A Dozen Bags- March (early April)

I'll bet you thought I forgot about the March bag! It was a busy month (understatement) and I got a little behind. Silly Me-- I didn't think anyone would notice. Then I got this sweet message from Sarah in Houston asking me if she missed it. So this is for Sarah, and everyone else out there who would like to make a new bag. For those of you who are new to this blog, I started a series in January called "A Dozen Bags". My plan is to give you one free pattern for a bag every month.

This bag is kind of wintery, but it hasn't felt much like spring around here until today. I'll have it ready for next Fall. :-)

If you've ever made a rag quilt, this will be easy for you. If this is your first frayed edge (rag) project, you'll soon be hooked. If you've done this before, no need to follow my instructions exactly. Make it whatever size you like.


You'll need some flannel scraps. I think it looks best with lots of different fabrics but it's up to you. You'll need (54) 5 inch squares of flannel and (27) 4 inch squares of scrap batting. I like Warm and Natural but you can use any batting scraps- or you could use flannel or a cut up blanket or old sweatshirt. This is a great recyle project.

Make 27 little sandwiches. The flannel pieces (right sides out) are the bread and the batting scraps are the meat. Just one piece of meat per sandwich here or your bag will weigh a ton.
Sew X's on the sandwiches. I like to chain piece them.... going one direction... cut them apart.... then chain the other direction. When you stitch from corner to corner, start and end about 1/4 inch from the corner. Try to be as accurate as you can, but don't stress about it if you sew too far. This isn't an heirloom quilt- it's rag quilting.
You'll notice that my little sandwich isn't perfect. Not a problem. This is called "rag quilting" for a reason.

Make your little sandwiches and I'll tell you how to put them together tomorrow. When we're done, this will be a small tote- style bag. After that, we'll make another one that is smaller with a closure. That will be the April bag. (See my plan to get caught up with my bags???).

When we're done with the 2 bags, I'll show you how to make rag quilts and I'll show you the technique for making them double sided.

April Giveaway

The April giveaway is a Little Box of Quilter's Desserts. This is a box full of cards. Each card has a dessert recipe and a quilt block. Some examples are: Cherry Basket block with Cherry Baby Cakes; Maple Star block with Creamy Maple Apple Pie; and Cups and Saucers block with Coffee n' Cream Bars. What great ideas if you have to take a treat to a quilt guild meeting or any gathering of quilters. You could make the treat and use the block for a block exchange. Lots of possibilities with this.

For those of you who are new to this blog, here's how it works. Just reply that you would like to be entered in the drawing. If you don't like to post on blogs, send me an email to sue@alderwoodquilts.com. On May 1st, I'll choose a winner at random and then post a new giveaway for May. Join the fun!

Good Luck!

April Tip- Pizza Box Block Organizers

Sometimes it's the simplest things, isn't it? I've been storing projects in pizza boxes for years. Recently, somebody saw them and thought it was the best thing since sliced.... well..... sliced pizza! I guess I never thought it was much of a tip, but she surely did so I thought I'd share it here. I get clean, new pizza boxes from a nice pizza shop owner. Sometimes they give them to you for free and sometimes they ask you to pay for them, which is never much. I line the bottom of the box with batting (I like warm and natural for this rather than polyester batting) or with flannel. No need to get fancy- just lay it in there. When it's lined, your pieces don't slide all over the place. when cutting, pile up your block pieces in the pizza box the way they will be assembled. Take 2 piles and sew and iron them- them put them back where they belong in the "puzzle". Keep going this way and keep putting them back in the box the way they belong in the block. It keeps me organized, they travel well, store well, and I make less mistakes with complicated blocks. Be sure to go big with the boxes. Even if you're doing 8 or 10 inch blocks, it's good to have a 16 inch box. If there are a lot of pieces in the block, it takes a lot of space to lay them out before they are stitched.

The Winner IS.......

The winner of the March Giveaway is DONNA, the QUILTING GRANDMA! Donna- send me a private email to sue@alderwoodquilts.com with your mailing address and the pattern and fat quarters will be on their way! Congrats!!!

Now I need to find something for the April giveaway.... let's see, now.......

High season for local quilters......

"If you have ever searched for a way by which to measure who we are as a people, the things we value -- the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves -- then you really ought to consider attending a local quilt show."

