Rag Quilts for Baby

One of my first attractions to quilting was the rag quilt, I like this raggy shaggy ends sticking out making a grid pattern on the front of the quilt. It took me a good 5 years to actually get to making one. I found the bird flannel fabric and thought it would make a cute baby boy quilt. The fact that I had no baby boy to give it to didn't stop me from making it! It went together easy enough I used my design board to help with placement of the squares so they looked randomly placed(does that even make sense?).

I used this book Made From Scratch Biscuit Quilts by Annis Clapp to help me with construction of the quilt, but I didn't use any pattern for it. I wanted to play around with the fabrics I had and figure it out myself.

To get the exposed seam allowances shredded and shaggy they tell you to put it in the washer machine a few times. This is after two washes, I think it needs more roughing up, but when I took it out of the washer it had so many pills and threads stuck to it that it looked like an old worn out quilt so I just put it aside for a long time. After talking to Chelsey about it I decided to try shaving it with a dispisable razor and this is what happened! It really did help it immensely! I'm not sure it's baby shower gift quality, but there's probably a little somebody somewhere that would love to be wrapped in the warmth and love I've sewn up!

I have a  little girl version cut and ready to sew but when I got the bad results from washing I couldn't get started on it. Now that I know about the shaving technique I will get started on this one!

Have you ever made a project that didn't quite turn out the way you planned? What did you do to fix it? Please share you secrets!

Go make something!!

Nini~

Everything Old is New Again.

I promised a long time ago to show what I made from my thrift shop sale purchases when I posted it here and guess what....today is the day!! Woo hooooooo, lucky you! I have two items to share!

I made mittens from this sweater. I found a great tutorial and pattern here , thank you Make and Do Girl! I didn't add the lining to mine they were so nice and soft inside I didn't want to lose that comfort. I followed every other step. This is the sweater I started with, it's 100% wool. I washed it in hot water and dried it in the dryer, a BIG no no for a wool sweater you love, but I wanted felted mittens!

Here they are all done! I like the vine around the cuff!

I used an old cashmere sweater for the bottom of the mittens, it is so soft and cozy. The cuff is a bit thick, I sewed it by hand because it wouldn't fit under the sewing machine foot. I haven't used them yet, but I imagine they are good for keeping your finger tips nice and cozy while outside by the campfire or watching the holiday parades ahead!

 

I made a cross body bag from the wool skirt and leather belt I bought at the local thrift shop on sale day, I got everything 1/2 price!

I had to cut a lot of the skirt off to get nice straight pieces of fabric to use. Skirts are curvier than I realized. There were a few dirty marks on the skirt I cut around, luckily there was plenty of fabric left to make the size bag I wanted.

I used the lining of the skirt to make the lining of my bag as well as the wool from the skirt.

 

It is the perfect size bag for a bottle of water, my long wallet and a few other essentials for a day of shopping.  I knitted the flower to add to the front because it was kinda plain and boring. I love that crazy knitted embellishment!! If you do too you can find it on Ravelry It's called the Knitted Flower. I ended up knitting a blue one for this bag, I figured if I was gonna go to the trouble of knitting a flower you should be able to see it on the front! Blue is much more noticeable than the grey one!

I love how my projects turned out! Shopping at the thrift shops benefits everyone, it keeps things out of landfills, the organizations supported by the thrift shops and us, the shoppers! It's a win win!!

Have you made something new out of something old? I would love to hear all about it!!

Now, go make something!!

Nini~

Red, White and Blue I Love You!

I made this red, white and blue flag out of scraps to hang outside for the summer. Summer holidays are all about patriotism and I just love a good flag waving tradition!

 I wanted it to be rustic and tattered so I tore all the red and white strips from my scrap bag. A scrap using project is always good for me, I love the fact it was gonna be trash and I rescued it!

I am also a collector of yardsticks and rulers, so I made a sleeve to hang it just big enough for a piece of a yard stick.   You could use a dowel or even twine fed through the sleeve.  I had assistance from Mr. Nini for attaching it semi permanently to our porch railing.

