Tops and Jackets Quick and Easy

Using this pattern collar and

I like the big collar on simplicity 8162, but the simple set in sleeve line of Kwik sew 4069

This cowl neck hangs just right and can make this really quick!

I made a couple of these before I went to work in the morning when I wanted something different to wear

Nothing Like the Feel of a Silk Blouse and the comfort of my matching Tubins

This shirt does not require stretch fabric, and is quick and easy, I did the neckline by turning under twice or putting a thin bias strip around the neck in these two different shirts above...

Made with 3/4 length sleeves and the yellow and

 gray made with long sleeves... quick pattern, just use front and back and turn under at neck or use a small rolled bias strip...These two blouses were silk so hmmmmmm so sweet to wear..

The Pants are the usual tubins with elastic waist... 10 minutes to cut/multiples and 10 minutes to sew each pair of pants... yes that is right, in an hour you can have 3 pairs of nice looking pants to wear to work, that are comfortable and professional looking...

The Jackets are the usual jackets adjusted to 6 inches shorter on the pattern for easy pants wear

These are the type of free flowing jackets I wear most days, and carry for swimsuit cover ups out of lacey fabrics

One of my favorite new outer coat patterns, below:

 

I first used this for a similar Jacket...

I decided later this wasn't good enough, so I got a small piece of fabulous fur and added it to this

After The Test Jacket, I Made this Little Over Jacket for a simple Dress and Used the Selvedge for Trim... and made a fringe at the bottom to match all of the leftover fabrics... but it was quick...

The selvages on this boucle type fabric had a line of metallic, so I couldn't throw the edge away.  I took it and used it as trim down the front and then made a fringe out of the fabric itself for the bottom... Such fun

This is one of my favorite quick dresses, but right now I am
making the Tank with capri length leggins and my bathing suits with a chiffon overlay for BEACH   yeh!!

Bathing suit one piece with chiffon wrap...Love this... using a bathing suit that I wear to adjust the pattern and I am thinking of trying a couple of beach hats for fun, vacation is coming up, so I am making my annual tote luggage to have room for my kayaks and beach toys... and loving the chiffons at work with the prints for wraps and jackets.

Pictures to follow....

One of this years sets will be red bathing suit. red capri, and red tank and printed chiffon of red and gold...
and perhaps a blue set of the same I like the print soo much..

With the new Gauze we got in I am going to make a Red Gauze Dress with the stripe in the middle to be the Yellow Gold Gauze to go with this set---I may not make it as Full... The stripe is the attraction and I don't want it to blow up in the air when I am on the boardwalk...LOL

Glittery fabric with copper accents

This Glittery fabric is in the weave, not separate glitter, and the scarves are two separate-one of the same fabric as the drape neck blouse and intertwined with two silk scarves.  The jacket is a polyester fabric that has an iridescent sheen, much like a taffeta.

Infinity Scarves Because

Soo, No time to do anything, because OMG I have been sleeping.... Well, I do work fulltime, and with a little kind of head thing, not sore throat or in pain, but certainly made me too tired to skip sleeping..  So, when this happens, I must fullfill my need to make things, by just making infinity scarves to wear to work...
Today, I have 5 laying across the sewing chair back, so I will whip them up and wear at least 3 of them to work... makes me feel accomplished... Well, when you work in a sewing store, it feels good to say, I made this today... so pretty scarves with matching earrings do this for me.

Scarf styles I wear and sometimes all at once layered!

sometimes I tie a longer scarf around the middle like a mans tie knot... sometimes a fancy glitter elastic bracelet above that..

Tote-done Quickly

Quick Tote out of Soft Vinyl-Inside and Out

This was very quickly made... 1/2 yard of outside vinyl and 1/2 yard of inside vinyl

Vinyl comes 54 inches wide-so the vinyl I fold up to the depth I want and cut off the excess strip and use it for the handles or pockets or whatever... This is simple, I make a bunch of big ones for my vacation luggage... easy to smash in my hatchback with my kayaks without taking up much room... all the fabrics are usually non wrinkling spandex or stretch matte jersey... so fun.

Inside is vinyl too, so can be used on the kayak and no worries about water splashing.... 

After folding up and sewing side seams, just fold the bottom edge of sewn sides to the width you want your tote bottom and do the same on both sides.... If you are doing outside strapping like this, best to mark and sew the strapping on before you sew sides and bottom, easier to work with... top handles sewn on after you put the inside lining in and turn top edges in a quarter of an inch and top stitch. Then sew handles on....

I just folded the leftovers in and top stitched leaving the bottoms open so I could fold them up and stitch the rectangular fold over the top edge of the strapping... Works for me!

