Teacher Gifts

Merry 'almost' Christmas! Today I am sharing with you my super cute zippered pouches that my kids gave their teachers. I have to say I am hooked on making these. They are so quick and easy and turn out great!!

This cute polka dot one I was a little bit frustrated with. I accidentally sewed the fabric I wanted to use on the outside as the lining. But it is still cute and gives the lining a nice surprise. I think because I was using an invisible zipper it threw me off.

Next is my Freshly Squeezed bag. I loved this fabric from the day it came out, and when I was going through my scraps I thought it would be perfect. And I even had a green zipper that went so well with it!

And for the inside I have this fun dot print.

And lastly is this super cute red and turquoise pouch. I really wanted to keep this one, but I told myself no. I might be making one for me in the near future. There is just something about those two colors that I love. Well really I just love anything turquoise!

I used a simple turquoise for the lining. And I used some of the labels I made on the inside!

I even got a little bit fancy on the wrapping. I shared this picture on Instagram. I used simple gold tissue paper and some ribbon and then a monogram letter I cut with the cricut. It added just the perfect touch!

And the pouches were a hit! My kids teachers could not believe that I made these. One of my boys even told his teacher that he thought I bought it! hahaha!

Now we are on the countdown, my kids are going through the house singing "there is only 2 days till Christmas" I think they might get sent outside here soon.

Enjoy!

Christmas Tree Runner

Today I have a special treat for you! This super cute Christmas Tree Table runner. I am still trying to decide if I will keep this or sell it. Decisions, decisions!! And yes my table is super glossy!

I got the idea from Pinterest, of course! I didn't really need a pattern, I just cut some trees out of green and then the trunk out of brown. I appliqued them onto cream and sewed the red strip around it. Then it sat in my sewing room for a couple of months. We all get projects like that right?!

But once December hit, I busted it out again and added the final cream border and then quilted it up. I absolutely loved quilting this - I think that I could machine quilt all day long! I did pebbles under the trees - kind of like rocks, and then swirls in the middle, with lines on the outside. Simple but perfect!

I think I have mastered the swirls, but those pebbles were a little bit tricky at first, but overall I really like how it turned out!

And all beautiful with my ornament lantern in the middle of it.

I even love the back. Oh, and I quilted straight lines on the trees to just give them a little something extra. I wanted the straight lines to offset all the swirls and pebbles.

And isn't it just beautiful?! Really I do love this, but I don't have a need for it so I will probably list it in my Etsy shop. That is if I get any free time before Christmas!

I hope that you are all enjoying this season, I am off to bake some more cookies for my kids school parties tomorrow!

Enjoy!

DIY Fabric Labels

This past week things were crazy at my house. But Friday we found a new car, so hopefully things can be a little bit less crazy here. But with it being so close to Christmas, I am not sure! The other day while I was making up my zippered pouches for my kids teachers I had a great idea that I should put some labels in them! I even had this idea while there was still time to put them in without unpicking anything! That is pretty good right there!

But I browsed Pinterest looking for some good tutorials. I read a bunch, but just ended up kind of making up my own!

I took some freezer paper and ironed it to my fabric. Then I trimmed it down to 8.5x11, so that I could fit it in the printer. I wasn't terribly worried about how fancy it looked because I knew that I could iron it out later.

Then I designed my labels in photoshop and ran it through the printer. One worked beautifully and I was so excited that I ran another one through.

It was not as good - the wrinkles did prove to give me a little bit extra ink and I had to kind of feed it through the printer. But it still worked, I think that I will worry about the wrinkles next time and try to get a nice smooth one.

Then I ironed over the printing to help set the ink. I have not washed any of this yet so I do not know if they are washable or not.

I then cut apart the ones that I needed and sewed them with a zig zag stitch to the inside of my pouches and voila! They look great! And so much more professional now!

I've got these all finished up now, I shared a picture on Instagram the other day. Maybe I'll get a post written about them before I wrap them up!

One more thing I was able to cross off my list! I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful time of year!

Enjoy!

Super Hero Quilt - Finished!!

My friend asked me the other day when I was going to blog about my finished super hero quilt, and it was then that I realized that I never shared this finished quilt with you. You have seen all of the pieces as they have been coming together, but not the finished quilt.

