Pillowcase gifts

Wow, has it been since December 12 that I posted last? In a few hours it will be February already.

Here are two pillowcases I made last week to bring to a shower for a family that has just adopted two children. Middle-school and junior-high age. These are some of my all-time favorite fabrics. I hope they like em! I embroidered their name on the edge of the case, I love that little personalized touch. It only takes a few minutes to add a little hand embroidery, but I think it really adds something.

Isn't this print just delicious? You can almost tase the sprinkles on that ice-cream.

And this one has all the states & their capitals. I just think it's so much fun.

This car fabric might be my most favorite of all time. For sure in the top 5.

chicken-feed bag tote

The following picture is to prove my theory: "if it isn't moving, you can sew it!" :-) On a longarm list I read daily, someone made a tote out of a dog-food bag. She was inspired by this website: http://www.soaustin.com/home a lady in Texas recycles bird-food bags into totes and gets an amazing $20 reselling them! I just had emptied a chicken-feed bag the other day , and just had to try it out. Her bird-seed bags are much more colorful, this one for the chickens is a boring tan. Anyway, I think it will be a great way to carry all those apples we will pick off of our trees this fall. Sturdy, and disposable if needed. Not to mention, one-of-a-kind! ! !

This quilt is a good example of what the Intelliquilter can do. The "here kitty" border was a purchased pattern- I had this quilt in mind when I found the pattern. I separated out the kitty, and repeated that in the border corners.

Christmas stocking

I'm working on stockings to hang on the mantle... here is the first one. I am hoping to make one for each of the kids & embroider their names on the cuff. We'll see if that gets done. They're taking a bit longer than I had hoped.

Fabric Gift Basket

Another fabric basket. This one will be a baby shower gift, filled with little things- not sure what, yet. Maybe some baby shampoo & little toys. Watch out, these baskets are addictive.

Recycled Denim Bib

I have been looking for ideas for baby gifts. I often give a quilt, but want to have some other things on hand for when I can't (read: not enough time) make a quilt to give.

Here are a couple of recycled blue-jean bibs. I was tickled with the finished product. What's more American than Levi's?? (Well, apple pie, maybe, but that wouldn't make a very good baby shower gift, would it?) I thought these would be fun for a baby boy. The denim is nice & heavy to protect against those big spills.

A bib I had on hand became the template. I just cut out the pocket part & crazy-pieced the rest using a zig-zag stitch, with the pieces butted up together. I made a very skinny single-fold bias binding from some red fabric & bound the edges with that, applying with a very small zig-zag stitch. A little velcro sewn on for the closure, and ta-da! you're done. And $0 spent. My favorite part.

New bathroom curtain

My new bathroom curtain.... yeah! I saw one similar on the SmithandNoble website that I really liked the shape of. I thought maybe I'd just buy it from them, but found out it would be something like $200, that was the end of that idea. So, I thought, "I can make that. "

1 yard of $10 batik fabric for the front, $13 curtain rod from World Market, $23 total. Yeah! That's more like it. I lined it with some cotton duck fabric that was leftover from another project. I was super easy- 1.5 hours or so. It's really just a flat panel with a header, and the loops to hold up the gathers. Easy, peasy, as J would say.

Little fabric basket

I've been enjoying reading so many others' blogs, and was inspired to try making a fabric basket from this tutorial from Pink Penguin. I thought it turned out so cute. The tutorial didn't indicate the finished size, however, so it was a little smaller than I pictured it would be. Not that it was any less cute, mind you. It went together quickly- less than an hour, I think. I love finding ways to use fabric I have on had already. I used batik for the top strip, a linen-looking fabric for the bottom, and another batik for the lining.

I had a wedding shower to go to the next day, so I made another one, but bigger (I regret not getting a picture of it...) and I filled it with office supplies- envelopes, stapler, sticky notes, paper clips, etc. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I think the hand-made tote gave it a nice touch.