Category: Friends (Page 2 of 6)

The Farmers Wife 1930’s

January 3, 2016 / Patty

The Farmers Wife 1930’s is a sampler quilt book written by Laurie Hurd. There are quilt blocks and letters from farm wife’s that were written in the 1930’s and compiled to make a quilt.

There are always “quilt alongs” on the web and this one seems to be popular this fall and winter. The coordinator of the one that I am doing is Angie at Gnomeangel.com Each week since the end of September she has released two or three blocks for any one that wants to join and you can choose your own fabrics/colors and sew it your way. She has been great at giving several options on ways to cut and sew the blocks each week. Not only does she have many bloggers involved with tutorials, there is also a Facebook page and an Instagram hashtag so you can follow and see what others all over the world are doing. It’s been great fun to see the different colors and skills and learn some new tricks. It’s also been great practice for me learning to cut and sewing accurately and consistently. This has been met with moderate success on my part. I keep reminding myself that it doesn’t have to be perfect and I’m learning and practicing and each one will get better. I do find it’s better if I can sew more often. This fall I’ve had mixed success with that as well. I hope that now we’ve arrived in January, I’ll have the time and inclination to catch up. I’ve decided to do mine in somewhat of a rainbow theme but most likely it will be a bit “scrappy” because I decided I need to use fabric that I have on hand and not purchase more new fabric. It’s been fun and I’m now headed back to the machine!

More babies

November 23, 2015 / Patty

More babies. It certainly is that time for many young families. I had the pleasure of making one more baby gift before I start on the Christmas sewing. One of middle daughters good friends recently had a baby and she assured me that this friend would treasure a quilt for her new baby because no one in her family did those kinds of things.

I do like to make baby quilts. The are usually fun to make, I can try new things and it doesn’t need to be perfect. This quilt fit all of those criteria. To begin with the white fabric that I planned on using needed to be replaced when I started to sew. It was so cheap looking compared to the rest of the fabrics I just couldn’t use it. Well, I suppose I could have but it didn’t look right. I was also starting to feel a bit pressured because I knew the baby was coming and would likely be early and I seemed to be quite busy with work so didn’t feel like sewing in the evening. I started to cut the strips to use in the die cutter and made several of the strips too narrow. I could have made them work but knew the fabric was more likely to stretch when I cut the shapes. I finally got everything cut, started to sew and changed my mind on the arrangement so had to recalculate and sew some more.I decided the colors of the fabric that I was going to use on the back wouldn’t look good so I went shopping again. Yes, some of the pieces did stretch and it didn’t lay very flat when I was done piecing the top. After quilting however, and washing. It looks fine, I love the colors and I know the mom and baby will not care if all the points don’t match and it’s not perfect. It will keep the baby warm or be a good quilt to put on the floor and work fine that way too.

The bib was made to try a new quilting pattern. That worked fine too and all have been mailed and received by the new mom.

Now on to Christmas.

Minions and pin cushions

November 22, 2015 / Patty

Minions and pin cushions were next on the list. A friend saw the orange Minion pillow cases and wanted a blue one for her college age daughter. It was fun to make and I added a little coin purse. This fabric was great quality and had a great feel to it so it was fun to sew.

Next was a pin cushion for a friend. After reading about other folks using this pattern I was hesitant and ~~I procrastinated~~ it took me a long time to make it. When I was done, I realized there were several things I could have done differently had I known but it turned out OK and wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it might be. A win for sure.

And one more jar cozy.

Postcards

September 18, 2015 / Patty

Postcards were again on the agenda for my camp friends. I tried to customize them a bit with something special for person. Sometimes this happened to be a name, like Chipmunk or Tigger. I didn’t have any Tigger fabric so had to make do with Pooh instead. And one for a friend whose name was from the Wizard of Oz, and there were several themed ones as well.

A Nature, a boating, a generic Girl Scout, a crafter, a Cat (mouse) and even the kitchen folks. These were fast and fun. I might have made them more elaborate if I had started sooner but…

Gifts

September 15, 2015 / Patty

I was lucky enough to recieve some gifts from friends this summer too. A friend who I chat with many times a week but usually by email, found a pincushion pattern that she wanted to try out so I was the lucky winner on that one and one friend I had made a pincushion caddy for and in turn she created me a beautiful pair of hand knit socks.

It’s always such a treat to receive handmade gifts from friends. (Actually it’s a treat to receive any kind of gift. It always makes me feel special.) I love creating gifts for people and in turn I love to receive the Starfish Alley m as well.

This beautiful wool pincushion was created with love and care by my friend Gretchen.

I feel honored and blessed to be on the receiving end.
For my friend Terri, I made this pincushion caddy similar to one she had see on a website.

As a thank you she gifted me with these hand knit socks. What a lucky gal I am!

Fall is in the air!

September 14, 2015 / Patty

Fall is in the air here in Edmonds. After an unusually warm summer it’s time to get into the fall routines. I’m working on that for sure.

