Ballet Class 12-19-07 Teacher Marks

Ballet Class 12-19-07

Quilted Cutting Mat Bag

I got this idea from a Fons and Porter. It is a quilted tote for carrying my cutting mat to the charity quilting classes. (Big Learning Lesson: Never make the quilted fabric yourself when you can buy it pre-quilted.)

There are 2 pockets on front. The long one is for my long ruler. The front holds scissors & other smaller items. Here is the front (which includes edges covered in bias tape).


Here is an ariel view where you can see my cutting mat and ruler and other items in their respective pockets.

Children Charity Quilts for November

This is what I worked on between our October and November meetings. I wanted to try to do as much as possible since our last meeting for the year would be in November. Here is another fish block quilt top (needs borders still).



And a Noah's Ark fabric quilt. One of the ladies designed it. I liked that center looked like a cross.

Halloween For Me

I was able to squeeze in a Halloween tee for me (completed 4 days before Halloween). Though I am typically quite Froofie, I embroidered a web (with Swarovski crystals of course) because it matched the webs on my orange (purchased) pants.

Quilted Frog

I finally finished my Quilted Frog wall hanging. Talk about lots of cutting and fusing!! It was supposed to hang on my wall for spring only. After all the work, I'm thinking it might need to hang year-round... maybe even on the front door! Every little piece was cut and fused and later outlined with a decorative stitch.

Charity Quilting for Kids 10-25-08

Still doing my monthly charity quilting with ladies at the church. I made a "stars" quilt, but in the end, it did not come out like I had hoped (inperfections of 1/4 inch seams made the rows different sizes). I am hoping the lady who quilts can "fix it", as it was a lot of work to make each block of stars. Plus, I want some child to get this as our weather gets colder.

This one was out of flannel and I submitted it for quilting on 10/25/08.

In our meeting, I was given 2 more quilts to work on. One is of the fish using the blocks (like I did on my 1st one) and the other is with Noah ark (very cute) fabric that is just sewing blocks of fabric together. This is more my style and ought to come out much better!! :-)

1st BD for Baby Nicole

For her 1st BD in September, I thought my friend's baby needed some hand-crafted Halloween-themed gifts. Here is what I embroidered for Baby Nicole.

Onsie with a spooky chickie -



And bibs to use during the week of Halloween!

October Gifts

Three BDs in October called for home-made gifts.

Amy's was 1st - I embroidered a Halloween designs (with Swarovski crystals) on a tee for her. I also personalized a plastic bag (for her to use to transport her sewing supplies as she attends classes). And I made a Betty Boop shoe bag for her.

For one of Kristin's gift, I made a shoe bag with cats on it. (She loves her cats.)

The gifts to Marissa will have to wait, as her BD is yet to come this week and I would hate if she accidentally had a sneak preview.

09-07-08 SGSG Multi-tasking

At our Sept gathering, we decided to work on 2 projects: mini-photo-albums and fabric stuffed pumpkins. Here we all are, in our largest gathering yet -

Here is a pic with my newly-made pumpkin (which I embellished later).

And here is a pic of a mini-album I made for my niece's 12-yr-old BD.

Tortilla Warmers

In a Sewing With Nancy episode, I came upon these tortilla warmers that can be used in the microwave. I thought they would be so fun to make and ended up OCDing on them. Here are a few I have made (and given away) so far -

09-20-08 7th BD for Friend

I have decided I like making "Artists Notebooks" for the little people in my life who love art and drawing. For this friend's 7th BD (whose theme was Hannah Montana), I made a notebook cover in Hannah fabric and sewed Kaleidoscope photos of the little girl on the front and back of the notebook.

Tea Cup Pouch

There is a very talented-lady on the web who makes these beautiful tea cup pouches. After much praise (and seemingly pushing), she has decided to publish her patterns and work in a sewing book. It is not due to come out until November. So in the meantime, I decided to try my hand at a similar-looking pouch.

Here is a close-up of my 2nd (and better-looking) tea cup pouch:







Inside view -





I gave it to Mom and she said she uses it to store her tea bags.

