My Amazing New Seam Ripper

Look what my husband made me! It's a hand turned seam ripper. Boy do I feel special. It sure takes the sting out of needing to rip a seam let me tell you! It's a beautiful colored aqua acrylester. This seam ripper is substantially sized. It's about 4 3/4" long and 1/2" wide. It will be much harder to lose than my other tiny plastic one. Plus it's pretty and made with love so it makes me smile.

While he was at it, he made a few more! There is a red and white swirl, a multicolored swirl and a pink seam ripper too. They have a cap which you pull off, turn over, reinstert, and voila...


you have a seam ripper. The extras are in my shop. It won't break my heart if they don't sell because I could use more. I am constantly losing my seam rippers. I have suggested that he devise a seam ripper tracking system and he said he'd get right on it. I wouldn't put it past him either.

On Penguins and Earring Trees

There have been a lot of birthday parties lately and I made gifts for a couple of them. One of my son's best friends just turned 8 and recently got her ears pierced. Her mom suggested a need for something to hold her earrings. I sketched this design, inspired by Doohickey Designs by Riley Blake. My husband cut the wood and then I painted it. I hear that it was a hit.

I made this raw edge applique penguin pillow for my daughter's friend who just turned 6. He is very interested in the Arctic and penguins in particular, so much so that he attempted to lead his preschool class on an Arctic expedition right out of the playground this winter. Luckily, the teachers stopped them in time! This pillow provided an opportunity to try my first attempts at pebble quilting. I thought it would add a little texture to the ground. I would like to practice some more because I love the look of pebble quilting but it intimidates me.
Party gifts are always fun.

More Laminate!

I can't stop myself. I made one more Ruched Happy Bag. I used Queen Street laminate and cotton again. I love the pinks!



Once again, I used the laminate inside and for the focal band. This little bag, with it's water resistant properties, would be great for holding your cell phone and wallet pool side. Don't you think?



If you'd like to enter my giveaway for a free pdf Ruched Happy Bag pattern, check out the post below.

Sewing with Laminates Mini Tutorial and a Giveaway!

Have you ever sewn with laminates? I hadn't until yesterday. I had some beautiful Queen Street laminate and quilting cotton by Jennifer Paganelli and decided to try them out using my new "Ruched Happy Bag" pattern. The pattern is available in pdf form from my Etsy shop.


The bag is lined with laminate in case of cosmetic bottle spills.



I also used the laminate for the bag's focal band for a little bit of shine and interest.



The band was fussy cut to center the design. I love the look that gives. It's worth the little extra effort and tiny bit of fabric waste. I used quilting cotton for the back of the bag and for the ruched/gathered bottom. I am sure it would have been possible to use laminate but I like a softer feel to the gathers.

I learned a thing or two when attempting to sew with laminate for the first time and thought I would pass along these pointers!

Sewing With Laminates Mini Tutorial


First off, laminate punctured with pin holes loses it's water resistant properties! You can use fabric glues to hold your fabric in place when stitching but I didn't have any on hand. Instead, I pinned within the 1/4" seam allowance.



You can't iron laminates or they will melt. You can press with your fingernails but I also found that using a Hera marker as a bone folder worked well.



And finally, you need a Teflon presser foot to sew on laminates. Otherwise they stick and drag on your presser foot. I didn't have a Teflon foot so I settled for another solution that worked just fine for a small project like this. I placed tissue paper over my project and then stitched. I also lengthened my stitch length to 3.0 which looks nicer for top stitching and makes it easier when tearing away the tissue.



I was able to see clearly through the tissue and edge stitch quite nicely.



Simply tear off the paper and you are all set. This is where it gets a little annoying. Some tissue will stick on the stitches and you will have to pick it out with your fingernails. I'd buy a Teflon foot if I were sewing a raincoat but for this project, it is completely unnecessary. When sewing with laminate on both the top and bottom, I placed the tissue under the project AND on top.
I hope these hints were helpful.



To celebrate the release of my "Ruched Happy Bag" pattern, I'd like to offer a little giveaway. I will give away one copy of my pdf pattern on Saturday, July 2nd. You may enter by leaving a comment telling me what you like best in my shop. Leave a second comment if you are a follower.

