Small Projects

I've had this small Chalk Couture project for a few months and I completed it today. My husband made me some shelves for over my coffee station. The shelves are made from wood we had milled from trees on our land up in Marinette County so they are special to us. The shelves are sitting on pipe fixtures, just like some I found on Pinterest. Once he put up the shelves I was excited to make the Chalk Couture project. 

Here's what it looks like on the "coffee wall" shelf. 

I still have some decorating to do to make it look like I want it, so my next step is to get some greenery for color.

Once I finished the chalk project, I dug out some vinyl I've had for a while. I made up this project bag to take to my quilting group. I quilted the back patchwork panel, added a zipper and vinyl window to the front and sewed on binding. It was so quick and easy. I plan on making more in different sizes as teacher gifts for teacher appreciation week which is in April.

Quilts for Kids Finished Quilts

The snow keeps piling up; there's now 22 inches on the ground. The piles are so high, you can't see over the top of them. To make things worse, the average daytime temperature is 6 degrees so it's not fun to go outside and play in it. While we're hunkered down, I did finish two charity quilts. I had these two in my stack of finished quilt tops since last year. It felt good to put them in the washer once they were finished. I seemed like a good idea to photograph them on top of the piles of snow.

My 10 year old granddaughter did some of the quilting on the minion quilt. She had a good time working the longarmer. I hope she wants to do it some more.

This quilt pattern is called Perfect 10. I used fat quarters I got from a friend who didn't want them anymore. I promised her I would use the fabric for Quilts for Kids so I finished the quilt top in October. I just never took the time to quilt it. I don't know why.

Quick Weekend Projects

This weekend I downloaded an apron pattern off the internet. The pattern had 17 pages and it went together a little like a jigsaw puzzle. It was quite fun to do. Last month I had embroidered a kitchen design and I really wanted to make an apron so I can sew the embroidered piece on as a pocket. 

I cut the pattern out as well as the fabric and in less than 2 hours, I had finished it. I used some really nice linen fabric and I washed it before using it. The pattern was as simple as sewing a few seams, turning and pressing, then hemming and topstitching. Here is the finished apron:

Since I finished the apron so quickly I put a charity quilt on the longarmer. The quilt top was made by some of the ladies from my Sweet Sundays sewing group. I decided to free motion quilt it so since I wasn't following a pantograph I quilted the whole thing in 45 minutes. Another fast finish. Yay!

Farmhouse Pillow Covers

I made some pillow covers to decorate the bench in my kitchen. I used my embroidery machine to embroider on some white linen. I used a nice farmhouse plaid to frame the embroidered pieces. I really like the look.

Snow Day

We had a heavy snowfall yesterday which was the first in a while. So far, there's been little snow to report which is unusual for Wisconsin. We even had local news reporters in the neighborhood this morning to do interviews on the snow between traffic reports.  Here's what it looks like out my bedroom window.

Normally I would mention how nice it is to be snowed in, however my husband tested positive for covid-19 last week so we are under quarantine which means I've been stuck at home even before the snowfall.  

It all makes for a good reason to work on a quilt project. In a effort to finish an old project, I took out a quilt I started in fall of 2019 called Flying Leap. Here it is in sections on the design board. 

 I wonder if I can finish the whole quilt top by the end of the day. I'm sure going to try!

Coffee Tea Towel

I finally figured out what to do with the first embroidery piece I made with my new machine - a tea towel! I washed up some blank tea towels last week and today I cut some 2 and a half inch squares of coffee themed coordinating prints. I sewed the squares together and stitched them onto the towel 3 and a half inches up from the bottom of the towel. I cut the embroidery piece down to fit in the center and used a sating stitch to attach it to the towel. I do like how it turned out.

A Thank You and Scones

I got a lovely thank you note for the completed holiday projects I made a month or so ago. It sure made my day. She was nice enough to send along some buttons she thought I could use. They are so cute I am sure I will find a way to incorporate them into future projects.

I tried a new scone recipe. They are called Coconut Cream Scones and the recipe can be found here. They are really good. The one thing I try to do when making a new recipe is to follow it exactly. I believe you can't complain about how bad a recipe is if you didn't follow it, hahaha. Well, this recipe was wonderful except that next time I will divide the dough into two balls then slice them up into scones. These were way too large. 

Aprons

I am in the mood to get rid of things. It happens every January and usually involves getting rid of clothes I don't wear anymore or cleaning out a linen closet or two. This year it's all about fabric. So I made a large pile to take to my church basement sew day on Saturday. While sorting through fabrics, I took many pieces that were big enough and made aprons. I made two sizes, toddler and child. It was a lot of fun using up cute prints. 

The one issue I ran into was that I needed long fabric pieces for the ties. For some, I just didn't have enough that coordinated with the prints I used so I got some cotton twill. I ordered off-white and white in half-inch and one-inch from Amazon. It was pretty cheap for 50 yard rolls and I only had to wait 2 days for the twill to be delivered. Now I just have to sew some cute buttons on the front for embellishment and they will be ready for my next craft fair. 

Speaking of the basement quilters group, I am attending for the first time since October. Back in October, the group leader decided to start things back up after shutting down for 6 months because of the pandemic. I attended but I wasn't very comfortable with it. It's not that I didn't feel safe enough, I did. I just didn't like sewing wearing a mask all day. And after spending so much time home sewing, I didn't take the time to prepare for whether the room would be too warm or cold, so I was cold. I didn't bring enough beverages for the whole day. It was just poor planning on my part. So I stayed home for the November and December sew days. But now I want to start fresh, more prepared and in a better place regarding the pandemic. I was going to sew all day 6 feet away from everyone with no mask on, but by using lots of homemade hand sanitizer. 

I am planning to make a quilt top called bear paw on point from the latest Missouri Star Block Magazine. Here are the pieces cut out and ready to go: