Quick and simple quilt idea

Simple to make, this quilt can be whipped up in a few hours and make a child happy all winter long.

quick lap quilt

I made these in snuggle-quilt size for a child, but the same steps apply if you want to make it adult size or large enough for a bed. No batting needed.

My husband and I couldn’t resist the monkey and frog fabrics we found in flannel one day. I had already made lap quilts for the two of us using cotton for the front (not pieced, whole cloth) and batting with flannel backing. I wondered how it would work to use fleece for the backing. It would be soft, and warm and heavy enough to replace the batting as well.

For each quilt I purchased 1 1/2 yards of flannel fabric and 1 1/2 yards of a coordinating color of fleece. I knew there would be some leftover, but it’s never wasted.

I prewashed the flannel and trimmed it. Then I laid it out on my cutting table with one corner of the flannel matching a corner of the fleece. I cut the fleece with 2 inches overlap on the other two sides.

Then I repositioned the flannel so there was 1 inch of fleece overlap on all sides. Turn the fleece from the back to the front and pin to the flannel. No need to finish the edge of the fleece, as it won’t ravel.

I made mitered corners by first folding over the point at the corner, then folding down the two sides of the miter. Pin very well.

Because the fleece may tend to get caught between the toes of a presser foot, I used a teflon foot with a flat bottom, and the left position for my needle. I simply topstitched around.

teflon presser foot with roller

Then comes the fun part! I used the darning/embroidery foot and machine quilting thread, and hopped all over the quilt. No need to baste or pin, the flannel grabs the fleece and holds tight, and in doing both quilts I had only one instance of a wrinkle being stitched in place. I blame being distracted, and a careful person wouldn’t have that happen.

darning foot

I moved all around the frogs, sometimes even twice, to secure the layers of fabric together. I could have added shapes, or hearts, or even the grandson’s name, but I left it as a meander stitch.

I wrote down the times as I did the steps. I was very surprised I went from pre-washed fabric in the first photo, to the finished product in only 1 hour 50 minutes. Perception is odd, isn’t it? I was thinking it took so much longer than that.

Here’s the breakdown:

30 minutes to press the prewashed flannel, trim off the selvage, make sure it’s square, trim the fleece to 2″ larger each direction, reposition to 1″ overlap all around, and pin the fleece as a self-binding.

15 minutes to stitch the binding along 4 edges.

65 minutes to change the presser foot on the machine and meander-stitch the body of the quilt. The timing on this part depends on how densely you stitch.

Very quick and very easy to make. Finished size on these is 41 1/2″ by 53″. The fleece backing is so snuggly I really don’t want to give up the quilts, but I’m going to force myself to wrap them and put them under the tree so I don’t change my mind. I can just see two little boys watching TV with these quilts, or sitting in their mother’s lap under the quilt to hear a story.

Tutorial: Fabric covered photo album

Last summer I had picked up a photo album at a thrift store. I used the hard cover to make over into a book purse.

Seaside Date Evening Bag

Now I find I have a need for a small photo album, so I remembered that I had kept the photo sleeves and decided to make a new hardcover for the album. It was very quick (about an hour) and pretty easy. In fact, no sewing needed!

Find a piece of cardboard larger than you need. In my case, 8.5×11 was plenty big enough. I wanted some overhang on 3 sides to protect the edges of the photos.

Trim the cardboard to the size you need. Center the photo sleeves and mark the two fold lines to form the spine.

Use something with your straight edge to score the two fold lines. I used a regular screwdriver. The scored lines will be on the outside of the folds.

Choose your fabric. Cut fusible interfacing the same size as your cardboard. Center it on your fabric and press, leaving a margin for turning under.

Use a craft or tacky glue, and first glue the spine, or narrow center portion of the cardboard to the back side of the fabric. Then, in turn, fold one cover and glue to fabric, then the other. It is important to fold as you glue, so that the book will tend to stay closed rather than try to flop open.

Squiggle some glue around the edges, eyeballing the distance that your fabric will turn under. First, fold the corners at an angle, as shown. Dab the corner fabric with more glue, and turn the rest of the fabric.

Choose your inner cover fabric. Measure just larger than the cardboard cover. Fuse with interfacing on the reverse side, interfacing being a little less than the size of the cardboard. Turn under raw edges.

Center the inner fabric to the inside of the album cover. First, glue the center (spine) portion, then fold and glue each end. Glue the spine of the photo sleeves and press to the spine of your cover. Finished!

Tutorial: eyeglass case

I needed a new eyeglass case, and I thought I would write the tutorial as I’m making it. It’s pretty simple and very fast to make!

First, I needed a scrap of cotton fabric for the outside, some fusible interfacing, and soft flannel for the lining.

