Mug rug and napkins

This year for Christmas I made a couple of gifts. 

A mug rug for my Secret Santa. I used Christmas fabrics and a tumbler template. 

And a set of six napkins for a friend. I was lucky enough to find a fabric with colors that go in her home.

Homemade lotion and lip balm

A friend pointed me to a lotion recipe on wellnessmama.com. She had given me some in the past as a gift, and I loved it. But I had run out so it was time to make some myself.

I used equal parts beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil (maybe a little less oil).

I mixed it together and heated until it was melted and then added a few drops of the oils I wanted.

I got two lavender lotions, one peppermint lotion and two peppermint lip balms. This works great for me on dry hands especially during the winter. 

Rosary Zipper Bag

I saw this fabric and knew it would be perfect to make a small bag for my rosary. 

It's about 3x4 and is the smallest I've made so far. And it fits just right in my purse.

I need to make up a couple more of this size to help manage the rest of the smaller things that fall to the bottom of my purse.

Lavender scented hand warmers

I was reading some quilting blogs and ran across this idea for hand warmers. I've made some neck warmers with rice in the past but never thought about making mini ones...especially with a quilt top.

I knew I kept all those tiny scraps for a reason. I put a quarter down for comparison. 

I sewed up some half-square triangles for two of them, and scrappy tops for three more. I put a layer of cotton batting on the back and stitched in the ditch to hold it in place.

I put the front and back right sides together, stitched them together leaving a small opening and turned them right side out. 

I used my lavender essential oil to scent the rice and filled them a little more than halfway. Just the perfect calming scent.

Five finished hand warmers. Definitely not the best picture. Didn't realize it was bad until after I'd given them away and couldn't take another. 

They made the perfect Valentine's Day gifts.

This was a really fun project, and I definitely want to work more with minis. It just might be my next quilting addiction. The patterns are endless. I also saw ideas for pin cushions just like this but the filling is different. Some used crushed walnuts and others polyester fiberfill. I need to do some experimenting.

Zipper Bags

I had been seeing lots of zipper bags on Pinterest. They looked fairly simple and would work great as storage for my essential oils, makeup, and smaller items in my purse. 

I made the first one in the same fabric as my sister's tote bag. After looking at several patterns, I used parts of three of them to make mine. 

I sewed fabric tabs onto the ends of the zippers so there's no sewing into the seam allowance. Then each side with lining is sewn to the zippers.

I used coordinating fabric for the lining and also fusible fleece to add padding to the bags. The pieces of the bags are sewn wrong sides together and then turned out thru a section of lining that was left open. The lining is sewn shut and put inside the bag.

Picking out fabric was the best part. 

I made up a few to sell and then a friend of a friend wanted lots and lots so I made them up for her.

I also made up some fabric holders for the oils. Each bag holds ten 15-ml oil bottles. 

More bags.

The two bags in the front (brown/orange and gray/pink) are smaller bags. Instead of removable inserts like the larger bags, I sewed elastic in them to hold five 5-ml oil bottles. 

Here's the inside of a small bag.

And finally I made a pencil bag for a couple of my favorite kiddos.  

Birthday Tote Bag

It's been way too long since I posted. Time to get back at it and update you on some of my recent projects.

I had made myself a tote bag a few months ago. When it came time for Lisa's birthday, I decided to make one for her. I admit I picked the fabrics because I loved them, but I knew she would too. 

It was much easier to make the second bag since I now had experience with adding a lining. 

I also made a small makeup bag to match. 

Happy Birthday, Lisa!!

Log Cabin Wallhanging

A few years ago I made this wall hanging for my sewing room. I was going to teach myself to hand quilt. Well, after five years, I knew that I wasn't going to do that. I've started to do machine quilting on small projects, and I like the idea of faster completion. And my eyes just don't like to do hand stitching anymore. Binding quilts is enough for me.

I blogged about it here.

I made the usual quilt sandwich with some basting spray.

Machine quilted it and bound it.

And hung it in my sewing room. 

Tote Bag

I found this tote bag pattern on Fort Worth Fabric Studio's blog. I hadn't ever made a bag with lining before, but I knew I was up to the challenge.

 I found some fabric (really like the larger design) and then had to work with interfacing and fusible fleece. Since I've become more of a quilter over the years, this was new too. Just had to follow the instructions....very easy.

 Added some box corners.

 Made the lining the same as the outside and then sewed them together. I'm missing some pictures of a few of the steps. By the dates on the pictures, I'm guessing I got sidetracked by another project so no wonder I forgot to get pics.

 The lining was pushed inside the bag and topstitched around the top edge to hold it in place. 

I made a couple of tweaks to the pattern. I made the handles a couple inches longer and also added a pocket on the inside. 

You can never have too many bags, and I love this one!

Half Square Triangles Baby Girl Quilt

I'm finally posting on a baby girl quilt I made last year. The baby was born and the gift has been given.

I had so much fun picking out the fabrics. 

It was my first quilt made out of all half square triangles. I cut the squares and then randomly sewed them together with a diagonal seam and then cut them in half.

I got a new quilting tool to help with squaring them up. I love it. So much easier to trim two sides before I pressed them open and then have to trim all four sides.

And it's all sewn together.

I'm still working on my machine quilting, and this was a perfect project for it since I could do straight lines.  I put the backing on the floor.....

...and spray basted all three layers together.

I quilted a quarter of an inch from each seam.

The back.

Love the polka dot binding.

Learning to machine quilt #2

Since machine quilting the potholders went smoothly, I started on the Christmas table runners that I wrote about earlier.

I put the fabric backing down on some newspaper so I could use the basting spray and not get it all over the floor.

I had done a lot of reading about basting quilts and decided to use basting spray instead of pinning the layers together. I lightly sprayed the backing fabric and then put down the batting, making sure it was smooth.

Next was the top.

And I ended up with a quilt sandwich.

Another quilting tip that I found in my research was to use masking tape instead of using a marking pencil for the lines.

I used that for a while and then switched to painter's tape which is less tacky. I used my walking foot to sew and just followed along the edge of the tape, and I ended up with a perfectly straight line.

And just one time I sewed on the wrong side of the tape and the spacing was off. :-)

I quilted each table runner with a different degree of angles.

One of the finished projects.