Row Organization for Quilts

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you are just waiting for the weekend so that you can relax and not have so much going on? That was me for the last half of this week. The first two days were great, but then everything snuck up on me and now it is Friday!! Finally, and it is Homecoming here in this tiny little town and to go along with this there is a parade in town for the elementary kids - so I am going to watch my kids in a parade this afternoon!

Anyway, enough about my crazy life, today I have something great for you.

When I was visiting or talking with my sister she shared this technique with me about how she keeps her rows in order while she sews them together. This way you do not sew them onto the wrong side or worse.

After she has each row sewn together she marks them with pins indicating which row it is. For example row one gets one pin and row two gets two pins and so on. Here we have row one:

I don't know about you but something usually happens between me picking up my rows off the floor and getting them to my machine that has me questioning whether they are in the right order or not. However, I tried this technique and it was great!! No more questioning and unpicking when I realize my mistake!!

Here is row two:

Can it get any simpler than this? I was sort of having a duh, why didn't I think of  that when she told me about this!

Super simple and easy, right?! Row three:

And I will spare you pictures of all of my rows for this quilt, but here is one more to make row four:

Now that my quilt top is all sewn together with no mistakes I am off to bundle up for this parade, because it is already getting cold here!

Enjoy!

DR. MAG

Do you ever have those projects that you know you will do, but you are never sure when? (This is different from those ones that you would like to do.) I know I am not the only one out there with these. This project is one of those. I knew I was going to make it, and I started looking for supplies, but I never really got started on it until the cold really hit. Once I got started I really wanted it done. I am happy to say that now it is finally done. I am super excited about it because now there will be no more of this chaos. And I took this after I hung up most of the coats and jackets, usually there is only one or two things hung up and everything else strewn across the floor.

And the kids are excited to because they each have their own hook. I saw something like this in PB a while ago and it caught my eye. I started look at thrift store for yard stick and rulers, but all the ones around here wanted $1-$2 for them. So that is when I got the idea that I could just paint my own and make this look just as good. We are going to hang this up at the kids height so that hopefully they will not leave their stuff laying around on the floor. Here is the end product:

 

And here is how you can make one for yourself, and it is really not hard at all!

I got most of my sticks from Lowes and Home Depot, (I liked the thickness of their sticks as compared to some other stores). But I did pick up a few other thick ones here and there. Once I got them - or thought I had enough; I later went back and got 2 more - I laid them out on some newspaper and painted them each with a watered down color. Some of them had a glaze and the paint did not take so well and others the paint just soak right in.

 The third stick down really did not want to take the paint, and the top stick is one that had a glaze on it. I found that if I sanded it a little bit the paint stuck better. But I also liked how it gave it a little uneven look. These dried super fast and so I was able to put multiple coats on in one day. I did a different amount of coats for each one until it was the color I wanted.

 

After I had them all painted, I lined them up on my board that I had got for this. I glued these on with liquid nails, because I just love how well that stuff works.You can see my line of it in the above photo.

I was using clamps to hold it, but I did not want to do one at a time and my clamps would not reach the middle of my board. I quickly scanned the basement and grabbed two of my kettlebells and placed on them to hold them in place. One more reason to love my kettlebells. I then cut the ones that hung over the edges with my trusty coping saw. I sanded a little to remove the rough edges.

 After I got them all glued on I took an antiquing medium paint that I bought in a whim at Hobby Lobby once. I followed the instructions - well most of the way.

 

 It gave it a little bit of that old look - rustic is what I like to call it.

 I then proceeded to lacquer this baby up because I liked the way it looked now and I knew that once the kids started to use it it would look even more rustic and old. Which I guess would not be a huge problem, but I also wanted it to be easy to clean.

 

 Here is pictures of it with the letter hooks screwed and glued onto it. I really want these to stay on. I found these hooks at Hobby Lobby and loved them. I bought them even before I knew what I wanted to do with them, but I knew I could come up with something. And I did! Now I just need to find some time when Conan is home from work and we are not so busy that I can get this thing hung up. I was thinking about waited to post it then, but I just loved the way it turned out and did not want to wait.

There you have it, a cute, fun hook for your kids to help you keep their clutter picked up. This is also my entry for Crafting with the Stars.






Linking up to:Somewhat simple, House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage, paisley passions, a Little Knick Knack, Sassy Sites, Tidy Mom, craft-o-manic, Skip to my Lou, Sew chatty, Crafts keep me sane, Shanty to chic.

And don't forget my first ever link party tomorrow! I would love for all of you to come and share your Fantastic creations at Fantastic Friday!

Look what I did

For Christmas I like to give family gifts to my sisters who have kids. and I found a really great idea for this past year. I am posting it after Christmas because I did not want to totally ruin the surprise. Even though some of them already knew, because I took the presents to them when we went out to visit a couple of months ago.

I made these super easy boards for their kids to hang their art work, school work, or whatever on.

To make these I took a 1x8 and cut it down to about 18 inches. I then painted the underside a light brown - slightly darker then the wood. I then painted the top coat. This one I did a tealish blue. I also did an orange and a green one. I then sanded the edges and the top to give it a little distressed look and to see the bottom coat of paint. (You cannot really see it in the picture).
I then painted some regular clothes pins black. (For the orange board I left the clothes pin the wood color because I did not want it to look like a Halloween decoration.) I then just eyeballed where to place the clothes pins and gorilla glued them on. I did not want them to be pulled off.
I cut the vinyl on my cricut with my SCAL (sure cuts a lot) in a kid hand writing. I did not want them to be perfectly straight, so I just eyeballed where to place these letters as well.
This tealish one I used for my kids and the moment I hung it up Thing #2 and Thing #4 went right to work drawing pictures to fill up the hooks.

 Don't forget we have a link party starting next friday. Jan 7 will be our first Fantastic Friday where you get to showcase all of your fantastic creations.

 

Linking up to: Somewhat Simple, House of Hepworths, Shabby Chic Cottage, Creation Corner, Fancy This, 

Craft-O-manic, Skip to my Lou, Sew chatty, Keeping it Simple, Crazy Domestic, Someday crafts, Sugar and Dots, Sew much ado.