From One Margaret to Another

Last month my friend Liz asked me if I'd heard about the Craft Hope project to gather 400 quilts for Margaret's Hope Chest in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I hadn't, so she filled me in. The goal was to collect enough quilts to give one to every homeless child in the Grand Rapids Public School system. It sounded like an excellent thing to do, and this blue quilt was my contribution. And, the great news is, they met their goal!

Weekend Sewing -- Pajamas for Everyone, Kid Size Take Two

There was another oddly shaped piece of flannel waiting to be made into something, and it turned into pajama pants! I serged all the seams and did top stitching, just because. Also, I bought four yards of elastic, so I wouldn't have to keep going to the store. Now I think I'm done with pajama pants for awhile, and I've got three and a half yards of elastic left!

Weekend Sewing -- Pajamas for Everyone, Kid Size

Sometimes, you just have to make a project. For instance, when you have a piece of oddly shaped fabric that really will only work for one thing. And you just happen to have enough pattern tracing fabric left to trace off the size that will exactly fit on said piece of oddly shaped flannel. So, I made a kids size small-medium Pajamas for Everyone. Since I'd already made these once before, I went ahead and made my very minor modification- I serged all of the seams. I still went ahead and top stitched all the seams, because it is so easy, and it really makes a garment look finished.

Scraps to... a Quilt!

When my mom handed me a lot of Christmas fabric strips, I divided them up by color family, and by width. There were quite a few bright red scraps that were at least three and a half inches wide, and I thought they'd make a good square in a square quilt. It's currently five by five blocks, and I may make it five by six. I'll post a photo when it's all done.

Weekend Sewing -- Pajamas for Everyone

These pajama pants made up quickly and easily. They would've been made in one sewing session except for the lack of elastic. If I were to make these again, I would serge all of the seams, but I followed the instructions the first time around. I did add quite a bit of topstitching, which fancies them up a bit, at least if you look closely! I made these a size bigger than the size I would purchase at the store, which turned out to be a good idea. I found these to be very long, at least for me. That's easily remedied, however.

Favorite Jeans Denim Quilt

One of my mom's friends has always sent a lot of old jeans my way, destined to get cut up into denim quilts. When the last batch arrived, mom mentioned that her friend S. was particularly disappointed to send her favorite pair to me-- she really loved them but they were just plain worn out. S. and I are the same size, so I tried them on, and I could see why she liked them so much, and alas, that they were beyond repair. The jeans had lace appliques on them which I knew would be well suited to fussy cutting. And I thought it would be a great way to let S. remember that great pair of jeans in a new format. So, S., thanks for all the great old denim you sent my way, I'm sending this quilt your way!

From Scraps to...?

My mom has been giving me all of these scraps of holiday fabrics. I laid them all out, stared at them for a while, and came up with a project! I supplemented them with the green fabric. Can you guess what I'll turn these oddly shaped scraps into?