From the Heart Blog Hop

 

Welcome to day three and the final day of the From the Heart Blog Hop,
hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt.

It has been fun seeing the inspirational gift ideas these past couple days and today I am adding these jewelry pouches to the list and I will be Giving two of them away!! More about that at the end.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who always come back to see what I'm up to.

I have made these before as gifts. They are quick to sew up and fun to make out of different fabrics.

When I first made these years ago I used a pattern from Quilting Art Gifts Magazine from 2009, but there are several tutorials online you can use if you are itching to make one. The tutorials differ slightly in dimensions, but when sewn up they all look pretty similar. 

Here are a few links to some tutorials I found:

Sew4home.com - Drawsting 8 pocket Jewely Pouch

Sewfrench = Jewelry Pouch

Melanie Kham - Travel Jewely Pouch

You can also find some good tutorials on You Tube.  Just search Jewelry Pouch Tutorial

When I decided to make the jewelry pouch the plan was to only make one, but when I pulled out the main floral fabric there was only about 3/4 of a yard left so I decided to use up as much as I could.

I was able to get enough big circles and enough small circles to make three pouches. 

 That left a small amount of fabric that I folded up and put with my scraps.

For the lining fabric, I decided to go with three different colors: purple, teal, and green, making them all similar yet different .

I have a special someone in mind to give the teal one to, but if you liked to have the purple or green lined pouch leave a comment below. I am going to give one away here and one on my Instagram feed: @quilteddelights 
So if you want two chances to win visit both places.

I will pick a winner at random Sunday Nov 1.

*Winner Update*

Random Generator picked comment #17

Congrats Tink's Mom!

Check out the other hoppers for more hand crafted gift giving inspiration.  

The whole schedule is listed below.

October 26

Creatin' in the Sticks

Ms P Designs USA

Becky’s Adventures in Quilting and Travel

Websterquilt

Selina Quilts

Cynthia's Creating Ark

Quilting Gail

Scrapdash

Ridge Top Quilt

Elizabeth Coughlin Designs

That Fabric Feeling

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

 October 27

MooseStashQuilting

Just Because Quilts

Day Brook Designs

Karen's Korner

Quilt Schmilt

Kathy's Kwilts and More

Karrin’s Crazy World

Words & Stitches

Vroomans Quilts

Sew Many Yarns

Songbird Designs

Samelia's Mum

 October 28

Just Let Me Quilt

Quiltscapes

Beaquilter

Seams To Be Sew

Pieceful Thoughts of My Quilting Life

Bumbleberry Stitches

Days Filled With Joy

Quilted Delights  (me)

Den Syende Himmel

Life in the Scrapatch

Storied Quilts

Kathleen McMusing

Food for Thought

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It's in the Bag - Island Batik Blog Hop

Welcome to my day of the hop! For this blog hop, Island Batik Ambassadors are showing off new Island Batik fabrics lines hitting shops now or heading that way super quick and to show them off this month were were challenged to make bags! And not just any bags. Bags by byAnnie.

I got to choose the bag pattern I wanted to make and Annie graciously sent all the items needed to make it. I was super excited for this project.

I chose the Divide and Conquer pattern because I was really wanted to make those mesh pockets on the inside and also thought it would be fun to have a cool quilted over night bag.

To make the bag, I was sent three fabrics from the Mandala Magic collection by Jackie Kunkel of Canton Village Quilt Works. Check out all the prints in this line, each one is fabulous! 

This pattern comes with an add on video, which I highly recommend watching. It helps oodles when trying to make this bag. Particularly on nights when your tired and the words on the pattern start to blur. The videos are your new best friends.

When I first picked the pattern I didn't think about all the work that would go into this bag. Later when I watched the ad on videos and saw all the steps and tough parts, I thought, "What did I get myself into!" But in the video at one point Annie tells you to take a break if you need to and to take it slow. Best advice ever, specially for those tough binding sections.