SGSG 06-22-08 (non-sew fun)

For our 06-22-08 SGSG get-together, we decided to leave the machines at home and craft. We embellished gift bags. We had such a blast, being creative. It was fun to play with crafting toys, such as Amy's die cut machine and Evelyn's wire transformer. Terri and Beth had to leave a little early and missed out on the picture we took after everyone's bags were complete. (We'll catch them next time.)

Sis' Oldest Graduates HS - Part I

Tanya graduated from HS (a year early) in May. I wanted to make some special HS-mascot-related gifts for her. My ideas were to make a quilted spiral notebook cover for her college classes, a personalized pouch, and some pillow cases. The theme was in her maroon and gold school colors. Yay Class of 2008!!

Here is front and back of her photo fabric quilted spiral cover -

The inside included the school mascot with pockets for pens -

Sis' Oldest Graduates HS - Part II

The pouch was a photo pouch. (Here is front and back.)

And the pillow cases were in the school's mascot and colors.

Me and the graduate -

Another Tee for Our Youngest

The little ones grow up so fast, so it feels necessary to shower them with gifts whenever possible. Baby Justin loves to go to the Aquarium and has a favorite Dolphin, named DJ. So I embroidered a tee for him to wear on some of his many trips to the Aquarium.

Nephew Goes to National Lacrosse

My nephew on Chris' side, Mark, came to Dallas (from South California) because his college Lacrosse team made it to Nationals. They were here for about a week and we got to watch them play in 4 games. They went all the way to the Finals game, played the team ranked 1st in the Nation and came in 2nd. It was quite an exciting game. It was also at Texas Stadium, which was too cool!!

For team spirit, I made a banner flag and 3 tees for Mark's Dad, Chris, and I to all wear. The tees gave our relationship to Mark underneath the college name (Chapman University). Mark's Dad, Ed, was most appreciative of my efforts.

Luggage Tags

My friend of 30+ years, Alicia, loves shoes. I made this shoe luggage tag for her to use, as she loves to travel too.

Quick Projects

I believe in the sew world, there is no such thing as a quick and easy project. But these little pouch purses that Amy got me hooked on are as close to quick and easy as anything.

Here are two, I made for a friend and for Mom, for BD and Mother's Day.

Charity Quilt Work

My first time to meet with very nice ladies who do volunteer quilting for children in need was 4/19/08 (just as tax season ended). Mary (our coordinator) brought boxes of fabric and asked us to choose fabric and a design. I migrated to the bright colored fabric. I found one with brightly colored undersea creatures. She gave me instructions and direction on how to make a block quilt. I started the cutting there and finished the quilt top a few weekends later.

Here is how my quilt top ended up:

Embellishing with Crystals

At the quilt show, I purchased stencils to embellish with Swarovski crystals. The 1st order of business was to embellish the leg of a pair of my jeans. I thought I could whip it out in 30 minutes or less. Wrong again! But they did turn out quite cute... a few hours and aching back/neck later.

SGSG 02-10-08

Even tho this pic of this lovely group of sewing buddies can be found on Amy's website, I decided I wanted it on mine too so those who do not know Amy but know me can also see-ee.

Here we are after our Fabric Bowl Session in February.

NoteBook Cover for Nathan

Made a SpiderMan Art Notebook for my 8-yr-old nephew's February BD. (With this one, I decided to sew rather than glue so the cover on the notebook can be taken off if it needs to be laundered.)


close-up on the design I created with his initial and name -


I also made some pouches for the inside of the notebook for his art supplies. Using my Kaleidoscope software, I made a star image on fabric for the front of one pouch -


For the other pouch, I used fabric only. The fabric had Buzz LightYear, so I figured he would like it plain too. On the 2nd pouch, I got a little smarter and added the tabs BEFORE I sewed the pieces together and zipper in.



Here is the inside of the notebook with SpiderMan goodies and items home-made with love by his Aunt Patty.


And then all wrapped up and ready to mail...