Sewing Marathon

Michala and I made plans for an entire day of President's Day stitching. By coming up the day before, we thought we could get an early start with a few hours of bag making. There are just too many stops between Sullivan and Rantoul though, a President's Day Sale in Tuscola at the outlet mall, Hancock Fabrics, which is open on Sunday, and whatever else! After dragging out all the great fabrics and talking about what to make first, we decided on a few coasters since they were already cut out. 


Before we really get into the big stuff, the bags, Michala and I make a few more coasters as Kevin cooks breakfast. Next is a run to the store for coffee creamer and a toothbrush because Michala brought make-up and not much else! We are off and sewing, mind you there simply was no time to shower or even run a brush though the hair. The decision was made to NOT take pictures of each other during this awesomely fun, creative day. Easiest decision of the day!


Starting Sunday evening, we got a few sets of coasters finished. These are great projects to work on as we caught up on family, friends and church. So one thing led to another, and another, and another until we had a pile of coaster made! With bags of ribbon, button jars  and tins from grandmothers past, and new buttons because they are so great, we had tons of fun making the wraps for each set of coasters! The fun part of these is that there will never be two of the same. We make them out of scraps or new fabrics and back them with something matching or not. The result is so cute we can hardly part with any of them! All are available for purchase. I am still working out the PayPal, Etsy, online store thing but until then, send me a message and we will work it out. These are some of the coasters we made during this President's Day holiday.

Black with red, pink, and white crooked stitching wrapped with ribbon and topped with  some hearts.

Quilted with shiny turquoise thread and wrapped with ribbon.

Such a cute ribbon around brown and green reversible coasters.

Cute pattern on the opposite side!

Black and white plaid quilted with red. Really nice!

These are so fun with a red back!

Black back with a gem of a button! Classy.

Love the pink!

Memories of teaching someone to sew! Love the black and yellow!

All are for sale at $12.00 plus shipping. If you want something in other colors, please contact me and we will see what we can do! Remember to give us some room for creative expression, it's way more fun that way!


Do you know how great it is to have a husband that cooks? So much more time for sewing and other projects. All I did was prepare a couple of bologna sandwiches for lunch and Kevin took care of breakfast and dinner. A little bit, or a lot really, of cleanup after each meal and back to the machines! Thinking we could make three tote bags, we had a lot of work ahead. Thankfully Michala was up for thinking and measuring and some cutting. We each have things we like to do and things we don't. Lucky for us we don't like or dislike the same things! Rotary cutter, scissors, seam rippers, needles, bobbins, iron, interfacing, wow! Hard to keep track of it all! And that ridiculous little piece of paper with the measurements on it, where does it keep going? In the end, we finished three totes, each one too cute to sell! Oh, how does this happen? Check them out...

Beautiful blue paisley with brown accent.

This beautiful button is awesome and the trim is fabulous!

Close up of the fabric and trim.

A matching tote for your little girl!

Love it! soft greys with yellowish gold.

A little decorative stitching at the top.

Same fabric, a little different!

Love, Love, LOVE it!

If only we could keep them!

These tote bags are great for many different things. They will carry your books, files, clothes for an overnight, baby stuff, groceries, whatever you can think of! Most will cost you only $45.00. The blue and brown tote shown today has a magnetic closure and runs $55.00 and a little bit for shipping. Remember, these totes are truly one of a kind bags! 


This week, I will be cutting out several more and starting on some pool or beach bags. You will want to snatch these up as soon as you see them because as you now know, they are ALL originals!

My First Unknown Follower and a Flat Top Trunk

I am super excited! I have my first follower that is not related in some way! This means someone actually is interested in what I have to say!!! Wow. That means more responsibility too. Thank you Reddy, you made my week!

After cleaning the trunk of layers of dirt and grime.

Sometimes its the little things that get people so excited. Michala, who lives in Sullivan, Illinois with her wonderful husband Evan took us to an almost impossible to find art studio owned and operated by John McDevitt.  The Yellow Dog Studio is located in an old shoe factory. Honestly, the building looks deserted but it is worth the effort to go there. John uses reclaimed wood and other materials to create incredible pieces of art. While we were there, John showed us the area his supplies are stored. Michala immediately spied an old trunk and just had to ask about it. That trunk was pretty rough! After making arrangements to pick up a shelf and the trunk later that day we were on our way.

Just a little sweet talking and convincing it would be a great project, Kevin and I brought the trunk home and he went right to work. Cleaning, scrubbing, wiping, sanding, cleaning some more and it's ready for paint. 


