A little open-wide pouch

Hi everyone,

Tonight I decided to make a small Christmas gift.

I'd been meaning to try out Noodlehead's Open-Wide pouch tutorial for a while.

I thought it would make a great gift.

So, this is my first time making this pattern.

I played around with my 1.5 inch scraps and came up with the idea for the front of the bag.

I think it looks cute.

The little squares finish at 1 inch.

I like the stem and leaves going up the side.

They were fun to make.

Here's a few more pictures.

All the fabric came from my stash.

This is the perfect size for a make-up bag.

I will try making a few of the larger sizes.

This is the smallest size in her tutorial.

I hope you like it.

Hugs

Hexagon Star Quilt progress...

Hi everyone,

I got another row of stars attached to my hexagon star quilt.

I now have 11 rows of 17 stars done and together.

I have more stars made and I'm slowly working at getting another row done.

I need 4 more rows to get the center of the quilt done.

This quilt is not supposed to have borders, but I have decided to add some in order to have it hang down lower over the thick mattresses we now use.

If you haven't gone to the Wicked Blog Hop, you should check it out.

It started yesterday, and my turn is next Monday.

Hugs

Using up my scraps...

Today, I decided to work on one of my oldest UFO's,

my "Rocky Road to Kansas Quilt".

I used the paper piecing technique to make the scrappy triangles.

I have enough triangles sewn to make six more blocks.

I already had 6 blocks made.

Once I get my backing fabric, and small triangles cut, I will put them together.

That will give me twelve blocks.

I'm just going to keep sewing these blocks and using up my scraps.

I have way too many scraps.

I also made three little 3 inch house blocks.

The block on the right is done backwards.

I'm going to use that one by itself in a little project.

That one was sewn by hand.

The other two were paper pieced.

I'm following along with the quilt-along at 

Building houses from scraps.

The instructions are all on the blog.

I don't know if I will make all the 366 house blocks.

But I'll make some as I feel like it, then put them together.

I hope you are all well.

I have to work the next few days.

Hugs

Hexagon and a pouch!!

Okay, so I did paper piece some hexagon out of scraps left-over from cutting those little charm packs.

I decided to use them to make little pouches.

I'm going to sell these at my yard sale.

Hopefully they sell.

But if not, I do need some for myself, so no worries.

These are all made from stuff in my stash.

Yeah!!

Gotta work!!

Hugs

A bit of this and that.......

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all having a great day.

I know I haven't blogged in the last week.

I've been working night shifts, then I had company come visit, then more night shifts.

I've been tired!!

I haven't done any sewing.

But tonight, I did make a few mini charm packs from my modern scraps.

I cut my modern scraps with my 3 1/2 inch square die and my GO! Cutter.

I made 6 little packs of 40 squares.

I'm having a yard sale on Saturday, 

and I thought I would sell some of my scraps of fabric.

I might make a few more mini charm packs with my country and reproduction fabric.

I'm not sure yet.

It depends how I feel.

I'm destashing!!

Making room in my sewing area and also in the rest of the house too.

It's always nice to clear some stuff out.

Well, that's all for today.

I'm working 2 more night shifts before the weekend.

Hopefully, I'll be able to sew a bit more soon.

Hugs

Have you ever just wanted to sew......

but not think?

Well, that's how I have been feeling lately.

I just needed to sew to keep my mind busy, 

but didn't want to have to think too much while I was doing it.

Before I went up to Northern Ontario for a funeral,

I bought the newest copy of American Patchwork and Quilting, the August 2011 issue.

I was immediately interested in the cover quilt. 

You see, I had seen it before.

It was Kathie Holland's quilt. 

She blogs at Inspired by Antique Quilts.

I've been following Kathie's blog for quite some time now.

She is a scrappy quilter, just like me.

Sew, I just love all the projects that she has been doing.

When, I got home, I decided to take my 1.5 inch strips that I had cut from my scraps and started making some of these blocks.

I had cut all my strips with my GO! Cutter 1.5 inch strip die.

That made my work much easier.

I have 52 blocks made already.

These were are a lot of fun to make.

They are so easy, and I used up a bunch of ugly fabric that I've had in my stash forever.

Since they are cut up so small, you don't really notice them.

I ran out of cut strips in the country, reproduction style fabric.

I still have full scrap bins though.

So, I just have to cut more.

I need 240 blocks for this quilt.

Then, as I was looking at my 1.5 inch strip bin,

I noticed I had a lot of modern, contemporary fabric still in there.

I wanted to use some of these up.

The problem was that they were shorter strips.

I also didn't have as much variety.

