Trick or Treat Bag

I made a few Trick or Treat bags as store samples and thought it might be a good idea to do a quick tutorial for them.

You will need 1/2 yard of two fabrics. From the exterior fabric cut (2) 16" by 13" rectangles. Do the same with the lining fabric. If your fabric is directional, the top edge should be one of the 16" long edges. From one of the fabrics cut (2) 5" by 16" rectangles for the handles.

Fold each handle in half lengthwise and press to create a 2.5” by 16” piece. 

Open this back out and fold each raw edge in towards the fold and press again. 

Then press in half along the original center fold to create a piece that is 1.25” by 16”. 

Topstitch all four sides. Repeat for the other handle.

On one of the 16” by 13” exterior rectangles, find the center of the top edge (one of the 16” sides) and mark it with a pin. Pin each end of one of handles 2” out from the center. 

Baste in place. Do the same for other exterior rectangle and the other handle. 

Lay your two exterior rectangles with handles basted in place, right sides together. Using a 1/4” seam allowance, sew the two side seams and the bottom seam. Leave the top open.

Lay your two lining rectangles right sides together. Using a 1/4” seam allowance, sew the two side seams and the bottom seam leaving a 3” opening for turning in the bottom seam.

Box the corners measuring 1.5” from the corner and drawing a line. 

The line should measure 3” long. Sew on the line 

and cut off the corner leaving a 1/4” seam allowance.

Turn the exterior right side out. Leave the lining wrong side out. Place the exterior inside the lining aligning the side seams and the top edge. The fabrics of the exterior and interior should be right sides together.

Sew around the top edge using a 1/4" seam allowance. Turn the bag right side out through the opening left in the bottom seam of the lining.

Topstitch the opening in the bottom of the lining closed. 

Topstitch around the top edge of the bag.

Now you are ready to go Trick or Treating!

Shop Samples

Most of my sewing these days seems to be shop related. We received some fun Halloween prints recently. One of them is for an apron. It's one of those printed on the fabric type projects. Very easy and fast. I made one in an afternoon in between customers recently. Here is one of my employees modeling it.

We also received some Quiet Bunny fabrics. One of them makes a book.

Another printed on the fabric fast and easy project! The satisfaction of starting and finishing something adorable in one afternoon is addicting. I have started a longer term project though which I will show you soon.

Meet Tiggy :: A Finish

The first Halloween fabric arrived in my shop last week. I got Spooky Delights by Bunny Hill Designs for Moda. Along with the fabric I got a couple of patterns. This adorable kitty is one of them.

She was fun to make and not very hard. I tried out cotton stuffing from Quilter's Dream inside her along with some crushed walnuts shells for weight. Both worked great! 

I've only used polyester stuffing previously. The cotton stuffing is similar, but I found it easier to manipulate. Usually my stuffed items are pretty lumpy, but this project turned out much smoother. I don't know if I'm just getting better at stuffing things or if the cotton stuffing helped, probably both. 

I want to make the pumpkin too, but didn't get around to it yet.

Two Cute Things

I didn't make either of these things but thought you might enjoy seeing them.

First thing: 

Last week I was given a fun pin.

All the ladies at Kathy's Fabric Trunk were wearing them and this one went so perfectly with my outfit that day. It was made by Char, one of the ladies who works at Kathy's. She does beautiful beadwork and jewelry. I wore it on Halloween too.

Second thing:

Even though I didn't get to attend my recent guild retreat, I still got a goodie. How cute is this?

The yo-yo on top is attached with a magnet so it can easily come off.

The jar is a spice jar. The maker left the hole part on the inside so that you could use this as a sewing tool. 

The idea is that you can put a couple spools of thread inside and feed an end of the thread through a hole. I suppose you could put five bobbins inside and feed one thread per hole. I haven't done anything with it yet except photograph it and give my son the candy. I'm using the yo-yo as a magnet on my magnet board in my sewing room.

Happy Halloween

I "sewed" two costumes earlier this week for my son and his BFF. Actually, I just added letters to two purchased t-shirts.

Pepper and Salt

I printed out the S and P from a Word document onto paper, one letter per page. Then I traced the letters onto fusible from the back side of the paper so that they would be reversed; ironed the traced fusible to the back of the appropriate color fabric; cut the letter out and fused it to the shirt. Then I stitched around each letter using matching thread and a zig zag stitch.

Happy Halloween!

A Quick Project

Yesterday morning I made a few Halloween napkins for some friends.

They are a family of 5 so I found five Halloween fabrics in my stash and made a set of eight napkins for them. The five fabrics I used are shown below.

I did it this way so that each family member could easily identify which napkin is theirs. I only had enough fabric to make one napkin out of the two fabrics on the right in the photo above. I like to make sets of six or eight napkins so I made two from each of the three fabrics on the left.

I plan to make napkins for my family using the fabric on the far left in the photo above. I have them cut out but that is as far as I could get yesterday. I'm still working a lot at my LQS during the closing sale. The end is in sight though. My last day will be next Thursday although the store will remain open for another week, through the end of October.

