My Friday was spent sewing.

 I have had a great day at home sewing today. I was supposed to be away at a sewing retreat but it was cancelled due to not enough numbers. So, what am I to do…… SEW, SEW, SEW……

Firstly I finished my blue placemats for charity. All I needed to do was sew the binding on.

These were the leftovers from my CHOOKSHED challenge project for this month.

Next up was to try Lou’s placemat pattern.

Manxgirl living and crafting down under. Loulee

First up I found my shop receipt dockets.

I picked out a few.

Then I tipped out my scrap bin and pulled out my pink scraps.

I sewed my scraps to the dockets.

 

Trimmed them down

I easily had 10 pieces made to suit the measurements following Lou’s pattern

I made 2 placemats. So have a look at Lou’s pattern and use up some scraps.

Make them for gifts or charity.

These will go to charity.

I’m linking up with FNSI

Linking up with Table Scrap Challenge

Since it was pink month over at Scrap Happy Saturday - May that’s what I used.

Happy Birthday Chooky - ZOOM - RSC 2022 - TABLE SCRAPS 2022

 What a weekend I have had so far. I have not done much sewing since being unwell but Friday that changed. I was in the mood to sew. Hubby was away for the night. So I cleaned off the kitchen table to use as my cutting surface, put on the QUILTED HUG tutorial on YouTube on the main tv and away I go.

A couple of years back I took a tub of all my scrap green fabrics to retreat, used the go cutter and cut them all into 2.5” strips. They were all different lengths but I had so many. Now they are finally getting used.

This quilted hug project you need 33 full of strips. I’m sure I had plenty and I wanted to make 2 Hugs. I went ahead and sewed all the strips end to end until they were all joined. When I measured I had more than 66 metres of length. Plenty enough.

I cut my polar fleece to rough size and started to sew my strips along the selvedge edge. This is different to how the tutorial says. They say to sew all the strips together to make a top then layer and quilt it to the fleece. Of course I changed things. Sewing straight on to the fleece, quilt as you go style, saves a lot of time because you are only sewing the seams once and not having to go back and quilt them.

As I said earlier hubby was away. I enjoyed sewing away with myself and I kept sewing. Looking at the clock it was now 2am but I was nearly done sewing the strips on. I kept sewing until I finished covering the fleece. I went to bed at 3am. 

Next morning I got up and joined Chooky’s 10th birthday on zoom. CHOOKYBLUE

I continued with my HUG. I made the pockets and attached them. Now the binding gets done. I made the first hug with machine sewing the binding on but my machine didn’t like this as I had many skipped stitches. I changed the needle a few times and it still skipped. 

First HUG nearly completed. This one just needs the closure tab.

On to the second HUG. This one I machined the binding on to the front.

Don’t you just hate sewing on a binding and you come to a corner and there is a join in the binding at the same point. So frustrating. I was not going to unpick and redo.

I spent the rest of my Saturday, still on zoom, to hand stitch the binding on the inside. Much happier now. Zoom finished about 10.30 pm and I continued to complete the hand stitched binding.

I am very happy with my finishes. One is for charity and one is for my mother in laws 90th birthday in June.

I am linking up with Angela and Soscrappy Saturday and RSC 2022 where the month of May was to sew with your green scraps.

And linking up with Joy and The Joyful Quilter and her Table Scraps Challenge. This year we do not have to stitch something  made for the table just anything small. So long as it uses scraps and the colour of the month for RSC 2022.

Now to spend my Sunday quilting a quilt for Aussie Heroes.   See next post.

 

It’s the end of January. Where has the month gone.

 This month has been hot. The car temperature got to 50 deg Celsius. Did I say it’s been hot. I really haven’t been in the mood for sewing, crafting, blogging or anything really. I’m not sure what is going on with blogger but I now find I cannot comment on half the blogs I follow. I go from one to the next comment then the next one won’t allow me to. So please know I am reading them but cannot leave a comment. Work has been extremely busy. So thank you Chooky for the chance to have a few short zooms.

