Father's Day Inspiration

For those of us who may have hubby's or father's who are all
"quilted out", here's a lovely idea.

Each morning Dad can take out a new reason why he's loved!  So simple and sweet!  

Not to mention all ages can help.

I might even suggest for those quilt-y in nature, the top doesn't have to be plain fabric...

I could see a mini quilt for the top, or even just some raw-edged applique with Dad's monogram... 

For the complete tutorial visit:

The Princes and the Tot

Scrappy Block Tutorial Tuesday!

Have you seen these blocks buzzing around the blogosphere?  

Like these from the talented Hadley of Flying Blind on a Rocket Cycle blog fame.

Then she went and turned those gorgeous blocks into this gorgeous quilt!

Seriously?  Scraps into something looking this awesome?!

OK, I had to find the tutorial for this one.

Which led me to Aneela Hoey of Comfort Stitching's Crazy Scrappy Block Tutorial.

Are you following me?  Need a drink?  I'm feeling a bit winded by all of this buzzing around!  

It's really a crazy log cabin but her pictures really say it all.  I love a good picture heavy tutorial!

I'm itching to try this one.  

Do you think the hubby would go for the excuse that I need to buy more fabric for my "scrap" quilt?

Hmmm.  Maybe I need to work on how I present that one...

Betsy's Books Tutorial

I'm a book addict.

This quilt is singing my song!!

Elizabeth of Don't Call Me Betsy blogging fame posted this tutorial for how to make her fabulous bookshelf mini quilt.  I absolutely adore the titles on the spine!  Selvage!!

What an awesome graduation quilt this would make!!

Click here for her tutorial!

Fabric Scrap Project

This has got to be one of the cutest little scrap "no sew" projects I've seen for awhile!

The hoops are fabric wrapped and the little birds are paper mache.  I could see these as little sewed softies too.  

My minds is cruising along in baby world right now.  So, I'm thinking scraps from baby bedding morph into matching mobile.  

And those owls are all over the web right now.  

Wouldn't that just be too cute?!

And I love how she's used twigs as the bars for the mobile.

So, even though it's not Tuesday, I couldn't risk this one slipping out of my ever crowded mind!

Hop on over to The (fabulous) Red Thread for the full tutorial!

Adjustable Elastic or No more Crack!

Yup

I missed it.

Tutorial Tuseday cruised right past.  Heck, Tuesday itself flew past without much notice in my world.

My personal calendar looks like an insane person's sketch book.  

Random lines and arrows criss crossing all over the page.

So, yesterday I decided it was time for the big girl planner.

You know the one.  

It's about 5 pounds and 4 inches thick.  It can tell a mom everything from what's going on to school to what kind of underwear hubby wore to work Friday.

I got said planner home to find that it doesn't start until July.  Great.  Who in the world decided that July would be a great time to start a calendar?  Is there something earth shattering about the month? Last I knew January was the go-to starting month.  I can see August for a school calendar but July?  

Oh well.

Looks like my calendar will resemble the inside of my brain for another few months.

Anyway, since I missed Tutorial Tuesday, I've got a mini-tute for you.

This one is simply awesome (why didn't I think of it) if you have scrawny stick figure children like I do.  It's for inserting that adjustable elastic into pants.  We have a few of these beauties already and they are the kids' favorite pants.  Now, with this tutorial, maybe we can actually tear them away to get them washed once in a while!

Now, maybe my son won't out grow all of his pants before he ever becomes wide enough to hold them up!  

To find the Tutorial visit:

Patchwork Posse

Quilted Wallet Tutorial

We had a local craft festival this weekend.  

I LOVE the Tulip Festival. 

 I love all of the booths full of hand made items.  I never get over the creativity found right in my own back yard.

One really popular item that we kept seeing was the quilted wallet.  It made me curious if there was something I was missing.  Stall after stall sporting these really cute wallets.  

I went home and found this free tutorial.  It takes a little "improvising" when interpreting the directions, but if you can get through the ironing of the card pockets, you've got it made!

I added a little decorative stitching instead of straight quilting.

Full directions can be found HERE.

Tutorial Tuesday Make-up Bag and a it of a ramble

This weekend was beautiful out!  We had a work day around the Merry house and the garden was on the agenda.

 When you're 2, gardening is a full body sport.

