Tutorial - Kid and Grown-up Placemat Fun

Yesterday the boys and I had planned to do yard work all day but as it happened, not only did Mother Nature have other plans (it was cold and rainy out), but Lo was feeling somewhat under-the-weather. So we all decided to stay ensconced in the warmth of our house. Of course that meant coming up with something to keep the Boy occupied. Now, I usually have some kind of crafty back-up plan up my sleeve for such an occasion. Yesterday, Plan B involved making one-of-a-kind placemats.

Now the Boy loves to craft. It's in his blood. But Lo. When I asked him if he wanted to make a placemat I wasn't actually expecting him to say "Sure." But he did! AMAZING. CRAZY. ( I thought it must be the virus talking or something...) But he actually sat down with us for probably about 2 hours helping the Boy, creating his own design, cutting the pieces. And the Boy! He had so much fun, he made two different placemats! It really was a great family rainy day activity!

Here's what we did...

Tutorial: Kid and Grown-up Placemat Fun

You will need:

• Fabric scraps
• Fabric pieces (roughly 12"x 18"), 2 per placemat (1 for front, 1 for back)
• Batting pieces ((roughly 12"x 18"), 1 per placemat
• Fabric binding
• Fusible web
• Pins
• Pair of scissors
• Iron and ironing board
• Sewing machine with darning foot
• Needle and thread

Note: Nothing was bought specifically for this project. I found everything in my stash! Bo-nus!

1. Take one of the 12" x 18" fabric pieces. This is your base fabric.

2. Using the fabric scraps and a pair of scissors, create a design by placing various scraps on your base fabric. You can reshape the scraps or leave them "as is" and just place as you like on your base fabric. The point: Be creative, do what YOU like, this is YOUR placemat.

This is the first of the Boy's designs.

Here's what our dining room table looked like. The floor was a mess but that's to be expected.

3. Note: The kid friendly part of this activity is over. The rest should be done by you. Following the directions on your fusible web, use it to adhere the fabric scraps to your base fabric. If you're still not sure about using fusible web, here is a good fusible web tutorial link.

Here's what our placemats looked like once they were fused. Notice that some of the larger pieces were pinned in place. That was just my preference, feel free to fuse all pieces.

4. Now you will make a quilt sandwich. Place a piece of batting between your designed top piece and your back piece. Pin the sandwich together. Do this for all your placemats.

5. Free-motion quilt all your placemats. I'm still learning how to do this so my work is FAR from perfect. But I can tell you that if you have a regular old sewing machine like I do, you will need a darning foot to do this step. You also need to put your feed-dogs down (those are the little toothed pieces under your sewing-machine needle that feed the fabric along as you sew).

Note: The finished design has raw edges. The edges will likely soften and lose threads over time with washing. Once they completely fall apart, we will make more.

Here are a few details of the free-motion quilting...

6. Bind your placemats. Here is a very good tutorial at Sew Inspired that shows you how to do that.

And here are the finished placemats! Here is Lo's which I just love! I'm super-fond of circles.

Here's the Boy's first design...

Here's the Boy's second design. I love this one too. I like the way Saturn is about to collide into our house. So great. The stars are very cute too.

And here's my design!

We had a great time doing this together as a family. Perhaps you will too...

Have a wonderful day!

Tutorial: A Certain Curtain

Last week, if you recall, I was cleaning and organizing my workroom and, no, it ain't over. Yeah, the work continues. I have a whole list of lovely workroom-related to-dos (here). So this week I am busily trying to put a few of those chores behind me. For instance, over the last few days I've installed a hanging rod: a place where I can hang things, you know, like wet sheets of painted paper or fabric pieces I'm working on. I've also painted the shelf and brackets that will go above the credenza. I've yet to actually put them up though. Maybe later today. Tomorrow at the latest. Aaaaand.... I've made a curtain!

So that is what I am going to show you today. Okay? Let's get this show on the road!

Tutorial: A Certain Curtain

For this curtain you will need:

1. A few meters (yards) of fabric. Enough to cover your window or doorway. I'm putting up a doorway-curtain so I needed roughly 5 meters (yards) of fabric which I divided in two. Hint: So that your curtain looks nice and full, you want to have at least twice the width of your doorway or window in fabric.
2. Several small pieces of colourful fabric roughly 20cm x 30cm (9"x12") in size. Any fabric will do, I used a mix of polyesters and cottons.
3. Fusible web. You will need enough to fuse to all of your small pieces of fabric. There are many brands, I just happened to have Heat 'n' Bond.
4. Rotary cutter, acrylic ruler, and cutting mat.
5. Scissors, thread and pins.
6. Sewing machine.
7. Your trusty iron and ironing board.