Shown above is the old eyeglass case I had been using. It fit some previous smaller glasses I carried, but I needed something a little larger. I cut all three pieces of fabric 6 inches long and 5 5/8 inches wide. Fuse the interfacing to the back side of the outer fabric. I had to piece the fabric I chose because it was very long and not very wide.

Place the wrong sides of the flannel and the outer fabric together and pin.

Choose something large and round, about the size of a dinner plate, to make a curved corner. You are looking at the inside of the case, and the curved edge will be the upper left. Trim where you mark.

Use a short, narrow zigzag to finish the edges. On my machine, the settings were 3.0 wide and 1.0 long. Stitch only the curve first.

Fold in half, left over right, so that the edges meet. Starting at either the top or bottom edge, stitch around 3 sides. You are finished!

If you find this is too large for your glasses, it’s easy to cut at the right edge and stitch again.

Tutorial: Cell Phone soft case

I love making these. I’ve made two for myself, one for my mom, and put several in my Etsy store. Lined with soft flannel, they will keep the screen free from scratches and the interfacing makes the whole thing hold its shape.

Now it’s your turn to make your own. Put your personality into it! There are so many novelty fabrics that in a very short time you will find several you can’t live without. My solution? Make them all! Also a great way to use an orphan quilt block from a previous project.

Start by measuring your device. Smartphone, slider, clamshell, iPod, iPad, anything. Measure the longer side, shorter side, and depth.  For instance, my ancient iPhone is approximately 4.5 x 2.5 x .5.  Approximate is close enough.Add shorter side twice plus the depth. For mine, that would be 2. 5 + 2.5 + .5, or 5.5.  There will be bulk from the seam on the inside, so add a little, plus the fold takes up some bulk, and the seam at the top edge.

I’ve been using a 6 inch square, which works just fine, and you can see that the length will fit inside, as long as I take scant 1/4″ seams. You will cut a square of outer fabric, one of fusible interfacing, and one of flannel.

Note: if you have fabric with a one-way design, cut it 1/2″ longer than you need, cut the length in half, lay right sides together and stitch a  1/4″ seam. This will be the bottom of the cell phone case and the bottom of the one-way design should be at this seam. Now your design will be right side up on both sides of your cell phone case.

In this photo, I have highlighted the seam and the direction of the print in green.

Lay the fusible interfacing to the wrong side of the outer fabric and press with your iron. Layer the wrong side of your flannel (if there is one) to the wrong side of the fused outer fabric and interfacing.

 

Use a strip of coordinating fabric or binding and bind opposite edges of the fabrics.

 

 

 

 

 

Fold so that the flannel is to the outside and the outer fabric to the inside. Stitch with a narrow seam at the sides.

 

Turn.

It’s that easy!

 

Alternate method: no binding.

For this one I used two smaller pieces of flannel so there is a pieced seam.

 

 

Lay fabrics with right sides together and stitch at opposite ends.

 

 

Turn and press.

 

 

 

 

If desired, topstitch at the seams.

 

 

Turn outer fabric to the inside and stitch the side seams.

 

 

 

Turn right side out and press.

Tutorial: Dash mount for GPS

I’m the kind of person who would rather make something (if possible) than buy it. Once I saw a dashboard mount for a GPS in the store, I knew I could figure out how to make something that would work.

I started twice, and there may still be some revising to do for looks, but I’m pleased with the results.

Materials:

• scrap vinyl (I used a banner)
• rubber non-skid fabric
• plastic disc from the GPS
• cotton fabric, approximately 4″ by 12″
• weight (sand, rice, beans, seed, etc)

Start with a circle on the scrap vinyl, approximately 5-6 inches in diameter. Cut around that circle. In the center, place your disc that came with the GPS and draw around it. You have to be sure not to sew within that circle later.

Fold the white cotton fabric in half and press. Sew the raw edge to the outer edge of the circle using a zigzag stitch.The raw edge will be hidden in the middle of the weight tube.

Fold the other edge of the cotton fabric and pin to the outside of the circle drawn earlier. You will be taking darts and inserting many pins.

The end of the fabric will overlap the start. Stitch down with a zigzag. Leave the end open for pouring in the weight, but stitch down where it began.

Using a funnel, pour your choice of weighty material inside the tube. You may have to work it around to where it was stitched down. Keep pouring until it is quite full, then stitch down the end.

Remove the paper from the adhesive on the disc and stick it down to the vinyl in the center. On the bottom side, glue the non-skid rubber fabric. Your dash mount is ready to use.

Found a shortcut

Have you ever wanted to sew a rolled hem, but couldn’t make it work?

I was making tabs to hang a wall quilt and decided to try one more time. As I was trying to feed the fabric into the rolled hem foot, I realized that an old trick I used with adding machine tape (how old is that?!) would work here.

First, put the rolled hem foot on your machine.

