Gift quilt.

I mailed off my first gift quilt last Friday and hopefully the new owner will open the box before she reads this! You've actually seen this quilt here before because I made two of them (thanks to bad math when cutting out all the pieces) so I was excited to have a reason to give one away!

Sweet Baby Ryelle (a.k.a. the unnamed, unborn, they-are-keeping-the-sex-a-secret child of Dani and Ryan) will hopefully have a snuggly first winter with this quilt. Since I don't know the sex, I thought it was safe to do something that wasn't so "baby-ish" and though it is mostly blue, there are some fun pops of red and yellow in there too so it should work (I hope!). This is also a design that I came up with pretty off the top of my head after seeing something mildly similar somewhere else.

This is the whole quilt. It is a square...about 45 or 50 inches on each side. 

I decided to sew a stripe of material on the back too to give it a little more dimension. While this quilt isn't perfect (don't look too closely at the quilting!), I'm pretty proud of it. 

I hand sewed the binding on which takes forever and makes my fingers tired but it is so absolutely worth every single stitch. I love the way it looks so finished on the edges. 

Baby Ryelle, you are so loved and hoped for and prayed over!

 I can't wait to meet your sweet little face. 

Good times.

I spent Friday night and all day Saturday at our GS camp in Knoxville teaching girls about the Gold Award. It is always gratifying to be able to answer their questions, challenge them to dream a little bigger, and encourage them to achieve the highest award possible in our organization. This group was a little challenging - not very talkative and looking intimidated by the process - but I think we made some progress. And, they know how to find us when they are ready to ask questions - they can put a name with an email address or phone number so maybe WE will be less intimidating!

Chad is working today so we just had lunch with J and he headed to the hospital for work. It is raining and nasty outside so my plans include lit candles for a good smelling house, working a little more on cleaning out the craft/spare room, starting some Christmas craft projects, cleaning up the kitchen, and maybe a little movie watching. It is going to be a good afternoon.

Then, I have tomorrow off work too! We will do a little bathroom tiling - its coming along slowly but surely - and then a trip to the animal shelter to look at dogs. Someone we know (NOT THIS HOUSE) might be getting a dog for Christmas! I'm excited! Of course, it takes everything in my power to not come home with another cat - I just remind myself how much food costs and how much the annual vet bills are and then I remember why we have cats and dogs instead of kids and I think, why not one more? :)

Band-aid holder tutorial

The tutorial I promised on Dad's Christmas present is finally here. Blogger hasn't let me load pictures for a while so I am just getting around to it but hopefully it will be fun and helpful!

This would be a great gift for just about anyone and - seriously! - isn't that hard to make!

 

So, the original idea came from this bandaid kit that I carry in my first aid stuff (to camp, hiking, etc.) It is a Nexcare Brand thing and is super handy because it holds lots of sizes of bandages along with a larger pocket (seen bottom left) that can hold guaze as well.

For the measurements, you can make it as large or as small as you like, depending on your needs. My dad needs lots of bandaids so I decided to mimic the sample pretty closely (and because I have trouble thinking outside the box sometimes to create something different the first time!). The sample is 8 inches tall by 9 inches wide so that is what I aimed for.

Here is everything you will need:

- fabric for the outside, inside, and pocket

( I chose a simple blue cotton for outside and pockets and a dots fabric for inside.)

- one piece of interfacing (we will discuss this later)

- a small hair elastic (the easiest elastic you can use!)

- a button (shape, color and size is your call!)

- thread (color your call. I used an all purpose blue.)

Here are all the pieces cut out:

- dot inside (approximately 8.5 inches by 9.5 inches - to give myself some leeway on seams)

- blue outside (8.5 inches by 9.5 inches - same measurements)

- two inside pockets (these are 9.5 inches by approx. 4 inches)

- interfacing (also cut at about 8.5 inches by 9.5 inches - you will trim some of this off later)

 

 

To make the inside pockets:

Fold one long side down about a quarter of an inch, twice (so you have a pretty top to the pocket later). Sew straight down the folded edge to keep the two folds laying flat and looking nice, as seen in the photo above. Set these aside.