The Name Game

I feel so honored. My friend Cindy invited me to play the name game on her blog today. Go on and take a peek. If you read my blog, you know me well enough, but it's a great chance to meet Cindy if you haven't already. She has been such a great supporter of my work, as she admitted, purchasing enough printed fabric to be considered an official collector. She's one busy lady. She bounces from one big quilting project to the next and back again like nobody's business. Thanks for the invite Cindy!

22 Free Patterns!

Only one person could win the GO!baby. I felt terrible. I had to break over 200 hearts. It was fun to help make one person's day though!
Now AccuQuilt is giving away 22 free patterns to everyone. Click on the image above to check it out!

After the Rain Garden Post

Well, I was only able to take two new pictures of the garden this week before the rain began. This white tea rose opened; the first bloom on this plant for the season!

This picture shows that the globe thistle will be blooming soon. And then it rained, quite hard at times, for four days straight! Yesterday my husband took the camera and went out into the yard and took some close up pictures of flowers after the rain. I do have those to show you.

This is the head of a Walking Onion. Last week, I was corrected. This plant is edible! My neighbor, who gave me the plant, told me it was not. That's the last time I listen to him!

This honey bee is busy on the last bit of lupine.

The daylilies are just beginning to bloom which has me all excited! I have a collection of somewhat unusual daylilies which I can show you over the next month or so. This daylily was planted by the former owners beside the barn. I don't know it's name.

This is a view of a tree beside our barn. We think it is an elderberry. Scratch that, we were first told it was elderberry but now think it is a mulberry. Then I read that mulberry is invasive so maybe we should cut it down. Can anyone confirm?

Here are the pretty berries on the honeysuckle.

This is a donkeytail sedum reaching over the rock wall.

And here is the top of the allium that I showed you in full bloom a couple of weeks ago. It still looks facinating even as it fades.

And here is one of our three resident rodent chasers that help my garden thrive! Meet our barn cat Licorice.

I keep forgetting to mention that this is the first year that I have seen hummingbirds in the yard on a daily basis. I have tried to attract them for years with a different hummingbird feeder and with my plantings. Last year, I received this feeder from my sister in law for my birthday and it seems to have done the trick! I have seen them at the feeder as well as in the garden. My daughter told me that they were seeing hummingbirds at the preschool feeder quite early in the season when the temps were still on the verge of freezing at night. I was surprised but went ahead and hung the feeder. Maybe my success could be attributed to getting the feeder out earlier in the season? I am not sure but I will put this feeder out early again next year because I am loving it!

Please link up your garden pictures here. Everyone is welcome!

GO!baby Winner!

And the winner of the big AccuQuilt giveaway is......

171 Dianne said...
I love your blog and would love to win this Go Baby. Thanks so much to you and Accuquilt for putting it out there!

Congratulations Dianne! You are the winner of a fantastic GO!baby and your choice of 3 dies! I have to tell you that it warms my heart that you took the time to say that you love my blog too (not just "I want to win!") I appreciate that!

Try not to stress too much over the die selection. That's the hard part. There are so many choices that it is hard to pick just three!

Enjoy!

Ruched Happy Bag Pattern

I received a lot of positive feedback on the little ruched/gathered bag that I made a couple of weeks ago so I decided to write my first official pattern! It is now available in my Etsy shop.



I designed this pattern to highlight just a small piece of "My Happy Place," my hand printed screen print of little houses and apple trees. So often we have special pieces of material that we hate to cut into yet want to see everyday. This bag is the perfect way to highlight that special fabric and you only need to use a tiny piece!



The "Ruched Happy Bag" is a fully lined, zippered bag featuring a focal band with a ruched bottom and softly rounded corners below. It measures approximately 6” (15.2cm) high x 9” long(22.9cm). Did you see how I included metric measurements there? That's thanks to one of my terrific pattern testers who lives in the UK. She kindly reminded me that not everyone uses inches and yards so I have included metric measurements and printing instructions to make sure that those in Europe are able to print their patterns to scale.

You may sell bags made with this pattern provided you include a tag line and are sewing them yourself, not commercially mass producing them.

I hope that you enjoy making this little bag as much as I do! I'd love to see your pictures of completed projects added to my During Quiet Time Flickr Group. I will make sure to comment on each and every one!

Yoyo Along

I got sucked into Penny's Yoyo Along. I have no expectation of being able to keep up with her pace of 7 yoyos a day. In fact, I am already behind. I have a sum total of 6. I just started yesterday and plan to make them here and there when watching movies or away from the house due to summer activities. Yoyos aren't just for old ladies right??? Please agree.

