selina quilts

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

Square

Last month a friend of mine asked if I could send her the cutting dimensions for the pieces of a 12 inch finished saw tooth block. This friend is more of a knitter than a quilter. I told her sure and graphed a block, included the dimensions and sent it to her.

A few hours after sending her the info I started to second guess myself and my speedily drafted block detail. I figured that I should just make a block using my numbers just to be sure.

TA DA, my numbers worked and my start to this hops contribution was on it's way totally by chance. I looked at the block for a while and wondered what I was going to do with yet another stray block. At this point it was still a block in my head, not yet a square.

I don't think I thought square until I looked at the graphed version again. That's when the idea to make it the center of a table topper for the summer hit me.

I looked at this larger square for awhile and decided that it wasn't going to fit anywhere in my house and most all of my friends and family already have RWB table toppers or runners already.

Well why not just go bigger. I love how it came out. It's a 48 inch Square.

It was one of the easiest quilts I've ever put together and it was all from my stash. I will probably do it again but looking at it in this finished state I would probably add a 2 inch border using the background fabric to make it float a bit before the binding.

Next up is what looks like what will be a very long term project. While routing around my garage I discovered several bins of scraps. I opened one and discovered lots of strings of various widths.

I pulled a couple of handfuls

trimmed the pieces down to 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide

Then I started a new long term project of crocheting a square . I have no idea what my goal here is but this is what happens to your mind when you are on shut down.

This is how far those 2 handfuls got me. OK it's not exactly square but close enough for a mindless project. I measure it currently at about 17 inches give or take. It counts for this hop right? And in the end that's all that matters.

At this point I want to thank Miss Carol from Just Let Me Quilt for hosting this hop and thanks to all of the hoppers for giving us some fun stuff to focus on during this lock down. Here is a list of all of the players. It will so brighten your day and theirs if you drop by check out their projects and leave a sweet note.

Please continue to stay safe and out of harms way.

Sunday, May 10, 2020

What did you do during Lock Down?

Wow I didn't realize that I haven't been doing any posting. Quite shocking to see that my last post was in mid March. While I haven't been posting I have been pretty productive during this stay at home time. WARNING This will be a rather long and photo heavy post.

One of the things I found out about myself during this time was that I used entirely too much paper product. While toilet paper is a major necessity, paper towels and napkins not so much. First hit was to go back to cloth napkins. I used them for years. Stopped around when I retired.

I had yards and yards of this great fabric so I knocked out 18 cloth napkins for regular daily use.

Next on the hit list were paper towels.

I took a flannel sheet that was hanging out in the closet taking up space ( I live in Florida and don't use flannel sheets anymore) and cut it into 6.5 x 11.5 sections and made 4 -5 dozen faux paper towels.

I just did one fold and some zig zaggy top stitching to neaten them up.

They live on my counter where the paper towels used to reside in a sweet basket.

They even have there very own laundry basket that they share with the napkins and dish towels.

I still use some paper towels for things that are very greasy ( don't want that in my washer) and things on my very doggie abused floors.

So for Easter I was able to give embroidered rolls of paper towels to some close friends without purchasing anything. In fact I still haven't had to purchase any paper towels and probably won't need to for several months.

Like so many of my quilting buddies I've been mask making ( over 100 to date ). I have family in hard hit NY and NJ and sent the first few batches there, then to friends, neighbors and to several organizations in my area through our quilt guild.

This was my first and only of this type of mask. Just wasn't comfortable making the pleats and all that bias tape.

Switched to these and never looked back

This group was made from kits from our local Quilt shop picked up curbside.

And then my personal favorite, the Ghastlies

I also spent some time with my ScanNCut. One of my great accomplishments was taking this picture

And turning it into this jig saw puzzle

and this shot into

this puzzle. I've done this now for 10 photos as gifts for several friends. They are printed on 8 x 11 labels affixed to cereal boxes and then cut. About 100 or so not very thick pieces as in a normal puzzle. Just thick enough to put together and enjoy.

While on the topic of my ScanNCut I also did some cutting of Iris paper Piecing designs

for my sister to play with during lock down.

And then I did a tee shirt for my niece that I had in the to do pile for a couple of weeks before lock down. Trust me, it is the front of a tee shirt.

On to sewing, my sister loves hats and the Easy Peasy draw string bag so I spent some time making her some goodies.

This is her reversible hat with matching masks ( or a coordinating bra ;-} )

And her hat with matching back pack

And just for kicks and giggles and because I had a bunch of this fabric I made her some hot plates

and pot holders

Cause everyone needs to have a hat that matches her kitchen.

I've done 5 tops, 2 have been completed the other 3 are in waiting.

This was the first top done and the smallest of the group. It is currently set up to be finished next. we'll see if that happens.

Number 2 will be posted on the 20th as part of the "It's Cool To Be Square" blog hop brought to you by Carol over at Just Let Me Quilt from the 18th to the 22nd. And yes that one is completed.

The third quilt was also suggested by someone in my guild I think.

It was supposed to be scrappier but I really liked that black leafy fabric and the blue corner stones.

So while it's not scrappy it is all from my stash.

And it is completed so what more could I ask.

