Baby Things!

Just finished the last bib, and while I admit it is a bit of tooting my own horn, I had to post the pics of these. They turned out pretty darn cute.

To start I machine appliqued the letters/shapes on one side of the bibs.

Then I added a layer of poly batting and a cotton backing, pinned, and quilted the bibs. I did each one a little differently.

Then I trimmed the excess batting, snipped loose threads, and added a contrasting binding to each one.

I also finished the personalized burp cloth, I am in LOVE with "Heat N' Sew," it makes applique so stress free!

Busy last couple of days, I'm beat, but very pleased with the results! These were a custom order, I hope she likes everything!

Side note, I now have an email to go with my blog, seamssewcreative@gmail.com :)


Happy Sewing!

Janice

Finito!

The scrappy quilt is finally all finished. It took two days to quilt, and I finished off the binding this afternoon. Currently it is tumbling in the dryer getting nice and puckery :) (I know, not a word, but its the only way to describe a good quilt)

Here are some pics of the finished product, pre-laundering...

Here is a shot of the back, which gives you a better idea of how I quilted it.

Stippling on the outer boarder, and a grid pattern where the patchwork blocks are. Hopefully no popped seams!

On to the next project... personalized burp cloths and baby bibs :)

Happy sewing!

Janice

Little Boxes

In the last two days I have been working on finishing up my last scrappy quilt, made with the alphabet blanket's leftovers. Here are all the squares laid out, ready to be put together.

And here they are after being sewn together..

I had been planning on surrounding all of the little boxes with a boarder, I went with the dark brown that matches the sashing from the alphabet blanket.

You can probably tell from the picture, and the fact that the quilt top is sitting on a card table, but it turned out WAY smaller than I thought it would. So to beef it up a bit and get a little size I added another boarder.

All finished, ready for basting, then quilting! Hopefully I can get it basted tonight, and start quilting it this weekend. That's all for now!

Happy sewing!

Janice

The scraps of the scraps

After cutting the strips for all of the squares of the 16 patch blanket I am in the process of making, I had left over... still more scraps! And, not to be wasteful, I decided to see what I could make out of them (This only temporarily de-railed my current scraps project, by like a day or so)

This is what I came up with...

And here it is finished...

It's finished size is 26"x18", the perfect size for a little doll! I think this will go very well with the Jessie Toy Story doll I got for my niece. My inspiration for this quilt was the little doll sized ticker tape quilt made by Amandajean. While I LOVE the colors she used, my niece's nursery colors were brown, cream, gray and orange. Also, I wanted it to match the alphabet quilt going to her future brother or sister.


For backing for this tiny quilt I used orange fleece. I stitched it on to the back, then cut strips about 2" wide and stitched them on to the front of the quilt like so...

I know this is not the most helpful pic, but the fleece on the right is the backing, and the fleece on the left is the piece I stitched on to the right side of the quilt top. This allowed me to turn the top piece of fleece over, and then top stitch the two pieces of fleece together.
Like so...

To finish off the edges, I trimmed the fleece to about 1" and cut fringe (around 1/4" wide). Not a traditional binding for a quilt, but I thought it was cute and playful, perfect for a little girl playing with her dolls. I decided not to "quilt" it, but instead tacked it with my sewing machine about every 4-6 inches.

Some machines have a stitch that is designed to sew on buttons that will let you tack layers of fabric together really easily. The machine I was using did not, so I did a zig-zag stitch set on 0 width and 0 length, and tied off my threads. All in all I think it turned out well, we'll see how it handles a wash. That's all for now!

Happy sewing,

Janice

Leftovers

My current project came to life because of all of the scraps of fabric I was left over with when I finished my alphabet quilt. Being an eager beaver, I cut ALL of the fat quarters I bought for the letters into 1 1/4" strips. Needless to say I greatly over estimated how much fabric was needed to make the letters, and had around 80 leftover pre-cut strips... yikes

I saw this beautiful quilt and decided to use my leftovers to make a primary color version of it. I have no idea how big it is going to be, but I have high hopes for the end result. There was enough to do three squares in each color combo. I have already strip-pieced most of the squares, only a few more to go.

Unfortunately all of this cutting has seriously dulled my rotary cutter, and the replacement blades are insanely expensive. Well worth it in time saved cutting, but still $30.00 for a 5 pack seems excessive to me.

Happy sewing!

Janice

Projects up to date...

Here are a few things I've finished in the last year or so...

Crochet baby blanket for a special little girl :)

A quilt I made with my mom for my baby boy's nursery, matches the bumpers I made for the crib...

