Canada Day Pennants from a Dollar Store Bandana

 I made this Canada Day pennant string yesterday.   The "fabric" I used was a $1.00 bandana from the Great Canadian Dollar Store.  When I saw the bandana in the store and thought it might be cotton, I figured I could give this a try and it worked.  It was very easy to do; it took less than an hour.  I clicked a few pictures as I went.

 Besides the bandana, I used some white cotton for backing and a long strip of red for the hanging string.

 This is what the bandana looked like open.  It measures about 21 inches square -- so basically a fat quarter!

 I folded it twice.  Then ironed.

 Then folded again.   Ironed.

 And again. 

 This was really my only "trick."  Once it was all folded, it just took one cut.  I placed the ruler as shown and sliced.  (You may also want to trim the very top to straighten things out.)

 Voila! 

 I sewed the wrong sides to the white.

 Turned.  I think at this point they look like icing tubes.

Pressed.  Sewed into the string.  I made my own from a red strip of fabric.

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I have ours hanging in the dining room window for now.  I would like to make another string or two before Canada Day (July 1).    As a side note, the dollar store had plastic pennant strings for sale for $3.00, but I am much happier with mine for $1.00, a few fabric scraps and a bit of my time! 

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I'm linking up with Thrifty Thursday and Sundae Scoop Link to Party. Thanks for stopping by!

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Hodgepodge Patchwork Tuesday - Welcome Wall Hanging and Giveaway!

Why would you make a "Welcome" wall hanging?  Because you want to welcome your friends and family into your home or place of business.  I needed one for my quilting shop. This was a fun wall hanging to make.  I just had some "free form" fun drawing and cutting out the letters and flowers.

First I chose my center white fabric.  Then I sewed a black and white border fabric around the white fabric.  I cut the black and white fabric askew, to kind of give it an off center look. 

I drew out some letters on the wrong side of lite heat and bond, so they would come out facing the correct way.  Then I ironed the heat and bond to the black fabric and let it cool. Then I cut out each letter, pealed the paper off, and placed the letters on the white fabric.  When they were all in place. I pressed with the iron to adhere them to my fabric. This is a raw edge applique  method.  

I did the same thing with the cornflower.  You could draw any type of flower.  I chose the cornflower, because I can draw it.  Daisies are easy to draw too. I made three flowers in different sizes. I used a black dotted fabric for the centers of the flowers. Picked a place that was eye pleasing and pressed them onto the fabric. Note that the bottom flower overlaps into the border.  This helps the off center look of the whole wall hanging.

When I quilted the wall hanging I used a poly batting, so the cornflowers puffed out a little bit.  It gives it a 3D look when you stitch on the edge of them and stitch a denser stitching in the background.

I added a sleeve on the top when I did the binding.  I pushed a wood dowel thru' the sleeve and used black ric rac to make a hanger with ties hanging down on the sides.

Today's Giveaway is a 4 pack of Fabric and Toes Note Cards. (Value$6.00)

Follow me and leave a comment to enter the drawing.   

Drawing will be Monday, June 20, 2011 at 6pm CST! 

So in conclusion, Welcome to my blog! 

Marcia

There is still time to enter the Double Double Quilting Giveaway .  It ends June15th.






This giveaway is now closed.  Thanks to everyone who entered!  

Check the Giveaway and May for Me page for the current Giveaways.

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Thursday's Thoughts - Birthday Cake, Birthday Cards, and My Mom's Birthday

Red Velvet Cake - Photo from Wikipedia

Update on my Mom:  First thanks for all the emails with such kind thoughts and prayers.  My Mom is getting better everyday.  I will go to her hometown on Friday morning and have lunch with her at the Sub Acute part of the hospital. After lunch, I will help with her transition home and I will stay the weekend.

Mom's birthday is Saturday.  She will be 77!  We will have a small family celebration at her home.  We all love Red Velvet Cake, so I suggested we have that! It has a butter cream frosting!  My Mom would always make it for my brother's birthdays in April.  It was really a special treat, as it was quite a process to make it.  It is not your basic cake. I am not going to make one.  We have found a place to buy it.  Remember I quilt and sew --- I don't bake or cook!  But I do like to eat!

This is a Birthday card I made several years ago for a friend.  I used my embroidery machine to make the words for the card and then tore the edges, so it would look frayed.  Then I stitched them onto the card with a zig zag stitch.  I placed a small piece of double stick tape behind each one to hold it in place when I was stitching.

More Birthday cards...

I shared these today, because you can go to a store and buy a card for someone, but when you make something ... you give away your heart...


My Mom and I would spend hours making these fabric cards on our weekends together.  It was always fun to see how they would turn out.  Sometimes I would think they weren't perfect and my Mom would say they don't have to be perfect.  That's what makes them unique.

So save those little corners and scraps from your quilts and just stitch them onto a card stock.  You don't have to be an artist.  Just place them on and stitch.  You also don't have to have an embroidery machine to make the words.  Just write them!

On this card I used a feather stitch and another type of feathery zig zag.  I stitched around the edges and on the fabric pieces too.

This one, I used a leaf embroidery stitch and the feather stitch.


I really enjoy making the cards for family and friends.




I hope this inspires you to use all your little scraps and give your heart to your family and friends on their birthdays.

Don't forget to enter the drawing for the Double Double Quilting Giveaway! 

2 winners and 2 prizes! Please share it, tweet it and blog it!   

Thanks!   Marcia

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Selvage Quilt Binding Fringe Trim Tutorial

Remember these little selvage stick people? (Tutorial here)  Well, my guild has an upcoming mug rug swap, so I turned them into a little mug rug.  And see the little selvage fringe set inside the binding on the sides.  That's what this tutorial is for.  It's something I thought of a while back and wanted to try.  It is super easy to do!  So here we go ...

