Tag Archives: pincushions

Happiness, delivered.

Posted on by

7

BLOGTOBERFEST, Day 12

Yesterday I showed you the wonderful happy I received from Mary. Today, I’ll show what I sent to Cindy in Fresno, CA. Cindy makes all manner of fun selvage items, her most recent came in SECOND in a recent online contest, Texting while Sewing:

I’ve started collecting my selvages, but I had yet to make anything with them.  I knew I had to include something with a selvage for Cindy… but what?   I had seen this pincushion and sewing kit on someone’s blog recently, as part of the Zakka Sew-Along–suddenly I knew this was the item to create for Cindy and just how I would use the selvage!  I don’t own a copy of the book, so I made this up as I went along, and modified it to make it work for me.

The pincushion is filled with walnut shells (why?  They are inexpensive and readily available… and the crushed shells work like emery, keeping your pin and needle points sharp!)

Yep, I buy it at a pet store, a giant bag is under $10.00.  Fill your pincushion with a funnel, and stitch up the opening.  Easy as that.

The pincushion fits nicely inside this roll-up sewing kit, which has small pockets to hold your package of needles, thread, your English paper piecing hexies(!), your scissors, your thimble, etc…

Most of Cindy’a kit came from my scrap bin, except for the green “tree” print used for the binding and one end of the pincushion.  I chose that fat quarter because I had purchased it at Grubers last year, the same weekend I met Cindy for the first time.  The entire kit rolls up and ties nicely, for a fun take along sewing kit:

The band is attached, it is another piece of selvage dots (from a Dr. Seuss fabric as it had the brightest colors I could find!) and satin ribbon for the tie.  Enjoy, Cindy, I had a lot of fun making this for you!

p.s  HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN to my beautiful Goddaughter, Leah!  

(My God, how did sixteen happen?!?)

 

Blogtoberfest Day XXI–Custom Costumes

Posted on by

5

I had this post written, once…  then Blogger ate my homework.  So maddening.  (Now that I re-wrote it, post number one better not magically reappear!)
I have a thing for clever, crafted, homemade Halloween costumes, like those I showed two weeks ago. Have you ever made Halloween costumes?  Are you this year?  Sweetie and I are doing hand-crafted, but much less involved than last year’s crafting and sewing.  However…
Do you know the work of Richard Scarry?  Do you know there is a whole new generation of kids enjoying his work?  That new generation includes my pre-school aged nephews.  They are familiar with the same Richard Scarry characters from the books of my childhood!
Do you know who Pig Will and Pig Won’t are?  (pssst…. I didn’t either!) Well, that is what nephew #1 decided he and his little brother are going to be for Halloween.  And guess who he asked to make them?  So…
Four pig ears (lined with pipe cleaners/chenille sticks so we can pose them correctly), two pairs of blue shorts, a red polo shirt and a green polo shirt later… Oh!  and two twisty tails (also with a pipe cleaner/chenille stick in the middle, to make them “springy”)……

……We almost have two complete pig costumes for an almost-three and almost-four-year-old, who couldn’t be more excited about his choice of costume.  I hope to put the finishing details on them tomorrow, so I can start on the costume for their lil’ sister:

Yeah, like she’ll know the difference, I know… But, I am not about to pass up making something adorable for this little bitty.  Look at that face.  I’m pretty she can have anything she ever wants as long as she asks Aunt Doris for it.  
This week’s Blogtoberfest Giveaway:  is the Scrappy Charm Witch Pincushion from yesterday’s post, and today I’m adding a treat to it, (not pictured, because let’s admit it, if I bought the treat NOW, I would have to repurchase it before sending the package out to the winner next week!  I’m not foolin’ anyone…  
So, today I want to know, do you have a favorite costume memory from your childhood?  Mine is a gypsy costume that my Mom made when I was 7 or 8, out of many layers of pastel colored organza, chiffon type materials, a la Esmeralda…  I’m pretty sure it was the flowy, girly, fabrics that did it for me.

How about you?

Blogtoberfest Day XX–Scrappy Charm Pincushion

Posted on by

14

…and A WINNER–and a NEW GIVEAWAY!!!!

