Category: Stitching

2022 Temperature Quilt: Here we go

So in late October I saw my first temperature quilt. I had heard of crocheted temperature blankets. But I don’t crochet any more (or at least, not in years). Although, truth be told, every time I donate my extra yarn and hooks, I literally decide 3 months later to crochet something. Right? Who’s with me?

Imagine my delight when I realized people could do a temperature quilt! Down the rabbit hole I went. So many beautiful examples. So many patterns. So many colorways. Some document just the high temp. Some the high and low. Some even include the mid-range temp and/or the weather. Oh the possibilities…it was a fun diversion on the long car ride to and from Syracuse for family weekend.

If you’re not familiar with temperature quilts, it’s a year-long project where you use the temperature each day for a particular city (I’m choosing to do my current hometown, Cincinnati), to determine which fabrics you put in your block. Fun, right? I love that the weather – incredibly unpredictable right now, will determine how this quilt comes together.

I’ve made a chart with temperatures ranging from 0 to 95 degrees with 3 degree increments(although over the last few years, we’ve had very few temps 15 degrees and lower, so that range is a bit larger). I’ve selected fabric for each 3-degree range, for a total of 19, and 6 more for the weather. With my research done, and my fabric picked, I needed to choose a pattern.

With January 1 just around the corner, I’ve finally committed to a design. (Cue the trumpet sound.) I pinned this lovely quilt from Noodlehead that I’m using for my inspiration. I think it’s called a Split Quarter-square Triangle – or maybe just a Quarter triangle? I don’t know. Here’s what the blocks look like:

I’m using mostly Art Gallery solids (with a few Tula Pink Unicorn Poops thrown in) for the high and lows. And I knew I wanted to include the weather (Sunny, partly cloudy, cloudy, rainy, snowy, stormy,) and am using low-volume whites/greys for the weather. Here’s my fabric plan:

My goal was for the finished block to be 3 inches, but math isn’t my thing. You lose more than .25 inch on the diagonal quarter half squares (who knew)?? So, My squares will finish at 2.5 inches. I’m planning 18 columns – and 22 rows, for a final size of 45 X 45, which is a bit smaller than I’d like. So, I’ll likely be adding a border and a legend to make it all just a bit bigger.

Here’s another fun thing: I’ve never been much of a weather girl. I usually figure I’ll know it when I see/feel it LOL. But it’s been fascinating this first week to pay attention. We started the week at 64 degrees for the high, and one day had 18 as the high. We’ve had rain, partly cloudy, cloudy and snow. I think it’s going to be quite fun to watch the year progress in weather. Hope you enjoy following along!

Cheers!

 

Funday Friday: Scrappy Fabric Galentine’s

Hello friends! It’s Friday and that means it’s time to put on your party hats and kick up the fun.

Let’s talk Galentne’s. Yep, ya heard me: Galentine’s  let’s face it, February 14 isn’t just for Cupid and romance. It’s a time to celebrate love and kindness and friendship. Your gals. Your pals. Your tribe.
And let’s really face it: if I made a sweet little Valentines like one of these for my hubs he’d be l ike “Uh. It’s cute?” Right?

I am taking a handmade journal class with Wendy Schkolnick Solganik (@willa.wanders over on Insta) and have been introduced to the wonders of Pellon 72F double-sided fusible stabilizer. I’ve been using the lightweight double fusible interfacing for appliqué for the better part of a year now, but this stuff is super thick and well, stable. (Amazing how that works!) While I bought it mostly to make a journal cover, I thought it’d be fun to try using it for other things. Like some Valentine’s.

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to follow along:

      • Fabrics for the scrappy top
      • Fabric for the back
      • Fabric to stamp
      • stayzOn ink – or other permanent ink
      • Pellon Peltex 72F double-sided fusible stabilizer
      • Pencil
      • Scissors
      • Iron
      • Buttons, ribbons, etc. to decorate
      • Sewing machine or needles and thread to hand stitch

I bought this vintage-looking fabric last year to make some masks with and never did. If you know anything about me: you know that I’m more of a bright and happy colored kind of girl. But peeps, my soul wants to soft and vintage-y and dainty. So I bought this fabric….and the promptly didn’t make it into anything. It’s PERFECT for this project however. I did want a scrappy look, so even though the fabric looks like several little pieces of fabric together, I decided to cut it up so that I could stitch it back together.

Let’s take a look at the process:

  1. Cut a few squarish shapes from your Pellon (mine were about 4 inches x 5 inches).
  2. Draw a heart shape on one side as a template for you to cut later.
  3. Take your fabric scraps and arrange it in a pleasing design and iron in place. A few notes:
    • I laid this out on the side where I didn’t draw a heart so I could cut it after I stitched the pieces together.
    • I overlapped my pieces a bit to make sure that I didn’t have any exposed pieces of Pellon showing after I ironed it.
    • I ironed on my kraft mat because the Pellon is double-sided fusible. If you don’t have a craft mat like this, you can use freezer paper – something to ensure that you don’t stick the Pellon down to your ironing board.
    • Stitch the pieces together using decorative stitches. I used my free-motion embroidery foot on my sewing machine. You could also use decorative hand stitching.
    • Cut the heart shape out.
    • Iron your backing fabric on to the heart. I did stitch once all the way around to secure the backing fabric.
    • Trim the excess backing fabric.
    • Embellish how you like. Here’s what I did:
      • I took some duck cloth and ripped it to get those lovely frayed edges
      • Using StazyOn ink, I stamped some sentiments directly onto the fabric.
      • I stitched them to my heart using a contrasting thread. (Truth be told, I wish I had done this all over. I was trying to go for that calm, simple, scrappy vibe. But I’m fighting my desire to see that messy doodled line here!!)
      • I created a little felt flower to add to the heart as well. To attach, I crazy stitched the center of the flower.
      • You could add trim, pins, buttons – get creative!