I researched these trunks a little. This one had a tray inside and was secured with a lock and leather straps and handles. All of these things are missing now but I think that just adds to the mystery of who used it. Where did they travel to? ?id they use it to move across the country? Was it used as their wardrobe? And many more questions.


The Flat Top Trunk was manufactured from 1870 - 1920. There were some rare examples of this style starting in the 1850s and 1860s. They were mass marketed starting around 1880. This one is canvas covered which was very common. The hardware seems to be common as well. I can just imagine my ancestors traveling to Illinois with a trunk like this! Probably held all their clothes and linens, maybe even their entire household belongings! Today, most of us couldn't put a quarter of our wardrobes in this.

Finished!

I'm not sure where Michala and Evan will put this but I do know it's up to her to finish the inside! If they wanted to, I think they could find someone in the Arthur area to make and install some leather for them. 

Side view

I don't know though, it looks pretty good like this and I don't see them getting on a train or even a stagecoach any time soon!

International Harvester Scout Pedal Car

I have this pedal car, made by International Harvester, and would like some information about it. It was purchased new in 1962 or 1963 from an International Harvester dealer in Danville, Illinois. A toy pedal tractor was purchased at the same time but that is long gone. I have searched the internet for something similar but cannot find a thing. Any information would be helpful!

Coach's T-Shirt Quilt

picking colors

What do you do for a Coach at the end of the season? Many times, a team will do something for a coach so that the team and season is remembered. I'm sure coaches have many stuffed animals, plaques, photos and nick nacks galore.
Brenna thought a t-shirt quilt would be fun for her Millikin Volleyball coach. The girls had a great season, winning their conference with a 7-0 record. The team also broke some school records, beat a team that had not lost a conference game in many years, and just had fun! With not much time, Brenna asked the girls to donate a t-shirt from the past four years. She also raided the team closet for a few more and the clock started ticking! Without knowing when the End of Season event would be, and hoping it would be after the first of the year, I started shopping,cutting, planning, and sewing. I found some blue and white fabrics and got busy. I used one of the templates I cut for the Too Cool T-Shirt Quilt, so happy I didn't have to do THAT again! The end result was a quilt Coach Kiick could take on a cold bus or cuddle up with at home.

Finished! Waiting for the girls to sign it.

Brenna finished it with all of the girls signing the quilt and presenting it to Coach Kiick at the end of the party.




I'm sure Coach will remember this team for a long time!

Some More T-Shirt Quilts

T-Shirt quilts are fun to make. Not really because of the hours of solitary sewing, but because of the people they are made for. I like laying them out, looking at colors, the obvious importance of the event on the shirt, and yes, even the hours of solitary sewing! you see, I love to read and watch movies and sew but you just cannot do all of those at once! Can't even do two of them at once. Sewing is a lot like swimming in that you need to focus. With swimming, you really need to focus on the breathing part. When sewing though, breathing is easy, there is some concentration on keeping your seams straight, but there is a little room to let your mind wander! I have found I pray a lot while sewing. Not just that the item will turn out okay, but I pray for the recipient of the quilt. I love how the project becomes that much more special with prayer!

After Rachel's quilt, and all that experience behind me :), its time to tackle the Too Cool T-Shirt Quilt! I read the book How to Make a Too Cool T-shirt Quilt
re-read the getting started parts and know I need some templates. I am all about doing stuff myself, but let me tell you, BUY the templates! The part about making your own sounded simple enough, I can handle a craft knife just fine! I head over to Rural King to buy my big sheet of plexiglass. They had a huge sheet for about $75 (I think thats what the templates cost) and some small sheets but not the size I needed. Okay, Rural King is not too far from my house so I go back home, get out my book and some graph paper to figure out how many of the smaller sheets I would need and how much waste I would have. I don't like waste and there would be just too much. So I run back to Rural King (some Saturdays we hit the place two or three times so no big deal for the second trip, plus they have the best free popcorn and coffee) and ask if they have any in the back. They don't but think it will be in later in the week. So I run over to get some new craft knife blades and find some other really cool stuff that I just had to have but didn't know it until I saw it! I love Rural King! If you have one near you, stop in, get a bag of popcorn and just wander around. You'll be so happy!