 I attached the fabric strips by putting a wide hem in the blue fabric's opposite end and cut slits in it, fed them from the back, tied a big knot in the top on the front side to give it that rustic look I like so much!!

It's perfect to leave out all summer long and it can be thrown out when it's faded and worn. It took no more than an hour to make and cost nothing!

Happy Summer and Happy Independence Day!! Go make something!

Nini~

Little Ol' Lady Dish Rags and Pot Holders!

I am obsessed with knitted dish rags! I love how they feel in my hand. I always thought knitted dish rags were for lil ol' ladies, but I'm rethinking that!! The weight is just how I like my rags! I made them black or brown because my white dish rags were a nice shade of dirty and I bleach them til they shred. I use the Lily Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn that comes in yummy colors if you prefer another color dish rag. Am I overthinking this?!

These are my dishrags that have been washed and dried for a few months now...there's some fuzzies on them but they are presentable unlike my other "white" rags.

These are Chelsey's pot holders and dish rag, I love the colors. They definitely look like they belong to a young lady!!

I also made crocheted pot holders out of the same yarn. I've never crocheted anything so I thought this was a good place to start since it's one simple stitch over and over.  I notice my hands and arms were sore after crocheting.  Apparently it uses different muscles than knitting!

The potholders are two layers of crocheted yarn so they are pretty effective for keeping the heat away from your hands.

If you wanna give the dish rag a try, below is the pattern I use, it's passed down from a friend who doesn't know where the pattern came from she's had it memorized for so long, neither one of us is claiming ownership of the pattern, we're just sharing it!

Knitted Dish Rag Directions

Yarn  1 skein of Sugar'n Cream cotton yarn. If you buy the smaller skeins, 2 oz, you'll get one and a lil more  dish rag out of it. If you use the bigger skein you can get two dish rags.

Needles size 7 10 inch,  gauge isn't important

Cast on 4 stitches

Row 1  K1 row
Row 2  K2 YO into end of row
Repeat row2 until there are stitches the entire length of your needle, you will have 1/2 of the dish rag knitted on a diagonal.

Then you start decreasing:

K1, K2tog, YO, K2tog, K to end of row. Repeat until 4 stitches left on needles, cast off.


That's it! It takes me about 1 1/2 hours or so to make one.  They are good to take to work on when you'll be waiting somewhere for a long time since it isn't a lot of supplies to carry and it's lightweight.

Now go make one!! I'd love to hear how it turns out!

Go make something!

Nini~

Mariella's Ruffled Elephant Quilt

Apparently I like ruffles!  So when I found this great tutorial from Make It Homemade for a ruffled baby quilt I was so inspired I had to make one!! I picked my fabrics and got to work (apparently I like polka dots too!).  I adjusted the width of the strips for maximum elephant placement, but followed Palak's tutorial closely for constructing the quilt. I finished mine with a ruffled edge. 

The ruffles get easier every time I make them. I bought a ruffler foot online for a good price and it works great!  It took some time to get used to...but it helped immensely when I finally decided to read the directions and oil it just like the directions told me! Imagine that.

My first quilt label!


I made this quilt for baby Mariella as a shower gift.  Make sure you see the blogpost about fun pink camouflage cookie favors we made for her special day here.

Go make something!

Nini~

Baking for Baby!

One of my friends that I've had since kindergarten is going to be a Grandmother for the first time! One of the first things we talked about was the baby shower and how much fun it will be. I'm the crafty friend, so of course we discussed handmade favors for the special day.  There were so many ideas and conversation about the best favor, we finally decided on making pink camouflage cookies. We baked, iced and bagged up 300 cookies! Luckily there were 4 sets of helping hands to make the task much more fun and fast!

Blogpost used for our pink camouflage cookies on sweetsugarbelle

Proud Mama and Grandmother to be!

I can't wait to meet baby Mariella this summer! 

Go make something!

Nini~