At some points I thought this bag would conquer me, but I came out victorious and it was worth it. I do have some boo boos in this but they will stay. My major boo boo happened when I started putting the bag together. After I made all the pieces for the bag I was so excited to sew the bag pieces together, that I didn't realize I sewed the mesh pocket on the back side of one of the vinyl pockets, so the zipper is on the inside of the pocket.... ugh.

While I was making it, I didn't think anything of it because I could open and close the zipper the whole time, that is until I put the front panel on and then I realized what I had one....oh boy, I wasn't about to take all that out. I can still open the zipper though so I am good.

The saying measure twice, cut once should go along with double check your layout twice before sewing. Haha! Even with my boonked up zipper placement the bag still looks fantastic and I have a one of a kind over night bag.

I used a nice peach Aurifil thread and a nice bright purple to put all this together with.

And of course a schmetz needle. I only broke one needle during this whole project, and it wasn't even when I was sewing through all the layers. By a fluke I hit the teeth on the vinyl zipper in just the right spot and snap, the needed was a goner. My machine and needle handled everything else super nice. It even went through all the layers of everything no problem. Of course, I did go super slow as suggested in the videos.

Check out all the patterns at byAnnie, and her supplies. I really liked using the zippers by the yard. They were fun and easy to work with. 

Go visit Connie today too to see her Mandala Magic bag.

You can also check out all the other bags being made for the hop by stopping by the Island Batik Blog. Also this week Island Batik is giving a chance for someone to win their lovely Island Batik fabrics. Use the Rafflecopter to enter. If the Rafflecopeter is not working on my site, you can enter on the Island Batik Blog site as well. It is the same Rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Sewing!

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The Ultimate Home Decor Blog Hop

Welcome to Week 2 Day 2 of the Ultimate Home Decor Blog Hop by Island Batik. 

I was sent a lovely bundle of River Valley designed for Deb Tucker’s Studio 180 Design by Kathy Engle.  It should be hitting shops this month.  Island Batik was very generous to send so much for small home decor projects. That means there is some left over to share, but I'll talk more about that near the end. :)

First up I want to show off these two pillows.  I love the look of Cathedral Windows quilts and knew this was a good way to show off these fabrics. There are lots of tutorials on line about how to make these types if Cathedral Windows and one of my favorites is from Diary of a Quilt Maven called Faux Cathedral Windows Pincushion Tutorial.  The tutorial is for a small pincushion, but it is the same concept if you want to go a little bigger. I like her tutorial because it shows how to use tiny dots of basting glue to hold your white folded triangles down.  It works so well I  skip her step 5 where she says to sew all around the edges of each covered square.  Instead I let the glue do its work and start sewing squares together.

Other than the outer border and the back, the whole project is made from 2.5 inch squares.  My pillow is 6 x 6 squares. For each square I needed two white squares folded in half on the diagonal.  I used the foundation by Island Batik called Whip Cream for this.   I have 36 River Valley blues hiding underneath those 72 white triangles.

Next I laid out all the greens on top.  I glue basted these down as well.  It made it so much easier to roll back the bias edge of the white and machine stitch them down. 

I used Roxanne's Glue Baste It.  It's my favorite.  It dries quick and doesn't bother the needle when sewing.

Since I used the blue squares underneath, when I roll back the white, all the blues peak out.

Here is the back side before I trimmed off the greens and added the back side of the pillow.  I pressed all my seams open.

I got to wondering what the pillow would look like with the green underneath and the blue on top, so I decided why not make another one and see.

These are the blues glued down ready for the green to peak out.

I added a 1 inch border around the block so it would fit perfect around a 14 inch Pillow form.

Here they are, almost twins but not quite.

For my mini quilt scene,  The name River Valley and all the blues and greens in this line had me thinking about birds on the river.

Early this year I bought a 4in x 9in Table Top Tri-Stand from Calla Lilly Quilts in Greensboro, NC.  They had a cute display with several patterns for every season from Quiltricks.com that fit perfect  in the frame.  I went to the Quiltricks website to find a bird pattern for the frame, but they didn't have one yet,  so I drew up my own.