I now have a few days to study this book again and feel like I know what I am doing. Finally the plexiglass comes in, I pick my piece up and put it in the garage. Saturday, after a good breakfast and great Costa Rican coffee, I head out to the garage. After wasting as much time as I can, wondering if Kevin will come out and ask what I am up to, I have to get started. I think I am hoping Kevin will see what I am doing and think he can do it better and then take over. No such luck. Ugh! The first cut is sloppy and I break the plexiglass! So much for the book. Well, there has to be an easier way. Where is Kevin?! Back to the graph paper to make sure I didn't mess something up. I think I can do it still. Finally! I did one! Much easier, so on to the next, there are at least ten or twelve to be cut. After I get a couple of the templates cut, here comes Kevin. I don't think he thinks it looks like fun. Probably because it isn't. So he watches, and tells me how to do it. Arrrghh! At least he sands the edges while he is watching. After two days of cutting, and sanding, the templates are ready! FYI, buy the templates, it is so worth it!

Now I'm ready to start cutting t-shirts. This is fun! I am sure there are at least 50 t-shirts. Now to sort them into sizes, and then the math. Amazing! The math is right on! For those of you struggling in math classes right now, you WILL use it in life. Michala comes over and we lay out the quilt on graph paper. If you design it on your computer, changes are MUCH easier! Once we like the pattern, we lay the pieces out on the living room floor. Side note:  The cutest dog in the world will want to help so I advise you to not tell the dog what you are doing. 

Michala stitched  the whole top together and it is awesome! Just imagine 50 of your favorite t-shirts all in one place, what a conversation piece! Even though there is a lot of time and planning in a quilt like this, it is totally worth it. I can't wait to do the next one! Brenna and Elizabeth each have enough for two or three quilts apiece! We just need to figure out what ones to use. 

Brrrrrr!!!

The temperature until 8:30 this morning was -8 degrees.  YES!!! That would be NEGATIVE EIGHT! Real temperature, not windchill.  I don't even want to know what that was! It is warming up quickly though, currently it is zero degrees. Still really cold but the trend is UP!!! Woo hoo!

Rachel, hand sewing the binding

The girls have so many t-shirts that we have talked about making quilts out of them. There are lots of books and much advice on the internet. The local quilt shops have classes as well. Of course, we thought why pay $20 - $50 to learn to do something so simple. One thing we didn't love was how stiff the t shirts are when using even the lightest weight fusable interfacing. Plus, over time, that interfacing will separate from the shirt, and who wants that? We all like our t shirts well worn and super comfy, right? So why make them stiff? I know, to make it easier to sew. After a really long time discussing this, we found a great book, Too Cool T-Shirt Quilts by Andrea T Funk and Sarah Bendure. Michala and her friend Rachel, without telling me of course, stopped at a local fabric shop and figured out how much material they would need to make a quilt. You see, Rachel was leaving for Dallas soon to work for the 2011 Super Bowl and would need something to remind her of home. (Not to mention keep her warm, tee hee!) As they come in with bags of material and several t-shirts, I quickly learn that I am the one to teach Rachel to sew so she could make this quilt herself! Now I have to tell you that Rachel is the most positive, fun, loving, energetic young women I know. However, she has no patience and thought it would be a short afternoon thing. Remember, this was my first too! We started by discussing the shirts and what they meant to her. Even though Rachel is a recent college grad, she is still wearing a lot of those shirts so there will be another quilt in her future! The theme that popped out was high school and volleyball. The sewing part went smoothly and Rachel and I got to spend some awesome time together. I realized we were really short on time, she was moving in about a week so I backed it with fleece and knowing she was planning to come one more time decided to stitch the binding on. She was relieved when she saw how far the quilt had come. Then, I told her about the binding, giving her an option of just sewing it down or hand stitching, really pushing the hand sewing. I just think it looks much better! She chose hand stitching and you can imagine her face when she realized it doesn't just happen! After a couple of hours, we finished and Rachel has a beautiful quilt that she can be proud of. 

Pillow from scraps

Never ever throw a scrap away, it could be useful someday. Ok, not entirely true, keep it if you will use it but if you get to the point you can't find anything, you might be a hoarder and need help!

Back of the pillow, with part of a shirt we couldn't work into the quilt.

Too many things to blog about!

So many things to talk about, I need to sort them all out!  Stop back tomorrow for some T-Shirt Quilts! And then the next day for some more quilts, and the day after for some of Kevin's stuff, and the day after that for...

