Leaves sketchbook cover

First my whine it is friggin cold here! Third day of temps that don’t go over zero even during the day. Oh, pardon me, yesterday it hit 2 degrees for an hour. I can deal except I can’t take the dogs out for our daily walk. My little dog can’t take the cold. 

Looks like I need a new kitchen window. That ice is on the inside😩

Ok, enough whining- on to the quilting

 Made another sketchbook cover. I’m selling these on Etsy which is why I’m making a few. Have only sold one but I’m making them cause they are fun and don’t take that long. This one is machine appliquéd leaves. These sketchbook covers are like making a new quilt that I can actually finish in a few days. 

 Here’s the back

 

Still on the leaf theme, this will be a wall hanging. Should come to life when I quilt in the veins.

 Then there is this. Scary, huh. This might take awhile . I guess I shouldn’t bitch about the cold since it’s making me stay inside. More time to quilt! 😉

Have a happy new year! Do you have a New Years goal? 

Past years I have picked a word “to live by” but then I forget about it after a month or so. It is kinda fun to think of a goal though. 

quilted cookbook

I’m really getting into making these journal/book covers.  

It’s like making a mini quilt with a purpose. 

This is a cookbook cover I made for a present to a co worker. Here it is laying flat before making it into the cover - mini quilt!

Front - her name is Ann Marie (look at the hat) and she has a black cat

Her husband on the back. This just goes to show how important a good sized fabric stash is. I had the perfect fabric already for her.

Inside - a slow cooker book. 

We eat lunch together at work and I bring a lot of slow cooker leftovers. She needs help in the cooking department so she will love it.

Happy holidays to all! 

Relax and enjoy, don’t stress. Christmas should be fun, not perfect 😉

Fabric snack bags tutorial

Have you ever made your own snack bags? I know, I know you use a baggie but how cool would will you look when you whip out this fabric bag holding your snacks? In my case it’s going to be dog treats. They also are good to organize all the junk in your purse or in my case a big ol’ honkin’ tote bag filled with many of these little organizer pouches. Of course I forget what I put in them, but I digress.

Here’s how you make them.

First find a lining fabric. Remember if you use this for your snacks you will be putting food on it. A vinyl or that type of thing is best. Something less porous with a very tight weave. You want something washable because you will throw these right in the laundry to clean. For the outside use some of that stash of quilting fabric that I know you have.

All you need for this project is the lining fabric, an outside fabric and a package of the sew on hook and loop tape (Velcro) that is as close as possible to your lining. Use thread that matches your lining fabric as well.

Cut 2 each of the lining and the outside fabrics. You can do rectangle or square any size you want. In this case they are 8”x7”.

 

Sew the Velcro 3/4” from the top of the 2 lining pieces. 

With right sides together matching a lining with an outside fabric, sew a 3/4” seam along the top. (The Velcro side of lining)

Open and finger press the seam open.

  

With right sides together sew all the way around leaving a 2” opening at the bottom of the lining edge.

See the opening at the bottom? Turn inside out thru this opening. Push out the corners.

After turning, sew the opening shut. You could slip stitch this part by hand but nobody will notice inside the bottom of the bag if it’s not perfect.

How did I get all those scratches on my sewing machine? I don’t even notice them but in this photo - wow! 👀

Push the lining inside and make it nice and neat. You might need to iron it some but be very careful if you are using vinyl or anything that will melt.

One final note. If you make a bunch of these at the same time don’t do like I did and sew the loop side of the Velcro to both sides of the lining one one bag.

Did I rip this all out? Hell no! I cut it down smaller and just made a smaller bag 🤗

I hope I was clear on these directions but please feel free to contact me with any questions.

      Enjoy!

Sketchbook for quilter #2

Another free motion quilting sketchbook cover - same style as last week but all different designs.

Enjoying the practice and the whole “zen” of doing it. With this one I tried using a ruler to make the straight lines for the grid for the first time. I’ve had one for a long time but thought it was a hard thing to do. Doing this small quilt, it was easy! I first put some little sandpaper dots on each corner so it wouldn’t slip and I think that might have helped. 

Where to find all these designs? I use two sources mainly. First Leah days free gallery of 365 designs here and Pinterest. Search for not only free motion quilting on Pinterest but also zentangles will give you a lot of ideas as well. But. BEWARE Pinterest is a time suck -it’s easy to spend way to much time there but you can get a lot of inspiration and it gives you a place to keep all the internet found ideas in one place.

You still need a sketchbook though for practice. Never try to quilt any design without drawing on paper first. Ask me how I know 😇

And this one is for sale on Etsy here in case you need a good Christmas present for yourself 🤗

Sketchbook for quilter

I made another sketchbook cover. These are so fun to make, it’s hard to do just one. This leaf came out really nice.

Since I have a few of these now I put some up on Etsy to sell. 

Go here to check it out.

Next a sampler of free motion quilting made into a sketchbook cover. This will be for keeping all those free motion doodles and ideas in one place.

This is on Etsy also and if it sells I will make another for myself because I would totally use this.

(Post note - someone bought this a half hour after I posted it)  yay! 

If you want to make a sketchbook cover for yourself there is a free tutorial right here on my blog. Check out the pages for it. It’s a fairly quick project that you can do just about anything your imagination brings for any size book, journal or sketchbook.