A white bird with green feathers enjoying the river water among the cat tails.

I drew all the shapes and then copied then onto some HeatNBond, pressed that on the fabric, and cut out each shape easily.  Some of the pieces are thin so I couldn't really do a satin stitch around each piece, so I sewed a straight line around them using several different colors of Aurfil Thread for a raw applique.  The only pieces that are not part of the River Valley line are the orange I cut from some other Island Batik scraps and the cat tails.  They cat tails came from leftovers from the Cascadia line.  Doesn't' that brown with blue strips go perfect!

These little mini quilts are the perfect size to use up scrap batting. 
I used Hobbs Natural cotton batting leftover from my Lily Patch Pads quilt.

Now it is time to talk about sharing. 

I have two giveaways to tell you about today.  First, Island Batik is giving away TWO Fat Quarter River Valley Packs,

You can enter on their blog or use the Rafflecopter below.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Second, I am made two charm packs from the leftovers and am giving them away to one of my followers on Instagram. 
Check me out on Instagram on @quilteddelights and look for this photo below to enter.

And be sure to visit  Sandra Walker  to see what she made with River Valley.

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Color it Red Blog Hop

Welcome to my day of the Color It Red Blog Hop!  Hosted by Carol of Just Let Me Quilt.

All we had to do to play along was make a project that had red in it.
Today I am showing off what I made with some of my favorite shades from my stash.

I call it Diamond Bars.

There are twelve different red fabrics in this one.
I used my 9 inch Creative Grid equilateral ruler to cut out all my triangles and angled strips.

The quilt has two different type triangles, one with a small inner white triangle and one with a large inner red triangle.  There are 36 of each.  I came up with 36  because that is exactly how many small white triangles I got from two 2.5 inch strips.  These are surrounded by 2 inch red strips.

I used yardage and fat quarters for the inner red triangles and cut four inch strips to cut the larger red triangles.  They are surrounded by 1.5 inch white strips.

They layout came about because of my need to have things be symmetrical.  I originally had all the outer red stripped triangles facing up, but that left a red bar at the bottom and not one at the top, so I started flipping rows around and came up with this layout.

I was fun to fiddle around with different triangle sizes and the layout to come up with this design.

This would be cool in scraps or rainbow color as well.  

The top was pretty quick to sew up once everything was cut out.

It Measures approximately 44 x 60.

I also played around with more red fabric and used the Pixie Basket Tutorial by Fabric Mutt.  

These are super cute and the perfect size to hold a bag of Valentine Chocolates.

These sew together lickety split!

Thanks for stopping by to check out my creations.

Make sure to check out all the other red creations today!

February 19^th

MooseStash Quilting

Quilted Delights (ME)

Everyone Deserves a Quilt

Storied Quilts

Just Sew Quilter

Kathy’s Quilts

Just Because Quilts

Words & Stitches

Scrapdash

Happy Quilting!

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Twas the Night Blog Hop

Oh my! Would you look at all this yummy goodness.  I must say Jeanie from Gracie Oliver Arts sure spoiled me.  Everything was wrapped so beautifully.

Here is everything fresh out of the packaging. Jeanie has such wonderful craftsmanship and I am happy to be the recipient of all this wonderful goodness.

  She handcrafted me four wonderful items:

1. A Christmas themed Matryoshka Bin, filled with some wonderful sewing themed fat quarters.

2. A coffee Koozie, which will come in handy for that cup of hot Chocolate and Christmas Wassail.

3. Four festive fabric coasters.  I love these little beauties and my hubby has already claimed one for his computer desk.

4. A 10 minute Table Topper. She picked out the perfect fabrics!

Jeanie also added some extra goodies, I oohed and awwed for each package: A lovely little snowman ornament, wonderful scented hand soap, gingerbread buttons, a 2015 Calendar, and a wonderful Gooseberry tote to carry everything in. (It has a lovely snowman print and is folded up in the picture behind the soap).

