I made a little dress!

I have only grandsons and I have enjoyed making little rompers for them. It is fun to sew for them.  I am having a good time making items for my friend's granddaughter.  She is a year old and looks just like a beautiful doll.  I have made her several things   I don't  have a simple pattern for an easy dress so I used a romper pattern then I cut off the bottom to make it into a dress.

I have never taken sewing lessons so I am learning on my own.

I thought it was a little short so I made some pleats with some of the scraps to add to the hem.  I can just see her in this with a white turtle neck sweater and some white tights.

What do you think of this one?   I am looking forward to seeing it on her.

First blocks for the 2015 Lovely Ladies bee!

I made the January blocks!  Brenda was assigned January and I received her fabric a couple of days ago and decided to make them.(before I loose the fabric in my sewing room) LOL....I really need to spend some time rearranging things in there.
She chose the disappearing 4 patch.  I love the colors she selected.

More Stained glass

My  DH and I have decided to give each other a new lamp for Christmas.

We ordered them from Amazon and they only took 2 days to get here!

Stained Glass fun!

I had a great time Friday and Saturday helping my sweet friend, Myra, hang up all of my stained glass pieces!  She made these for some 'transom' windows in our old house and when we moved I brought them with us.  I also had a large one.  Myra lives in Colorado Springs and she and I have been friends since we were in Junior High School, seems like 100 years ago.  She came to our home town to spend a couple of weeks with her mom and she was able to come spend 2 days with me.
We moved into our new home in October of 2013

Here are a couple of pictures we took today.

This window is in our Breakfast room.

 This one is placed in the window over our bath tub in the Master Bath

 I have a window like this on either side of the fireplace in the  living room.  The red fleur di lis looks great.

This is the window in my sewing room.  I

This is my sewing room from outside!

bear paw blocks

I have been working on this bear paw quilt top for a couple of weeks.

I found some fat quarter packs that had orange and red and yellow and purple pieces.  These colors screamed bear paw block to me.

Scrappy Log Cabin quilt

This was a fun quilt that went together pretty quick.

I pulled out a bin of scraps and cut them into 2 inch strips.
I found a couple of yards of an off white fabric with small flowers.

I did not plan which strip went where..... completely random placement.
I did try to avoid having the same fabric end up next to each other.

Here is a picture of the quilt top.   It is about 62 inches square.

I had some fun with the left over strips to make different sort of border.
This is a close up of one of the corners.

Red and White quilt

My dear friend Jan has been making quilts for about a year now.
Here is her latest creation..... Our husbands held it up for a picture.
All I can say is WOW

Black and White quilt

I saw a block like this somewhere in my web surfing and decided to give it a try.
It is about 50 inches square.

making bags

Making a duffel bag has been a challenge.   I tried two different patterns.

Here is  my first one.

Here is the second one.

Getting ready for the new school year!

My daughter in law teaches at a local primary school. She asked me if I could make something that would allow her students to hold a book at their chairs.
She wants them to have access to their library books so they can read when they have any free time.
I came up with this. . . . . .

I am going to make 5 of each color.(blue, red, yellow and green) Nice
bright colors.
'Duck" fabric is perfect for this.

Here is the view from my sewing studio window.  My dear husband loves to take care of his flowers.  SO PRETTY.

How to make a zippered pouch!

This is how I make a zippered pouch.


- cut top fabric and lining fabric the same size
  (this one is about 10 1/2 by 7)

[I use light weight batting and quilt the top fabrics a little just to give the pouch a little shape]















- place zipper (right side down) to the right side of the top fabric and place the lining fabric right side down onto the zipper
be sure to line up the top of the front and lining to the top of the zipper and pin in place.

- sew zipper on using a zipper foot

- repeat on other side of the zipper

Once I sew zipper in I secure it by sewing a small seam on either side

- I add a small loop to the side of the pouch.  sew loop onto right side of pouch like this        ( use a scant 1/8th inch seam just to hold it in place)
....be careful not to attach it to the lining....

- unzip the zipper about 3/4 of the way then pin pouch and lining together and sew all the way around leaving an opening at the bottom of the lining so you can turn the pouch out once it is sewn together

- using a small square piece of cardboard ( this one is about 1 inch square), mark off all four corners on both sides of the top and lining

- pinch together corner and sew along the line

- clip off corners

-turn pouch right side out, sew the bottom of the lining closed and you are finished

It's quilted!

I quilted the latest quilt top.  I am determined to quilt them as I make them.  I usually have a stack of about 6-8 quilt tops before I get to quilting them and now I am doing my best to quilt them as quickly as I can once the top is made.

Here are a couple of close ups of the quilting I did on this one.  Instead of quilting in the "ditch" I sewed a seam about a half inch on each side of the ditch!

I like the look of this quilting........

Experimenting with a quilt pattern

I have made numerous quilts before now but I usually start with a pattern then tweak it to fit what I like.   A friend sent me a small picture of the corner of a quilt she liked and asked if I could figure out how to make it.  I studied the photo and came up with a simple crude pattern. Excuse the scribble look to this but this is the pattern I drew out.

Once I drew it out I figured out how many half square triangles I needed.  I used 4 inches to get a quilt that turned out to be about 50-60 inches square once it was made.   I had this fabric in my stash just waiting for the right project.  I bought some of every color of these roses. I also had just enough of the white on white roses to use as background fabric.

I used green in place of the orange in my pattern and this is what I came up with.

I hope to quilt it next week....I will post a finished quilt picture once I finish it.

Memory quilts complete

My friend and former neighbor lost her husband last year and I wanted to do something special for her.
She gave me a lot of his shirts and I made a memory quilt for her. It was something I had never done and it was a very emotional thing to cut up the shirts that I used to see him in everyday.  She wanted one for each of her children so I made those too!
I found some nice medium blue fabric to help with the designs I had in mind.

I hope she likes them! My DH held them up for me so I could take these pictures.

Quilted fractured quilt!

I finally finished quilting the fractured quilt top.
Here is a photo of the front....

I did loads of feathers all over the quilt.

Here is a picture of part of the back!

Fractured quilt attempted

I saw a couple of quilt tops that were called "fractured" quilt tops.
I was able to get someone to send me a description of how to do it.
First I used a small panel of a duck.

 before......

after......

Then I pulled out some larger  panels..21" x 37"

I used 4 panels.    

Paducah quilt show pictures

I had a great time at the quilt show last weekend in Paducah, Kentucky.  So many beautiful quilts.  and....the dogwood trees were in full bloom!  so amazing to see.

Here are some of the quilts I saw....

the dogwood trees were in bloom all over the city

I saw this great quilter and was able to speak with her for a moment.  She was so gracious and sweet.  I first got into quilting years ago when I watched her on PBS.

This is the group I traveled with to go to the show.  These Mississippi quilters are an awesome group.  This was taken at the Cracker Barrel the last day of our trip. I made some new sweet friends.

And this bloomed at home while I was away.  My DH sent me this picture!