Category Archives: Crafts

Late Summer Door Hanger

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I have really liked decorating my front door for various holidays such as Mardi Gras and Easter. Last month I used some fabric from my Independence Day table runners and the Thanksgiving table runners I have started making to create a door decoration for later summer. No holiday to celebrate. Just a celebration of the season and flowers. I found a nice sunflower appliqué, and I added a button to the center, and it created a perfect focus for the hanger.

Late summer door hanger

Sunflower applique on late summer door hanger

Independence Day Table Runners

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Once again, I made table runners for a holiday. The main reason I made them for the 4th of July is simply, as is often the case, I found wonderful fabric with which I wanted to do something.

The narrow table runner is like the Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter table runners I made and is for the buffet. I just used strips of various red, white, and blue fabrics. I used a straight stitch alternating with a star stitch that came preprogrammed on my sewing machine for the quilting. The stars did not exactly space correctly. I am going to buy a dual-feed foot for my machine that can do a wide stitch, as I think that may be (part of) the problem.

The larger, wider table runner is an original design and is for the dining room table. It is obviously inspired by the U.S.A. flag. The proportions are similar but not exactly the same as the flag, as I altered the proportions a bit to make it easier to use 2.5 inch strips. I used a straight stitch to quilt the stripe portion of the flag. I originally wanted to buy an embroidery quilting pattern that I could use for the star field, but I could not find one that was just plain stars, and I don’t know how to design an embroidery pattern, so I ultimately just free-motion quilted stars on the blue field. I kind of like the way it turned out, but I also kind of wish it were a little more uniform. I made a duplicate flag table runner that hasn’t been quilted yet, and I am going to wait to quilt it until I can decide how to make it a little bit more uniform. [I made a duplicate as well as some extra of the more narrow table runner because I have excess fabric. My plan is to eventually try to sell them once I figure out how to do that.]

USA flag table runner

USA flag table runner closeup

Independence Day table runner

Independence Day table runner

Independence Day table runner closeup

Fabric Landscapes

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I have started to just experiment and play with fabric for the purposes of not creating something practical, like a table runner, but art. I have bought fabric, a lot fo fabric really, that I love because the fabric itself is beautiful, but I did not exactly buy it for the purpose of creating something specific. I bought a book “Intuitive Color & Design” by Jean Wells that among other topics discusses cutting fabric without measuring it and just creating.

I wanted to try that a bit with some of the beautiful fabrics I have bought. I started first with a bunch of green and blue batik fabrics. I cut and sewed them in unmeasured strips to sort of resemble a landscape or perhaps something else. I just sort of cut and sewed them in a manner I liked. I then glued the whole piece to a pre-stretched 10 inch by 10 inch canvas.

Blue and green free cut landscape

I rather liked the way it looked, so then I tried something a bit less abstract. I own several paintings by amazing artists whose paintings are quite literally three dimensional. I have both a pointillism and floralism painting by Sara O’Connor. I love her use of color and the way she literally gets the paint to stand up off the canvas. I also have a painting by Diego Lukezic, which he calls floral sculptural paintings. I think the term is appropriate as the paint stands off the canvas. I used their paintings, or at least the ones hanging on my walls, as inspiration for an experimentation with fabric. I cut and sewed a bit more of a simple landscape as before. Although I used a beautiful pattered batik fabric for the foreground that resembles greenery with leaves and flowers. I then cut, sewed, and sculpted fabric strips to somewhat resemble flowers. I hand stitched them to the landscape fabric, and I also sewed a glass bead for the center of each flower. I then glued it to a 10 inch by 10 inch pre-stretched canvas as before, but for this particular piece, and I glued a piece a batting between the fabric and the caves, and I thought that would help soften any issues with the fabric from the flowers sewed onto the landscape. I am rather happy with the way it came out. I want to play some more with this type of art, but it was enjoyable to create.

Blue and green landscape with roses

Up close view of roses on landscape

 

Easter Quilted Decorations

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Last year, I made an Easter wreath for my front door. This year I am sewing up a storm, especially table runners and other decorations. I found some wonderful Easter fabric that I just love (Hop to it from Dear Stella) and some coordinating floral fabrics. I made some Easter table runners plus a door hanging and some pillows with leftover fabric. For my buffet (and for table runners I made for others), I used my go-to pattern of just sewing strips together.

