Project Quilting quilting challenge  season 9

Finished this up this morning. It is a picnic table size hot pad table runner with patriotic fabrics on one side and a floral fabric on the other. The challenge this week was to work with triangle pieces. I’ve never done pinwheels so I thought this would be a good challenge for me. More info on my workings later, but I wanted to get it uploaded today before I forgot.

BuffaLove for Project Quilting Hometown Proud Challenge

For the first Quilting Challenge for season 9 the theme is Hometown Proud. Well, anybody who has ever lived in the Buffalo New York area absolutely loves it. They may not love the winters here, but the people are fabulous. We come together and help out our neighbors, support our teams even when they are losing, we support community projects, and we are just nice people. So my quilt was the Buffalo symbol of BuffaLove.

I first started out making a river sunset since I live in the City of Tonawanda along the Niagara River. We are almost smack dab between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. After work in the winter time the sun is just setting as I’m driving home to the west. The sunsets on the river are phenomenal and I wanted to reflect that in my quilt. I ended up putting on a cruise ship so now it’s not so Hometown since a cruise ship would not go on our river.

I thought I was stuck with nothing until I saw the progress of a Philadelphia theme quilt with the LOVE on it then t thought of the Buffalo with the heart on it. This picture above is of my grandson giving a hug to my neighbors statue in her yard. And I knew I could work it into my project.

Figured I could use both sides and make a tote bag for cruise shopping. Mostly I used strips of different colors, sewed them up in a sunset pattern for one side and random for the other side. After I stitched them together I trimmed them to size and added a piece of interfacing, cotton batting, and a piece of fabric for the inside. I appliquéd the cruise ship and the Buffalo onto the two sides and quilted each side. Then I put on some bias binding along the to edges and added straps.

I stitched both sides together and stitched an overlock stitch on the edge to finish it off. All done


Until I craft again
Coleen

Quilting Challenge -Off-Season November Challenge.

Months have gone by and I just never got around to checking up one the off season quilt challenges until this week. Luckily I had some extra vacation days saved up and took a couple off this week to make for an extra long holiday weekend so I checked in to see what was going on.  Sew something for myself? I can do that. My husband just asked me to buys Christmas tree skirt this year so we don’t have a blanket under the tree again. That’s when I decided to make a tree skirt.

Now I have lots of scraps... see

First I picked out the roll of Christmas scraps and cut out a 36” circle of cotton batting that I was going to use as my base for my scrappy tree skirt. 

I then began to lay pieces of fabric onto the batting and stitching them down in a random pattern. 

 And more pieces... 

And continuing until I covered the entire circle. 

After the pieces were on I put a decorative stitch on all the seams with white thread. 

Next I trimmed away the excess fabric by following around the batting on the back. 

All trimmed up. Next I layered  the circle on top of some red satin type fabric. I pinned it down after smoothing it out, then I basted around the edge to keep the sides together. 

Now I measured the center and drew a 5” circle and a straight line to the edge. I then basted along the line so I could cut out the center and the opening. 

Time to add the binding. I started in the center circle and went all the way around. Not sure how much I used because it was from my stash last year of red binding I made for table runners. 

I added a decorative stitch to close up the binding with green thread. I added two red ribbon ties for each bow on the open sides. 

It only took me about 7 hours to complete this challenge. Hope you enjoyed my runner building post. 

Save Money with EBATES

Wanted to let everybody know the easiest way to save money... When you purchase anything online - go through Ebates first.  You can get here this way:

Get cash back for shopping on Ebates! Use my link below and sign up.

https://go.ebat.es/imsk/uOtdQj8BqC

First off when you sign up with my invite link you will get a $10 bonus when you make your first purchase and shop at over 2,000 stores like, eBay, Macy’s & Walmart - Even AMAZON!!!  I order online at Kohls/Walmart/Lowes and get the free pick-up in store.  Ebates even gives you the most recent coupon codes to use for discounts at the stores.  