I have done lots of odds and ends of sewing here but really haven’t had the inclination to post much. I’m looking forward however to some updates here and continue to make a record of my finishes. I’ve got lots of plans for the fall so we’ll see how I do.

One of my finishes this summer has been a second baby quilt. This is for the friend of daughter #2 who is expecting her daughter #2. When I started this I really only expected to test the block idea and size but after I had finished several of the blocks I decided that I really like it and it would be perfect for this new baby. I did struggle with the binding for a bit but finally settled on this green stripe. At first after it was done I thought I had made a mistake because it’s so much bolder than I had anticipated but I do think I like it and it does go with the fabrics.

As I was searching for this picture I also found many others.

Another project from earlier in the summer was another pillowcase. This was also for a Girl Scout friend.

Graduation Time of Year

June 2, 2015 / Patty

It’s graduation time of year again. I don’t really have close to me relatives graduating this year but do know two ladies that I want to recognize. Graduation is a big accomplishment if it is high school or college. The first lady is a high school graduate and like I’ve done many times over the last several years I’ve made a zip bag. I love to make these and they are so handy to have around. I have odds and ends in my purse, like Tylenol, eye drops etc. I have one for my cell phone, I have one for my Kindle and I have one for all of my charging cords. The usefulness can go on and on. I hope this lady will like her zip pouch as she heads off to college and finds it useful for some of life’s odd and ends.

The second lady is older and a college graduate. She has put herself through school while working full-time and I have lots of admiration for her and her hard work. She is also a Girl Scout volunteer and for many years has volunteered one week of her vacation at a summer overnight Girl Scout camp. As I puzzled about how to recognize her I decided I could make her a pillowcase that was designed especially for camp. Her camp name relates to a small animal and there are many interesting small wildlife creatures at camp so I thought this was a fitting recognition and something that she will use, enjoy and it will not show any dirt. At camp this is always a bonus even if you do sleep inside!.

So for this year, graduation sewing is done. Next on the agenda is a couple of aprons and at least two baby quilts. One of those quilts has been pieced so now it’s just layering, quilting and binding.

A couple more pictures

April 22, 2015 / Patty

A couple more pictures here. I did make some things for Christmas this year but find I only have pictures of some of the things.. not sure what happened. Guess I’m out of the habit.

I did make this nightgown for my niece’s daughter. I love making flannel nightgowns for little girls.

And I made my brother some napkins.

Of course there were also a few more zip bags.

And I also made about 20 of the long rice heat packs. There was a 50 pound bag of rice left at one of my work places so I made many of these. In fact I even ended up going to Costco for a second bag of rice.

Next up will be several baby quilts and other items. There are at least 3 babies that I know of in the next few months. I do enjoy the baby sewing and could easily get carried away by that.

Quick graduation gift

July 9, 2014 / Patty

I knew a couple of young ladies that were graduating and needed a quick graduation gift. I’ve made pouches for young ladies this age before and found they have been well received. They seem to be useful for odds and end and all kinds of other things. I made these a tad bigger so they could be used for charging cords. I don’t know about you, but it seems like I am taking more of these with me when I travel places and it’s hard to find a convenient place to store them where you can find them again. I hate to keep looking for my things and try to keep them all together and be consistent about where I put my belongings so this is important to me. These young ladies will not have mothers with them to keep track of their things when they leave for college in a few weeks so I’m hopeful that these pouches will be useful.

In my dreams..

July 7, 2014 / Patty

In my dreams I update this blog frequently with new projects and fun sewing activities. In reality, I just dream about it because there really has not been a lot of sewing. I did make a couple of skirts for a daughter’s birthday. I’ve also done a few zippered pouches and a bit of mending. I’ve also made a few dish towels with some applique. I would love to do more and maybe that will happen and maybe only a dream for a while. Part of the reason is just far more hours spent working. You know those adult kind of work things. I’ve also done some reading and tending to family issues.

This week is camp week however. After 21 years of attending Girl Scout camp as an adult and many more years as a girl, camp seems to be a part of my summer. I “retired” from camp a couple of years ago but still have lots of friends who attend and carry on this fabulous tradition. It looks like they will have a great week this week too. I try to send some mail but it needs to be sent at the beginning of the week or it will not arrive in time.

Although I didn’t think of this very far in advance I wanted to send mail and thought it should be a bit different. I’ve read about fabric post cards and have some leftover Girl Scout fabric so thought I would give it a try. Although these are not very elegant or elaborate it was a fun diversion and I’m going to make some more. Because it was a last minute thought I decided that I would use what I had on hand. I had some Peltex and Wonder Under so I created my own double stick post card base and then experimented with ironing on the fabric and doing some simple applique. I got some permanent fabric markers and sent them through the postal mail. I do hope they receive them and if not I do have a picture.

Off to make a couple more. I have several friends that were not able to go due to health reasons. I thought they might like camping@home mail.

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