My boy loves this quilt and that makes me love it that much more! Here it is on his bed, he is on the bottom bunk, which does not take very good pictures so I apologize about that. You can kind of see some of the super hero symbols that I sewed into the blue triangles, but you can read more about them back here.

The triangles are super big, which is perfect for him because he loves to look at the fabric and point things out that he sees. (Some of this super hero fabric would be good for an I-spy quilt!)

Here is the binding and background fabric. I love the red stripe against the bright blue. I used minky for the back, as per my sons request. Or button fabric as my kids like to call it.

I quilted this with just straight lines along the print borders and then a triangle arc on the print triangle. I wanted to keep it simple and I think this did the trick. You can tell I forgot about this - I even had all my photos taken back when it was nice outside and you could see the grass. Now it is negative 20 and the grass will not be seen for another 5 months.

And another picture:

Here you can see the quilting and the backing.

And all rolled up with that beautiful stripe showing!

I hope that you all are enjoying this Christmas season and staying warm!

Enjoy!

Christmas Shopping - DONE!

 This past week I finished all of my Christmas shopping! It is glorious! I did most of it online this year because I live way too far away from any stores and when ever I go to them I always have a couple of kids with me. Now I just have to wait for all of them to show up! And I get to enjoy the rest of the holiday season without worrying about who still needs what!

This year I actually made our presents look cute! Instead of using a sharpie and just writing on them to/from I used my cricut and cut out letters for each of my kids, then taped that letter on the front of their package.

I love how simple and clean it looks. And notice that backwards J? My littlest was helping my husband wrap my present and he was in charge of taping the J on. He was so excited to help that My husband just let him do it his way!

I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful holiday season!

Enjoy!

Pokemon Quilt

I got my Pokemon Quilt all finished this week! And I got it washed and wrapped up and now it is sitting under the tree waiting until Christmas!

I love how this turned out. There is just enough Pokemon characters to make it a Pokemon quilt, but not too many that it can grow with my boy. Pokemon is not my favorite thing, so this gift is a huge deal - I think he has been asking for it for a couple of years now!

I stuck with bright colors to go with all the bright characters in Pokemon. I backed it with minky fabric because that seems to be the favorite of all my kids right now - and who doesn't love a nice soft warm quilt backing!? I used the same red and white stripe for the binding that I used on my super hero quilt.

I quilted it with straight lines, and I like how simple and nice it looks. It ended up being just larger than twin size.

My Pokemon fabric only gave me a couple of different characters to use, so we used all of them twice!

Now I am off to finished up some other Christmas presents and house cleaning because today our temperatures are supposed to make it to 3!! Too cold to go outside!

Enjoy!

Sharing over at Quilt story, Freshly Pieced, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a fabric addict, and I have to say.

Easy Zippered Pouch

I am in love with this pouch!! This has literally been sitting on my counter since this past weekend so that I could look at it! For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you saw my picture of it this weekend. Today I have some more pictures for you.

First off I have to say how easy this was! I got the tutorial from V&CO she is so talented and I love her simplistic style.

I picked up a fat quarter of this awesome keep calm fabric a month or so ago from my local quilt shop, and I pulled the turquoise out of my stash. I went and bought a specific zipper for this! I just love the way that the turquoise just pops off the black and white fabric!

Here is the inside - nothing fancy. I sewed the bottom seam with my machine because I am not a huge fan of hand sewing!

I have already cut out three more of these in various colors for my kids to give their teachers for Christmas this year! They are just a perfect size for almost anything. I am thinking I should make a bunch and clean off my sewing table!

I am hoping to get some more sewn on the other ones today, but I have cleaning to do and unfortunately car shopping!

Enjoy!

Patriotic Table Runner - Done!

This year I am trying to give the gift of handmade for Christmas. I already posted about the Happy Birthday banners that I gave most of my siblings. (I already gave it to them and some of their kids opened it - so it will not be a surprise!) Today I have a table runner that I am giving to my military neighbors. I have shared the top before, but now it is all done and fabulous!!

I have been practicing my free motion quilting - in hopes that someday I will have saved enough to buy a long arm! Here is is:

I made up the pattern off of something I saw on Pinterest. I didn't get my measurements quite right, but it still looks great I think! Here is a close of up one of the smaller stars. I did kind of a echoing star pattern on them.

