T-Shirt Pillow Cover

How have you been doing? I was down with cold and cough last week and couldn't do any sewing other than my QAL blocks. It was the best time to read some books and relax. 

 

This Monday my son came home saying that he had a read-in (same like pajama day) on Thursday. They can wear PJ's and bring a blanket and a pillow to the school. There came the idea of doing a pillow cover of our own.  None of my fabrics looked fun for me. So I thought of digging through the t-shirts and there was the solution!!! I got 2 similar t-shirts and my son wanted both in the pillow cover.  I added some starch spray for stiffness while sewing. Later added some interfacing with both t-shirt layers to ease up with the sewing. Here they are when cut out:

 

I used crafty gemini's envelope pillow cover tutorial. With the t-shirts and a matching red fabric, we had a pillow cover in a day :-)). 

 

 

 

I suggested him to take this pillow to the school with the T-shirt quilt I made a year ago. While I was trying to take a picture of the quilt and pillow together, there came the little trouble!!!!!!!!!!!!;-). She doesn't give me a choice than loving her :-)). 

Next week I will come up with my quilt from the Quilt Along with Melissa. 
Until then be good :-)
Cheers,
Jyothi

Quilted Tote bag and QAL blocks

Hello there,
How did your week go? I had a very busy week last week and didn't get to any sewing until Friday. I finished my quilt blocks from QAL with Melissa. Though the blocks didn't come out to be perfect, I was okay with "wonky" blocks :-). I forgot to line up the pieces while adding the center strip....as a result 3 of the 4 blocks came out wonky. Since it didn't bother me much, I didn't redo those.

One more block to go and will be done with all the blocks this week.

My son (1st grader) goes to an ACAT (Academically talented program for gifted kids)school. In their library/media day, they have the choice of borrowing 10 books for 2 weeks. My son gets excited every Friday morning and comes to the pick up lane dragging his legs complaining how heavy the backpack is  ....  I have to get out of the car to help him out and it disrupts the pick-up system. Now a days he started to limit the selection of his books as he cannot carry too many books. I didn't like the idea of him compromising about the books. I was thinking of a solution for this problem and suggested him to carry the tote bag we have at home. Some of them were too big on him and some were too delicate to carry his books.....hence the idea came to make our own tote bag.

Being a thrifty spender, I piled up all of our unused jackets and the only material caught up my eyes was my husbands huge jeans shirt which he rarely wore. When I cut up the shirt I was little short of the material and ended up with combining it with my khaki cotton pants. I watched so many bag making tutorials and that helped me with this project.

Here is what I  started and ended up with:

I used shirts pocket as an embellishment but it is usable. i can throw some gums and candies in there.

I used a half yard material for the lining and liked how neat and fine the stitches came out. Love my sewing machine :-))

There is my little man with his perfect bag :-)

He made sure that his LEGO MAN should be seen peeping through the pocket!!! and as usual some silly poses ;-).

Meet you next week some other new project or just for a chat.
Signing off for now,
Jyothi

Reversible Fleece Cap and some banter....

Hello there,

Hope everyone had a great week. Yesterday evening my husband came home and said "it feels like summer...its excellent out there"! I was surprised because I went out 2 hours earlier and me and kids were packed with winter clothes!!! Then he continued saying "temperature is in early 30's". Deep in my mind I was thinking how much I was whining about the same temperature back in November. Now it looks like a good weather:-)). That's what we humans are made up of. Grass is always greener on the other side. We never cherish what we have...we always want a BETTER one.

Speaking of "better" ... I needed a better cap for myself to keep me warm in the early mornings when I step out to drop my son to school. Using Vanessa William's Craftygemini Tutorials, I stitched this fabulous reversible fleece cap for myself.

True...my son has a bigger head:-)

Of course....I have very handy little models for my projects :-))

I am planning to improvise the design to make some cute caps for my kids. My son already demanded a Mohawk cap and I thought I would make bunny ears for my little girl. There they go for my long TO DO list :-). 

Meanwhile I came across this beautiful Rangoli Design (Art drawn using color powders) and it gave me the idea for a new quilt design. Don't you love this art?????

Wishing you all a very happy week ahead............

Signing off for now,

Jyothi

Pajama pants and a Quilt-Along

Hope everyone had a great week. Winter is showing its wicked forms here in Michigan. Most of us are already dreading for some warm weather. We just wanted make use of our snow days and...ended up doing some goody good Indian snack (Chakkuli). My husband and kids finished it off in no time  :-)).

