Last Minute Christmas Gifts with tutorials

I just wanted to drop in one last time before the holidays and give you guys some ideas of things you can make for those last minute gifts, instead of running out to the store in a frenzy. These ideas are easy and inexpensive.

Bean Bag Balls

These are great for those sport-loving kiddos who cant live without a ball in hand.
I made these for my son's 2nd birthday, and they were a huge hit. Now if only I could find the baseball and football...

For these I traced a 5" bowl and cut out two circles of fabric and two circles of interfacing for each. Iron one piece of interfacing to the wrong side of each fabric piece. Next, you add the details for each of the different balls. First use a fabric marker to mark the lines. For a basketball, baseball, or football, use a tight zig-zag stitch (the 2nd to smallest your machine will do) and just follow the lines on the fabric. For the soccer ball, I cut out 10 pentagons of black fabric, 5 for each side of the ball, and used a larger zig-zag stitch to applique them on.

Next, just put the two fabric pieces together, right sides facing, and sew around the circle leaving a small opening for turning. Turn the ball the right side out and fill. You can use rice, dried bean, etc. but I chose to use Poly Pellets so the balls would be washable. Lastly, just stitch the opening closed.

Coasters

These are so incredible easy to make and only use small scraps of fabrics. It would also be great to use non-Christmas fabrics for year round use. And you can make them whatever size you want. Mine ended up around 4".

I cut strips of fabric about 1-1.25" wide by 4.5" long, batting 4" square, and backing 4.5" square. Lay your first strip of fabric, right side up, on top of your batting, overlaying the fabric about 1/4" around the edges of batting (so that the batting doesnt cause extra bulk in the 1/4" seam.) Lay the second piece of fabric right side down on the first piece, lining up the edge with the first fabric and stitch a 1/4" seam allowance, going through the two fabrics and the batting (the two fabrics on top right sides together and batting on the bottom.) Fold the 2nd fabric open and press.

Keep adding more pieces of fabric until your coaster is covered. Square up the top, by triming any excess on the edges. Next place the pieced top, right sides together with the backing material and sew around the coaster, leaving a small opening for turning. Clip the points off of the corners (to eliminate bulk) and turn the coaster right side out. Iron flat and stop stitch around the edge with a 1/8" seam.

For ideas on other fabric coasters, visit the Sewn Fabric Coasters Flickr Group.

Black Apple Dolls

These new modern-faced dolls are all the rage. The Black Apple brand originated on etsy as artwork. I was so excited when I saw that Martha Stewart crafts showcased these dolls, with templates included! They are soo simple and can be made in so many different ways by changing the hair color, facial expression, accessories and clothing, you might find yourself making these every year. No little girl would ever get tired of them! Click here to go to the tutorial.

Fabric {paper} Chain

Paper chains are a favorite around the holidays for children. Why not make them more eco-friendly, much more attractive, and not have to re-cut those darn paper strips every year (I dont know about you, but I hate having sore-scissor hand!) Ashley from Film in the Fridge was brilliant when thinking of these. Just small fabric tubes with velcro! I cant wait to make one next year. These would also be great to use with kids for counting down to any exciting event, like birthdays, other holidays, and vacations! Click here to go to her tutorial.

Fabric Alphabet

A GREAT educational homemade gift! This would make a great gift for kids aged 1-5 years old. They can be used to learn letters, sounds, the alphabet, spelling and much more. These do take a little time to make, but are well worth it. I've just made the A and B so far, but am planning to finish the rest of the alphabet for a Christmas gift to my son. To make these just use any word processing software ( like Word) and print out the alphabet in large letters (I did mine landscape with two per page, so they're about 7" tall.) Layer your top fabric, batting (cotton preferably), and a backing material (I use inexpensive white muslin.) Trace your letter on the material and cut a 1/4" outside the lines, cutting all three layers at once. Stitch on your drawn line, then cut slits all along the edge, cutting as close to the stitching line as possible without actually cutting through your stitches. Wash and dry to get the nice ragged edge.

I hope these tutorials help you with this crazy time of year! I wish you all a very merry Christmas! And I cant wait see you back here in the new year with many more great tutorials and ideas for you to try out!

Quilting using a Walking Foot

I wish someone would have opened my eyes up to the wonders of the walking foot a long time ago. It's not just for quilting. It's great to have for many other sewing/crafting projects. In really basic terms, it helps feed all the layers through your machine evenly. When sewing with a regular presser foot, your bottom layer is pulled through with the feed dogs but your top layer is dragged beneath the presser foot. A walking foot raises itself up and then sets back down with every stitch of the needle. So the top layer is feed through at the same rate as the bottom. It is especially great to use with fabrics that are stretchy.

If you haven't worked your way up to free-motion quilting, you can still easily quilt your own quilts, instead of paying some else to do it or tying them. In fact, a lot quilters use a combination of free motion quilting and straight stitching (with a walking foot or darning foot.)

It is so incredibly easy to quilt using the walking foot. If you can sew a straight line (or not even a straight one!), you can quilt. That's all there is to it. Below are some quilting examples that can be done using a walking foot. (Look closely at the stitching to pick out the different quilting styles.)