Hope this inspires you to create something sweet and fun for all the lovely ladies in your life whom you appreciate. Until next time – happy creating!

Funday Friday: Coffee Cup Gift card holder

HELLOOOOO! And welcome to my first official Funday Friday. I thought I’d kick this one off with a downloadable freebie to make a gift card holder. With Valentine’s Day coming up, I thought these would make fun little gifts to send to some friends in their Kindness Kits. If you’d like to download the template and follow along with these instructions, you can do that here.

As you probably know by now, I like to dabble in lots of different mediums, so I thought it would be fun to make this template three ways. I’ve made this gift card holder using scrapbook paper with my favorite glue, watercolor paper with machine stitching and felt with hand stitching.

Cardstock gift card holder

Let’s take a look at the easiest, no-stitch scrapbook/cardstock paper version. All you need is some paper, scissors and your favorite adhesive, a black pen — and if you’ve got a circle tab you can use that too! Don’t have a circle tag? No worries – you can skip it or cut a circle out of a piece of contrasting paper. For this one, I used two pieces of each part of the template except the heart (I only used one):

  1. Cut the template shapes from the downloaded file and trace on to your card stock or paper.
  2. Cut two of each shape except the heart (you only need one.) I used two pieces of card stock for the base to stabilize it and because I wanted the lid to cover both sides of the cup base.
  3. Adhere the two cup bases together.
  4. Adhere the lid to one side, with about .25 inch, flip it over and adhere the second lid to the back, lining it up to the front.
  5. Adhere the sleeves onto both sides. Make sure to only add adhesive to the very left and right edges of the sleeve on the front, so you can fit the gift card through.
  6. Adhere the heart to the circle tag, if using, and add to the sleeve. I used a bit of 3D tape to pop the heart up a little, giving it a bit of dimension. You could certainly stop here, but I went in with a Micron pen and added some doodling and lines around the the whole thing.
  7. Slide the gift card into the sleeve!

Watercolor paper gift card holder

For this one, I pulled out my favorite watercolors and used my sewing machine. It came together pretty quickly.

  1. Trace and cut one piece of each shape out of your water color paper. (You can also trace first, paint and then cut). Because I’m using 140# cold pressed paper, it’s pretty stable, so I didn’t use two pages. If you want to hide your stitches on the back, feel free to cut a second base and lid and glue after you’re done stitching. But I love to see the stitching on both sides!
  2. With your favorite watercolors, paint designs on each piece. Consider how they will work together once layered.
  3. Once dry, I outlined my designs with a Micon pen.
  4. Take it to your machine and stitch away. First, stitch the heart to the sleeve. Then stitch the lid to the top, overlapping about .25 of an inch. Finally, stitch up the sides of the sleeve. I actually added decorative stitching all the way around, but you could add it just to the sleeve. I love how the stitching mimics the doodling on my scrapbook paper version.
  5. Slide the gift card into the sleeve!

Felt gift card holder

I used hand stitching on this version because it’s just so adorable. You could certainly stitch it by machine – or even use fabric glue if sewing and stitching isn’t your thing.

  1. Trace and cut shapes out of felt. I used a “premium” version for the cup base which is pretty thick. I cut one piece of each shape except the lid – I cut two of those. Again, I want to hide where the lid overlaps the cup.
  2. Add any decorative stitching you’d like. Here’s what I did with mine:
    • Stitched the heart to the sleeve using a quick little whip stitch.
    • Added a blanket stitch to the top and bottom of the sleeve.
    • Placed the sleeve on top of the cup base and added a blanket stitch around the three sides (remember, the top will be covered with the lid.
    • Sandwiched the cup base between the two lids with a .25 inch overlap. Added a blanket stitch all the way around the lid.
  3. Slide your gift card into the sleeve!

I love how one pattern can create three very different results. Download the template, shop your stash and create your very own Valentine gift card today. I’d love to see what you create – use #50fundayfridays so we all can follow along.

Until next Friday – happy creating!

 

Sewing masks for Cincy

I’ve had a sewing machine for nearly 25 years. Mike bought it for me as a gift because I had grandiose ideas of making all of my kids’ Halloween costumes. We had one kid – and the machine sat unused for about ten years. At which point, I decided to pull it out and use it to sew paper. I LOVED stitching on layouts and cards and handmade papers. Never made a Halloween costume. Never used it to sew fabric.

Ever.

The other day, I saw a friend from high school post how she’s making masks for her family and community. She inspired me to rethink my sewing machine and actually use it to sew fabric. (Novel, I know!)

I did some research and found a great local organization called Sew Masks 4 Cincy. They are collecting masks for frontline workers at Tri-Health and other local area hospitals. So I decided to give it a try.

N95 Maks CoverMy first attempt was a mask to fit over the N95 which would prolong their usability. Here’s what I learned:

  • There’s a reason I don’t call myself a seamstress
  • I can’t pin without poking myself so now I’m on a mission to find the mini clothespins from my scrapbooking stash
  • The binding tape worked perfectly (yay)
  • I was lazy and didn’t change the bobbin thread…and if I could only remember to keep the same side facing up, it would look really cool.
  • This one won’t be useable, but I will try again until I get it right

My second attempt, a pleated mask with room for a filter, was much better, but my fabric was upside down for the pleats.

It took me three attempts to produce a decent mask, but it was so worth the effort. Mike has to wear a new one every day, and I’m committing to making at least 50 for sewmasks4cincy.org

More than anything, I’m super pumped to have gotten more comfortable with my sewing machine and have finally used it for its intended purpose. I am looking forward to experimenting with other projects!