It’s Here!

The man with the short pants in the Brown Truck paid me a visit.

Can you tell what it is from the box?

Maybe now? 

 I was so excited, I thought I was GO!ing to faint!

I’ve almost completed October’s FFF and as soon as that’s done, I will be GO!ing to play with my new toy.  I’m really struggling with myself and am fighting the urge to jump right in but I know that if I get distracted, I’ll have a difficult time getting back to it.  I want a clear head before I get GO!ing.

Like the song says, “Tomorrow, tomorrow…it’s only a day away”. 

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥ 

115 days…but who’s counting?

EDIT:  This post originally appeared on the Stash Manicure blog on September 1st.  I have edited it slightly and am republishing it here in the event that some of you might have missed it.

115 110 days until what you might ask?  Why Christmas, of course!

Now I don’t want you all to get upset with me for the ‘gentle’ reminder, because I’m in the same boat as all of you.  Before we know it, we’ll all be scrambling to get our gifts made, wrapped and in most cases sent off to far away places.  So today I’m going to share with you not only a great way to use up some of your stash but also how to make some easy, quick and useful gifts.

I don’t know about you but I love charm packs because they give me an overall view of a complete range of fabrics at-a-glance and at a reasonable price.  And now there are so many patterns available that are charm pack friendly which makes them even more ‘charming’. 

A short time ago, my friend Mary from Quilt Hollow and I did a barter and she gifted me with a charm pack that she herself put together of Jo Morton fabrics from her stash.

I knew what I wanted to make and had a picture in my head as to what the finished project would look like but when I started out, I didn’t really know how many 5” squares I would need.   So, I started with 15 – 5” squares in a variety of colors, prints and values of lights, mediums and darks from my charm pack.  In all honesty, with this project, anything goes!  The scrappier, the better!

I cut each of the 5” charm squares into three, 1 1/2” strips…

And using a 1/4” seam,  then sewed  8 of them together in a row and pressed all the seams in one direction.

As soon as I saw this pieced together, I knew exactly how I wanted my needlecase to look!  The strips went together so quickly and the pieces were already cut so I decided to make as many as I could out of the prepared strips!  I was able to make four individual units from the 15 charm squares.

I sub-cut each unit into 1 1/2” strips…

Then sewed four of them together length-wise and made sure that the seams in each row were facing in opposite directions to the row above.  This allowed the seams to butt up against one another nice and cozy-like, resulting in perfectly aligned squares.

The four original pieced strip units yielded three of the above.  If necessary, square off each unit to measure 8 1/2” x 4 1/2”.

Take a piece of scrap batting from your stash and cut 3 rectangles at 8 1/2” x 4 1/2”.

Then do the same with three coordinating pieces of fabric for the inside lining.

Head back to your stash, find another piece of coordinating fabric and cut three pieces at 8 1/2” x 4 1/2”.  These will form the inside pockets.  Fold each in half lengthwise,  wrong sides together and iron.

Next, take three scrap pieces of wool or wool felt and square them off to 2 1/2” x 4 1/2”.  Iron them in half.  Place them on the top right side of the inside lining fabric and machine stitch them down along the center fold line about 3/4” from the top then iron forward.  These are to hold your needles and pins.

 
Layer or sandwich as follows…outside wrong side up, batting then the inside, right side up.  Turn the complete unit over so that the outside layer is on top, then machine stitch down the center line to fasten all the layers together.

The needlecase on the top shows the outside and the one below it shows how it will look on the inside.

I always make more than enough binding for whatever project I’m working on for projects like these so I went to my binding stash and hauled out some ready made binding, affixed it all around the perimeter on the outside then hand stitched it down on the inside.  If you don’t have any left over binding, just prepare some in the usual manner and bind the needlecase in the same way you’d bind a quilt.

And voila!  Three completed needlecases and three fewer Christmas presents that I have to make!

And, if you wanted to make this project even easier, you don’t even have to piece it!  You can stop at the stripping part or you can just use a plain piece of fabric for the outside.  I’ll leave that part up to you.

Don’t you think they would make great stocking stuffers or little prezzies for your stitching buddies…or even as hostess gifts come holiday time?  That’s what I’m going to do with mine! 

Edit #2:  Since I originally composed this post, I made another needlecase, this time out of selvage scraps that both I and my friends have been saving for me.  This was great fun and I have lots left to make more.  I made this in exactly the same way as described above only I added 1” to both the length and width to take advantage of some of the neat things that appeared on the selvage ends.

The outside…closed.

The inside…

The outside, face down and open.

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥

First Friday Freebie #13

It sure would be nice to be posting this month’s First Friday Freebie on a cool, crisp Autumn day but that’s not going to happen until tomorrow.  For the last four days, we’ve been experiencing record breaking temperatures for this time of year in the mid to high 90’s and along with the oppressive humidity,  it’s been brutal.  

This month’s FFF is an Autumn-inspired mini quilt called Autumn Blessings.  It combines both pieced and stitched blocks with some wool appliquéd elements.  I had the best time not only creating it but also when adding the embellishments.  I could easily have gotten carried away and found that I really had to restrain myself.  I hope you have fun making it your own.

My friend Nancy did the free motion longarm quilting which is amazing.  The photos really do not do it justice at all.  Can you make out the pumpkins in the black border pictured above?

Some closeup detail…

And more.

As soon as the weather  turns more Autumn-like, I will be hanging it in our entryway by the front door.

And lastly…

The finished quilt measures approximately 25” x 25”.

To download the PDF file containing the line drawings, photo and instructions, please click HERE.

If you have any photos of finished projects of my designs that you’d like to share with everyone, please feel free to upload them on the Flickr Gallery page that I created just for this purpose.  You can link directly to it by clicking on the FFF logo on the left sidebar.  We’d all love to see them!

Have fun and as always…

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥

Wool Crazy Round Robin

I received Lori’s pincushion base on Tuesday and I got to work on it right away.

I had an idea of what I wanted to add to it after seeing Lori’s initial blog post about what she had appliquéd and I took my inspiration from that.  She chose a Summer theme and loves to decorate with an Americana flair.

If you recall, there are four of us who are participating in the Round Robin…myself, Lori, Karen and Paulette.  We each designed our own base, selected a theme and appliquéd the first design.  All the elements and background must be made from wool.  Once we completed our initial design, we then sent them on to the next gal who then adds her magic to it.  The Round Robin is complete once all four of us have appliquéd something on each of the four pincushion bases.

Here’s Lori’s now after I got done with it.

Then I decided that the heart ‘needed’ a little button and added some ‘extra’ fancy stitching.

Later today it will be in the mail on it’s way to Karen.

Don’t forget to come back tomorrow because it’s the First Friday of the month which means another Freebie for you all to enjoy!

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥

Guess…

Where you’ll find me today?

Just follow the trail of bread crumbs… then click HERE and you’ll be magically transported…just like that!

And don’t forget to come back on Friday because it’s the First Friday of the month and I’ve got another Freebie for you!

Happy stitching!

Kaaren ♥