Interfacing:

I tend to purchase the heat bond style - meaning it has one rough side that adhears to other fabrics when heated with an iron. If you don't purchase that kind, I suggest using a spray set adhesive as seen above. Either way, lay your interfacing on your outside fabric (wrong sides together if you chose a fabric that has a wrong side/right side). Mine is just a solid cotton so it didn't matter. Iron on (this means, the interfacing is now attached to the back of the outer piece of fabric). Set aside.

 

Full honesty here: I messed up on one piece of fabric so I cut another dots piece and adhered my interfacing to that one instead. See pictures below...

In this picture, the interfacing is ironed to the back side (wrong side) of the dots cotton and is touching the table. Now you are going to stack all of your pieces so you can iron them together.

Here is how the sandwich goes:

- Interfacing on table with dots ironed on top facing up

- lay your pockets (with sewn edges, remember those?) on top of the dots with the "bad side"/the side you turned under to make the seam at the top, facing down towards the dots. These should be lined up with the outsides edges of the dots fabric with a space in the middle, see photo above and below.

- lay your top layer (my blue layer that is the final outside) on top of all of that

 

Another photos of layers laying together.

If you want to pin the layers together, you can (and should if you are worried about them slipping).

I didn't. :)

Start on either side of the "package" of layers and start sewing all the layers together. I allowed about a quarter of an inch seam allowance, or the width of the foot on my sewing machine.

Stop sewing when you get to one side/end (where the pocket is - see photo above).

Grab your hair elastic and lay it between the layers with just a bit sticking out (between the pocket and the outer layer so when you turn everything you have the majority to use on the outside. Everything you see here will eventually be the inside of the bandaid holder.

(If you got the elastics that have a metal bar in the middle, make sure to have that be the bit on the inside when you are finished. Meaning, make sure that is the little bit sticking out on the right in the picture above. Mine do have a glued seam so I have that sticking out to the right too.)

Close the layers back up (over the elastic) and sew across that area. Be careful that your machine doesn't get stuck on the elastic - you might have to "help it" across. I usually go back over this area twice (back up across once and then just go forward again).

Once you have sewn your elastic down, finish sewing the rest of the way around the edge of the layers but MAKE SURE you leave a gap (See photo above). I leaft about a 2 or 3 inch gap and back stiched both ends of my sewing. This is how you will turn everything right-sides out.

 

Trim any edges cleanly, close to the stiching (but not so close you cut stiching).

About an 8th of an inch is good.

I can't sew straight sometimes so I had a edge to trim on one side more than the other!

Trim your corners off, being careful - again - not to cut into stiching.

This will help your corner lay pretty once you turn it rightside out.

Now you get to actually turn it right sides out! Stuff stuff, tug tug - till everything is laying how it should be. I usually use a pen or pencil to push up into the corners to get everything stuffed out the way it should be.

Corners poked out nicely with something semi sharp. I think there is actually a tool for this but I don't own it - a pen or pencil works just fine - sometimes I even use a chopstick. :)

I usually like to give it a good iron at this to get my seams laying flat.

You now have an open slot in one edge. Tuck those layers in so the hole is closed up and iron again.

The next step is top stitching so that hole will get closed then...

 

Once you have ironed your hole closed, go around and top stich the edge of the entire project. This means you stich fairly close to the edge all the way around. Not only does it make it look professional and finished but it makes it lay flatter and closes up that hole you used to turn everything out. See the top of the picture above to see how close to the edge I stiched.

I also stiched straight down the center of the project (seen in photo above too). This helps it fold in half a bit better and is just another thoughtful touch.

Once  you have top stiched, your pony tail elastic should be hanging out one side. Fold it over and mark where you would like your button to fall - keep it tight but not so tight that once you sew your button on that it cinches it down.

Sew your button on with a needle and thread. Make sure you aren't sewing your pocket down at the same time. You need to pull your pocket back to sew it on.