Easter table runners using a strip pattern

Easter table runners using a strip pattern (up close)

For my dining room table, I did something a little different. I sewed some strips together, with the prints 4 inches wide and the solids 2 inches wide. I made three different rectangles with them. I then cut them to look like eggs. I folded the first one in half to make it symmetrical then hand drew an egg half on the fabric then cut. The other two were cut using the first one as a pattern. I then sewed the eggs as appliqués on a solid background when quilting the piece.

Table runner made by sewing strips into a rectangle then cutting to resemble eggs

Table runner made by sewing strips into a rectangle then cutting to resemble eggs (up close)

Table runner made by sewing strips into a rectangle then cutting to resemble eggs (up close)

I used leftover fabric to make a hanging for my front door. I machine embroidered Happy Easter on one piece of fabric. I then used the leftovers from the eggs on the dining room table runner to cut small eggs that I then appliquéd on another piece of fabric. All the eggs are cut from the leftover corners of the rectangles I made that I then cut the big eggs out of for the table runner.

Door hanger with leftover Easter fabric

Then with the fabric I had left, I made some envelope style pillow covers. These fit the same plain pillows for which I made covers for St. Patrick’s Day.

Front of pillows made with leftover Easter fabric

Back of pillows made with leftover Easter fabric

 

Spring Table Runners

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I have really enjoyed making table runners for the holidays. I bought some floral and pastel fabrics initially for Easter, but then I found some Easter fabric that I loved even more. Thus I decided to make a spring table runner for use before it is appropriate to put out Easter decorations. I made two: one for the dining room table and one for the buffet. For the buffet I stuck with the pattern I have used before of just cutting strips and sewing them together. For the table, I made a basket weave type pattern. I wanted to have bigger pieces of some of the beautiful floral fabrics to use as field type fabric. I then cut strips to form a simple basket weave around the fields. Fairly easy, and now I can start to welcome spring.

Spring table runners in pastels

Closeup of table runner for buffet

Closeup of table runner for table with a basket weave pattern.

Closeup of table runner for table with a basket weave pattern.

 

St. Patrick’s Day Quilting

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I have been having a lot of fun making holiday table runners and other decorations, so I decided to make some St. Patrick’s Day decorations. While I am part Irish, decorating for St. Patrick’s Day is really more an excuse to make things with green fabrics. Green is my favorite color. I made a total of two table runners, two pillows, and a door hanger. This may be a bit excessive, but did I mention green is my favorite color? Also I had some leftover shamrock fabric from a sewing project years ago that I wanted to use.

One of the table runners was from a pattern called Lots O’ Luck. The other table runner I made similar to my Mardi Gras table runners by just sewing strips together of various solid green, green patterns, and lots of shamrock fabrics. I  quilted the strip table runner with a stitch my sewing machine had that looks like shamrocks, which was a happy find.

Two St. Patrick’s Day table runners

Close up of St. Patrick’s Day table runner made with green fabric strips

I found a machine embroidery appliqué pattern for a shamrock, so I used that to make pillows along with some shamrock fabric that I had.

Two similar St. Patrick’s Day pillows using a shamrock appliqué and fabric

Finally I made a door hanger using the same machine embroidery appliqué pattern and all the various shamrock fabrics that I had. To a certain degree, I was using up scraps of some of the shamrock fabrics, which somewhat set the design. I also machine embroidered “Happy St. Patrick’s Day” for it.

St. Patrick’s Day door hanger using a shamrock appliqué and fabric

Quilted Wreath

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I like to decorate my front door with wreaths (Halloween, Easter, Mardi Gras, etc.) and other holiday decorations. I bought some spring and Easter fabric for some projects, and two of the floral fabrics in the collection reminded me of cherry blossoms. [The fabrics are from Dear Stella’s Hop to It collection.] The D.C. area loves cherry blossom season, and we are currently waiting for them to bloom in a few weeks. I decided to use those floral fabrics to make a quilted “wreath” for my front door to celebrate the cherry blossoms. The wreath has an approximate outside diameter of 18 inches with an inner diameter of about 6 inches. This is the first project I have made where I attempted to sew on a curve, and it shows, but I continue to practice and improve.

Finished quilted wreath hanging on front door

Making it was fairly simple. I wanted the wreath to be about 18 inches wide in total, and I wanted a 6 inch hole in the middle. That would make the fabric wedges have about a 6 inch radius after being cut. [My math, geometry, and drafting skills came in handy in designing this.] I started with two 9.5 inch squares of each fabric, and then I cut all four blocks on the diagonal.

Fabric squares cut on the diagonal

I then sewed two triangles of the different fabrics together and repeated four times to give me four complete squares.

