St Paddy's Day Sewing Project: Luck o' the Irish Flag Quilt

Hi, friends. If you are looking for a sewing project that is perfect for St Patrick's Day, then I have a tutorial for you. I made my very first sewing video for this post, too. Click over to Sewing Machines Plus Sew Blog to read the step-by-step tutorial for making this fun and easy-to-sew wall quilt. The video shows how to make the patchwork strips. There's a downloadable pattern for the four-leaf clover and all the info you need to sew this project for St Patrick's day or anytime. 

I have to admit that I'm a little nervous about the video and especially about my Alabama accent being on Youtube, but I hope it is helpful and I hope you enjoy making this project.

I really appreciate y'all reading my work over at Sewing Machines Plus! Luck O' the Irish Flag Quilt Tutorial

Happy St. Patrick's Day and happy sewing to you!

String-Pieced Crib Quilt Tutorial

I hope you all are okay today. I'm feeling blue, to be honest, so I thought I'd show off this blue quilt today. I posted the full step-by-step tutorial on how to make it over at Sewing Machines Plus, check it out: Blue Baby Crib Quilt Tutorial.  This quilt was a lot of fun to make while I waited for a special little boy to be born.  It doesn't have to be blue, of course; make it in whatever colors you like best.

Easy I-Spy Scrap Quilt

It's been a long time since I posted something new here, and this twin bed quilt seems like a good project to share.  I had been saving fabrics to make an I spy quilt for my son, and when we ordered his first twin mattress, I needed to make a twin bed quilt quick.  I didn't want to just sew square after plain square of random novelty fabrics; I wanted to do something to unify the quilt.  I am very happy with how this turned out, and I think the primary colored frames around the different I-spy prints work well to unify both the fabrics and the random collection of colorful toys that often litter my son's room!  I looked online a few times and couldn't find a design for an I spy quilt like this, but I finally found something on google images that inspired me.  That was this quilt, at Don't Call Me Betsy, which was the very first quilt she ever made!  It's an easy idea and I decided to use it in order to both unify and speed along the construction of my bed sized quilt, which I needed to sew quickly!

I finished this quilt so quickly that it was done before hubby has even started building the bed!

I used 6 inch squares for the block centers and 3 inch strips to frame them, and then trimmed each block to 11 inches square.  My son chose many of his I-spy fabrics, and some were such large prints that I used a few 11 inch square blocks without borders.  He was insistent about that Thomas the Tank Engine fabric, and this one didn't work well in 6 inch squares.  I used scrap and stash fabrics in primary colors to make the "frames," although for a few squares I used strips of the novelty I spy fabrics, when the print was small enough.

I used 2 of each fabric so he can also look for matches, as he likes matching games a lot right now.  To make this twin quilt takes 35 blocks, in 7 rows of 5, so you need 2 each of 17 different fabrics, one of which you will use 3 times.  To make this quilt harmonious, I stuck with a palette of mostly primary colors in the prints, and enhanced this by using reds, blues, and greens for the framing strips.

This is an easy, quick, I-spy quilt to sew that uses scraps but has a coherent quality that brings the diverse prints together in a fun way.

I am feeling quite quilt-y lately; I just finished a new top which I will quilt soon and I have a lot of quilt ideas swirling in my head, so I hope to make more posts again here soon.  I hope you and yours enjoy a beautiful day today and that you all have a beautiful tomorrow, too!  Happy Sewing!

Scrap Stash Organization

Hi! I am so happy to say that I finally, FINALLY got my large scrap stash organized.

I prefer not to throw anything out that could be put to good use, and I am thankfully blessed with the good sense to be able to imagine a use for any scrap. But having all my many scraps of all different sizes and shapes and contents stuffed into a big "barrel" pop-up hamper was definitely not working for me!

I have worked so hard on getting and keeping my sewing room clean and organized, and this was the last problem to solve. I want to make art quilts to raise money for Alzheimer's (see the link in my sidebar), but I have been avoiding making any scrap projects because the barrel issue made such a mess. First, let me show how it's all better now:

Here is a picture I took the last time I made a scrap project, to show what a ridiculous mess this scrap storage system would make.  Before I moved the scraps up to the barrel, I used a smaller version of this messy system, a scrap bag or basket.  This has always been a mess and much less than optimally organized!

I love keeping my sewing room clean and organized and I am so glad I finally got this big problem solved!

