Chicken Pincushions with Thread Caddy Nests

I love chicken pincushions, I modified the instructions here and here (I like prairie point combs and mine are bigger because I have so many 5 inch squares to use up) and made a few awhile ago.

My SIL won one at the family reunion. I was happy to see her using it when I went to visit. She had put it in a little bowl with some thread and it looked so cute because the bowl reminded me of a nest, which reminded me of another pincushion I had made a couple of.

I combined the two ideas.

My nest edges are pinked to eliminate binding and I used safety pins between the spools.

Rag Quilt Foot Warmer

It is so cold here today. My feet freeze when I am sitting at my computer.  I had a few rag quilt squares left over so I put them together to make a rag quilt rice pad foot warmer.  I think I will make a few nicer ones for the  cold footed among my family and friends.

Japanese Knot Bags

I finished these cute little bags a couple weeks ago but just got around to taking a picture. Fast to make and each uses only 2 fat quarters. I found the pattern here: Japanese Knot Bag

Sudoku Quilt Finish (Almost 1 Year Later)

I finished quilting my Sudoku quilt a couple weeks ago but just got around to taking a picture. I started this quilt almost a year ago. It is hard to tell from the picture but the border fabric is Sudoku puzzles. I procrastinated so long putting the borders on that I saw this fabric at a Joann's and swapped it for the original.

The front was made with FQs my daughter gave me last Christmas, the back is pieced from my bargain basement garage sale fabric. It was my second quilt quilted on a rented long arm.

6 Fat Quarter Bag

I made this bag using a pattern from the book, Fat Quarter Quilts by M'Liss Rae Hawley. I didn't use FQs but adapted it to use some fabric pieces my daughter won at a quilt show.  It is a very big bag.  To fill it out for the picture we put my newly finished Sudoku quilt inside. And it still has more room!  It is an easy bag to make.  If you used fat quarters it would taking 6 for the outside and almost 2 yards of fabric for the lining.

Very Halloweenie Quilt

I finally finished my daughter's Halloween quilt. I rented time on a HQ Sixteen machine to quilt it. It was a lot of fun.  The back is pieced too.  

It's a Jungle Out There

It was a strange day yesterday.

Here is some background.

I live in a suburb but only a few blocks from the city line.  The houses in my neighborhood are older, mostly built in the 20's & 30's and the yards are tiny as was common back then.  If you  could look over the back fence you would see a drugstore.  (Luckily, big trees block the view)  Our backyard is about 60' by  80' and includes a deck, a stone patio, another cement slap patio, a small shed and a driveway with firewood stacked on it.  The rest of the yard is gardens, with a stone path and two water features. One of them is about 8' by 10' and has some goldfish that were feeder fish and one koi in it.  We have some frogs too and they live in both water features

My husband, Roger, is retired and likes feeding the fish during the summer and he also feeds the birds even though we mostly have sparrows.  His fish grew incredibly over the summer.

Yesterday morning my daughter's friend was looking out the sliding door to the deck and says, "Pat, there's a crane or something in your yard."  

I think, crane? What is he talking about?  I looked out the door and saw this huge heron standing about 20 feet away on the path.  I start yelling, " Heron! Heron!" The bird must have heard me screeching through the glass and tried to fly off  but couldn't get enough altitude before the fence.  He landed on top of that and then took to the sky.  The wing span on this bird had to be about  6' .  It looked ridiculous in my tiny yard.

When my husband went out to check his fish, he found two dead goldfish and didn't see any of the others including his koi.  We are hoping they are still hiding under the floating plants but realistically I think the bird probably ate them.  The weather here has been cold so the fish go into a hibernation state and catching one would be as easy a pulling a pickle out of a barrel.  Sigh.

Later in the day, Roger told me to look and see how many sparrows where sitting on our deck railing.  They were lined up all around the deck, looking at the house.  They do this when the feeder is empty.  I told him he better fill the feeder because they are used to it and depend on it now.  He filled the feeder and a bit later we were watching them push and shove each other trying to get to the food.  All the sudden a huge bird (not as big as a heron but still pretty large) swoops in and lands on top of the feeder post.  All the sparrows take to the sky and big bird sits there long enough to tell it was a hawk of some kind.  He didn't manage to get a sparrow for lunch.