Eyeglass Case or Pen Sleeve Tutorial

A lovely lady named Margaret asked me to write up a tutorial for the pen sleeve that I made a few weeks ago. While thinking about that, I realized that I should combine it with an eyeglass case tutorial as I use the same construction methods for both.

You can make either following the same steps but using a pattern with different dimensions.

Click here for the pattern pieces and here for the directions.

Please remember that I hadn't planned on writing a tutorial so the photos are scarce but I hope the directions are clear!

Click here to enter to win a GO!baby!

Win a GO!Baby!

Would you like to win a GO!Baby of your own? AccuQuilt is giving me the chance to give one away to a During Quiet Time reader, along with three dies of your choice!

Simply crank your fabric through...

and out pop perfectly cut pieces, ready to sew. What's not to like?
To enter, please leave one comment. Then check out the AccuQuilt website to see what three dies you would like if you are the lucky winner. The winner will be picked randomly on Saturday morning 6/25. You will want to be prepared, right?

Tipsy!

I was recently offered a GO!baby. I have to admit that I thought that a cutter was completely frivolous, heck, I only own two quilting rulers and yet I find that I can do most everything I need to do with them. Curves are a different story though. If they are not cut precisely, they simply don't line up perfectly and the end result is then less than perfect. I really like perfectly matched seams; I strive for them. So, I chose 2 dies that were curved (and one that was not) and thought I would give it a GO! (he, he, he).
Today, I am sharing a project that I made with the Drunkard's Path die. You simply place the die on a flat surface, layer your fabric, place the cutting mat on top and crank it through the GO! Now, if you like to multitask like I do, you might be slightly disappointed. This will not count as an upper body workout. It is very easy to turn and out pop your perfectly cut pieces with notches to boot!

When trying to decide what to make, I was initially drawn to the floral type patterns made using this quilt block. But before deciding, I wanted to learn about the history of the quilt block. I read that this block was often arranged in a path, suggesting the drunkard's staggering walk. Using contrasting colors, it was used for Temperance quilts. I liked this traditional layout and decided to use it for my pillow. I'm calling my pillow "Tipsy" in reference to the block name. I wanted to stick with the traditional use of two contrasting colors but instead of using one fabric pattern for the drunkard's path, I used three fabrics from the same color family to give it a scrappy look. The background color is Kona Snow.

I added a narrow border and used the same fabric for the pillow backing. The pillow has an invisible zipper and is quilted using some echo quilting. If you'd like step by step directions for making this pillow, click here for the tutorial.

Prior to this project, I had never sewn curved seams for a quilting project. I was chicken. I had sewn curved armholes and neck holes for garments but hadn't tried curved piecing. The GO!baby made my first experience a great one. Thanks to the precise cutting, and the notches, I didn't have to rip out a single seam!
I was concerned about the amount of fabric waste using this cutter. I have to admit that I did not find that I wasted a lot of fabric at all. I would have wasted the same amount if I cut the fabric by hand and by using the cutter, I was more precise and saved a lot of time.
I am looking forward to trying out my other dies! I have a table runner in mind using my Tumbler die!
Thank you Accuquilt! You have a great product.

Garden Post!

I don't feel like I have much to share from my main garden this week. It's looking about the same. Peonies are still in bloom; the Iris have just finished up.

There is a bit of yellow now thanks to the Coreopsis.

I thought I would share a few views from my kitchen garden instead. Right outside the back door, off the kitchen, is our circular driveway. As soon as we moved in, I envisioned a garden in that inner circle. It's perfect for a garden space: nearly full sun, kept heated by the surrounding pavement, and it never needs edging! I call it my kitchen garden and it is full of herbs and cutting flowers. Pictured here is Lavender and yellow Yarrow.

I love this combination of colors, my 'Isla Gold' Tansy with chartreuse foliage, and the purple flowers of the 'Walker's Low' Catmint.

This year, I planted some annual Nasturtiums, just because they are so colorful, and because they are filling the space vacated by my gigantic out of control tarragon plant that I pulled out earlier this spring!

These are Walking Onions, also called Egyptian Onions. They are purely ornamental but seem right at home in a kitchen garden.

I have the circle broken into three sections by gravel paths. The smallest section holds three tea roses. The first roses bloomed this week!

Please, join our garden tour! Just link up your most recent gardening related blog post by clicking where it says "Click here." Also click there if you would just like to visit the other gardens on the tour.

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