Help Fund My trip to Africa

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The quilt is my most recent one done. It was made in November and December and will be going to South Africa with me. It is all hand quilted but it is machine pieced. I am making a pillow case out of the left over scraps.

Teddy Bear Central

Someone here talked me into doing a one day craft show that will be indoors. So I have been busy making teddy bears out of fabric for the show this Saturday. I have 28 bears ready to go to the show and I am still working on other projects. Here is a look at all 28 and then in sets of four.

I am exhausted but they are ready in time!

 This is the most recent quilt top to be finished. It is done with batik jelly rolls. Very simple but the cat seems to enjoy it very much. I have been sewing and trying to finish some projects I brought with me. This one still needs the outter border.

This is another view of both the cat and the top. It is next to impossible to get a picture of a top in this house without getting a cat in the photo. And since they are my first round of approval it is a good deal for both of us!
I have finished two other tops but I haven't got pictures of them because my camera broke and I haven't learned to take good pictures with my new camera.={

Finally finished

The colorful afghan is finally done. No two rows are the same. They are each a different color or a different type of fuzzy yarn. As you can see the cats love it. I haven't finished the fringe yet but the rest is all done and I have started a different one with all the left over yearn from this.

The top is the centerpiece for the Community living room that will sit on the Coffee Table until after the 4th of July. The bottom is the arrangement I did to put on the coffee table for the spring. I have done several others but will have to get photos as they bring them out for the different seasons.

This is one of the smaller arrangements (minus the yellow ribbon) that sets on each of 3 end tables in our community living room. As the seasons change I will take pictures of the other arrangements that I have made for the living room. I also have several wreaths I made for the door of my apartment. These change every month except the red white and blue will stay from now till after the 4th of July!

What I have been working on!

Many years ago I started making bears out of cotton quilt fabric. Well I found my old pattern and I am at it again. Just about everyone in the senior center wants one so I have no idea how many I will make before I finish or get bored. But here are some of the ones I have done.

There are several more but I only have individual pictures of them. I will see if I can get more pictures added so you can see them all. Just like the ones I made years ago these are signed on the bottom and given both a serial number and a birth certificate.

Finished Quilt!

This is the quilt I finished hand quilting. The center was mostly done except for the very outside pink pieces. Then I did everything on the borders. And it wasn't a twin it was a full size quilt. It took a couple of weeks of 12 hour days to get it done but I finished before Halloween!

Right now I am working night and day to finish hand quilting a twin quilt made by the same lady that made the wall hanging. The quilt is a stack-n-whack of kitty fabric with pink for the lady's Granddaughter. I am trying to have it finished and bound before Halloween. Wish me luck!

This is the quilt top I most recently finished. When I laid it out to photo it someone here bought it. So now I am working on another top out of all the blocks I brought with me.

This is a wall hanging that I hand quilted for one of my neighbors. Her daughter pieced it before she passed away and I was honored to be asked to finish it.

Christmas in the new home

 

This is my Christmas Tree in my new home in Michigan. I still have 2 more boxes to unpack but I don't have any place to unpack the items into so for now the boxes stay packed. I have done a little sewing since I arrived here and I love my new home. I am sure once I finally get everything organized I will do more sewing. I haven't found a quilt group here in my new home yet but I haven't done much exploring. It took me several more days than I had planned to drive to here and it took a great deal of time to get a new routine down. I am a night person and I now live in a senior center than is mostly filled with day people. But they have been very helpful in finding furniture and the things I need that I couldn't bring with me. 

There aren't many quilt shops in this area but I brought quite a bit of fabric with me as everything was wrapped in fabric as packing material. The books I brought with me are still stacked along the wall and will stay there until I manage to get bookshelves to put them on,  unless the cats keep knocking the stacks down. But I am looking forward to a quiet Christmas in my new home. It will be quite a change from the stressful Christmases of the past several years. I got my tree up by myself and decorated my way without any arguments as to how the proper way to decorate a Christmas tree or even why bother attitude. 