The Rest of the Artists

Old Parking Meter

First there is Kevin. He has always been an artist! Kevin can make anything look great. Sometimes I just don't get his vision, but the end result is something I can be proud of. Well, maybe he did the work, but I'm married to the guy, doesn't that count for something? He has the gift of seeing the end result while looking at the rough stuff. I think his favorite words are "I could make that for a buck." I can't even count how many times he has slammed on the brakes to scavenge something on the side of the road. The girls used to be terrified he would find a dead body on the side of the road and we would have to deal with that before we ever got to our destination. The man is patient though! He has been collecting parts for a big cooker for about twenty five years now. So far, it hasn't cost a dime. I wonder what he will spend his "buck" on though!

Michala's Queen Sized Quilt

Michala, firstborn, had a dream to be a princess when she grew up. Evan came along and swept her off her feet.  Sorry Will, you just took too long.  Kate, Katherine, will have to do now! She seems pretty nice, best wishes on your upcoming wedding! Michala teaches High School Business courses now. And she is an awesome teacher! If you're lucky enough to have Mrs. McWhirter as a teacher, you know what I'm talking about! I tried to teach her to sew years ago, it was ugly. So when she came home with a pattern and some fabric, you can imagine my anxiety! She wanted to learn to sew and make a skirt! Three broken machines later, she had a beautiful skirt! Ok, to be fair, the machines were old and probably stressed by the years of inactivity. Next she wants to make handbags. Any pattern with sixteen pieces is probably not the one a beginning seamstress wants to tackle. And then she talks me into a quilt class. Like me, she jumps in with both feet and eyes tightly closed! Her first quilt is a queen sized masterpiece! More on this later.

Brenna's Mask

Brenna, middle daughter, the one we thought would go to art school! She does go to an art school, but is studying Fitness and Sport. She started playing Volleyball in Junior High School, Mrs. Carter was her coach.  Brenna dreamed of playing college Volleyball someday and currently plays for Millikin University. Brenna is super focused, super organized, super busy, always on time, and relaxes by being creative.  You could almost always see some of her artwork in a local school district art show.  This is the mask she created in fourth grade. It appeared in a regional show. Brenna recreates pictures with just pencil and paper. Amazing! I hope to post some photos of her drawings soon. As I was decorating the Christmas tree this year, I realized that Brenna is responsible for most of my handmade ornaments. I also love Brenna's fashion sense.  She can find the ugliest thing on the sale rack and totally rock it! I love that about her! She is totally comfortable being who she is.

Elizabeth, Lizzie, Liz, the singer. Now the singing photographer. Another artist at a young age. Elizabeth was born singing. She sings ALL OF THE TIME! Thankfully she has a beautiful voice! Put any music on and Elizabeth knows all the words. Growing up, she was a movie lover. We watched The Wizard of Oz over, and over, and over. Disney movies, old movies like Breakfast at Tiffanys, any movie, she was up for! The best times were when the movie theaters had freebies! You can't imagine how many movies we saw. another thing, she had great hand eye coordination at an early age. She would play Crash Bandicoot upside down! Elizabeth has had a love for photography since she was very young. Now she studies Digital Photography at the Art Institute at Schaumburg. Cool stuff! I may have to get written permission to show some of her work. I will sneak something in here and now though. Elizabeth also has fun with fashion, must be the sign of really creative people!

Riley's only job is to chase birds, bunnies, squirrels, and opossums. Oh, and be the cutest beagle ever!

Ok, here goes nothing!

Hello friends and family!
I'm out to prove that you CAN teach an old dog, or lady, new tricks!  Please don't give up on me as I figure this thing out!  
I've had plenty of time to try to figure things out over the past year or so, and what I have discovered is how incredibly talented my family is! I hope to share some of this talent through out this blog! I may share some other stuff as well so you will just have to check back often.
A little about me, I started sewing when I was eleven years old. My teacher, Mrs. Bowman, taught at North Ridge Junior High. That was back in the day when Home Economics was required for girls.  I remember my first project was a dress, with pockets, and buttons, and a collar, and set in sleeves, I even remember the fabric! This is important to know because you will see that I almost never start with the easy stuff, like a skirt with an elastic waistband. Thank you Mrs. Bowman for putting up with me and pushing me back then!  As a result, I feel like I was a leader in fashion in that school.  Others might have just thought I was weird. I need that fashion sense back...

Church directory picture, a few years ago!

We added Evan!

These photos are pretty old, looks like we need a new one taken!  Elizabeth!!!

Riley. Cutest, Beagle, Ever!

Enough of the basics! Stop in later as the story continues...