 Both kiddos had fun working with Dad.  I fully expect the plants to resemble a labyrinth once they start growing.  Who knows where the seeds ended up!  But look at the determination on that little face!  He was soooo serious!  Kept telling me "this is work, Mom. Hard work, Mom." 

And in other news (said in my most cheesy anchor man voice) we have a gender neutral baby quilt top finish.  My sis-in-law and her hubby aren't finding out what they're having until the big day.  They're doing a black, white, and red nursery.  

They're not "quilty" type people so I went a little "mod" with geometric prints and basic patchwork.  This color scheme reminded me of those developmental toys that are supposed to stimulate baby.

Now, the tutorial.  This make-up bag was so fun to make.  I've a fear of zippers.  I hate them with a passion.  This was no exception.  I'll be the first to admit.  I skim directions.  After striking the zipper with the needle, having it fly off and hit my in the forehead, and using a few choice words, I actually resigned myself to reading the directions.  They worked!  They're actually pretty awesome.  

 It's a pretty simple, lined bag.  But it looks soo smart!  It's fully lined and I made mine large enough to carry diapers and wipes when not in use for travel.  For mine, I used 14"x 9" (just added 3" to her dimensions to account for my larger 12" zipper). I completed it (after reading the directions) in about 30min.  The next one will probably go quicker.  I didn't have the right size zipper so mine is larger than the example.  I kept her proportions (she added two inches to the length of her zipper).  The tutorial is VERY well written.

This tutorial comes to you from Leah of Sew Spoiled blog fame.

Click here for the free PDF tutorial as featured on Sew Mama Sew.

Tutorial Tuesday Bib Tutorial

This has got to be the easiest tutorial on the planet!  If you're like me you'll not even need the printed words and just wing it with the pictures.  

I've been struggling with shower gift ideas.  What to do when you don't know the family well enough to invest the $ or time in a full quilt for baby.  What to do when you know they already are receiving tons of quilts (very quilt-y family)-not that there ever is such a thing in my opinion....but I digress...

So, what else could I sew that doesn't cost much but will still get used and has the thoughtfulness of handmade?

This is what some scraps (literally) and a $1.50 clearance towel get!

I did several with magnetic snaps and several with Velcro just to see which I like better...  Jury is still out on that one.  Velcro wins for cost but I don't like messing with washing the stuff.  We'll see how things hold up.

I used the super easy tutorial over at 

Homemade by Jill

One change I would (and did) make when I made them was to save the center cutting for afterwards.  I cut around the outer edge, sewed the whole thing up (leaving the hole for flipping), then, used the vertical line as a guide for my quarter inch seam allowance and sewed down both sides (kind of like making 1/2 square triangles from a full square).  Then I just cut down the middle and around the circle before flipping the whole thing right side out.   

LOVED this tutorial and will use it again!  I can see these bibs being part of my go-to shower gift sets!

Tutorial Tuesday Easter Crafts

I am totally in the Easter Groove right now.  This is pretty strange for me considering I usually get in the mood for a holiday right about the time to put away the decorations and the darn thing is already past.

But, right now, I'm feelin' it! 

I'm really loving all of these cute little Easter dresses that are out right now.

I'm even hitting the Hobby Lobby for crafting ideas (which I'm usually forbidden to enter because I always leave with tons of junk I don't need and have no clue where to put, but GOSH it was way to cheap and way to cute to pass up).

So, when I stumbled over this new blog (new to me but I might be the last to find it) I was really excited.  Because I might actually get to complete a holiday craft before the holiday is past!!

These are Kim of Retro Mama's Fabric Easter Eggs!

Aren't they way to cute?!

And I have to say, these are the perfect use for those tiny scraps!  Or even huge!  Can you see these in all different sizes all over the house?  Oh, yeah, I'm getting excited!

Oh, we've also had a new addition to our family.  My baby sis just gave me a new nephew!

Yup, he's a looker!  And my niece isn't anything to sneeze at either!

Tutorial Tuesday Disappearing 9 patch

This one is definitely classified as an "oldie but a goodie" as far as the quilting world is concerned.

