Tuesday, August 23, 2011

SMALL, but DONE! . . . An Easy Stitch n Slash Project


Not too long ago -- maybe a couple of months -- several of us were making "Sew n Slash" projects. Rosa made a neat rug for her bathroom, and Joy and I made potholders. The one above shows my last one. Don't know why or how this poor little thing got left unfinished. . . probably just got forgotten under a pile of other stuff. LOL. Right now it is in the dryer getting all "fluffy".

The method is really easy and quick: LAYER several pieces [I used five, 8" squares of FLANEL] all RIGHT SIDE UP. PIN in a couple of places to secure; STITCH DIAGONAL lines about ONE INCH apart; Carefully CUT [or use Rotary Slasher]  inbetween the stitching lines through all but the LAST layer. BIND or finish how you want. Machine wash and dry to fluff out the layers and make it "bloom".  Below, after its bath and run through the dryer:

That's all for now. Thank you for stopping by to visit.

Hugs,
PS... Please note: the "date" of this posting shows "Sat, 20 Aug", even tho' today [Tues., 23 Aug] is the day I'm posting. Not sure how to change that. I began on Sat., but was not able to finish until today. Does anyone know how to change the dates? Regarding blogging, I still have a strong learning curve going on. lol.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

SOME FINISHES! A Spider, Pillowcases, Receiving Blankets & some organizing. . .


Ta Dah! Finally, a finish -- the little Spider quilt, which I have named: "Itsy Bitsy Spider" [after the childrens' song]. It gave me the shivers, but I put a spider drawing on the label... couldn't resist. And added a Spider Plant, too, just for fun.

Thank you everyone for your input. I agree with your good advice and put a red binding on it. I like it. I am thinking about embroidering a couple of little black spiders in the upper left & lower right hand corners. What do you think? Would that be too creepy?


[note: the quilt is straight, but my photograph is a bit wonky! I need more practice, or maybe a class!!]
Sorry it's been almost two weeks since I posted, but I have been mostly off the puter these last two weeks. First, I had some lovely company from out of town [out of the Country, actually]. Did a little reorganizing and refurbishing around the house, and even been working on cleaning out the garage! Wow.

Have completed a number of small projects. The first one [below] is a reversible receiving blanket for my soon-2-b-born great-granddaughter Nailay [means 'I love you' in Native American]. The blanket takes TWO, one-yard-pieces of flannel. The process: trim up the sides; sew together all around leaving about 12 inches open to turn; turn; slip stitch opening, and voila! A blankie. Oh, I did sandwich 1.5" of cotton eyelet lace in the seam and used a saucer to round the corners... this makes up pretty fast.


Making pillowcases is so much fun. Talk about almost instant gratification! lol. Below is a case made from material depicting the famous Route 66 highway that runs mostly East to West across a lot of the USA. I made this for my DD Laura to commemorate our drive on Rte 66 a year ago last May. She is stoked! I tried something different this time: after turning the "tube" [which encloses all the seams in the hem] I topstitched the flange. Then I finished it off as usual. Hopefully this little trick will make it all behave better in the laundry ... we'll see. ;-)

Below is a very fuzzy picture--sorry-- but you can make out some of the attractions that are along Route 66.


Below shows my beginning efforts to put up new shelves. I hope to eventually get everything sorted into nice looking baskets and have those sitting on these shelves. As you can see, I need to shop for and install a couple more shelves. lol. The top shelf, although not especially pretty looking, is organzied and done... the other one needs a lot of work yet! lol


That's all for now. Thank you so much for stopping by to visit!  I hope where ever you are, that you have time to make something that makes you or someone you love happy!

Hugs,