That is how the article in today's Oregonian begins. The Oregonian is our local newspaper, published in Portland. There are several quilt shows coming up in the area and this article makes you want to hot foot it to the Great Northwest. Even if you can't make it to this corner of the world to take part in these events, you will enjoy the article. It's well written and honors those who take pleasure in creating with needle and thread.

Check it out!

More cupcakes!

These are Melinda's version of the cupcake pincushions. Check out her blog in my blog list- "Creations by Melinda". She was teaching at a retreat and their theme was Mardi Gras. She found some cute Mardi Gras fabric and used some large head decorative pins for "sprinkles". Can you beleive it? She made 60 of these to give away at the retreat! What lucky retreat participants!

Debbie's "Out of this World" rag quilt

Debbie Lamb, a customer/friend of mine sent me this photo of her ginormous rag quilt. It's all flannel and several layers thick and it's queen sized! This thing must weigh a ton! She made it with purple, blue and silver flannel. I think the silver is handspray flannel. I'm not sure what the blue and purple are, but I know Debbie always makes her rag quilts with super thick and squishy flannels. She found my site one day when she was on a hunt for Maywood Shadow Play flannels. You can see a few more of her rag quilts in the photo gallery on my website. Debbie taught me how to make these so they fray on BOTH sides of the quilt. I'll try it and blog about my results one of these days. Thanks for sharing, Debbie!

Cupcake Pincushions

These adorable cupcakes have NO CALORIES! These photos were taken at the Baby Lock booth at the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup a few weeks ago. The Baby Lock folks were nice enough to allow me to take these photos and gave me permission to post them on my blog.
The cupcake wrappers are the re-usable silicon cupcake baking cups found all over the place these days. The white fabric "frosting" was embroidered with "sprinkles", then wrapped over batting. They used poly batting scraps for this. You could use fiberfill stuffing or whatever you have around. The nice fluffy polyester scraps are nice because they give it a really fluffy feel.

The Baby Lock folks used hot glue to secure the cupcake into the holder. Then they decorated the "cupcakes" with buttons and pompoms.

What a cute gift these would make for a quilting friend. And what a great way to practice using a new embroidery machine!

The last 2 cakes.

My cake decorating class has come to an end. I took a cake decorating class with my daughter-in-law for the last 6 weeks. Here are my last 2 cakes. The purple cake was my favorite. It's chocolate and filled with raspberry filling. Check out the "stippling" on the top. In the cake decorating world they call it "Cornelie's Lace" (not sure I spelled that right). Nobody else in the class had a clue what stippling was, or why I caught onto it so fast. I also "stippled" the sides of the top layer of the tiered cake.


This thing was HUGE! The bottom is (2) 12 inch layers. Each layer was a whole cake mix. The top (2) layers were another cake mix. Each layer was split and filled, so the bottom is 4 layers and the top is 4 layers. The bottom is half chocolate and half white, which raspberry filling between all 4 layers. The top is lemon cake with lemon filling between all 4 layers. The decorations are a little over the top. I kept trying techniques so I could learn. Every time the instructor told us about another decorative design, I looked for a spot on my cake to try it. :-)

Cakes for 6 weeks! My freezer if full of cake! I don't feel like making another cake for a while! It was fun, though, and I learned a lot. And the best part was spending time with my daughter-in-law. I will think of her whenever I make a cake from now on!

Lakehouse Fabrics

I don't generally do much "advertising" on this blog. That's not the purpose of a blog, in my mind. If you want to shop, you can go onto my website and shop until your little heart's content. I try to keep the blog about fun stuff and chatting. But several readers have sent me emails asking where to find the fabrics in this month's giveaway so here goes.

The fat quarters I'm giving away in March are from Lakehouse Dry Goods. I got the bolts last year, so they are no longer available to me. When they're gone- they're gone. I have them on sale- many on pretty good discount. You can find them by logging on to www.alderwoodquilts.com or just clicking on the logo on the right on the blog. Go to the catalog, then fabric, then go to the second page and look for the thumbnail for Lakehouse. I also have several sale patterns that have the quilt made in this fabric on the cover. You can find them in the sale pattern category on the website. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll see if I can help.

Thanks to so many for signing up for the giveaway. I have you all entered!

Hello, Carol!

Carol- Thanks for entering the giveaway- please send me an email so that I can write back to you. You don't have a profile with your email address in it so I can't communicate with you. You won the January Giveaway and I haven't been able to contact you.

