I ran across Virginia Lindsay’s book “Sewing to Sell” at the library and instantly fell in love with her style and fabric combinations. (You can find her website at Gingercake.org) I love all the fabulous projects she shares because they are the kinds of ideas I love to sew and they are at a similar skill level as I am. She also shows how to get the most out of your fabric. (I have a thing about using fabric efficiently and am always resizing my patterns to have the least amount of scraps!) She has drawings of how…
I have this cute lap quilt hanging on my quilt rack near my sewing machine table and it makes me smile every time I see it. I made it a years ago with a simple modified Irish chain pattern. The size and pattern were dictated by the amount of feature fabric I purchased. The featured fabric is Alexander Henry “Sew Now Sew Wow.” It’s from 2008, but you can still purchase pieces online in various colorways. I don’t usually go for such large and wild prints, but this spoke to my love of sewing. And to make it…
As the school year is finishing up for my kids and I’m helping them make their lunches, I think about all plastic sandwich bags we’ve used and wonder how could I make reusable lunch bags. Before you think about the potential of ickiness with kids / food / reusing bags, think of cleaning them as you do the kids’ lunch bags. Either turning them inside out and rinsing with soapy water and drying, or run them through the wash. The pattern I created uses French seams to help avoid food from getting caught in fabric folds. I also don’t…
Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms! While celebrating with my mom this year, I remembered a gift I had given to her a couple years ago – a small quilted wall hanging that hangs in her bedroom. It celebrates her gift of love to me, and my appreciation for all that she has taught me. The design sprang from using triangle scraps from another project. I couldn’t let myself throw out these beautiful batik and cream triangles all neatly stacked up, so I sewed them together and saved them as strips. I began with the two…