Sew, I decided to make little 3.5 inch rail fence blocks.

I used white as my center strip, then my scraps for either side of the white.

This is what I have completed so far.

I have 35 little 3.5 inch modern rail fence blocks.

Aren't they cute?

I think this would make a cute little scrappy baby quilt.

As I was trimming these little blocks, I had bits that were left.

So, I trimmed these bits.

Look at what I have.

These are 1.5 inch strips.

I thought I could use these to make little 3.5 inch 9-patch blocks.

I could  use them in the border of the baby rail fence quilt.

Hmmm.......I'm on a roll, I think!!!

I just love scrap busting.

I hate throwing fabric out.

Sew, this project will fulfill the need to use those scraps,

have hours of mindless sewing,

and make some quilts in the process.

Oh, I forgot.....it's cheap too, since I already have the fabric.

I don't have a timeline for this project either.

Sew, I'll finish, when I finish.

No pressure.

Hugs

More Crumbs.....



Hope you all had a great day!

Hugs

I'm moving......

my sewing room.

I was finding it too confining working in the little 5x8 sewing room.

It didn't have a window, or air circulation.

I wasn't feeling inspired in there.

I had also noticed that my husband was really missing his music room.

He liked hiding in his little room and playing his music.

He had almost completely stopped playing.

And I could really tell it was affecting him.

So, we had a little discussion.

I told him I needed to move out of there and he needed to move back in.

He instantly agreed.

We worked together to rearange our family room in our basement.

It took all day Friday.

We bought a used desk that I could use for my sewing space and set it up.

I worked all weekend and didn't get to move anything over until today.

I like it because I have some daylight.

I can open a window if I want.

The desk is right behind the couch, which is facing the TV.

So, now I can cut, sew, iron, spend time with the kids, talk to them, watch them playing and watch a movie or TV too.

Love it!!!!

This is going to be much better.

I don't like being in my corner all alone.

The only thing is that I don't have alot of space for storage.

So, I'm trying to go through my scraps, cut them up into usable pieces so that I can store them better.

I've been cutting them in 2.5", 2", 1.5" strips.

I've been using my GO! cutter to cut the 1.5" strips.

I've also been using the value die to cut 2.5 inch squares, and triangles to make 2.5 inch HST's.

I've been cutting 3.5 inch tumblers too.

I really struggle to throw any fabric out.

I kinda hord it.

But, I know I can't now.

So, with all the crumbs that I've been left with, I'm sewing them into blocks right away.

Here are some of the crumb blocks.

I don't know how I'm going to use them yet, but i like them.

I'm still moving my stuff out of my little room.

I still have a lot of scraps to go through.

But I will get it done.

I hope you are all well.

Thank you so, so much for all the well wishes for my birthday.

It really means a lot to me.

You are all so sweet.

Hugs



My little quilt is all done!!!

Yeah!!!

I finally have a finish for March!!!

I wasn't sure I was going to have a finish.

But last night I decided to quilt my little valentine's quilt.

I got the pattern from the Small Quilt Yahoo Group.

I had the top done in February, but that's it.

I love this little quilt.

It's in my favorite colors.

It's all scraps from my stash.

I even sewed 5 thin strips of leftover batting.

No waste here....

It's very simply machine quilted.

And it's done!!!

That's the best part.

I'm spending time with the kids today.

It's so beautiful out again.

Love this spring weather.

Hugs



A little Valentine's quilt

Hi everyone!

I hope you are all doing well.

Yesterday, I decided to join the "Small Quilt Talk" Yahoo group.

This group is organized by Kathleen Tracy.
The wonderful designer and author of books like "American Doll Quilts", "Remembering Adelia", "Prairie Children and their Quilts" and her newest book, "The Civil War Sewing Circle".

So, last night I was trying to keep myself awake.
I have to work a 12 hour night shift tonight, and I like to stay up really late the night before.
 That way it's not as hard on me to stay awake for my shift.
I didn't really feel like working on my current projects.
I hadn't started anything new in a while.
So, I decided to make a little Valentine's quilt.
I used the pattern that Kathleen provided in the group.

This is the little quilt top I made.

It is only 17 inches square.

It's all made from my red and cream scraps.

I think it is so cute.

I still need to quilt it.

But I'm glad I made it and it satisfied my urge to make something new.

So, I'll be working night shift for the next two nights.

I hope you all have a great couple of days.

Hugs

 



A little organization

Hi everyone,

It's been a busy day around here.

It's my oldest birthday today.

He is 15 years old.

I can't believe it.

Kids grow so fast.

So, we celebrated tonight with a nice dinner.

My in-laws came over and celebrated with us too.