  And to top everything off, she sent me printed instructions on  how to make each gift! That is a gift in itself.  Thank you so much Jeanie!  I am one lucky gal!

For my quick gifts I started with something for my knitting friends.

It is a Triangular knitting needle case and the pattern came from the book Sew Gifts! by Martingale.

This case is pretty long so it will hold your longest knitting needles.

Knitted dishcloths also make quick gifts.

Two of my favorite patterns are the Ball Band dishcloth and the Knitted Basketweave pattern.

For my young friends I made a Card and Key Wallet. Perfect for giving gift cards or cash. This pattern is also from the book Sew Gifts!  I don't usually buy books unless I like at least half of the patterns and this book didn't disappoint. There are several other small gifts on my "to do" list from this book.

For my adult friends who like to bargain shop I made some Loyalty Card Wallets. This was a free tutorial from Nancy's Couture.  I altered the pattern several ways by adding interfacing in the pocket sections, extending the width of the pieces by half an inch, using a 1/4 inch seam allowance, and adding a button/ponytail holder closure.  

I even made one of these for myself.  It holds all my loyalty cards and fits nicely in my purse.

No more rummaging through my stack of cards.  The fabric bowl can also be make pretty quick.  I made this one a long time ago from start to finish in a four hour class.

Next up is a gift for anyone who wants a unique way to charge and store their little devices.

I used the free tutorial at Positively Splendid.  She had a clever idea to use a command strip hook to hang the pocket on the wall next to the outlet.  I am going to do that too, that way I can use the charger holder for my android devices. Those chargers are too wide to fit through the grommet.

Last up is a small Christmas themed Cross Stitch. Right now I am deciding what I want to do with it. I have narrowed it down to either an ornament, the front of a Christmas pouch, or the focal point of a notepad holder.  I suppose I could make two more  trees and then I won't have to pick which project to use it with  ;)

  What was really helpful in stitching this tree was my new toy, the Beam and Read.  You can read all about it here.  I like how it gave me that little extra light to see my stitches better. It even came with a red or orange cover to give you a little different glow.  In the picture above I have it clicked on three light bulbs, but for my stitching I liked using all six.

Another thing the Beam and Read is good for is extra lighting for photo shoots.  Particularly when you play on the weekends and keep forgetting to take photos of your projects when the sun is shining so you have to take photos after you get off work in the evening when it is dark outside.
 

I turned on all the lights in the room and added an extra lamp, but I was still getting some shadows I didn't like. With the Beam and Read I was able to move the lighting where ever I needed it. Thus it saved my photos from being too dark and grainy.  I think I may take this light camping with me too. It's lightweight and super bright.

Make sure you head on over to Jane's Quilting to see what I sent her and check out the other hoppers as well to get inspired.

Thursday, Nov. 20

Quilted Delights - Me  :)

Jane's Quilting

Allthingz sewn

More Stars In Comanche

Pickles Quilting

Cate’s Linens

Thanks to Mdm Samm and Marlene for hosting a fun and inspiring hop!

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Book Holders

 One of the Young Women leaders at church asked me if I would make some book holders for the girls to keep their little church books organized.

I say little because the books are about 7 inches high.  I didn't have any of the books that go inside so I didn't get to take a picture showing how they look inside.  I also didn't think to take a photo of them open, but you can see some open versions here.  On the inside is three slots for books and a small pocket for a pen.

The tutorial I used called for fat quarters, but I also used some of the larger pieces from my scrap bins. 

To decorate the fronts, I used some of the  flowers I made this spring for the 60's blog hop.

My son also helped make some extra flowers that matched better with some of the other fabrics.

These were fun and super quick to sew up,  I cut them out one evening, and then sewed them all up the next night.  I gave them to the Young Women on Wednesday night and they were a big hit.

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