While on Zoom I also started knitting another teabag scarf. Photos on another post to come. But for sewing I made another zippered placemat. It went together very quickly. I have started another one for a demonstration/tutorial I am doing at quilt group. 

I am using all the scraps from left over from a mystery quilt I made.

Having fun sewing them altogether.

Zip step 1

Zip step 2

The zip is in

The top is all together

I’m ready for quilting

My red table scraps don’t meet the criteria with the snowmen but they are red.

https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2022/01/january-2022-table-scraps-challenge.html

Sewing along with Angela and my red scraps 

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2022/01/scraphappy-saturday-week-5-wrapping-up.html

And yes, you were right Deana. This new placemat will be a gift for a friends birthday soon as she really loved mine when I showed her. She also goes on a lot of picnics so it will be used a lot.

I have had the grandsons for overnight where we had pancakes and icecream for breakfast. Their dad thought I was crazy. They boys loved it. We have also celebrated the youngest grandsons 11th birthday. It was fun. Sorry . No photos of that..

I idi a little sewing job for a friend and sewed some patches on his leather jacket. I said a bottle of wine would be a nice Thank you gesture. Well, he got the message and gave me 3 dozen bottles. I think I owe him a huge thank you.

Also had a great all day sew at our quilt group. I worked some more on Bonnie Hunters RT mystery. I have not got very far. I also made an accordion purse but it is not completely finished. The girls on zoom got to see where I was up to.

My daughter has been a bit sad after hearing news of a friends decline in health. Friends have started a go fund me page as they need help to make what’s left of her life a little easier. A lovely 40 year old with a loving husband and very young son has to deal with the terrible disease, Alzheimers. I had one completed charity quilt left to donate and my daughter wanted to pass it on for comfort and later on as a memory of her. My beautiful scrappy BUTTERFLIES. So tonight I sewed on the label and it’s ready to be delivered.

Please help out if you can.                  https://gofund.me/426383ff

Look at the perfect matched label.

Well I haven’t been able to find a finished photo so must get one before it gets sent of to its new home.

If you have reached the bottom of this post… Thankyou.

I have not felt like doing a post for a while so it is all in one. If you see my side bar the last 2 years I have not been up to where I normally was. Is this due to covid.

Looking forward to February 

JO’s ZIPPERED PLACEMAT - QAYG style

 JO’s ZIPPERED PLACEMAT - QAYG style

First up you need to decide what size you want your placemat.
Mine was 11.75” * 14.25”

Cut a piece of backing and batting an inch bigger than required.
Layout your pieces you want for the top. You need to cover most of the left hand side, a zip, a piece for the right edge and a 8” strip for the cutlery pocket.



Now to start sewing. I’m not too good at explaining the steps so hopefully you can work it out with the pictures.
You need to lay the pocket piece right sides up with it folded so the side edges meet in the centre. The right fold should overhang the batting a little. Quilt a few lines through all layers to hold it in place.. about 3”. 

Start attaching one side of the zip. The left side.

Finish attaching the zip and sew the outer fabric, zip and pocket lining. This will form a tube where some of the pocket is secured to the batting. Top stitch the fabric either side of the zip. Yes, this is tricky.

Give it a good press. Top stitch the right hand side in place catching the top strip, pocket piece batting and backing. Trim the excess.

On the left hand side of placemat (photo is upside down) continue adding your strips sewing the seams through all your layers. QAYG. Press. Continue until the whole piece is covered.

Press, press, press. Before trimming stitch over the zip on top & bottom so it doesn’t pull apart. Now you can trim to square and neaten to the size required.

Bind and you are all done. 

You can use any orphan blocks, a solid piece of fabric or selvedges like I did.


Have fun.

Have a look at other table covers, mats, runners have been made.

https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2021/08/august-2021-table-scraps-runnertopper.html

I’m linking with FNWF

https://stitchingcubbyhole.blogspot.com/2021/08/its-fnwf-time.html