The two different fabric triangles sewed together to make a square

I sewed all four squares together to give me a classic pinwheel design. I got the pinwheel point near perfect, and I was shocked and ecstatic about that, even though I was going to cut it out.

Complete pinwheel square

I then cut a six diameter circle out of the middle. I had a cutting template for that portion, so that was relatively easy. I couldn’t find a template for an 18 inch diameter circle. Instead I folded the square twice into quarters, measured a 9 inch radius, and then freehanded the cut. It came out fairly well.

Top fabric cut into wreath or donut shape

I then layered the fabric with batting and a bottom fabric and pinned together. I then free-motioned quilted.

Top fabric donut basted with batting and bottom fabric

Once it was quilted, I used the top layer as my guide to cut the batting and bottom fabric to give me a donut shape again.

Quilted sandwich cut into wreath

I added binding and a ribbon with which to hang the wreath. I also added fabric pockets like you would to insert a dowel or similar to hang a quilt. I added four pockets, but it does not work quite as well on a circle. I used wire to make a ring to fit inside the pockets, so that the wreath would keep its shape. I couldn’t get the wire ring to stay inside because the pockets were too shallow and the wire was not stiff enough. Thus I used the old stand-by of safety pins to pin the wire ring to the pockets. Somewhat messy on the back, but it works.

Quilt sandwich with binding and fabric pockets on back to hold wire ring

Mardi Gras Door Decoration

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I’ve made several Mardi Gras table runners just by sewing simple strips, and I also made one table runner using a pattern I bought. Then I had some leftover fabric pieces as well as some fabric I really loved and wanted to use for something special. Also, I had found a really nice fleur de lis cross-stitch pattern while I was in New Orleans, and I wanted to use the cross-stitch for something special. So what to do? I decided to make a quilted piece to hang on my front door. Luckily, my front door is actually a set of double doors because my Mardi Gras wreath is hanging on the other door.

Finished piece hanging on my front door

The centerpiece of the piece is the cross-stitch for which I used Mardi Gras colors. This was a perfect place to display the cross-stitch.

Fleur de lis cross-stitch in Mardi Gras colors

Since I don’t live in New Orleans, I decided perhaps I need to make it completely clear what my decorations are for, so on the absolutely wonderful fabric by Dear Stella that I just love, I machine embroidered “Happy Mardi Gras.” I love the beads on a fence design, and with just a little work to get the spacing right, the white space allowed me to embroider the greeting.

Mardi Gras fabric with “Happy Mardi Gras” machine embroidered on it

Then I just used left over fabric from the table runners to complete the piece. This included the back, which is entirely composed of leftover fabric stitched together.

Back of Mardi Gras door decoration composed of leftover fabric

Mardi Gras Table Runner from Pattern

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I previously made several Mardi Gras table runners using simple strips. These were really easy and a fun way to show off the wonderful fabrics I found. While shopping for Mardi Gras fabrics, I also found a pattern for a fun table runner or wall hanging using appliqués. It features king cake pieces, crowns, and plastic babies, so it is perfect. It was relatively easy, but with so many squares to put together, it is clear that my sewing still needs to improve as not all the corners met. Oh well, I will keep practicing. The pattern also called for prairie points, which I have never made before. I like the way they came out, and for the appropriate piece, they can be perfect like for this table runner.

King cake table runner

Close up of one side of king cake table runner

Closeup of middle area with appliqués of king cake and free motion quilting to decorate king cake

Close up of one side of king cake table runner

Mardi Gras Cross-Stitch

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I made these last year, and I evidently forgot to post photos of them. I found some wonderful cross-stitch thread named appropriately Mardi Gras. The words are based on a font pattern that I found online. The rest of it is original. I drew a fleur di lis and masks on a grid and then created a cross-stitch pattern out of them. It is probably difficult to see in the photos, but for the stitched beaded necklaces, like Mardi Gras throws, I used seed beads to make them really look like beads. The one that says Happy Mardi Gras was originally the only one I was planning to make, but I had a bunch of the thread left over, and I really liked it, so I made another piece just to use the thread. I created a patted mat board with the finished pieces. I then hung them with Mardi Gras beads that I glued around the pieces. I love to decorate for Mardi Gras. It is just so much fun.

Cross-stitch pieces on padded mat board hung by Mardi Gras pieces

Two Mardi Gras cross-stitch pieces

Cross-stitch that says Happy Mardi Gras

Happy Mardi Gras cross-stitch

Cross stitch that says Laissez les bons temps rouler

Laissez les bons temps rouler cross-stitch