I have a Christmas wreath on my door and decorations in all the rooms except the bathroom. It will be decorated next year but the budget didn't go very far this year. But I love my new home and I love the area I moved to and I will never regret making this move with just me and the 2 Siamese cats. They are happy in there new home too and can usually be found under the Christmas Tree. I have met many of my new neighbors and find most of them very nice. They are beginning to discover that I have a lot of creative talent and I enjoy helping them by making things for them. 

At this time of the year I haven't had the money to send my usual Christmas cards out but next year I will have budgeted for the stamps ahead of time like I always have done in the past. But I still wish all my family and friends a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous new year!

 

This is the tree during the daylight!

1,000,000 Pillowcase Challenge

These photos are the pictures of the 60 pillow cases that were delivered to a local women's shelter here in Spokane to be included in the Easter baskets the women and children will be given Easter morning.

Mug Rug Tutorial

As requested this is going to be a step by step tutorial on how to make a fast and easy mug rug. You will need a piece of focus fabric mine is 7X9" here and a piece of batting the same size. I am using a scrap of cotton batting for the demo. You start by laying your focus fabric face down and positioning the batting on top of it.

 I am using selvages from another project to strip piece the back of the mug rug. I am overlapping the strips by about 1/8th inch and stitching it down to the batting and focus fabric. I prefer a diagonal placement but you could do horizontal or vertical placement if you prefer.

 Once I have stitched all the selvages down I turn the piece over and stitch around the edge of the focus fabric about 1/8th inch inside the edge. I then trim the excess to the edge of the focus fabric.

 I then go to the ironing board (where you can see that I spilled my coffee because I wasn't using a mug rug!) and I take a square of focus fabric that I have turned down 3/4" at the top. With my steam iron I fold up tiny corners of the bottom 2 corners and press.

 Then I fold the sides in appx. 1/4" and press them down well.

 Then fold the bottom up appx 1/4" and press well.

 At this time I cut a full length of fabric on the straight of the grain 2" wide and I press it in half lengthwise with wrong sides together. This becomes the binding for the mug rug in a later step.

 Back at the machine I position the pocket on the right side of the mug rug and stitch it into place with a scant  seam that catches the folded edge on the sides and bottom. In this example I used a 5" square to create the pocket. I also stop at the beginning and end of the pocket and backstitch to help re-enforce the pocket at the stress point.

Now we are ready to stitch on the binding! I start by fold back the first half inch of fabric to the inside of the binding to create a finished edge for the binding.

 You start the binding on the bottom edge and stitch it down 1/4th inch in from the edge. You stop at 1/4" from the corner. Lift the needle and presser foot and take the piece out just enough you can fold the binding to a right angle.

 Now you fold the binding over the top and square it up with the corner of the mug rug. Then you start stitching from the edge down to within 1/4 inch of the next corner. Repeat these steps until all four corners are completed.

 After doing your last mitered corner you lay the binding down and cut it off about 1.5 " after the start of the binding strip.

 Then shift this binging to the right so that as you cross the start of the binding it is 1/4" shorter than the beginning. This will allow the beginning to fold over the end without distorting the binding at this point..

 Now use you ruler and trim the binding it 1/4" from the seam you just sewed it down with. It is helpful if you snip the corners diagonally at this point but don't snip the stitching. You are just taking some of the bulk out of the corner so you have perfect mitered corners.

 Now turn your binding to the back and pin it in place. At the corners let it got to the edge and then folded the corner for a mitered look that mirrors the front.

 I use a running blind stitch to sew down the binding making sure not to catch the front so that the stitches show. I start where I finished sewing it on and stitch it around to the beginning of the binding and then I burry my thread tails in the back of the piece along the binding.

And there you have a simple mug rug that is very pretty and ready to save your clean fresh ironing board cover from a nasty coffee stain.

If you have any questions email me at ladyqwiller@yahoo.com and I will try to help. Enjoy!