I was afraid to look out he window for the rest of the day.  I didn't want to see anybody eating somebody else.  Eeeek!

This morning, I looked out of my 2nd floor  bedroom window at the back yard and I'll be darned if that grey heron was back again.  It was sitting next to the little water feature.  I tried to take a picture but it took off again, this time in the opposite direction so it had more room before the fence.  I got a very blurry picture.  

I guess he didn't eat all the fish yesterday.  I looked it up on the internet and found it was a Grey Heron.  

Gizmo To Keep The Matching Bobbin with the Spool

I was changing the thread on my machine and started thinking about a better way to keep the bobbin with the matching thread.

I came up with this easy-to-do idea and  thought I would share.

You will need:

Some elastic cord and  buttons with holes big enough for the cord to fit through. My spool used about 10 inches of cord.  



Thread the cord through the two holes in the button and tie the ends together in a knot.

Thread the cord through the spool and the bobbin and slip the end over the button.

Fabric Postcards

I finally tried making a couple of fabric postcards.  I received a book about them for Christmas.  It takes me awhile to get up the courage to try new things.  (I still haven't read the book.) 

Playing with scissors and paste all afternoon was very pleasant and now I have plenty of postcard ideas.  

Because I have zero artistic ability, I used kid's coloring sheets that I found on the internet.  I scaled them down to fit a postcard and cut them apart to make patterns.  

After I made the pumpkin and bat I thought maybe a glue stick would simplify the process.  I tried using a glue stick to stick the fabric to the Heat N Bond and also stuck the pattern piece (not completely cut out) to the paper side of the Heat N Bond.  Once all three parts were stuck together, I cut the part  out, removed the paper  pattern and used the iron to stick the bonding stuff to the fabric.  This worked really well on small parts.  

When my daughter  saw the pumpkin card she told me she really liked it but she had  a problem recognizing the candy corn for a few seconds.  I asked her why and she reminded me that candy corn is not black and yellow.  LOL  I had pulled out an orange scrap for it but in my excitement over learning a new craft, I forgot and used the black I had pulled for the pumpkin's face.

After I finished the scarecrow, I realized I should have done his head in pumpkin orange too.  Oh well.  

Four postcards didn't use much fabric from my crumbs bin though, in fact, it seemed fuller and was harder to shut after I dug through it to get these little bits.  

This is the perfect craft to use up all of the old sewing thread I have collected from yard sales over the years! 

Tissue Holder's

I made a bunch of tissue holders this morning.  Lots of fun playing with the little bits of fabric.  Thanks to Dorothy for providing instructions.

Sharon Schamber's Basting Technique

I finally finished one of my UFOs and I have Sharon Schamber  to thank.

Sharon posted two videos on YouTube that demonstrated how to baste a large quilt using two boards and a herringbone basting stitch.  

Her method is genious!  

Here's a couple of pictures of my finished Scrappy Bargello.  The Scrappy Bargello pattern I used came from Quiltville

I also used Bonnie's idea of piecing my backs from large squares of fabric.  A great way to use up some of my bargain basement, garage sale stash!

Locker Hooking

Some one mentioned locker hooking on Stashbusters so I thought I would post a picture of the one I am working one in case people want to see what it looks like.

It is really fast easy and makes a very thick mat.

You use 1 inch strips of cotton fabric, latch hook rug canvas and cotton crochet yarn. Uglies work great. You can make a pattern or scrappy. I prefer the scrappy.

I make big balls of fabric strips. I join the strips by cutting a slit in the end of each and pulling the one through the other.

When I get to the end of one ball I join the next by sewing the ends together.

I use old binding to finish the edges.

I bought my locker hook at Walmart, but I think I have seen them at Joanns too.

The idea is to draw multiple loops of fabric through the canvas and then secure them with the cotton yarn.

I found a tutorial here.