Quick, Little, and HIGHLY useful!

We are a three cat household.  Generally they are all well-behaved and lovely fur-babies.  However, Fender (our youngest cat) has a naughty streak and one of her most naughty habits is to chew wires.  Her favorite are thin wires like those of earbuds.
This has led to a number of destroyed pairs of earbuds in our family which has left more than one person upset with said cat at any given time.
Enter this quick little project that is HIGHLY useful to deter naughty Fender.

I'd seen it here originally and decided to give it a go.  Erin's Tutorial for this project is easy to follow - well written and I found I can whip one up in under an hour.  I do use a walking foot to sew through the multi-layers and that prevents any puckering problems for me.
I've made two so far - one for Steve and one for Jess.

Happy Sewing!

A Pinwheel Project

In a spurt of post holiday shopping I purchased two sizes of a really slick little template tool.  It's called a "twister" and allows you to transform standard squares into pinwheels fairly easily.
You can read/purchase here: I bought mine from Canton Village Quilt Works, but they are relocating currently and are sold out at the moment.
This is the progression on a project I'm making for my Mom.  I will update with fully finished once I get the quilting and binding done.

5" squares cut from my stash

Squares just sewn together

3" border added to squares

Twister Tool lined up on seams

First row cut and re-sewn

Row 2 added - starting to see the pinwheels

Swiss cheese left after all blocks cut from original piece

Pinwheels!

New border added to finish it off

At the moment this piece is loaded onto the quilting frame as I fight with my stitch length regulator and audition quilting designs.  Update will come...

UPDATE:  Finished photos - quilting is done with my Janome 1600P, King Tut Variegated thread in blues and the pattern is called "Billowy".  Binding is hand finished and of course - my quilt label.

Happy Sewing!

A Fun Little Bag

During the summer our church had a ladies day out event in Rockport, MA.  We had a dozen ladies from high school through retirement age that all drove down to the coast to enjoy a day of strolling, eating and chatting.  It was a lovely day!
While we were there one of the ladies (a new friend) asked me if I ever sew bags - which I promptly acknowledged - bags are fun to do generally and they tend to be quick projects that bring immediate satisfaction.  Which is sometimes a welcome relief and distraction from larger projects that seem to go on and on and on!  She showed me a small bag she'd purchased in Maine and asked if I might be able to make something similar (with a few tweaks) for her to give to her sister as a birthday gift.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity.  I found the exact match fabric to her bag on Fabric.com and ordered it right away.
But, I had a BIG project that had a hard deadline - so that had to be done first before I could work on the bag.
Last week I made a mock up pf a bag to work on the rusty skill of inserting zipper pockets.

But it didn't seem to be quite right, so I found something else to work from and this one looks to be perfect (prayerfully!).
I love the website So Sew Easy - her tutorials are awesome and I just love her accent!  I found a pattern for a Cosmetic Bag that was just the ticket once I'd added some zipper pockets inside and out.

Lobster Fabric - matches original bag

Yesterday I started cutting and today I put it all together!

Adding zipper pockets - inside and out

 The zipper pocket tutorial also came from So Sew Easy - HERE.

It stands by itself!

Showing dimension with the mat 

I will deliver this little cutie on Friday and hope it will be just what she wanted.  It was great fun to make and hopefully will bless her sister.

UPDATE: a facebook update post - it was a hit! Made my day!

Taking a Step Back

I'm taking a step back from some big dreams to more familiar ground for now.

I have decided that in spite of what 'everyone' says, I don't really care for the WordPress format and it's sometimes simply too much work for an old dog to learn a new trick - so I'm bringing my sewing blog stuff back to Blogger which I know and love and can use easily.

After some time I will figure out how to add my custom domain/hosting stuff to here if I feel it's worthwhile, it may be or may not be.... it remains to be seen.

For now - Applewood Quilts Etc. will be here at home in familiar territory linked with my other blog about my 'real' non-quilty life.

Blessings on the journey all!

~Deb