And to wrap up this long post are these just too adorable pup tops

They are from Sew Fresh Quilts pattern DOGGO. I love her patterns. I think this is the 5th or 6th one of her patterns I have done. I also know that I have done each one more than once.

I am sure I've done some other stuff but these are my highlights. Til the 20th please stay safe and keep out of harms way. Go Craft something.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Quilt Qwazy Queens blog hop.

So have you been just laughing your butt off following this ever so fun hop? I view it as the very lite side of quilting. I open them first thing in the morning and enjoy with my coffee, great way to start the day. So thanks so much Joan for coming up with this hop for us to follow/participate in. They say timing is everything and boy did we need something to laugh about this week.

Well once I signed up for this hop my first idea of something Qwazy that I have quilted goes all the way back to a blog hop many of us participated in back in February of 2013 Here are 2 of the pictures from that post.

I made this into a pillow for our mom when she went to an assisted living facility. The pattern is by Amy Bradley.

I know the picture is blurry but it shows just how accurate the pillow is in capturing sissie and me. After our mom passed we realized as we were cleaning out her room that the pillow had gone missing. I hope it went to one of her buddies and that one of them is still enjoying it.

Then I realized that I don't really make fun stuff on my own. Where I mostly get my quilting chuckles is in laughing at my mistakes such as

Not paying attention and putting the batting on the outside and the backing on the inside of this pouch. I originally thought that this was the only one I screwed up of the 50 I made. I recently ran into one of the recipients and she had hers out and I realized hers also had the batting on the outside. When I apologized and offered to make her a new one she laughed and told me she thought I did it on purpose to give it a winter feel. Some people are just so polite.

While doing another project I used the stabilizer incorrectly and had the sticky side down and it caught the bobbin cover and dragged it under the needle and I tried to sew through it for several stitches before I realized what the horrible noise coming from the machine was. Amazing that I got that many stitches done before the needle broke.

Ok so then I got really serious about what I could do specifically for this hop to make you'll smile and I remembered that when I first got my embroidery machine I tried all sorts of things that I saw on you tube. This go round I could google something specific. The topic of my search was things to embroider on Toilet Paper . It was absolutely amazing how many ideas are out there for this topic.

This was my favorite.

I did it in 2 different color ways

It is an amazingly easy thing to do. I think that the stitch out time was 4 minutes. You can use any embroidery design that fits a square of the type of toilet paper you have. I am a Charmin user but many of the tutorials I read suggested using the very cheap stuff. The cool part is that you can rip off the embroidered piece with a few extra squares on either end and store them flat for reuse at a later date by just rewinding on a new roll if you used a seasonal pattern or an event to celebrate. (or had an emergency need)

I have found that you can hide small gifts inside

I will be giving one of these away to someone who comments and who has a mailing address in the US . Just leave as part of your comment which one you would prefer. I understand that this could be a very valuable gift this week with all of the empty shelves in the stores.

Now thanks again to Joan of Moose Stash Quilting for coordinating this fun time for one and all and here for your convenience is a full list of participants for you to smile your way through.

Wednesday March 18

Life in the Scrapatch
The Darling Dogwood

Words & Stitches

Websterquilt
Bejeweled Quilts by Barb
Creatin' in the Sticks
Podunk Pretties

Thursday March 19

Just Let Me Quilt

BeaQuilter

Patchouli Moon Studio
Selina Quilts
Phoebe Moon Designs
Den syende himmel
Karen's Korner

Friday March 20

If These Threads Could Talk

Kathleen McMusing

Samelia's Mum
Seams To Be Sew

Quilt Fabrication
Ms P Designs USA

Monday March 23

One Circle Quilting

Quilt Schmilt
Devoted Quilter

Tuning My Heart Quilts
Home Sewn By Us

Farm Quilter

Tuesday March 24

Songbird Designs
Bumbleberry Stitches
Quilting Gail
Just Because Quilts
Patchwork Breeze
MooseStashQuilting

All joking aside, I hope you are all doing well and taking care of yourselves and families. Til next time stay safe and keep smiling.

Friday, March 6, 2020

Other Stuff - Using my Scan N Cut

Last year I got a Brothers Scan N Cut to use for helping me with some various quilting chores. My local quilt shop has group classes monthly that I attend where they demo the different things the machine can do. I then come home and do nothing because I walk in the door and put the bag containing the machine in the closet. Out of sight as they say. Last month I decided that I had to justify to myself the cost of the machine and dedicated a full week where I would not sew but I would scan n cut.

So me, the Scan N Cut and Google worked together to produce all of these items. Google and You Tube really are invaluable sources.

Some of the items came out perfectly and some not so much. The mug has a flaw where I stretched the vinyl on the visor so it adhered a tiny bit wiggly and the shirt above was done on a very loose knit shirt that I had a heck of a time making the design stick to.

Mickey's ear got a bit sloppy because I didn't have the vinyl stuck properly to the mat and it shifted while cutting.

All in all I learned an amazing amount.

These cards on the other hand were flawless.

I was able to download SVG files from the internet and Use items in Clip Art. I'm now following several new sites that share information some for purchase some free.

I love the fact that you can take these files and change the size up and down. the turtle on the shirt is about 9 inches across and the the one on the card is about 3