First of all, Happy OCTOBER Birthday to a new blog friend, Mrs. Gooden Ghastlie.  Incidently, she won today’s giveaway–ON HER BIRTHDAY!!!!  Congrats & best birthday wishes–these goodies will soon be on their way to you:

Remember, the best way to win is to follow my blog and leave comments on my October posts….

Now for another installment of our Halloween Party...

I started last fall making scrappy spiderwebs for a twin-size quilt, which incidentally left me with a LARGE pile of Halloween scraps, and like my friend Amanda Jean, I have developed an addiction to scraps.  I used to actually toss them (gasp–the horror!!)…

So, I whipped up these Scrappy Charm Pincushions, so named because they use a left over charm square for the back (GREAT use of leftover fabric, btw!), some fun selvages, rick-rack scraps and ribbon:

Very simple, free-pieced, scrappy log-cabin style design. I think it took about 30 minutes to make all three.  I stuff them with crushed walnut shells (available at pet stores) which works like emery, in that it helps sharpen your pin points. Carefully stuffed using a kitchen funnel…

What do you think, do you like them?  Have a favorite?  Well, this little witchy-poo could come to live with you:

She is part of this week’s giveaway–items to be added to the giveaway daily–just follow my blog and remember to comment on my daily posts.  The more you do, the better your chances of winning.  Just ask our birthday girl, Patricia.  😉

Happy Halloween and an Awesome October to you!

Let Them Eat Cake

Posted on by

8

July is my birthday month, and it’s also the birthday of three of my Quilt Guild Small Group friends, my younger brother, two first cousins, my Brother-in-law, one of my best friends from graduate school, my boss…and probably another handful of friends and family who I’m not recalling right now.

Mine is this week, and it is a biggie…with a 4 in it. Anyhoo, what better time to whip up some sweetness, and share a slice of birthday cake with some of these sweet people… And, since I’m eating healthy, why not share a calorie free slice of cake?
This pattern was in a recent issue of Quilts & More magazine, it’s called the Sweet Slice Pincushion. Cute, huh? I’ve made five of these so far this month for gifts. It took me about the same amount of time to make four of them in assembly line fashion as it did to make the first one by itself. So, it was just a matter of getting used to the pattern.
I can already tell I’m going to have to make more of these throughout the year…and I haven’t made one for myself…
Just looking at them sort of makes me hungry for something sweet…
Go ahead, help yourself to a piece of cake…and have a sweet day!

And the winner is…

Posted on by

2

My quilty friend , Toni , and I decided to try some quilt contests this year, and actually finish and enter them. I made the quilt for the Piece, Love and Quilts contest on my own. Together we decided to buy fabric and enter the quarterly contests through American Patchwork and Quilting and allpeoplequilt.com.

The first was the Twist and Turn Pillow:

Toni loves red and I love green, we wanted to change the pattern up a bit…’cause y’know…I don’t follow rules (or at least patterns) well. We were in the top ten, but not the winner. It was fun making them together, so winning doesn’t really matter. Right?!?

The next one was the pincushions…a crazy small (?!) pic, again, Toni’s is the red one, mine is the green one. We added wool roving as stuffing to act as a pin and needle sharpener. These also made it into the top ten, but didn’t win.


There was some pretty cute competition…so I can see why.

This week we completed the Grab Bags for the 3rd Quarter, complete with red-and-green-and-white-rick-rack-goodness!

Here’s a close up of the embellishments:


I’m sorta jealous, ’cause this time I really like the red one better! Maybe we can work out a trade?!?

To vote for us, or your favorite (even if it is not us) go here, and follow the orange arrow… Perhaps this time…we will be the winner…

Rick Rack Crazy

Posted on by

0

I spent last evening at my quilty friend, Toni’s house. We’re working on a project for the second quarterly contest through APQ, like the friendship pillows we made last month. I can’t show a finished project yet, but this is some of the yummy fabric and embellishments we’re playing with!
These are made primarily with Mary Engelbreit’s “Friends and Flowers” fabric line from Moda. By the way, we LOVE rick rack…can you tell? We had a lot of fun appliqueing, cutting, making strip sets, laughing, sharing our laments, and catching up…just what quilty friends are for, right?!
I love this little applique…can’t wait to post the finished products!