I did the figure 8 motion on the stripes and kind of a wave pattern on the cream border.

On the back it looks a little crazy! But when will you see the back!?

Here is one of the two big navy squares. This is where the echoing star pattern looks really good. I started this and had to unpick half of it before I figured it out - not the funnest thing I did!

And then the pinwheel. I did a zig-zag kind of thing in the navy and then pebbles in the white and red parts. I really like the pebbles. They look great, but take a little while!!

And then one last view of this beautiful quilt before I wrap it all up to give to my neighbors!

Off to do some more sewing and crafting before the kids are on their Thanksgiving break!

Enjoy!

Modern Peas & Carrots Pattern

I've got a pattern for you! I hope that this is clear and you can understand it. I tried to take more pictures to show some ideas that might not be clear.

And I have this for sale in my Etsy shop for those of you who might just want to buy the finished product.

All right here goes!!

Fabric requirements:
misc orange: three inch strips (need twelve 3" x 8.5")
Blue: 3/4 yard
Green 3/4 yard
cream 3/4 yard

Cutting:
1. Cut all orange pieces into 3" x 8.5"

2. Cut the blue into one 11" strip. From that cut three pieces 8.75" Then cut three more pieces 3.75"
Cut a 3" strip and sub cut it into three pieces 3.25" (you will have leftovers)

3. Cut the rest of the blue into one 14" strip. From that cut three pieces 6.25" Then cut three more pieces 3.25"
Cut a 3" strip and sub cut it into three 6.25" pieces.

4. Repeat the same cutting in steps 2 & 3 with the green fabric.

5. Cut the cream fabric into three 3.25" strips. From that sub cut it into nine 3.25" x 11" rectangles.
Cut four more 3.25" strips of fabric. These will be for the outside borders.

Okay, now we are ready to start putting this quilt together!

For starters we are going to take six of our orange pieces and match them up with three blue 3" x 6.25" and three blue 3" x 3.25" pieces.

Then do the same with your green pieces. (same size as the blue ones). You should have two piles with six in each pile that look something like this: (yes I need to iron!)

One is a 3" x 6.25" blue or green and a 3" x 8.5" orange piece and then other pile is a 3" x 3.25" blue or green. After you sew them together iron towards the orange.

Next you are going to take your 3.25" x 11" strip of blue and of green. You will have six total. You are going to sew this piece to your orange and blue (or green) piece that you just sewed that is now 11" long. (or the piece with the shortest green or blue piece sewn to the orange. Iron seams towards the orange.

After that you will take you 3.25" x 14" strips of blue and of green. You will also have six of these. Sew then to the rest of your orange and blue or green pieces. These ones will be 14" long.

It will look something like this before you sew it together: (this is the 11" piece) When I sewed this together I did not sew my long piece to the same side all the times. I alternated it so that I would have two like this and one with the blue on top. Trust me on this, it will work. Or just scroll down and see more pictures to see if that will help you out. Seeing it all laid out may help with this concept.

Next you are going to take your large pieces of blue and green. There will be three of each color in each pile. Make six total of each size. One pile is the 8.75" x 11" and the other pile is 6.25" x 14".

You will match these up to the pieces that you have already sewn that are 11" and 14". Here in the picture is my match with the 11" piece.

Sew the pieces together to form 6 blocks one size and 6 blocks the other size. Iron the seams to the orange side.

Now you will have 12 blocks total. Three green ones that look like this:

Three blue ones that look like this:

Three more greens that look like this:

And three more blues that look like this:

Next I took and trimmed all of my squares so that they were all 11" x 14". I have learned the hard way that this makes for a nicer looking quilt - and it sews together to much better!

After that I placed all of my squares in this pattern. I wanted to make sure that my orange ones were not meeting up with other orange ones. You can copy mine or lay yours out in whatever design suits your tastes.

After you have this layout figured out, you take the first three pieces of each row and sew a cream rectangle onto the right side of it. Press to the colored fabric.

Once you have your cream sewn on you will sew your rows together. Make sure that you press each seam when you are done!

After that you will sew your outside borders on using the 3.25" strips of cream fabric that you still have left.

Press and then quilt! And your finished product should look something like this:

Thanks for bearing with me! I hope that this works out for you and please if you have any questions I would love to hear from you.

Enjoy!