Crochet quilt made to match the nursery bedding and quilt. (I know matchey matchey green squared, I admit I have a problem)

I saw this fabric panel and couldn't help my self. Simply to cute to pass up, so my kid is drowning in blankets, whats one more?

This was my fleece take on a rag quilt, if you look close you can see the fringe between the squares. Machine applique puppy paws and bones :) Below is the back to that blanket.

Anniversary/housewarming gift for some friends...

This next one I was especially proud of, a fabric book and my first attempts a free motion quilting. When I finished the book, I knew I had found a new love....

 Here are a couple of the pages inside...

(Don't look too closely at the spirals, yikes!)

And my pride and joy, just finished last week...

All others obsessed with quilting please note, hand applique apples, and section-quilting (I know, nerd alert, but it really makes me proud as one of my first "official" quilts :)

Well, that's all the photos I can scrounge up from this year, wishing right now I had snapped pics of some things before giving them away... lesson learned :(

Happy sewing,

Janice

How to oil your Sewing Machine

Hi, welcome to my blog! As someone who loves to sew, craft, paint, basically do anything creative, I decided to create a way for me to share my projects, as well as a few helpful hints, with people who love the same things I do!

To start I thought I would begin by going over the very basics of keeping your sewing machine in tip top shape. After all, the better your machine is running, the more amazing things you can sew on it! In this post I am going to show you how to take apart, oil and clean the bobbin case, shuttle hook, and race assembly (trust me, its not as intimidating as it seems!)

Most machines come with a container of oil. If you don't have one, or lost it, you can purchase them at any place that sells sewing machines. Begin by opening the door to your bobbin case. I have a picture of what it looks like on my Bernina, they are all pretty similar. You will also notice I have the foot place removed on my machine as well. This really helps you see what is going on in there. And also allows you the opportunity to clean out all that LINT!!! :)

Next you want to remove the bobbin and bobbin case.

Now come the tricky part, undoing the clasp that holds your shuttle assembly in place. Mine happens to be a little clip on the left hand side of my shuttle assembly, your may look different. It may be two black plastic clips that swivel in to lock everything in place. Your manual will show you how to unlock this part of your machine. When you have unlocked the shuttle assembly, it will drop open as pictured below.

Next, take out the shuttle hook... It is the metal piece that looks like a half moon and is on the right hand side of the shuttle assembly. It is not snapped or hooked in, so it will pretty much fall out when you touch it. DON'T WORRY, you did not just break your machine! I promise!

Now its time to clean and oil. First use the tiny lint brush that came with your machine to brush out any lint. NEVER and I mean NEVER BLOW THE LINT AWAY!!! This will push all of that lint into the inner workings of your sewing machine, which is a bad bad thing. If you must be super diligent in cleaning your machine, use a vacuum.

I oil my machine in three places, the back of the race, the back of the shuttle hook and once after I put everything back together. The race is the black plastic circle you can see that is folded down on my machine. Yours may be metal. I run a tiny bit of oil with a q-tip along the back of the race. Then I oil the back of the shuttle hook. Hold the bar the bobbin sits on and turn the shuttle hook so you can see the back. There will be a flat part along the outside, I put a little oil there as well. In the picture below you can see the flat rim on the outer edge of the circular part of the shuttle hook facing up (the shuttle hook is upside-down in this pic)

Now, put everything back together! First place the shuttle hook back in the assembly. It will not snap it, simply place it back in the machine. If you look closely there will be half of a circle in your machine, complete the circle with the shuttle hook. It is easiest to put it in while holding the post the bobbin goes in.

Snap the race (black plastic circle) make sure you hear it click or the tabs snap so you know it is secure. To check and make sure everything is in place, turn the hand wheel a few times. Finally the last place you can oil is in the re-assembled shuttle assembly. Turn the hand wheel until your shuttle assembly looks like this...



If you look closely, the shuttle assembly looks like there is a funnel, or the bottom of a hear shape at the bottom of the circle that is the shuttle assembly. Place one drop of oil in this "funnel" and turn the hand wheel a few times to distribute the oil.

Replace your threaded bobbin, and your foot plate if you removed it too, and you're ready to sew! I know it seems like a lot, but I try and oil my machine every time I change my bobbin. I don't go to all the trouble to take the foot plate off and de-lint every time, but I will usually do that before starting a new project.

You will really be surprised by how much quieter your machine is after you've finished. And after a few times it only takes a few minutes to complete the whole oiling and bobbin changing, (I promise, you will become a speed oil-er!) and is totally worth it in the stitch quality, and quietness of your machine.

I hope this posting has helped in showing you how to clean and oil your machine with confidence!

Happy sewing.

Janice