Quilting has been an American past-time since colonial days, when women gathered scraps of cloth, feather down, or bits of cotton, to sew them into heavenly warm blankets that were cherished for several generations. Everyone has some fond memory involving a warm quilt on a chilly day or night; there are also quilt museums, fairs and other community event. There are even quilting website for quilting lovers, and quilting forum where people can meet and share techniques. However, when it comes down to it, many people shy away from quilting because they’re intimidated by the time and effort necessary for the task. Quilting doesn’t have to take hours, and it doesn’t have to be difficult either. Here’s one easy quilting task that anyone with a sewing machine can manage in a single day.

What You Need:

Sewing machine
Four yards muslin
Two pieces of fabric, each two yards long
Thread
Scissors
Needle

Instructions:

1. Wash fabrics, along with the muslin, together, according to the care instructions for the fabric (which can be found on the bolt.)
2. Lightly iron fabric and muslin after it’s washed and dried.
3. Stack fabric wrong sides together, with mulim on top.
4. Machine stitch three of the four sides, using a straight stitch and a quarter-inch or so seam allowance.
5. Turn the piece right side out, and look for mistakes or irregularities in the seams.
6. Turn it back around and trim any excess fabric from the seams.
7. Turn the quilt right side out and take time to smooth the quilt and make sure that the muslin is distributed evenly around the quilt.
8. Stitch the fourth side by hand.
9. Do any finishing work; sew straight lines down the quilt, and then across to make a pattern of squares. This also helps to keep the muslin in place.

You can share and find easy quilting ideas like this one, online from a quilting group. Have fun, and happy stitching!

Here in the US its “Back-to-school” time and as I have for the last 2 years I made new school bags for the girls. This year they both wanted messenger style bags, like my own school bag, so I used the recipe for that one - sized down just a bit - and I thought I’d share it with you.

If you can sew a fairly straight line you can get this one done

You will need:

1.5 yards of the print of your choice ( in the past I have used thrifted polyester and felted wool, for these incarnations I used cotton quilting calico) If you choose to use a lightweight fabric here you may wish to reinforce it with some fusible interfacing, I did.

1.5 yards of a heavy cotton canvas

2 D rings

scissors, pins, tailors chalk(my tailor’s name is Crayola), a complimentary thread color, and your sewing machine

You will need to cut the following pieces from both fabrics,(measurements are in inches):

2 pieces 17×15 - front and back panel

1 piece 15×13 - large inside pocket

1 piece 17×12 - front flap

1 piece 4×50 - sides and bottom strip

1 piece 4×12 - D ring strap

1 piece 4×40 - adjustable strap

All Seam allowances are 1/2 inch.

Ready? Awesome! Lets go.

Sew together the pocket pieces, one in each fabric, right sides together , along 3 sides(2 sides and the top). Now trim the corners, this way when you turn the piece right side out you’ll get great, crisp corner edges. Turn inside out and give it a quick run over with your iron or steamer. Fold under that bottom edge, by 1/2 inch, and pin the whole piece into place, centered, on the back panel of your lining fabric. Sew it into place along the sides an bottom only. You now have a beautifully lined pocket

Moving along, you’ll want to shape the front and back panels a bit by rounding off the corners, this makes sewing on the side/bottom strip a bit easier. I use a pint glass for a perfect curve, trace it with chalk, then cut.

You’re going to make 2 bags and nestle one inside the other before finishing.

Now pin the side/bottom strip to one of your front/back panels, sew in place and repeat with the other panel. Repeat with the same three pieces in the other fabric. Keep the bag made of your liner fabric inside out, Turn the bag made of your chosen print right side out and slip the liner bag inside. Wiggle and stretch a bit until you get the seams lined up - see?

When you sew the front flap pieces together you repeat the process of the pocket (don’t forget to trim those corners before turning) right up to running under it the iron - you can leave the 4th side of the flap open, I’ll get to that in a minute.