I was busy organizing this all afternoon.

But this morning, I went to Home Depot after dropping the kids off to school.

I had seen these large basket that clip together for only $2.99.

I thought they would be perfect to organize my scraps.

Remember this picture!!!

These are some of my scraps.

They fill a large black garbage bag. LOL!!!

I know!! I know!!

It's a lot!

I had brought them to my sister's to make little quilts in September
 and had put them in a large garbage bag.
 They have remained in that garbage bag ever since.

I used to have them in a large wicker laundry basket,
 but it was so overflowing and
I couldn't always find what I was looking for
without dumping the entire things.

So, I bought 10 large baskets and
here is the start of my scrappy re-organization.

This is about half the garbage bag sorted.

Ahhhhhh!!!!

I have a lot of work to do.

The thing I like about this system,

is that I can see what I have.

If I need a little piece of something,

 I just go into that color basket and grab something.

I'm the type of person that gets inspired by the fabric itself.

I usually impulse buy a fabric because I like it,

 then decide what I'm going to use it for when I get home.

 One good thing is that I haven't been buying much fabric lately.

This is so hard to do.

Because there are so many wonderful collections I want to buy.

But I only have a small sewing space.

 If you recall, it's only 5 feet by 8 feet.

 It's like a walk in closet.

I have so much stuff in this room,

I can just basically walk in two steps,

and sit at my sewing desk.

That's it.

No more space!!!

I could barely get this picture,

because I couldn't back up. LOL!!!

So, it's time to organize.

Now, I'll be able to see what I have and make

mug rugs,

 scappy quilts,

 place mats,

table runners,

pot holders,

zippy pouches,

etc.

Back to work for me.

My scraps are calling.

Hugs

Ariane



Use My Scraps Extravaganza!!

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a very nice weekend.

It was busy for me, but nice.

I want to tell you about the
Use My Scraps Extravaganza,
 that occurred on Friday.

I asked my sister Michele, to help me use up some of my scraps by making mini quilts.

As you can see, I don't throw any scraps out! LOL!!!

 I also wanted to show her how to do fusible web applique and free motion quilting on her old White sewing machine. Her machine is about 25 yrs older than my old white sewing machine. LOL!! So pretty old. She was all for it.

So, I gathered my scraps, my sewing machine, my rulers, fusible web,
and drove over to her house for our sewing day. It was a lot of fun.

This was my sister's first time doing fusible web applique and free motion quilting.
Now, I must tell you that my sister is a very talented artist.
You can see some of her projects at her blog, Michele Made Me.
She just started her blog in April and gets thousands of views everyday.
So, I knew that she would learn it very quickly.

This is the art quilt that she made. It's about 12 inches square.
She calls it: "Moms and Tots".
Only the binding was left to finish when I left.

I made the two little quilts that I'm giving away for my 300th post giveaway!

This cute modern table topper. The binding was also in my scrap bag.
It was a leftover from another project.

And my little art quilt called, "Our little house in the woods"

I wasn't finished when I left. I'm still not quite done. I just need to put the binding on.

I did the quilting yesterday. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to do some thread painting on it.

I just wanted it to be kind of a modern country quilt. Can you do that?

I tried anyways, with the raw edge applique and the thread painting.

I guess I'm breaking some quilting rules.....ahhhh.....I make my own quilting rules. LOL!!

That's what happens when your self taught.

I hope you like it. I hope to finish it tomorrow or Tuesday.

Well, I must say we didn't use too many scraps to make these mini quilts. I think we could make about 100 more with the amount of scraps I have.

So guess what!!! We will be having more Use My Scraps Extravaganza's soon.

You may want to have one yourself.

What's in your scrap basket?

Hugs

Ariane

P.S. Don't forget to enter my giveaway here. It's open until Friday.

B-Sew Cute's new to her sewing machine!

Hi everyone! I hope you are all well. I did do some piecing today, but nothing to really show yet. But what I do have, are pictures of my daughter's new sewing machine. My mother-in-law gave me her sewing machine. It's an old one too. I thought it would be perfect for B-Sew Cute to sew on. I had to figure out how it worked and all the setting. It only has straight stitch and zig-zag. But that's all she really needs.

And guess what else it has........you can lower the feed dogs for free motion quilting.

I was very happy about that.

