon pastels. (See sidebar with my Craftsy patterns). I wanted to share another thing that you can do after learning how to paint on fabric and that is to preserve some of your children or grandchildren's art by turning it into a quilt.

First, take a drawing from a child and enlarge it if desired. Follow the instructions from my tutorial on how to paint the fabric. You can paint the entire quilt, or make fabric appliques for some of the larger pieces if you desire. Stitch the appliques in place using any stitch that you desire, or wait until you are ready to quilt the piece and just quilt the appliques in place.

My grandson loves books my author Mo Willems, especially the pigeon series. He is always drawing pigeons in the style of Mo Willems without even looking at the book. He was at my house the other day and grabbed a paper and pencil and drew this pigeon:

I enlarged this drawing my grandson drew in order to create the quilt.

He also drew this drawing that my daughter had on her refrigerator. I asked to borrow it so I could scan the drawing and enlarge it a bit in order to create another quilt.

After you have appliqued (if desired) and painted your child's drawing onto fabric, then just layer with batting and backing and quilt as desired. Add a binding to the quilt and a hanging sleeve on the back. Or you can finish the quilt any way you desire if you don't want to bind it, you can sew it pillow style and turn it right-sides-out and press and then quilt so you don't need a binding. Embellish the quilt as desired. Below is my grandson's pigeon drawing that I turned into a quilt.

And don't forget to include a label for your quilt giving the child full credit for the drawing, including the date it was drawn.

I hope you have fun making a child's precious drawing into a quilt so that the parents and child can treasure it for many years to come. I hope my grandson will hang this quilt in the room of his child some day and then tell his child the story behind how it was made. Enjoy!

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Hope to Blog Again Soon...

I just wanted to let all of you my dear readers, know that I am still here, but I am taking it easy and won't be able to post anything for a while. I injured my right forearm and it feels like I am being stabbed when I move it. So I am using my left hand to type this post and it is taking me a long time to type. I cannot knit, cut fabric or sew right now either, and that is hard for me not to be doing something. I have tried to comment on a blog or two that I follow, but after typing a comment left-handed when I am right-handed is not only slow to do, but a bit difficult. So please hang in there and understand why I am unable to post on my blog for now and why I haven't been able to leave comments on your blogs lately too. I hope this pain goes away so I can sew again! Pin It Now!

Pick-a-Pocket Wallet

I tested another wallet pattern for Christine of ChrisW Designs and she now has the pattern for sale in her newly updated website. She had a contest to name the wallet and Pick-a-Pocket Wallet was the name chosen. (click on the link to buy the pattern and to see all the other tester's wallets at the bottom of her page). You have choices when making this wallet; you can choose more credit card slots or a second zippered pocket if you don't need all those card slots. I chose to make the zippered pocket, giving me 2 zippered pockets because I don't have many cards. Christine even featured my wallet on her blog here too.  The name Pick-a-Pocket Wallet fits nicely. Thanks Christine for another great wallet.

The wallet when closed measures: 3 ½" wide x 7 ½" high x 1/2" deep.

Here is my wallet. I chose to use one fabric for both inside and outside the wallet. Since it is a hand dyed fabric, the colors changed across the fabric and I never knew how it would look for sure until it was finished. I love how it turned out and have been using this wallet since I finished making it. My friends all loved it too when they saw it.

The wallet front closed.

The wallet opened so you can see the front/back all together.

The wallet opened and empty. You can see the clear I.D. pocket and credit card slots above the I.D. pocket. I chose to add the second  zippered pocket. The pocket with the pink zipper is the pocket I made instead of adding more credit card pockets here. So you can pick the pocket you want here.

Wallet opened with all my stuff inside. You can put your cash in this pocket here or above the cards is another pocket for cash or receipts.

Closes with a tab snap closure.

Oh I almost forgot to take a photo with the zipper pulls I made added on.

Just a little finishing touch and makes is easier to grab and zip the zippers too.

 

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