Puyallup Sewing & Stitchery Expo

I attended the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, Washington last weekend. (Puyallup is right outside of Tacoma). This show has been running for 25 years and I've gone several times. It's really a fun show! It's open to the public and the attendance is always very high. If you're ever in the northwest in March, I highly recommend that you experience it.
There were hundreds of vendors. The fairgrounds have some great buildings and 2 of them were full of vendors. The show also attracts quality instructors. I took 12 classes. My favorite was with Sue Hausman, and I'll do a whole blog post about that! I'll give you a hint. I bought a new "toy" from the folks at Husquavarna Viking. :-)
Mount Rainier watches over the city.
OK- I just had to take a picure of this. People must have thought I was nuts, but I just stood there laughing and then got out my camera. For the most part, vehicles were not allowed into the fairgrounds during the show. There were a few service vehicles, and I suppose this sign was meant for them. But what really struck me as being funny was that all of the other benches had people sitting on them... but not this one! Do you think people thought it was meant for them? I'll have to admit- I didn't have the nerve to park my rear here, either!

Cooper- the new grandpuppy

I can't believe how many people commented or sent me emails about the puppy! I've had tons of requests for more pictures. This one is Cooper with his "mom"- my daughter-in-law, Cady.
Here's Cooper with his "Daddy"- my son, Paul.
Cooper is a real climber. He just climbs up and over everything.
Dreaming of shooting hoops when he gets bigger. :-)

I have photos of the other pets in our family on my website. There is a photo gallery on there that has pictures of my other granddogs, and my grandkitties as well as our own dog. I need to get Cooper in the gallery.

We had Cooper here with us for a few nights while Cady and Paul took a little vacation. What a smart puppy! Our golden retriever, Jaeger, is a little less than impressed. Cooper likes to chase him around and bite his ankles.

Quilt Qua

I've just discovered a new resource for quilters who like to spend time with their computers ALMOST as much as they like spending time with their sewing machines. Connie at Quilt Qua was nice enough to add me to her list of online businesses and the featured list of quilt bloggers. I'm honored to be among such good company. Thanks for a great new resource, Connie!

http://www.quiltqua.com

http://www.quiltqua.com/shops/online/

http://www.quiltqua.com/links/blogs/

March Giveaway

Time for a new give away! Anyone who replies to a post on this blog or who sends me an email during the month of March is entered. I'll select a winner at random on April 1st. Be sure to check back to see if you won. If you don't have a profile with contact information, I won't be able to contact you.

This month's give away is the Bloomin' Bugs pattern and 4 fat quarters to get you started. This is a super fun quilt. You can make it as pictured on the pattern cover, or use some of the blocks for pillows or tote bags.

Good luck!

Happy March!

Thanks to so many who have posted and sent me email messages. The response to my guest blog post on quilting blogger has been amazing! I'm blown away by the number of quilters from all over the world who connect in this world of blogging. I will reply to everyone soon!

I just returned at midnight last night from the Sewing and Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, Washington. My head is spinning! I have so much to tell you, and lot of great pictures, too! There's way too much to post on one day- I have topics for blog posts to last me for WEEKS!

I am having guests today (I'll tell you about that, too), and I haven't even unpacked my car yet. So I'll have to keep this short.

This coming week, I'll be posting the March giveaway, my next cake, free patterns and ideas I picked up at Expo. pictures of the puppy, we'll get started on the March bag and MUCH MORE! I met some well known people at Expo, got a new "toy", and made some new friends. I can't wait to share it all with you.

Before I close, I wanted to let you know that I really will be starting a block of the month. Several of you have mentioned that you are anxious to start. Thanks for being patient with me!

Now I need to unpack the car and find my toothbrush! Have a super fantastic terrific day!

Book WInner!

The winner of the February giveaway is "Q". Send me your mailing address in a private email to sue@alderwoodquilts.com and your book will be on it's way lickety split!

I'll be posting a March giveaway tomorrow. Thanks for everyone who replied in February- check back and reply in March to be entered in the new giveaway!

Guest Blogger on Quilting Gallery!

Happy Friday! I'm SOOOOOO excited! Michelle at Quilting Gallery asked me to be the guest blogger today. For the month of February, she has had guest bloggers on her site every day. I've been reading along this month and I'm honored to be in the company of such wonderful, talented, creative women. Click on the link at the right to be directed to the post.