Halloween Challenge Blocks

In October my LQS did a Spooky Block Challenge. Everyone purchased a little kit with some fabric and two trims. The challenge was to use some of every piece of fabric in the kit along with some of both trims to make a "spooky" 12.5" unfinished block.

Ten blocks were turned in.

One of the ladies who attended the retreat last weekend was the winner of the blocks. She used nine of them for the front to make a wall hanging.

The tenth one will go on the back as the label. She got the blocks set together, got it quilted and got the binding sewn down to the front all at the retreat. I just love how this turned out! It was a fun challenge and all of the blocks were so creative.

Dance By the Light of the Moon Progress

The top panel is finished!

There are two more embroidery panels to make for this quilt. I may have to put this aside for a while though because Crabapple Hill has come out with a new, really cute Christmas Block of the Month, Gingerbread Square. The link will take you to the Crabapple Hill website where you can view the whole quilt as well as a close-up of each of the nine blocks. I already have the pattern and the floss kit.

Hand Embroidery

One upside of spending time in bed last week is that when I was feeling well enough I had time for hand sewing. I've been making slow but steady progress on the top panel of my Dance by the Light of the Moon quilt.

All I have left to do is most of the pumpkins and a little bit left in the moon.

Dance by the Light of the Moon

I will be teaching an embroidery class this next quarter at my LQS. Students can choose any embroidery pattern in the store. Since most of the embroidery patterns we carry are by Crabapple Hill, it will most likely be one of those designs. I am doing Dance by the Light of the Moon. Here is the top panel - traced, colored and ready for embroidery.

The second fabric I tea-dyed back in June is perfect for the embroidery base.

I'm trying two new things with this pattern. The first is using spool Cosmo floss. The second is using metallic Cosmo floss.

I love the spool floss!! It is two strands of floss. So much nicer than cutting a length of 6 strands and then having to pull out two at a time to use. The metallic floss is a bit challenging to use. The first strand I cut was too long. It knotted on me and knots in metallic floss are more challenging to get out. After that first strand, I have been careful to use shorter lengths. This has been much easier. It is not prickly but more like sewing with very fine tinsel.

I'll try to get a better picture of this project next time so you can see the difference between the regular floss and the metallic on the tree. If you look at the branch the owl is sitting on in the photo above, the top part of the branch is done with the metallic, the bottom part with the regular floss.

Which Witch's Boot - Finished!

Another finish to share this week! Again, I'm thrilled with how this has turned out!

I must admit that I was a bit afraid to quilt this. I've never quilted an embroidery piece before and wasn't quite sure how to quilt it. It has been basted and ready to go for about three weeks waiting for inspiration to strike.

Despite my quilt tester's assistance, I finished the quilting over the weekend.

I used three different thread colors, orange, parchment and shades of grey, all Signature 40 wt. cotton. This is the first time I've used one of the Signature variegated threads. I really like this one!

I quilted lines in orange on the pumpkin fabric following the vertical lines in the fabric. I quilted a spider web in each of the pieced nine patch blocks. I'm really happy with how well those turned out! I just stippled around the embroidery because I didn't want the quilting to compete with the embroidery. The narrow black border got circles and you can see the shades of grey thread pretty well on it. I did the Back and Forth pattern from Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Waters in the outer border. It doesn't show up well because I used the shades of grey there too, but I wanted the fabric to be the focus not the quilting. The finished size is about 38" tall by 39.5" wide.

Now I'm ready for Halloween 2013!

A Finished Top - Which Witch's Boot

We woke up to snow this morning.

I've finally found a good back drop for photographing a black cat - snow! We've never had a cat who would set one toe out in the snow, until now. Crazy cat! She insisted on going out every time one of us went out to sweep the snow from the walk and sidewalk. I guess she feels she needs to supervise.

The forecast was for 1 to 2 inches. We got more than that and it may snow some more tonight and tomorrow morning.

We had 4.5 inches at about 10 am and it snowed until about 1 pm. Probably got about another inch of accumulation. I'm not complaining about the snow. We really need it! The local ski areas will finally be able to open almost a month later than they usually do.

All this snow makes for great sewing weather. Most of my work is done except for calculating final grades and turning them in. Grades aren't due until Tuesday so today I did this.

I let my OCD side out for a bit and cut the jack-o-lantern fabric so that they are all right side up. Good thing I bought extra of this fabric to use on the back because this was not the most efficient use of fabric. I don't care though. I've got lots of fabric! If I don't have enough of the jack-o-lantern fabric for the back I'm sure I have enough of something else or I'll just piece the back with two fabrics.

A Little Bit of "Me" Sewing

All my gifts are sewn and sent off. Time for "me" sewing.

I had a few minutes today while waiting for this and that so I worked on my Which Witch's Boot project.

I was able to turn these piles into eight blocks.

That is as far as I got, but it's better than nothing! I didn't get the center embroidery part out today. I have it safely hanging in a closet to keep it from getting lost or wrinkled. To see a photo of the embroidery part, go here.