When I shop online I always go through Ebates to get a rebate, first I check out the KrazyCouponLady to see if there are any "must have" deals going on at any store.  Recently I purchased 6 small appliances at Kohls for $12 after my $72 store rebate and my Ebates rebate.  Most I packaged up and put in an auction to raise money - the toaster I kept for a friend.  I also purchased two Nutri Bullets for $14 each according to their suggestions.  

Then I go through the Ebates app to shop and it will put me right onto the website to shop (Ebates will still show up on the top bar on each store's page).  After you are done shopping check your cart and check out.  Ebates keeps track of your purchases and gives you the rebate after you check out.  Please stay on the page as you do your purchase and do not exit out and go back.  I think Ebates keeps track of what you put into your cart, so you may not be able to have a full cart first, then go into Ebates, and then check your cart again.  But I could be wrong but I do not want to try it and lose a rebate.

Hopefully you sign up from my invite link and earn your $10 bonus after your first purchase.

Coleen

Tutorials coming soon

I am going to start doing some sewing tutorials soon.  I'll have some general sewing, projects, and shortcuts that I have figured out along the way.  Hope you come back to check them out and follow my posts as they go.

Have a nice weekend - I'll be at a craft show!

Coleen

Fall & Winter Craft Shows

We did a little craft show in Veteran's park in the City of Tonawanda a couple weeks ago and we set a goal of $200 and we had $298, not bad for a $20 show and it was right up the street from my house.
Next show is Tomorrow at Sweethome High School, their fall holiday show.  I have never done it before but I did pretty good at the spring show so I decided to give it a try.  Hopefully I am not sitting there all day twiddling my thumbs, better bring something to do just in case.  I'm bringing the table runners, pot holders, cozies, towels, and a few other things that normally sell at the shows.  Setting a goal of $250.  Got my lunch all ready - bagle & cream cheese and a fruit bowl.

I finally got notified (after months of emails back and forth to the show director) to St Christophers on Niagara Falls Blvd.  That show is November 7-8.  That show cost a little bit more so I set a goal at that show for $500.  That will be all Christmas and household kitchen items.  Hopefully by that date I should have my Christmas oven mitts done and ready to put on sale.  I'll have to look at the stores and see what they are selling theirs for.  I may just buy fabric and sew ruffles onto pre-made mitts if they are a good price and I can keep the price down.  The Christmas ornaments that did not sell at St Gregory last year may be bought at a lower price at this show this year.  I had $4 on the santas - and they were adorable - but didn't sell very many of them (maybe 8) and I had about 40 so big disappointment.  Think I'll lower the price to $3 and see if they move.

Last show for the year will be St Gregory the Great in Amherst.  That is our most expensive show so I am setting a sales goal of $1000.  We hit $900 last year so if we have more of a selection of the stuff that we do make, we should hit our goal.  I am hoping people bring their friends to our booth who bought a table runner from, so their friend could get one too.  They are our most expensive item at only $25 so if we sell 20 of them that would be half the goal.  Regular potholders will be new this year along with the potholder mitt from last year, and I will have new Oven Mitts in Christmas fabrics to pick from too.  I really hope we do well.

My Etsy Store

For those who need to shop, I have a Etsy store here: https://www.etsy.com/shop/ColeenO  !!!  My mom, my sister, and I sell our sewed crafts and supplies here when we are not doing shows.  It pays all of the fees I get from listing items, and sometimes I make quite a bit of money during the holidays.  Gotta like that.

I have been slacking on crafting as of late, but I did keep up with my Etsy orders as they came in.  Just new stuff I have not been making too many.  I probably should get back in the swing.  Maybe the show we are doing this weekend will get me motivated to sew again.  I need to make some table runners that are for the fall and winter holidays, we sold alot of them last November and I am hoping we get a large inventory so we have lots to sell this year.

Until I craft again...