I'm in Puyalup, Washington this weekend attending the Sewing and Stitchery Expo. What fun! I'm shopping and learning and enjoying the company of others who share my love of fabric and sewing. I didn't take any pictures yesterday but I'll try to get some today and post them this evening.

I hope your day is a good one- try to find a few minutes to do something you love.

Frosting clowns and flowers

Here's the latest from my cake decorating class. I'm taking a cake decorating class with my daughter-in-law, Cady. I've only made basic cakes before this- nothing fancy. We're having a lot of fun and our efforts are appreciated by all the people who are getting our cakes!

I promised to show you a picture of my clowns. Don't you love those fingers? Wouldn't they be cute sitting on top of cupcakes?

These are my first attempts at flowers. A few of the roses even look like roses! The great thing about flowers is that even if a flower doesn't look like it's supposed to, it looks pretty. We're letting the icing harden on these and we'll use them on a cake next week.

A new puppy in the family

I have a new grandpuppy! Our son and daughter in law got a yellow lab puppy last night. Is he cute or WHAT!?! His name is Cooper and he kept them awake most of the night. Makes me glad our dog is 6 years old! There's just something magical about a puppy, though. They just make you want to giggle!

Mel's T-Shirt Quilt

My niece, Dr. Melanie Hauser sent me a picture of her latest quilt. She had some great t-shirts that were taking over her closet and she decided to put them to better use. It's a rag quilt with the snipped frayed edges. We just love to do rag quilts. One year, Mel and I made rag quilts for each other. We both wanted one but didn't think we'd ever get around to making ourselves one, so we made them for each other that year for Christmas! This one is t-shirts and jeans on the front, and I think she used flannel on the back to give the "rag" effect on the front. This is soooo cute, Mel! Thanks for sharing the pics with me. (I put it in the gallery on the website, too).

A Dozen Bags- February Bag finish

Let's attach the handles and finish the tote bag. You should have (2) 18-inch handles. Turn the top edge down 1-inch and press. Slip a handle under the cuff leaving about a 6-inch space between each end. Pin the handle ends through the cuff.
Stitch the handles just under the cuff. Repeat for the handle on the other side.

Fold the handles up and stitch all the way around the top of the cuff, through the handles.

Da Da! Wasn't that easy??? Thanks for the free pattern, Lazy Girl Designs!

A Dozen Bags- February Bag part 2

Let's keep going on the February Bag.
To Square up the bottom corners, we already cut a 2" square from each corner. For each cut corner, open up the hole you created and match up the seams.
Pin and stitch across the opening. Be sure to reinforce the beginning and ending of the stitching line.
Now turn the bag right side out through the opening you left. Stitch the opening shut right along the edge. Now comes the fun part. It felt a little like folding a fitted sheet. Fold the end with the little opening section you just stitched inside the other end. This way, the area you left open to turn and then stitched, will be the lining and will not show. Do your best to push the lining inside the bag then press the fold along the top. You now have the finished bag without handles. We'll do them tomorrow.

A Dozen Bags 2009- February Bag

It's time to make our February bag! This one will be super fast and easy-a LOT faster than the January Bag. I found a great FREE PATTERN on the Lazy Girl Designs site. I love Lazy Girl! She has some great bag patterns. I picked up some new Lazy Girl patterns and will be adding them to the website soon. This free bag pattern is for a simple tote bag. It just takes one yard of fabric, and you can make it in one easy sewing session. So download the pattern by clicking on "free Pattern" above and let's get started!

I always hate it when someone says I should be able to finish a block or a project in one hour and it takes me three hours. It makes me feel like a remedial quilter. I've been sewing for 40 years and I own a quilt shop and I'm never the first person to finish a project. So.... I'm estimating that it should take most people about an hour to make this bag. But if you're watching tv or have to use the bathroom or get a phone call... or if you're me.... it might take you and hour and a half or 2 hours. Either way- it's quick and easy.


To prepare your fabric, pre-wash if you want to. Then give it a good pressing and trim the edges so that they are nice and straight. You want to end up with a piece of fabric that is 36 inches long by the width of the fabric, which should be about 44 inches. Trim off the selvages and cut 4 inches off one of the selvedge edges for the handle. You just need one strip that is 4" x 36" for the handles (you'll cut it later). The remaining piece should be about 36" x 40". Fold it in half (right sides facing) so that it measures 36" x about 20".


