A Gym Bag for my 13 yrs old son!!

Hi everyone,

I hope you are all well. Today I made a gym bag for my 13 year old son. I had some camouflage canvas material and thought that would be appropriate for him. I wanted to spice it up a bit and make it look cool. You know.....so that he wouldn't be ashamed of it....and it would be stylin'.......So, I cut out his initials first out of some cream fabric. Then I used fusible web to fuse them to some dark denim. I then stitch around the  cream colored letters and left the edges raw. I cut out the letters from the denim, then pinned them to the bag fabric and sewed them on. I used my darning foot to sew them to the bag front. I didn't want it to look to perfect. I wanted it to have kind of a rough look. So I left the denim edges raw too. Eventually they will frey and it will look more worn. I made two straps out of the left over canvas and added a twill tape tab at the top so that he could hang the bag on a hook and bought a toggle so that the bag could be properly sinched and kept closed.

When he got home from school, I showed it to him. I was really nervous that he wouldn't like it. You know how 13 yr olds can be about their stuff. Well, he loved it. He gave me a big hug and a kiss. He said it looked really cool and that it was big enough he could you it when he went bike riding. I told him it was for gym.....oh yeah.....he said. LOL!!! Well, I'm just glad he liked it.

I hope you like it too!!

Hugs

Ariane

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

A bit of free motion quilting!

Well, I tried free motion quilting on my old machine. I used my new darning foot. I love it. I had a lot of fun using it.

First, I made a 12.5 inch block using the tutorial for the Sun Rays Quilt Block tutorial by Twin Fibres. Once I had the border done on the block I drew up a little scene and made some appliques for the centre of the block.

My feed dogs were up (because they can't go down anyway), and I did some applique. Then a bit of stippling and then tried my hand at a feathered border. The border turned out okay. I do need practice with that.

Then I trimmed it all up, and put the binding on using my machine. And VOILA......I have a little art quilt that is 12.5 inches square. Isn't it cute? Well, the free motion quilting went really well, even with the feed dogs up. I actually didn't even really notice them being up. It didn't make it more difficult or pull on the fabric. The tension was great....didn't have any problems with that. Now, I just need to keep practicing. So there will be a lot of little quilts in the near future appearing on my blog.

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