Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

To wish its Mom a 

Happy Mother's Day

of course!

Okay, I know that's lame, but I had to get the chicken potholders in here somehow!

My Mom is a wonderful seamstress and quilter and I'm always on the lookout for fun pattern ideas to send her. When I received an email from Interweave Quilting Arts that this new book, "101 Patchwork Projects + Quilts" was for sale, I bought one for Mom and one for myself.

Mom has decorated her kitchen with chickens and roosters, so when I saw these adorable chicken potholders (page 106) ...

I knew I had to make her a couple of them to go along with the book. Had a great time buying fat quarters of fabric at Jo-Ann ...

I even got some heat-resistant quilt batting for the insulated layer (that's the shiny white stuff on the left side) ...

I am a sloooooooooooooow and methodical sewer. I think Mom could probably have made an entire quilt in the time it took me to crank out two potholders, but I do love the way they turned out ...

I used a polka dot fabric for the backing that's very cheerful ...

This is the very first time I've quilted anything on the machine and, believe me, it's a little trickier than it looks. One of the cute details on the potholder is that the chicken's (rooster's?) comb sticks up 3D with frayed edges ...

So Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Love you bunches and hope it's wonderful!!!

An Old Robe With a New Purpose

Cleaning out a closet, I came across a blue fur robe we had given the Granddaughter many years ago. She loved her robe and wore it as long as she could, but it's a children's size 6 and now, at age 14, she is wearing junior sizes. This sweet, warm, fuzzy robe was still in great shape and I put it in the donation bag in the garage. Then, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to repurpose it and retrieved it from the bag.

So what do you get when you combine this old robe ...

with this new fabric I found at Jo-Ann?

You get four-legged cute! Here is Louie modeling his new coat ...

and Miles lounging in his (is he cool or what?) ...

I combined ideas from several different dog coats I'd seen, measuring each dog to create custom patterns from freezer paper ...

They're soft, warm, cozy, and even reversible ...

They're easy to put on and take off with the velcro tabs and Miles and Louie really seem happy and comfortable wearing them. With no work or school last week on Good Friday, we took the Granddaughter on her first trip to the Grand Canyon, then spent the night in Flagstaff, Arizona, where the puppies were very glad to have their new little fur coats to wear after the sun went down.

I'm so pleased with the way they turned out and so glad I decided to repurpose that wonderful robe instead of spending the money to buy new furry fabric. Looking through the closets, I'm getting ideas for other things that I could make -- I wonder if Hubby would miss that shirt???

Minky Love

During December, the Granddaughter and I were walking through the fabric department at Hobby Lobby when we passed a display of Minky Dots and she was mesmerized! She was rubbing her hands over it, ooohing and aaahing and said, "Nana, I want a blanket made from this for Christmas." I truthfully told her that I was already so far behind on my gift making, it would be impossible for me to get a blanket done in time for Christmas. Sweet and unrealistic, she thinks I can do anything, so she gave me this look of disbelief and said with just a hint of sarcasm, "Well, how about for Valentine's Day?" Alrighty then!

I was in the fabric department at JoAnn's right around Christmas and it was definitely my lucky day. Minky fabrics are regularly priced around $13-15 per yard but they were on sale for half-price and I had a coupon for 15% off my entire purchase. Anticipating making her the requested blanket for Valentine's Day, I bought two yards each of Minky Dots in blue and regular Minky in zebra stripe ...

These Minky fabrics are incredibly soft -- the ridiculous kind of soft that triggers thoughts of Minky underwear -- and they're very popular for making baby blankets. They run about 58" wide and I bought 2-yard lengths so I'd have pieces of fabric around 58" x 72" to work with. They're such a nice weight that they're warm and cozy without needing batting in the layers.

It's a little bit tricky to sew because of the stretchiness so I found the best way to deal with it was to use a lot of pins and place them close together.

First I pinned the pieces and sewed them wrong sides together, leaving a section open to turn the blanket right-side out. Then I pinned again and topstitched around the outside edge.

I also used the embroidery machine to make a label for her blanket. Her nickname has been Baby Girl since the day she was born ...

I hand-stitched the label to the zebra side. I hope she likes it ...

Happy Anniversary to my middle sister and her sweet hubby

and a Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!!!