For the handles, fold the long strip in half then open it up and fold the edges into the center fold. Then fold on the original fold line. This makes a long piece that is 4 pieces of fabric thick. Stitch along the open edge, very close to the edge. Then cut it in half, giving you (2) 18-inch handles.
Stitch around the 3 open sides of the main handbag, leaving an opening to turn.
Cut a 2 inch square from each corner.

More tomorrow!

Cakes!

I'm taking a cake decorating class with my daughter-in-law. Aside from having 10 pounds of buttercream frosting in my refrigerator, it's a BLAST! The first cake we made was a baby carriage, and I forgot (DARN!) to take a picture of it.The second cake was a doll. Since it was Valentine's week, I made it in red, pink and white. Since my DH and I are empty nesters and our "kids" are grown men, I was at a bit of a loss to know what to do with a doll cake... until I learned that my friend was hosting a tea party on Valentine's Day with her 9-year-old daughter for her girl scout troop. Yippie! A good home for my doll cake!



I attempted a bustle in the back, which turned out more like a lump of frosting, but that was ok. The roses got better as I went. Some don't look much like roses. I now have a healthy respect for people who can whip out butter cream roses!

Next week, we're making frosting clowns. If they look anything like clowns, I'll show them to you. :-)

February Tip- Tomato Needle Holder

I made a needle holder out of one of these little tomatoes about 30 years ago. I was going to put a picture of it on here but it looked so old and beat up that I thought I should make a new one for the blog picture. So here's my brand new tomato!

I change my machine needles regularly, and I try to use the size that's right for the fabric I'm sewing. When changing to different sizes of needles, the used needle isn't always very old, so I want to save it for another use. But I don't like to put the slightly used needles back in the packages because I'm afraid they'll get mixed up with the brand new ones. To keep them straight, I poke them in my tomato. I use a Sharpie marker to label the sections. It's handy and cute!

Yoo, Hoo..... Carol........

Carol- I'd love to send you the calendar. I'll bet you missed reading that you won! Send me an email to sue@alderwoodquilts.com and let me know your mailing address.

A Dozen Bags- January Bag Finish

It's time to line the bag and finish up. After sewing around the lining from side marker to side marker (which leaves the top open), put the bag inside the lining, right sides together. To add a little extra ease in opening the finished bag, you might want to stitch the lining just a little bit below the markers- leaving a slightly larger opening. Not much- just a little bit. I found that the finished bag was a little tight- I wanted it to open a little more.
Stitch around the top opening, leaving an area open to turn the bag. I did a lot of pinning, as the knitted bag was pretty stretchy and I wanted to make sure it didn't slip out of place before it was stitched.

Turn right side out, and lightly press. Whip stitch the opening (where my hand is).


The pattern calls for 11 1/2" x 4 1/4 " D-shaped bamboo handles. Handbag handles are pretty easy to find in craft stores these days. I've ordered several styles of handles to sell on my website, and will be adding them soon, but I don't have this size yet. The ones I used for this bag are by Purse n-alize-it!

Fold the little extensions over the handles and hand stitch them down. I found that mine had a pretty wide gap around the middle 2 openings and I took a little tuck to cinch them up. This made a small gather inside in the lining, which I think looks cute.

We're all done! Enjoy your bag!

February Giveaway

For February, I'm giving one of my blogging buddies a little light reading. Many of you may be familiar with Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek series. They don't need to be read in order, but this one happens to be third in the series. It's a great read. It retails for $14.00, so get your name in the hat! All you have to do is reply to ANY post on this blog, or send me an email or call me and mention it. It's just that easy! I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

And the winner is....

This is Jaeger (pronounced Ya-ger- it means hunter in German). He's our 5 year old golden retriever. What you have to know about Jaeger is that he likes to eat paper. He's been known to eat checks and bills and lots of things that people don't believe. He also eats kleenex, but we won't talk about that. He eats toilet paper rolls and last week he ate a parchment decorator bag with cake frosting. OK- I guess I can understand that. But plain ol' paper? I don't get it. So, when we asked him to pick the winner out of the hat, it was like giving me a bowl of dark chocolate.

Give me the paper.
I said, "Give it to me!" "Drop!"
"I mean it- DROP IT".
OK- Here's the paper. I picked the winner for you..... send the calendar to CAROL!

Congratulations, Carol! Carol posted on Jan 5th saying nobody gave her a calendar for Christmas. Send me a private message to my email (sue@alderwoodquilts.com) and give me your mailing address so I can send you the calendar.

For February, I'll be giving away another book- I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.