Strap time. Sew both straps along the two long sides and one short end, leaving one short end open so you can turn them inside out, remember to trim those corners and give them a quick turn under the iron.

Slide your D rings over the closed end of the short strap and fold it back about 3 inches, pin it to stay and sew it into place.

Final assembly time. You’ll want to make sure that you have even edges on your inner and outer bags, trim if you need to, and fold the edges in by 1/2 inch. Be careful to fold both fabrics towards each other, you are going to pin the front flap and the two straps between the two bags and as you sew the edges together you will sew these three pieces in place - we don’t want any raw edges showing.

SO, go ahead and pin your straps in place - make sure 1/2 inch of the strap is down between the bags - line them up with the strip that makes up the sides/bottom of your bags and pin in pace from the outside.

Slide your flap between the bag layers the same way and pin in place, being sure to pin from the outside. Now run a few pins along the front edge of you bag and sew it all together - This is the only place where you do not have a 1/2 inch seam allowance, you want to get within a 1/4 inch of the edge on this seam or closer if you’re comfortable sewing that close.

Trim your threads, adjust your strap and you’re on your way. This is a super simple bag recipe and you could add all sorts of extras: extra pockets, internal dividers, cell/mobile cozies, the possibilities are endless.

Toots

I haven’t been very creative on my own over the past couple of weeks. I have had family visiting, and just haven’t had the time. So, I thought, for this post, I would share some “other people’s” projects that are on my “gonna make that one day” list. The projects that are safely tucked away in my bookmarks folder.

	I’ve got this great page at Lion Brand for Crochet Monsters, along with another page for every Amigurumi you can imagine.
	I really just MUST make this hand-tied baby quilt at Everything Sewing. I absolutely love it! I had a quilt like it as a child, gotta make them for future grandchildren. (I hope I have plenty of time to get them done. ) Instructions for the fabric memo board are at the same site.
	And then, there’s this amazing example of fun and creativity, and I really WILL be making this. It’s circular crocheting with 3 separate colors at the same time. I think it is fascinating, and even while I am writing this, I am wishing I was giving it a try.The instructions are at Interweave Crochet’s Blog.

I’m going to get started, and I’ll update this post when I have a pic of my effort. In the meantime, any of our readers who give this a shot, send me a pic. I’d love to see other folks ideas for this technique.

I was planning to make one of these great backpacks for my daughter. When it was completed, I asked her to try it on, to check the length of the drawstring. She told me that she would rather have it a bit longer. I laughed at her, as she was asking me to make it so that it hung just about 4 inches below her waist. So, I said, “You mean you want it where it will be banging your butt all day?” (That would drive me crazy!) Thus, the “Butt Banging Backpack” was born!

Whether you are headed to the library or the beach, this lightweight
drawstring backpack is the perfect carry-all.

Don’t want to carry your purse?

Just toss your essentials in this pack,
sling it on your back, and off you go!

(more…)

Lately I’ve been interested in all things reusable. It’s nice to know that you can reuse something instead of throwing it away, which helps the environment as well as can save you money. Since I’m having a baby in just a few months, I think a lot about cloth diapers versus disposables, and cloth baby wipes versus cloth ones.

I am not a talented enough sewer to make my own cloth diapers, but I decided I could tackle baby wipes. So I found a pretty decent tutorial for diaper wipes, and I went out and bought myself some fabric. I decided to go with terry cloth on one side, and flannel on the other.

I chose an off-white for the terry cloth (It was either that or bright white, and I figured the bright white wouldn’t look that way for long after wiping a baby’s bum…), and I picked a bright, cheery green flannel for the other side.

The tutorial looks super easy. All you do is choose your wipe size - either 4"x8" or 8"x8" and then use a zigzag stitch or a serger around the edges. I think I’m going to use my friend’s serger to make the wipes look a little nicer.

The next step is to choose your own homemade wipe formula, and you’re set! I’ll post the finished product in a couple of weeks (assuming they turn out ok!)