Well, the machine works really well. It's a Kenmore. It's made of metal and is quite heavy. I put it in my daughter's room, just at the end of her bed on a tiny little desk that I had stored in the garage. It was the perfect size. I grabbed a little stool for her that has a swivel seat. I got her a cutting mat and a rotary cutter. Today was the first time I let her use the rotary cutter. She is very nervous using it. I ended up cutting all her pieces ahead of time for her. I'm fine with that too. As she gets more comfortable she will have it available to use. She grabbed all the fabric that she had collected or bought and put it in one of the top drawers in her dresser. She wanted to start a new project and make little cross blocks. She had made two when I took the picture.

She's been sewing all evening. Hee Hee hee.....I wonder who she gets that from.

I wish I could have put the machine in my sewing room, but there wasn't any space. I think she is happy with her setup. She was grinning all the time I was setting it up.

She has been making little drawings of quilt designs. I wanted her to be able to try some stuff on her own and let her creativity out. She has so much potential, and really loves to sew. She really loves all the modern quilts popping up all over blogland. That is totally her style.

Well, I hope you have all had a nice day. I go back to work tomorrow. But I had a really great weekend with the family. It was really restful. I needed that.

Hugs

Ariane

What machine do you use to make your quilts?

Hi everyone!

I thought I would share with you the sewing machine I use to make my quilts, bags and clothing projects. It's an old one. It's about 25 years old. It's a White, Blue Jean machine. It used to be my Mom's sewing machine. She used it for mending clothes and for making everyday quilts. After I got married, she gave it to me so that I could hem pants and do small mending. I didn't use it very much in the beginning, because I could never figure out the tension. I just didn't know enough about sewing, and had very little experience using a sewing machine. When I decided to start making quilts two years ago, I did some research online about sewing machines, and how to fix tension problems. It was like a light bulb moment. Everything made sense. I figured out how the tension worked on my machine and was able to troubleshoot problems when I was sewing. The internet had so much information to help me.

Well, last night I visited Michelle. She needed some advice about one of her quilting projects. She mentionned that some people do free motion quilting with the feed dogs up. I thought to myself....hey, if I had the right darning foot for my machine......maybe I could do some free motion quilting on it. So today, I went to my LQS and they just happened to have a darning foot for "White" machines. It only cost $4.98+tax. I was so excited.

 I had promised my daughter I would make her a pencil case for school. So, I decided to do a bit of creative sewing with my new darning foot. This is the pencil case I made. I really love it. I did some reverse applique, inspired by Amy. I had the denim on hand and used scraps of fabric for the appliques. It was a fun quick project.

Now that I have this darning foot, I will try some free motion quilting on small projects. I hope to show you my progress in the next few weeks. I'm trying to watch my money, with school starting and the kids needing so much new clothes and paying for extra curricular activities. It's eating up a lot of my budget. So, I will be using what I have in my stash for the next few weeks....months. Hopefully not too long. I already didn't buy any new fabric the entire month of August.There are so many new fabric lines that I want to buy. But we do what we can.

I did have one set back the other day when my Mom was visiting. She wanted to go to a quilt shop and I purchased 3 fat quarters of Christmas fabric. But I love these, because they could also be used in regular projects too. They are not your traditional Christmas fabric. I just love them.

I don't even know what collection they are from. Oh well! I hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend.

Hugs

Ariane

A sneak peak and some yummy fabric!!!

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well. I've been working on some sketches lately. Trying to see if I could come up with something good enough to make into a pattern. The other day when I was at work on my break. I was finishing up my Tim Hortons coffee and started using the coffee cup as a circle template to draw on scrap pieces of paper.

I drew so many little designs in these circles. It's like I was inspired all of a sudden and the images that I was seeing in my head were actually getting drawn on paper. You know how it is sometimes you imagine stuff that would look great, but you can't seem to get it right on paper. Happens to me most times. Well, this time I was doing a really good job. I was so proud of myself. Needless to say the scraps of paper with the drawings came home with me.

I've been working at them here and there seeing what I could make with them. A few of the designs are  inspired by Christmas. I've started to put one of the designs together on fabric. I'm very excited about how it looks. So I thought I would share a sneak peak. I have just started, so there are still a lot of details missing in the pic. I hope you like it!!

On the fabric front, Alison from the Sew Modern Bee had sent some wonderful red fabric to make her blocks and I just loved it. I wanted to know who had designed it so that I could get some. She offered to do a swap with me. I had some Mermaid fabric that she wanted, so we did a swap. My piece of fabric was bigger then hers, so I told her to just throw in a few scraps (which I love) in to make it even. Well, I was so surprised today when I received the package. She sent me so many scraps. It was like hitting the jackpot. I love them all. Now I feel guilty 'cause she sent so much more that I did. Hmmmm....I think I can even it out with some fabric she would like. Well, that was a wonderful experience. I think I might just do it again. 

Hugs 

Ariane