It has a curly doohickey where the fabric feeds into it.

Then, cut a diagonal at the right edge of the fabric, about 1/4 inch width, about 45 degrees. Just eyeball it.

Then start feeding your fabric into the foot. Make sure you hold about 3/8 inch of fabric folded over, so that it rolls twice and you get a ravel-free edge when you are finished.

Interesting note: doohickey is spelled correctly, and not “cky” on the end as I first tried. Who knew? Spell check knows the proper spelling.

Busy otherwise, not busy quilting

I have been really busy lately, but not with quilting as much as I would like to be. We have decided to move, and we’ll be selling our house and many belongings at an auction scheduled for March. This means I am very busy with packing boxes, moving items to a sale staging area, and getting the house ready for an open house.

The good news is, in the course of cleaning and organizing the sewing room, I put all my unfinished projects in one box. Now that most of the intense work is done, I can spare some time for sewing and quilting. I don’t really want to start a new project, and seeing my old unfinished ones gave me a little incentive to clear out the box soon. It’ll be easy to pull out a project, work a bit, and it can go right back in the box if I don’t have time to work on it.

I pulled out two Christmas table runners last weekend, and finished them. One is for my niece and one for myself. I rarely make two items the same but I loved this design. I saw a project, but I never purchase kits so I made one that was similar. I had most of the squares together, the large white blocks cut out, and was stuck with deciding what to fill that large white space with. I noticed I had two different holly patterned fabrics so I appliqued holly leaves and berries. I’m very happy with the result, and in two days was able to complete these two table runners.

This weekend I noticed a tutorial by Noodlehead, which came at exactly the right time. I have three co-workers having babies, and I needed a fast project I could finish within a week, when the shower is scheduled. I made some diaper pouches using scraps from my closet. The color portions are flannel, leftover from previously made baby quilts.

What makes me happy? Two great weekends of sewing!

Tutorial: Sew a business card holder

If I can make something, I don’t see the sense in buying it. I needed a business card holder, and so I set about figuring out how to make one of fabric. The shape is like a folded strip, with a front lip that holds the cards in, a bottom edge that determines how many cards fit, a backrest for the cards to lean against, and a support leg to hold it upright.

First, I looked through my stash. I would need a fabric that says “quilt” to people, and I found this cute heart blocks fabric in really bright colors. I found a scrap of fusible stiff interfacing, and my ribbons.

Measure two pieces of fabric approximately 5 inches wide by at least 8 inches long.

Fuse each on the back side with interfacing.

I wanted the front lip of the business card holder to have the design facing upward, so the fabric for the back side of the item has the design upside down. You’ll understand why as we go, and if it doesn’t matter with your pattern, disregard this.

Place the two pieces of fabric with right sides together. Measure and mark your sewing lines on the back. You will basically sew a square with two openings. The shorter sides are 4 inches in this sample, and the longer sides are 7 3/4 inches. I determined this because I wanted the front lip and the bottom edge to each end up at 1 inch, and the backrest and support portions each should be 2 1/2 inches finished. I added 1/4 inch three times for topstitching.

Cut two lengths of ribbon to 2 inches, and two lengths of ribbon to 3 inches. These will help support the framework and keep the business cards from sliding off the side. Place them in the seam lines so the shorter lengths are on the left and right sides of the very front portion. Caution: Don’t sew them to the outside as shown! I did this and had to clip threads and do it correctly! You need to have them sandwiched between the right sides of the fabric. Use this photo as *placement* only. Place your longer ribbon lengths so they come out at the back edge, which is the support of the card holder.

Sew around the edges, leaving an opening on both sides where the section is next to the support section. (the second of the two larger sections)

Trim seams, clip corners, turn right side out.

From the front edge where the shorter ribbons are, fold up 1 inch and topstitch.

From the back edge where the longer ribbons are, fold back 2 1/2 inches, topstitch.

There is one more topstitching seam, 1 inch from the front topstitched seam, and 2 1/2 inches from the back topstitched seam. Fold up and topstitch.

You have the basic shape made. Tuck the ribbon ends into the opening and pin. Both the front ribbons and the back ribbons will go into the same opening.

I used quilting thread and a sharp needle, and stitched the opening closed on both sides, taking care to catch the ribbon for the full length.

Press to shape with your iron, and fill with business cards.

Free for a limited time!

A tutorial for my book purses (my own design) has been requested, and those of you waiting for it have been rewarded. For a limited time, you can download a FREE copy of the pattern for my top-opening, box-style book purses. Click the link below to open a window and you can then save to your computer or print yourself a copy. Please note that the pattern gives you permission to create these purses for yourself or to give as gifts, but not to sell.

Book Purses

If the link no longer works, you may go here to purchase the pattern in my Etsy store.