New Pillow Cover for Me

 I shared this idea with you previously in July. Click here to read that post. I finally got it finished!

Here is what it looks like all stitched but not sewn into a pillow cover yet.

For those of you who are curious, here is what the back looks like before I sewed it up into a pillow cover.

I cut a piece of batting the finished size I needed the pillow to be. Next time I would cut the batting about an inch larger than the finished size. I added the fabric directly on top of the batting and hand stitched each piece down one at a time.

Here it is with the pillow form inside and ready to use.

It looks a little lumpy because (1) the whole thing shrank up about 1/2" from all the stitching and (2) I didn't put any fabric on the back of the pillow front, just the batting so the pillow form didn't want to slide easily into place. 

Lesson learned, the next one I will cut the batting larger to start with then trim to size before turning it into whatever it will be. And if I decide to make another pillow I will put some fabric on the back so the pillow form will slide more easily into the cover. I've been using it for a couple days and it looks better already!

The back is a simple envelope back closure, also used scrap fabric for that. Thus, in a certain sense, this was a free project! The pillow form is actually an old pillow that I keep making new covers for. Not even sure how old it is, but it still works.

Whimsy Shop Sample - Free Pattern

 I have a new fabric collection which means a new shop sample. The fabric collection is called Whimsy. It's a really nice "basics" collection. A basics collection is a collection of fabrics that are designed to be blenders or "go with" fabrics for the trendy, designer prints. These are the fabrics everyone needs to have in their stash to compliment the designer prints and allow them to shine, the supporting actors so to speak.

But just because these fabrics are basics doesn't mean they don't look fabulous on their own in a project! Most of the prints in this collection read as a solid from a distance, but all of them have a pattern to them. This is the sample.

This quilt used pre-cuts (5" squares) and a little yardage for the background and the little squares in the sashing. I'm gonna use that same fabric for the binding once I get it quilted.

The collection contains 50 different fabrics. The pre-cuts (5" squares, 10" squares and 2 1/2" strips) all contain 50 pieces with no repeats, which is why they are a little more expensive than other pre-cuts that only contain 40 or 42 pieces, most with duplicates.

I have started sharing a free pattern every week in my weekly shop newsletter. This was the free pattern I shared this week. If you'd like to see this newsletter and previous newsletters, click here. The link will take you to my shop website, directly to the newsletter page. You can check this page every week or you can sign up to get the newsletter via email. It goes out every Thursday evening at 6pm Mountain Time Zone. If you'd like to sign up to receive the newsletter every week, go to my website by clicking here and scroll down to the bottom of the page to the newsletter sign up form. You can unsubscribe later if you decide it's not for you.

If you would like to download a copy of the pattern shown in the photo above, you can do that by clicking right here. The link will take you directly to the pattern where you can print it out or download it to your device.

Finishing Up a Found Project

 I started doing a little cleaning in my sewing room. As so often happens, I found an unfinished project. I started it thinking I would kit it up for my shop, but decided to use a different pattern to feature the panel. So everything got tossed in a corner. 

Last weekend I decided to at least get the top together.

It's big for a kid quilt, 60" by 67.5". I don't know if I will quilt it myself or not, but at least the top is done. I don't have a purpose for this quilt anymore. I like the other pattern I decided to use for the kits much better than this one for this panel. But it's not terrible! Surely someone will like it. I'll put it in my "to be quilted" pile for now.

I do have a few more of these panels and some of the coordinates too if you'd like some for yourself. Click here to view the panel and coordinating fabrics I still have.

Second Batik Rug Finished

 For this rug I used 9 yards of fabric. It finished at 26" by 36" but as expected the size shifted after washing and drying. It's now 24" by 37".

I have enough strips cut to make another rug using these exact same fabrics. For that one I can't decide how I want to order the six different fabrics. Should I use all of each fabric so the stripes are wider or should I pick a fabric order and use one strip of each so that the fabric changes every 6 inches or so? I'll think about it for a bit, then make a decision and get busy on the third one.

You can read my previous post about the making of this rug by click here.

