Twas the Night ~ Tis the Day!

My wonderful gifts!

An adorable mini quilt,
tree die cuts to add to make it Christmasy if I want,
a cupcake pincushion and pin jar,
a sweet stuffed and hand stitched strawberry in a basket,
delicious homemade grape jelly,
a new notebook,
a pattern booklet,
and some lovely fabrics and tape measure trim for future projects

 Received from Kris @ Kris Loves Fabric 

Thank you, Kris!

Here are all the stops on the sleigh ride today ... 

Friday, November 14th

Quiltscapes

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

Stitch In Time

Kris Loves Fabric

Life In The Scrapatch (you are here)

The Days Dewings

It is a great day of gifting!


I love making small gift items on my sewing machine.

Here are three easy to make items with free tutorials:

One of my favorite "go-to"  nifty gifty is one I found on one of my favorite blogs ... ;)

"Comfort and Joy with Jacque" @ Sew We Quilt

These are sew useful for personalizing with coffee or tea
or even as a small sewing kit.
They also make good business card holders.


Another one is this cute and easy to make ...

"Snap Bag" @ Sweet P Quilting and Creations




... and I love to use scraps to make my own

Quilty Key Chains


These tiny blocks also make cute refrigerator magnets by tucking a a button magnet between the batting and the backing fabric.

Here is my newest idea for a small and useful  and easy to make gift ...

Quilty Jar Openers!

These are made with a square or fabric (or you could make a small quilt block),

a square of flannel or cotton, and a square of rubberized shelf lining.

Click Here
or scroll down to my next post for a tutorial 
for these easy kitchen helpers
and a Giveaway!

I had so much fun making these jar openers that I played some more with the idea and the fabric 
and I created ...

"Twist and Turn" Hexie Jar Openers, too!

The tutorial for the hexie jar opener will be up at midnight!

Thanks to 

Madame Samm @ Sew We Quilt

and

Marlene @ Stitchin' By The Lake

for playing Quilty Santa.

The gifts are flying around the world!

How wonderful!

Katniss has picked her favorite gifty from Kris's treasure box ...

... the cute hand stitched strawberry ...

... and has chased it around the room a few times.

I keep having to retrieve it.

This one will be a special ornament on my Christmas Tree this year!

I cannot possibly pick a favorite.

All these giftys are so nifty!!!

Thanks, again, Kris!


Katniss and I say "Purrrrrr!"

May your season of gifting be merry and bright!

Thank you to all who have left lovely comments.

My daughter and grand-darling are flying in today for an extended holiday visit ...

... which is the best Christmas present of the year!

I have been busy cleaning up my shared sewing space and tucking stuff in closets.

I hope to respond personally to all the kind words as soon as I have time ...

well ... when I am not cuddling the baby girl .... ;) 

<3

:)

Easy Sew Jar Openers

An Easy Sew Kitchen Jar Opener

Cut one 6" Square each of:
 top fabric,

lining fabric 
and 

easyLiner

(or you could use  a small quilt block)

The grip is made from rubberized shelf liner,

which is machine washable on cold and may be put in the dryer on low heat.

I found this easy to work with and am considering using it for coasters and non-slip table runners and maybe even slipper soles.

I assembly lined these and made several in an hour. 

I like to pin the layers together with one pin on each side which I remove as I sew.  

Make a sandwich by

placing the top fabric square front side up,

then the rubbeshelf liner in the middle

then the flannel or cotton.

Stitch around all corners and three sides leaving an opening on the fourth side ...

Katniss supervised my work.

Trim the corners to cut down on bulk.

Turn right side out.

Topstitch around the square to secure all layers.

I used my walking foot and had no trouble feeding the liner through my machine,

I also tried stitching with the gripper liner up and this also worked well.

I have a couple of these in my kitchen drawer and use them all the time.

These are sew easy to make that soon you will 

have a stack of nifty new giftys or bazaar table items.

Giveaway Time!

This Giveaway has Ended. 

For another project using Easy Liner

sew my

No-Slip Fabric Boots ~ Post Here

Thank you to all who have left lovely comments.

My daughter and grand-darling are flying in today for an extended holiday visit ...

... which is the best Christmas present of the year!

I have been busy cleaning up my shared sewing space and tucking stuff in closets.