Open your holder back up and sew down both sides of the button. Now you are working on making the dividers for the bandaids. I do this step first because you want to make sure your button is centered (this sewing it on first) but also that it won't be in the way when you are sewing more dividers next.

 

 

I chose my divider size by literally laying out bandaids and guaze and just sewing up from there. I sewed from the bottom edge of the holder to the top of the pocket. See photo above and below.

More dividers. Use bandaids for widths. 

 

And you're done!

Ta da!

You now have a nice banaid holder for a gift or for your car, diaper bag, or purse! 

 

Ask questions in the comments if something didn't make sense!

Enjoy!

A Christmas Craft = 3 blogs in a day.

This is my 3rd blog today. You are welcome.

I made these for a little Christmas decor where there was lacking in the house...it is across from the tree so this side of the room looked so sad!

Don't be jealous.

Again, sorry for the blown out flash picture. It gets dark way too early for nice daylight pictures these days!

Master Bathroom Renovation - Day 1

If I haven't mentioned it before, we are beginning the process of renovating our master bathroom. Not sure why it is called a master because it is super teenie - same size as our hall bathroom - but it is the only one in a bedroom so I guess that makes it the master. We will eventually renovate both bathrooms and the kitchen because the people who "flipped" our house (a realtor and her brother) did an absolutely terrible job on most things. Mainly, they made cosmetic fixes instead of actually fixing the problem leaving us with a leaking roof (who's stains they painted over), and 3 layers of tile on the bathroom walls, among other things. I guess it means that we get to a bathroom that we love so it will eventually be OK. We've saved for this for a while so we are attempting to do it with no debt and then we will save again for the next bathroom and kitchen, etc.

Anyway, today was Day #1. I am not sure why we decided it was a good idea to demo a bathroom after inviting my entire family up for Christmas but it's fine. In all honesty, the "dirty work" will hopefully be done the end of this weekend (meaning most of the demo in the shower area). We won't be finished by the time they come up because it is going to probably take us a couple of months of weekends to finish our weekend warrior project. Today we tore down 2 layers of tile with drywall between each layer. I guess I can't blame the cruddy job on the flippers because someone before them obviously did the same thing. Either way, the bottom layer is a plastic tile, very thin, so it will just come off with the last layer of drywall. The walls have been patched so many times that we are just going to take it down to the studs on 3 walls. The 4th wall is the outside wall of the house and has a window so we should just be able to sand and make that one look nice. 8 bags of trash later and we are on our way. I've taken before and during pictures so far so one day I will show you the ewwwww that is the inside of the wall. :)

I made it myself!

My grandmother had this really awesome thing hanging near her clothes lines down in South GA. and we are trying to save energy and hang our clothes outside too (when the weather cooperates - ask me about last week's very, very wet clothes!!). I only used what memories I have of her clever clothespin holder but hopefully I would have done her proud. Hers had a hanger in the inside that went through a hole at the top but I thought a pants hanger with clips would be easier and would hold plenty of weight. Clothes pins don't weigh that much anyway!  So, two pieces of coordinating fabric out of my scrap stash and a pants hanger from a Walmart 3-pack at around $1.25 each made for a really inexpensive solution! 

busy.

I apologize for my lack of words recently. I have been busy trying to be a good wife/nurse, go to work, keep the house clean, and general trying-not-to-lose-my-mind busyness. Things are going well here...we got another light dusting of snow today but I think most of it centered a little farther south (I heard that my parents got a nice bit from a too-cute text message from my mom...). I am off work tomorrow and I get to spend the next two full days with Chad and I could not be more excited.
I had these great plans for his valentine's present...he has some really neat photography that he has taken - close ups of flowers and water droplets on plants. I copied them onto a CD and was going to take them to work with me and get them printed at Wolf Camera after work. Well...I accidentally left the pictures pulled up on my computer and Chad saw them while I was gone. So, basically he knows what I am doing for him and so I told him he could come help me pick out mats and stuff for it tomorrow. I still want to do something for him that is a surprise but I am literally out of ideas...help me out folks!