Quilt your item as desired and trim all the edges.

Prepare your regular binding which you want to use.  Select your selvages.  I just went with two sides of selvage trim this time, but you could easily do all four.  I also used selvages with a fuzzy/shaggy edge because I think it gives a better effect.

Trim your selvage pieces so 1/4 inch of fabric is showing above the white selvage part.

Pin your selvage to the edge of your quilted item.  Line the edges right up.

Sew just above the shaggy edge of the selvage.  See the photo below.

See?  You are sewing in quite a ways.

Just another pic showing this.

Next pin your binding in place, over top of the selvage.

This time, use a regular 1/4 inch seam allowance to sew the binding on, just like you usually would.  By using a 1/4 inch, the binding will be sewn just at the top of the white of the selvage underneath.

Handstitch your binding to the back, same as usual.  See the little selvage peeking out?  It's in there nice and secure.

Ta da!  A nice little selvage-y detail. 

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I'd love to see a pic if you try this. 

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Thanks for stopping by!  And of course since it is Tuesday, I'm linking with Fabric Tuesday at Quiltstory.

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Not a Wink Quilt for Bloggers Quilt Festival

Hi, welcome! I finished the binding on this quilt just in time for it to be my virtual exhibit in the Bloggers Quilt Festival. I've named it the Not a Wink Quilt because it is so wild, bright and crazy it just might keep you up all night -- hence Not a Wink of sleep.
It is an all-scrap quilt except for the sashing. It is almost 100 inches square, for our queen-sized bed, so it was a great scrapbuster.

When I first decided to make a scrap quilt, I thought a lot about what type of square I would like to make. I finally came up with my own design for a block which is a variation of a traditional railfence. I call it the Scrapbuster Random Railfence Block and a full tutorial to make it is here. It uses 2.5 inch strips of any length and makes 12 inch squares. I think what made me the happiest about it is that although the method is very straightforward, no two blocks turn out the same.

So after I had my block design decided, I made 36 squares and watched my scrap pile shrink, shrink, shrink.

I decided to use sashing to set the squares apart. As you can see I went with a nice subtle sashing, hee, hee. If you've been by the blog before, you know I love bright colours, but this hot pink polka dot sashing was even a little out there for me. I almost changed my mind about it, but I'm glad I didn't.

I really like the cat in this square. Because I had lots of novelty fabric scraps, the quilt has a bit on an I-Spy feature which my kids like.

The backing is a print called Heart Throb by Free Spirit. It is bound in a hot pink which matched the sashing.

Because of the massive size, I sent it out to be quilted. I tried a new long-arm quilter this time, Gilbert Crevier of 3A Quilting, and he did a great job. I chose a pantograph that says "Love" which I think was an unexpected choice, and I realised after it may have been intended more for borders than an overall pattern, but I am so happy with how it looks.

Thanks so much for stopping by. If it's your first time here, please feel free to stay a while and browse. Then when you're ready if you click here you can head over to the list of all the participants in the Bloggers Quilt Festival. There are lots and lots of fabulous quilts to see. Happy Quilting!

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Selvage Stick People Tutorial

As promised, here's the tutorial for the selvage stick people like the ones I made for my Love-Serendipity-Family Quilt. This just may be my favourite use of selvages yet! This is more of a method tutorial than anything with exact measurements, as improvisation is part of the fun.

My apologies that some of the text on the photos isn't showing the best. Everything looked great until I loaded the pictures into blogger. I will clarify below the photo for anything that is hard to read.

So here we go! First, the supplies you'll need ...

Fabric with heads to fussy cut.
Scraps of background fabric. Solids work best I think. If you make a stick woman, you will need a teeny scrap of fabric for the skirt. You should have white thread as the stitching on the selvages will show.
And the key ingredient, selvages ...

And now to get to the making part ...
Prepare your selvages by trimming each so just 1/4 inch of fabric is showing above the white. You really only need a few small selvage strips, but prepare a few extras to give yourself some choice and have back-up in case you make a mistake.


Set your selvages aside and fussy cut the heads you are going to use. Cut them out into a square or rectangle for easy piecing. Be sure to cut 1/4 inch more than the part you want to show, all the way around. If you don't have any head fabric, you could use plain white fabric and draw on a face, or even laser print an actual photo of a family member onto fabric and use that.

Cut background scraps for the body. You will need a leg section and an arm section.

Cut selvages for the arms. Let the ends of the selvage go right off the edge of the fabric as you will be trimming later anyway. Carefully trim the edge that meets the middle line at an angle. When you lay the selvages out to sew them on, be sure the guideline is centered beneath each one.

Sew the arm sections on. Topstitch (regular stitch) really close to the edge of the selvage all the way around. It is like raw edge applique, except the great thing about selvages is that it isn't a raw edge, it is finished.

Be sure the leg selvages overlap at the top for a nice skinny waist for your stickperson.

Now it's time for final adjustments. Press and trim. Trim the sides to adjust the arm length. Shorten the legs by trimming too, if you like.

So that makes Mr. Selvage Stickman ... here are a few little adjustments if you want to make Ms. Selvage ...

Cut a little triangle scrap for a skirt.

Sew two little selvage strips for legs. The skinniest selvages you have are best. Make sure the legs are not wider than the bottom of the skirt.

Piece your stick person into a background. Voila! Now, add these into your quilt, pillow, placemat, mug rug ... the list goes on.

If you make any selvage stick people I would LOVE to see them.

Also, if you use this tutorial to make these and post your results online, please link to this tutorial as your source, since this is my original idea and content.

Thanks for stopping by. Happy Selvage Quilting!

I'm linking up with {Sew} Modern Monday , Made by You Monday and Fabric Tuesday.

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