As directed on your particular brand of fusible web, use your iron to fuse the small colourful fabric pieces to the fusible web. Be sure to put the gluey side of the fusible web facing the back of your fabric.

Do this to all your little colourful pieces... They will now have the texture of paper because they are in fact backed with, well, paper.

They are now ready to be cut into strips. I cut mine into 1/2" strips using my rotary cutter, acrylic ruler and cutting mat.

Then, after trying the strips in many and various patterns and designs on my curtain fabric, I decided upon a strippy configuration that I liked.

I then removed the backing paper from the backside of my strips, the derrière, if you will.

And I ironed all those strippies to my curtain fabric.

Now, I had 2 lengths of curtain fabric. So I repeated this whole process for the second length of curtain fabric as well.

The strips were now glued to my fabric but I wanted them to be permanently affixed. So, I went to my sewing machine and straight-stitched those strips forever in place. FOREVER....

Once all my strips were lastingly installed, I joined my two lengths of curtain. I'm proud of my work here... Not to brag, but I did a French seam... Aw shucks, it was nothing...No biggie... There are only 150 tutorials on the web that show this seam technique where no raw edges show. Welcome to the Department of Redundancy Department. Admittedly, it IS pretty nifty! Just google "How to sew a French seam" and voilà! The internet has everything. Many many times.

Next, I hemmed the right and left sides of my curtain.

And I folded the top over and pinned it in place like so... I did use pins, I promise. Invisible pins of doom...

And machine-stitched the fold in place. There you have it: rod pocket!

And the curtain is complete! Sort of. Just have to get a curtain rod. At which point I will hem the curtain. So, almost done. But not quite. STORY OF MY LIFE.

Nevertheless, here it is! A Certain Curtain!

You have yourself a fabulous day or night, as the case may be!

Note 1: The Certain Curtain was originally designed to hang the other way, with the strips going horizontally. However after trying the curtain in both directions, I much preferred the look of it this way. Lesson: Your instincts are sometimes wrong. Well... at least mine are!

Note 2: This is my 97th blog post. Three more posts before the big 1-0-0. You're officially invited to join me for my 100th post Celebration! But I'll remind you again. Yippee!

Fusible Web and Free-Motion Quilting With Ariane

Today, I spent the whole day with my baby sister, Ariane. Over the course of the last 2 years she has learned to sew and quilt, and for a little over a year and a half she has authored a delightful quilting blog known as Ariane's Crafts. Ariane is a completely self-taught quilter, who is unafraid of new techniques. She has recently begun writing her own patterns. And the great thing is, she uses an old White sewing machine to do all her machine and free-motion quilting. So, as the owner of an even-older White sewing machine (a.k.a. Betty), I was super-excited when she called me up last week and organized a free-motion and fusible-web quilting lesson, techniques I've never tried!

She arrived at 9 am this morning bearing her fabric scraps, sewing machine, thread, fusible web, cutting mat, rotary cutter, scissors, the whole she-bang! See, here's a couple of the scraps she brought.

After a torturous jaunt to one of our local quilt shops (Don't worry I didn't buy A SINGLE thing due to Stashbusting September...), we got down to business.

Ariane made two mini-quilts and I made one. SO MUCH FUN! Here they are!

Below is the back of her first quilt. Look at that quilting. See that free-motion stippling? She did that with a low-shank darning foot and her old White sewing machine! Pretty, eh? I think that aqua thread in the middle there is brilliant!

And below is the start of her second mini. Our little house in the woods. That's the house we grew up in. I'm in there but you can't see me 'cause I'm hiding. I'm shy like that.

And last, but not least, here is my very first use of fusible web and my virgin attempt at free-motion quilting!!!

I call it "Moms and Tots".

I used fusible web to appliqué all of those little circles and ovals as per Ariane's directions.

I pieced the back using some of those delicious scraps...

And then she taught me to quilt free-motionally with my old White sewing machine and her darning foot!!! You don't know how exciting this was. But let me tell you. IT WAS ECK-SIGH-TING! Hee hee!

I LOVE the look of the crazy free-motion quilting on there.

Free-motion quilting, you haven't seen the last of me!

Just gotta go buy me some fusible web and one of those darn feet! I mean, darning feet.

Thank you so much Ariane, you have opened my sheltered little world to a whole new creative realm. I cannot thank you enough. My hero, once again! xox

And you, I hope you have yourself a great day!