I've recently had a request for a how to for the quilt:

I refuse to allow any one to do it the way I did.  It was my first quilt and I had NO CLUE!!  I took my pre-cut cardboard templates, traced, and cut with scissors each and every piece.  Then, hand pieced and quilted it.  Took FOREVER!!  Really, it took over a year.  I almost gave up on quilting completely.

However, in the months after, everyone who saw it asked if it was a disappearing 9 patch.  Which lead me to the easy way of creating the same quilt.  It will literally take a weekend to complete what took me a year.  

Makes me sick to think about!

Save yourselves the trouble and just follow her directions!!

Tutorial Tuesday String Quilt

There's no doubt I love scrappy quilts.  This tutorial is definitely a scrap buster.  It's an oldie but a goodie and is usually my "go to" for quick baby quilts.  You may remember this:

and I've got another in the works that is a gender neutral number using oranges and browns (think burning fields)  so I thought I'd share the easiest tutorial in the world with you.

It's from Film in the Fridge.  Here's the link:

http://www.filminthefridge.com/2009/04/27/a-string-quilt-block-tutorial-paper-pieced-method/

Hop on over there give it a try!  I love using this one because there is absolutely NO measuring.  I used a standard sheet of computer paper folded over to make a square (fold and rip).  That's how I got the size of my squares.  After that, it's just sewing strips to the paper and ripping it off at the end (like checks along a perforated line).

Try it, you'll like it!  (sorry, I sounded a bit like mom with broccoli!)

On other non-quilty news, we're moving right along with our adoption.  Of course it's not as quick as we would like but the wheels of bureaucracy only move so fast.  We've just finished a class where you sit in a tiny room for 8 hours with four other couples while they tell you how to be parents.  Interesting.  I don't know about you, but getting a group of parents to agree on parenting -any kind of parenting- is like herding cats.  Needless to say it was a LONG day!   And there's always that guy in class.  You know the one.  The one with a billion questions and even more opinions that feels that he MUST express them at all times.  I lost count of the tirades and the awkward silences that followed his random declarations.  You know that guy in class that argues with the teacher over every little thing.  I wanted to scream at him..."this isn't for a grade!!  Just agree to disagree and MOVE ON!!"  International adoption is a subject fraught with  political land mines.  Even with everyone there for the same reason, toss in different parenting styles, political beliefs, ages, religions, personalities.  You get where I'm going here.  It's just amazing to me that there wasn't a throw down at some point or that desks weren't tossed on their sides and an impromptu war waged across the conference room.  But, at least we can say we're done with that step and we can check it off the list!

Tutorial Tuesday Bargello Quilt

After yesterday's Bargello eye-candy I thought I had better deliver on my promise of the tutorial today.  Here's what I've found.

Not a whole lot for free.

  

Here is a very beginner version.  Nothing fancy but this tutorial details how to do the basic color shifting involved.  They used scraps but you could see how using solids or specific colors in the place of the scraps would give you the awesome waves of color.  

The tutorial takes you from this:

through this:

http://www.quiltville.com/scrapbargello.shtml

That's a great place to start.  However, I wanted those awesome curved and flowing lines.

Bargello Quilts

 This looks like it may be a promising book and I've been hearing awesome things about it all over the web...hmmm...maybe a good place to start.  Look at the cover.  You can see that she's broken it down and almost spills the secret to the curves with her color illustration.  Different sized slices to put a curve to it. 
 

Here's another option for some great ideas.  There's also pictures from the inside of this book to get a feel for it.  Gotta love pictures!

So, I guess this will be an on going project for me!  I've got to do some experimenting it seems!

Tutorial Tuesday Made by Marzipan

Today's Tutorial Tuesday is a treasure trove.  I stumbled upon this site completely by accident today.  Well, technically I was searching for ideas for todays post....nothing like a bit of procrastination to add a little excitement to the day.

anywho...

Instead of one tutorial, you get a whole website of video tutorials.  There are some really cute ideas here as well as great gift projects.  

I'll admit, it took me awhile to get past the crazy video.  I think she might actually be wearing the camera somehow.  Not sure how that works but if you can get past that the directions are actually quite simple, and easy to follow.

Here's a sample for you:

Cute Head Band (already added to my to do list)

Easy Peasy Sock Monkey

Even I can follow these directions.  I wonder if a few glasses of wine would counter act the swerving of the video?

For even more videos hop on over to 

http://www.madebymarzipan.com/