Amandajean's square dance quilt

Cluck Cluck Sew's quilt for her son's bed

Button Magee's quilt for newphew

Red Pepper Quilt's Modern Linen quilt

sewsecret's Black and White quilt

Robin's Traffic Jam

Amandajean's mini quilt

New to the Shop!!

I've had these floating around in my head for a while now and have finally made them. Enjoy!

And the winner is...

commenter #10...Mubeen!

Congratulations Mubeen! You should have received an email from me with the good news.

I will definitely be doing more giveaways in the future. Probably once a month, either here or on other sites. I'll be sure let you know when and where to enter. Thanks to everyone who participated!

I'm back!....with a GIVEAWAY!

October was a long, hard month for me with going through a couple heartbreaking experiences, plus moving. So to celebrate my return to blogging, sewing, and life as we all know it, I'm offering a giveaway! Yea! It is one of the most popular items from my shop:

Honeycomb Diapers and Wipes Case

(To see the full details of this item, visit the product page in my shop.)

To enter, just leave a comment. But that's not all! For a 2nd entry, become a follower of my blog. And a 3rd, follow me on Twitter. For a 4th entry, subscribe to the blog. And even a 5th, blog about my giveaway, linking back to this post. If you dont want to take advantage of all of these options, you are welcome to pick and choose which ones you'd like to participate in. Just leave a separate comment for each entry letting me know which ones you've completed. Also, you must leave an email address to be contacted at.

The giveaway will close Sunday, Nov 15 at 12pm (CST). So enter quick!

Practice Makes perfect

I am so sorry I have taken forever to get to this. We've had some fun-packed last couple weeks of summer. And I had so much floating around in my head for this post, I didnt know where to start.

First off, to "quilt" your doll quilt in the stippling method I used, you will use a Darning Foot (which is used for all free motion quilting.)

I highly recommend taking a Beginner's Quilting class at your local quilt shop. That's what I did, and I loved it. I learned so much more than I thought there ever was to it, and not to mention had a ton of fun having a "me" day and socializing with all the other quilters there.

The key to learning how to quilt is practice, practice, practice. In the class I took, we prepared a quilt sandwich that was 24"x24" out of scrap batting and two inexpensive pieces of muslin. I think this is a really great way to learn and practice, so I encourage all of you interested in learning to try this out.
Start out by using your walking foot (more on the walking foot to come) to sew straight lines down the center of each side, dividing the 24" square into four 12" sections. Using a walking foot I'd say is the easiest way to quilt, so in class that's what we started with.

To do a grid pattern, use your quilting ruler and fabric marker to draw one line on the fabric to follow while sewing. Sew you first line directly on your marker line. Next just move over however far apart you want your spacing to be (mine is 1" here) and using your first sewn line as a guide, simply stitch the next row. Then just keep going, using the last row sewn as a guide for the next.
I know what you're thinking. You dont have to be perfect for this to turn out well. In fact, it hides mistakes very well. In the picture you can easily pick out my mistakes, but I promise, in real life they are totally hidden. Not to mention that fact that it helps to use matching thread (instead of dark blue thread on white cloth like I did! But you can definitely see it.)

Next up is one of my favorites. Im not sure of the name but it's really fun and super easy. It's all just eye-balled. Just start out at whatever spot you'd like, and using your walking foot, just quilt as if you were sewing straight lines. But instead of holding the fabric still, turn it from side to side to make the lines curvy. And you really have to move it around quite a bit. I cant wait to do this on a really cute kids quilt.The next two sections, we used the Darning foot. In one section we did stippling (looks kinda like puzzle pieces) and the other was loops. I didnt take a close up pic of my stippling because it was hideous, but you can see it in the first picture. The loops were pretty easy, but for reason I really dont care for them too much. I quickly moved on to trying out other things. Can you see the flowers, leaves and ivy, my name, and stars that I did? I was quite proud of my self for it being my first time free motion quilting.
Before trying my hand out again at the stippling, I definitely needed some help. I just couldn't wrap my mind around making a random pattern and still starting and finishing at a designated spot. Using a pen and paper helped immensely! Just some old computer paper and sharpie did the trick for me. It finally clicked in my brain.

(obviously these aren't perfect, but much better than before)

Now it's time to practice again using more scrap fabric and batting. Another big part of free motion quilting is the coordination to move the fabric at the correct speed as you press the peddle to make the needle goes up and down to stitch. You dont want your stitch length to be too long or too short. Now get out there and practice, practice, practice!Amandajean over at Crazy Mom Quilts has another great tutorial on free motion quilting with a video.

Baby shower gift

We had a baby shower for my cousin, and I actually planned well in advance for this one, so I had plenty of time to give a homemade gift. I started out with the intent of make a doll quilt and a couple other matching baby items to go with it.

I tried out a quilt block I hadnt done before. But I didn't realize how large the block actually was, so by the time it all came together, it was a bit larger than a doll quilt. That's ok though. It can be used as a play mat, diapering pad, or baby carrier blanket for the little cutie until she out grows it and can use it on her own dolls. Then I put together the matching bib and ribbon ball with the leftover fabric.
The moment the windmill blocks came together, I knew I had to outline them with my quilting.
I love how on the backing, it had "embossed" windmills and the design from the quilt front is transferred to the back also.
Then to finished it off, I did little loops for the rest of the quilt. Kind of like wind gushes from the windmills.