Momma's Got a Brand New Bag

It's amazing how even part-time work cuts into blogging time.   Fortunately, I Love my job with a capital L. If I had made a list of all the things I wanted in a job, it would fit that list perfectly. Sadly, there's just less time to visit everyone out there in bloggy land and I haven't been able to focus on posting anything recently.

My favorite cousin was in town and we spent some time together, eating (Cheesecake Factory), shopping, eating (Charleston's), visiting, eating (Pizza Picasso's) and ...

getting pedicures with the Granddaughter, too.  So much fun. Oh, I dearly loves me a pedicure!

My cousin and her hubby come from coooooold weather, so I knitted them each a hat to take home with them ...

And I've done a tiny bit of sewing. Bought this cool book "Low-Sew Boutique" written by Cheryl Weiderspahn on a Walmart clearance rack for $3. The idea is to make things like tote bags and handbags from other things that are already made like rugs, place mats, oven mitts and potholders. I think this is called upcycling and it's such a terrific idea.

I went to Anna's Linens and got a place mat on the clearance rack for $1.39 and a couple of linen napkins that looked good with it for $1.99 each. Then on to JoAnn's where I got wooden purse handles for $5.99. (The handles would have been less if I'd had a coupon but I already used it for yarn.) The Place Mat Purse shown in "Low-Sew Boutique" actually uses a potholder for an outer pocket but I couldn't find one that I liked so I decided to go ahead and wing it, making several pockets from the napkins. Here is the picture shown in the book ...

Here is what I bought and a few pictures of the process ...

The great thing about using place mats is they're already backed, which creates the lining for your purse and they're usually made of pretty sturdy fabric (if my kids were any indication of how well place mats can hold up under constant use and abuse). This particular place mat caught my eye because it has my youngest daughter's favorite colors in it and it's just so darn cheerful! I did have a magnetic catch (in the little baggie upper left) that I was going to use, but not only did the purse not need it, I really don't know where I would have put it. I added A LOT of pockets to this thing, inside and out, because I believe you can never have enough pockets to hold all your crap.

Here I've folded the place mat in half and marked the fold with pins ...

I started cutting and folding pockets, just making them up as I went along ...

I decided to put double pockets on the outside of each side of the bag ...

I also put a huge double pocket on the inside of the bag and stitched individual pockets for cell phone and sunglasses ...

The book calls for handles with removable rods, but I couldn't find any so I just went with some cute oval wood ones by Everything Mary and jimmy-rigged how they were attached ...

And here's the finished bag ...

I love it and, more importantly, YD loved it. She came to the house while I was running an errand and saw it hanging on the cupboard. She told me she'd noticed the colors were her favorites and was hoping it was for her. Yay!

There are other great ideas in this book like luggage tags, eyeglass cases, sleep masks and a curling iron caddy, but my next project will be a large tote bag made of woven rugs, like this ...

or this ...

Are those cool bags or what???

And I've been reading. I read for 4 straight hours in bed this morning (starting at 5:30 a.m.) with a pot of coffee and finished my book for book club next Wednesday. Our February selection was "The Gift of Rain" by Tan Twan Eng and it was so good! I'm not a big fan of historical fiction, especially war time and this is set during World War II, but the author did such a wonderful job with the characters and the story just sucked me in and kept me turning pages. It is the tragic tale of Philip Hutton, the son of a British father and Chinese mother, who lives on the island of Penang which becomes occupied by the Japanese during the war. Great story (432 pages) with so much fabulous history and culture mixed in. I would highly recommend it.

And can you believe January is nearly over? Already! Hope it was a great month for everyone!!!

Square Bear is Sew Darn Cute

More sewing! I got a book at the used bookstore recently called "Sew Darn Cute"  by Jenny Ryan and it really is!

One of my favorite projects is this sweet little stuffed Square Bear that's like a little teddy bear pillow ...

Youngest Daughter's boyfriend's sister-in-law just had a new baby girl recently so I was excited to have someone to make one for. Here are the fabrics I chose ...

Since this is for a newborn, real buttons weren't an option so I used the embroidery machine to make stitched button eyes and nose. And I wanted to personalized it with the baby's name so I made a pocket for the front and put her name on it. It would be a great place to tuck a rattle or pacifier. Here all the pieces have been cut and fusible interfacing ironed on.

Embroidered button eyes and nose ...

All stitched together and ready to stuff ...

Ready to snuggle with ...