I hope to respond personally to all the kind words as soon as I have time ...

well ... when I am not cuddling the baby girl .... ;) 

<3

:)

Easy Tumbling Blocks ~ Free Tutorial

Easy Tumbling Blocks ~ No "Y" seams!

I blogged about the quilt I made for Christmas HERE

and the complete tutorial may be found in My Tutorials

Part 1 ~ Cutting

Part 2 ~ Piecing

Part 3 ~ Adding the Border

Part 4 ~ Quilting and Finishing

I am working on a new quilt pattern with this easy piecing method for a baby quilt ... 

Hope to find time to sew this one soon. 

Hope you will be sewing along!

:) 

Pretty Posies All In A Row

My "Pretty Posies All In A Row" Border

I was inspired by my Most Popular Pin on Pinterest  

It is Pretty Posies @ Do You EQ

The leaves in the EQ version are paper pieced.

Although I like the pointy ones, 

I decided to change up the leaves to make the piecing a little easier,
as I had to make 56 of these leaves,

and I adapted for a regular piecing method.

If you wish to make the pointy paper pieced leaves, click on the link above
and follow the instructions for their Pretty Posies.

Do You EQ  is a great site for inspiration and how-to's.

If you wish to make the same leaves and flowers as in my border,
here are the instructions:

Each flower and leaf measures 4.5" square.

Fabric Requirements and Piecing ...

For each  Flower Unit:

Four 2.5" squares for petals
Four 1.25" squares for the centers
Four 1.25" squares for the background, leaves and stem

Sew the small squares on the corners as shown and flip and cut away extra fabric  for snowball blocks.

I like to press my corners alternately inward and outward to "nest" seams.

For each Leaf Unit:

One 3.5" by 2.5" rectangle for leaf
One 1.5" by 4.5" strip for stem
Two 2" squares for background
Two 1.5" by 3.5" strips for background

To create the vine effect,
alternate the leaves on the left and right of the stem.

This is the left leaf unit showing the pressed back.

This is the right leaf unit from the front.

Chain piece the leaf pieces being
taking care to alternate the placements of the background squares.
It is important to have you quilty kitty assistant staying up with you to help and check your work.

Press the leaves and sew the stems to the sides.

Here is the back of the pieced Flower/Leaf units.
I pressed outward toward the leaves to nest the seams
when I sewed the units into the long borders.

Butterfly also stayed up and helped me many a night to get these done.

The leaves should all grow "upward" when sewn into the units.

My flowers are scrappy
and I used three green fabrics,
on for the background,
the strip for the leaves and stems
and the dark green for the frame.

I laid out all the units on my table
randomly placing the flowers and alternating the leaf directions.

There are fourteen Flower/Leaf units on each side
and eight in the corner blocks.

When planning this border I decided to add
narrow background strips to the sides and to then frame the border with dark green.

The narrow light green border strips are 1" by WOF
and the dark green outer border strips are 2" by WOF,
pieced together to form a continuous strip.

 For this Round Robin border I needed to adjust for slightly uneven sides
so I did this by making eight extra "spacer" units of stem with no leaves
and then sewed on the corner blocks.

Butterfly and I did enjoy sitting back and relaxing and admiring this border
when it was done and ready to mail.

I really like this pattern.

I plan to make this pattern into table runners
one for each season.

Time to sew a fall one and a Christmas one.

Hope to have pictures soon!

... just keep sewing ...

:)

Stitchin' Sisters Round Robin Update ~ This One is Home!

Katniss says, "You sent this one away?"

Yes, Katniss, this one is not ours.

This is the border I designed for the final border on my friend ...

Cherie's Medallion.

Here is the journey of this beautiful Round Robin ...

1st Border by Debbieann

2nd Border by Tricia

3rd Border by Gina

4th Border by Annette

5th and Final Border by Pat

Closeup of My Border.

There are 56 flowers and 56 leaves in this border

for a total of 128 pieced units in this border.

Butterfly and I sitting with our feet up and relaxing after completing this border.

My Tutorial for this border may be found by clicking HERE

All our borders may be found on our ...

Stitchin' Sister's RR Album Page

My Round Robin is also home!

It is gorgeous!

More Stitchin' Sisters Round Robin updates soon!

:)