In the middle of this depressive weather and consecutive 2 snow days I kept myself busy with some sewing and a Quilt-Along projects.  I can't believe myself that I sewed a pajama pant for my 7-year old :-)).

I am so excited and so as my 6 year old.... Isn't it evident below??????:-))

Well...... there were quite a few poses!!!!!!!!

The Quilt Along project I mentioned earlier is about Irish Chain Quilt Along by Melissa of Happyquilting blog. You can find the link here.

This is the first time I am doing a Quilt A Long and it feels really good to be a part of it. Melissa is very good when it comes to leading this. She encourages everyone by commenting on every single picture!!!!!

I am doing a wall hanging of 30"X 30" size. Here are some pictures:

week 1

week 2 (X-blocks)

week 3 (X-blocks)

week 3 (X-blocks)

week 3 (X-blocks)

If anyone is interested you can join in Melissa's quilt along at anytime. I will update in this space how my final piece turned out to be.

Stay warm if you are in a cold place and Enjoy the weather if you are in a warmer place.

Meet you in the next post,
Jyothi

Recycled T-Shirt

Hello There! Hope everyone had a nice weekend. weather is too cold in this Michigan. Tired of those negative temperatures:-(. Our snowman is standing tall from almost 3 weeks. Its funny to see how my 2 year old daughter treats it like a real person. She has to say hi and touch him every time we step out. She makes sure that he ate, slept and had bath too!

I wonder what will happen once he starts melting down!!!!!

Meanwhile I made a little sewing project. I made cute little pants from my old t-shirt with help of this tutorial from Craftygemini.

Here is my little model wearing the pants.

I am glad that she didn't ask snowman to wear those pants!!!!!!!!!!

I am also doing a quilt-along project with Melissa Cory of happyquilting. Will update that in my next post.

There will always be good times and bad times. They will come and pass....be optimistic and cherish the good times.

Signing off for now,

Love,

Jyothi

Classic Dresden Wall Hangings!!!!!!!!!!

Yippee........... I finally finished my dream project of making a dresden design !!!!!!!!!! :-).

Almost a yearn ago I signed up for Craftsy block of the month 2012 class. When I was going through the study materials, I saw this dresden design taught by wonderful lady Amy Gibson of stitcherydickorydock and I fell in love with that design. I was waiting to get some perfect fabrics to make it with. This January, I bought " Moda Sewing Box By Gina Jelly Roll" Just for $15 including shipping. The first thing I wanted to do was this wall hanging. 

I did 2 blocks 14" X 14" finished sizes. I selected all 40 fabrics of the jellyroll and did 40 cute little (4.5" long) dresden blades. I wanted to see how would they look with colors varying gradually (block1) as well as scrappy look with colors scattered all over the place (block2). 

I just used a fabric from my stash. As nobody can see it while hanging on the wall, I didn't focus much on selecting the backing fabric.  Love those quilting designs done using walking foot and hope you do too. 

Horizontal View

Vertical view

Let me know which view and which block you like better. I am partial towards vertical view and the top block with scattered colors ;-).

If you don't like this post please feel free to close the window. If you like it don't hesitate to drop a line or two....that will motivate me for sure :-).

Thank you for bearing with me.

Signing off until the next post......
Love,
Jyothi

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Riley Blake's Lovey Dovey Quilt

I am very happy today that I finished the quilt I was making almost from a month. According to me I am not artistic and was always scared of making a quilt with yardage fabrics. I thought I would mess up with the color combinations. So I waiteduntilCraftsy's thanksgiving sale and bought RileyBlake'sLoveyDovey collection.My2 year old daughter is always behind purple/pink colors. So I thought this collection would make a beautiful quilt for her. As I didn't want to spoil the beauty of thosebeautifulprints, I ended up with a verysimplefour patch block and a single block . All finished blocks were 10" in size. I am very happy the way quilt came out.

The very  important part that I am proud of is "the quilting part", which was done using my little walking foot. I am very excited and proud of myself for the it came out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My backing had very large floral prints (bought during thanksgiving sale) and didn't match with main fabric collection at all. Instead of spending some more dollars on the fabric I added a strip of striped collections and joined it in the middle.

Last but not the least, I wanted a biased binding. I struggled with it and wasted some fabric. But at the end I am very happy how it came out :-).

Did I forget to mention?????? This is my third quilt. I made one t-shirt quilt in a quilting class. Second quilt (9 patch block) was a baby quilt made for my nephew. This is the first quilt where I came out of my comfort zone and quilted!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well........... my kids wanted to be a part of the picture ;-)

Happy sewing and will come back with another post soon.

signing off now.......

Love, Jyothi