I searched around on the internet for various scrap management ideas and I stopped to read this post at quiltville, Scrap User's Organization System.  When I sew her system, I thought AHA!

So I decided my baby son really didn't need those plastic drawers in his closet, and that I needed them more!

Here's how I sorted my crazy mess of scraps into a workable order:

 
The top drawer holds red, orange, yellow, purple, and black and brown quilter's cotton scraps.  I see now that they are not in that order!  I was working quickly to get this done.  It took me a full day and a half to do this project, by the way.

I have a lot of blue and green cotton scraps, as these are my favorite colors- so they each got a bin.  The pink bin holds both pink scraps, and also pink pieces that are as big as a full yard.  The smaller bins hold small scraps of felt and silk.  I don't actually keep the bins on top of the drawer unit, but rather stash them neatly beneath my sewing table, which is well within arms length.  I can pull them out and put them on top when I need to work with them.

This middle drawer holds "crumbs:"  These are little small scraps to be used for string piecing and such.  The maximum size for the Alzheimer's Art Quilts is, I think, 10 by 12 inches, so I know I will be able to make something using even the smallest crumbs.  These small scraps are confined using a white open bin, so that this drawer can also hold muslin and batting scraps that can be used in making these small quilts or other little scrap projects (such as my favorite scrap project, soft crazy quilted color books for baby)..

This bottom drawer holds scraps from sheets I have already cut, a bag of plaid scraps, and a ziploc with denim and corduroy scraps, as well as some patterned white and light neutral quilter's cottons.  So it is kindof a miscellaneous drawer.

I had a lot of scrap knits, but no good bin to fit them; this reusable bag is the perfect size.  So for now, the knit scraps are in here, stashed under the sewing table next to the bins.

There is a couple more categories of scraps that I save.  One is the "stuffing scraps."  I stuff tiny pieces, even thread chains and serger trimmings, and small batting scraps, etc, into a drawstring garbage bag, which I use for stuffing things like pillows and toys.  Someone recently gave me an antique wardrobe which I am using as my "sewing room closet," although it doesn't fit in the sewing room and is at the end of our hall instead.  That "closet" holds the bag of stuffing scraps, a bag of larger felt scraps, and also some sheets I haven't cut yet, interfacings, and some other things.

I also have two large shoebox bins, one holds apparel fabric scraps for making Barbie doll clothes, and the other has novelty scraps, which I am collecting to make an I-spy/ Alphabet quilt sometime soon.

The last step to make this system workable is one more basket, empty now.  This is also stashed under my sewing table and I can use this to store daily scraps in for quick daily cleaning of my mess, and then sort these away every week or month or whenever.

It can be a good, useful, and productive thing to save and use lots of scraps, but this will work out MUCH better and be easier to do when the stash is workably organized.  Towards that end,  I hope this post is helpful!

Have a great day!
Millie

Easy Quilting Project: Make a Wall Pocket from One Block

I have been working hard on rearranging my sewing room and making a lot of improvements.  I keep sitting down to make a post, looking at my photos, and thinking of another improvement to implement.  I have a lot of new ideas to show you soon.  For now, here is one little project I whipped up for my sewing room.  I used a UFO block that was never going to be a quilt.  I had planned to make a throw pillow cover from this block, but have since decided that we have more than enough throw pillows around here!

I always have a lot of garment pattern pieces tacked on my bulletin board, and this leaves no room for the other stuff I want to tack up.  So I used this orphan quilt block and made a big wall pocket for holding whatever garment pattern pieces I am working with.  I wrote a tutorial, too; here is the link to this easy quilting project.  Please stop by and read my tutorial at AC!

Happy Sewing!

Favorite Scrap Sewing Project: Baby's Soft Book of Colors

I want to feature this soft book of colors to kick off the month.  This was my favorite gift I made last year, and I loved making it so much that I had to make more.  This is really a fun gift to make!

This is perfect for any baby on your list, from the not yet born to the toddler set.  I promise you will love making this and the book will be well loved.

 This tutorial is well done and made by a brilliantly talented mama named Jazmin.  Here is her tutorial at Homegrown Happy.

 Here is the first one I made:

I made the back cover brown for my son.  I have made a pink back page when giving this to a girl.

Like I said, this was definitely the best gift I had yet made and I know you will be glad if you make one too.
I promise you will enjoy it!