And all of the batik fabrics I have in stock in my shop are currently in my clearance section for $9 per yard. If you'd like to make a batik rug similar to mine you can pick up some gorgeous batik fabrics for a great price, while supplies last. You can make whatever you like with them though, not just a rug. Click here to go to the clearance section of my online shop. And in case you are wondering, yes I will still be carrying batik fabrics in my shop but I'm going to start over with all new batiks once I've sold out of what I currently have.

A Quilter's Letter of Instructions

 Does your family know what they should do with all of your sewing, quilting and crafting items when you pass away? I know, no one wants to think about what happens when they are no longer here! But let's face it, it's gonna happen. Why not help your family out and leave them a Quilter's Letter of Instructions. 

My friend Deb over at Quiltblox.com has written a really great article about doing just that. She even has a list of questions you should think about before starting and a sample letter that you can download and just fill in the appropriate information. 

Click the link below to go directly to Deb's fabulous article on this subject. At the bottom of the article are links to the list of questions and the sample letter. I think most family members want to do the right thing, they just don't know what that is. Here's a way that you can help them when the time comes.

Click here to go read the article on Deb's website about making your own Quilter's Letter of Instructions.

Another Batik Rug

 I liked my first rug so much I decided to make a couple more. For this one I started with 9 yards of fabric cut into 1" by width of fabric strips.

Then I joined all the strips together and rolled it up into a ball. The ball is about 8" in diameter.

Now I'm crocheting it into a rug. I simply chain stitched until the chain is about 2" longer than the finished width of the rug I want and started single crocheting. I'll just continue to single crochet until I run out of fabric strips. It's about halfway done at this point. The first rug I made shrank by 2" in the width so I'm assuming this one will shrink about the same, but we'll see.

As you can see, for this one I opted to used more than one fabric. The more the merrier, right? I picked 6 batik fabrics in the blue/turquoise/teal color range (1 1/2 yards of each). I love how it is turning out. When I was joining the fabric strips together I just grabbed a handful of one color and added all of them, then picked another color and grabbed a handful of those strips and so on. No real plan to the color order or number of strips of each color added at a time.

You might also notice that I got a better crochet hook. The other one wasn't very comfortable in my hand so I looked around and found this one. It's much nicer to use!

In the Garden Shop Sample

 I received a really lovely fabric collection recently called In the Garden. The collection includes two convenience fabrics - one is a panel and the other is yardage. They are both featured in the shop sample.

Above is the front of the quilt. It features the printed block panel. These blocks are about 20" by 20" and look like I did a lot of work to make them, but I didn't. It's printed just like that! Other uses for this fabric is to use one of two of the blocks as the outside of a tote bag, use one block for a pillow, use one block as the center of a medallion style quilt, or fussy cut out a block and applique it to the back of denim jacket or a sweatshirt.

For the back I used the petal print. Other uses for this fabric would be to use it to make orange peel blocks. You can simply iron fusible web to the back side, cut out the petals, fuse them to a background and stitch around them. Or you could cut them out and hand applique them down.

I like to label all my quilts but I didn't want the label to be noticeable.

Can you see the label in the photo above? If not, look below to see it.

These fabrics have such a nice feel to them! The quilt finishes at about 41" by 41". Right now I have the entire fabric collection in stock, complete with the block panel and the petal fabric.

If you want to make one too this is what you'll need:

One In the Garden Block Panel, 1 1/4 yards of In the Garden Petal Convenience Fabric (a quantity of 3 if ordering from my website), and 1/2 yard of binding fabric (a quantity of 1 if ordering from my website) - any of the fabrics in the collection would be good for binding but I used the In the Garden Dahlia Dream Verdant one. In addition to the fabric you'll also need some batting. I used a crib size package of Quilter's Dream Fusible 80/20. 

I opted to quilt it quickly with an allover meander, but you could also quilt this really fancy and hide the fact that it's a printed panel even more. However, everyone I have showed this sample to in person have thought that I pieced it. I have to point out to them that it's a printed panel - so anybody can make one of these!