Can always use another tote bag

Fabulous Fabrics

and G Street has lots of choices on their 6.97 and 4.97 a yard tables in the Home Decorating Department with 25% off Now

Totes Have Choices     www.sewtotes.com

Big Buck Shirt

I have to stop in the middle of my other projects for a couple of Birthdays..

I used ultra hold Heat n Bond and put a deer on a shirt for the family deerhunter...

I liked it soo much, I didn't want to spoil it with words.
The deer is brown minky and the Antlers are a scrap of the blender border from the quillow I am working on... perfect for antlers.

Theme Quillow Planning and Sewing

Pugs on a Motorcycle Quillow

EH?   Okay, wasn't my idea.... He asked for it... The rest is sort of matching colors and other likes.....

What is a quillow?  A quillow is a quilt that folds into a pillow.  The pillow pocket it folds into is just the right size for feet, so when you get cozy in your quillow you can stick your feet in the pillow pocket.  

What is a quilt?  A quilt can be simply two pieces of fabric-(any kind) with some batting in between and sewn together like a sandwich.  Most quilts have at least one side a pieced piece  and the other side one long piece to back the quilt.  Quilting is the act of sewing the sandwich of three pieces together.  When you are sewing squares or shapes together for a quilt, usually you are piecing the top.  Many stores sell quilt back which is wider so you don't have to piece the back at all and it makes it simpler and quicker.  

On this quillow, I am piecing both the top and the back and then sewing or quilting the layers together.  Then you center the pillow pocket and sew it to one of the sides.  The pillow pocket will be on the minky side of this quillow, so you can pull the minky around you and then slide your feet into the pocket.

I do have an accuquilt cutter so the base of the cotton squares will be cut with the accuquilt cutter.  That part will be faster.  The actual pugs on many of the squares will be appliqued and padded to give a little 3-dimensional feel to the doggies.

I will take pictures of each step.

THE BIG PLAN

This is not to scale... but it is the starting Plan-started 

Started with 3 yards of Minky  108 x 60+

Top piecing will be mostly cottons... might use some minky for some borders...I kind of wing it by how much fabric I have and how things look as I place them-

The Back will be Black Minky and Brown Minky Pieced in large Rectangles Framed by Bordor... the size will be larger than Batting and be brought around to fold over 3 inches on the front.  This is showing you how I plan the Border sizes and the actual squares of the Themed Quilt... and then the Pillow Pocket is 1/2 Yard folded over and sewn onto the Minky Back so it has a theme on both sides of the pillow pocket.  The center Square Quilt Patch is a central theme... The 4 corner Squares will be the same... Then the two quilt squares on either side of the center repeat and etc.

You have to plan the backing if you don't have all one color... I have two pieces of the luxury soft minky that GStreetFabrics Sells... I use the measures and borders plan for the front and plan the back accordingly, not knowing my quilting design I can stitch in the ditch and be in the same seams.

I have cut the Batting to size

The True Color is Center Chocolate and the borders are Black Minky

The Backing is sewn together but not the pillow pocket square yet.

Batting is cut to size first... then backing is done and laid under the batting ... then Front Quilt Squares are done... Sewn together with borders and laid on top... Then Pinned to fit and quilted from the center out.  Backing pulled to front to bind after all is quilted... Pillow Pocket centered and sewn on... and then Voila.

These are the Pugs in different positions... so we can applique the ones that look appropriate for the activity

Planned squares... Corners... Pugs in Hats in a Crowd

Pugs in a Pickup Truck

Pugs Playing Baseball

CenterPugs at Cabin and Hiking on Rocks

 Pugs at the cabin

 Pugs on the Dock or on a chair

Pugs in a boat or on the Dock

Pugs Playing Football with a helmet on

Pugs Riding Bikes being a courier

Pugs Riding Motorcycle on Pillow Pocket

This is the other team of pugs when playing football and baseball

This is the strip borders because it has a little brown and black through it so I thing it will bring it together

The Grayed borders are the blended cotton
The black and brown are just that with minky

                                    

Well here are some of the squares placed on the border strip fabric...Pugs will be in the back of the pickup truck, sitting on the adirondack chairs-helmets on to play football, on the hat print they will be outline quilted through the batting so the pugs are slightly padded when you look at it wherever the dogs are.

Dogs will be riding the bicycles and outlined on the doggies taking selfies square

Pugs will be added to the seat of the motorcycle squares

Pugs will be riding these motorcycles on the pillow pocket and reverse side of the pillow pocket

As you can see the pugs are going to go on this motorcycle on the quillow itself... This is just the layout.

This is the two teams... playing football they will have a football appliqued between them and helmets on their heads...

These pugs went on vacation and are lazing on the dock, of course observing the ducks

This pug is at the cabin, but he is looking for everybody else, he must have got there first.... Nope we are going to put boots on him and give him a fishing hat and a fishing rod with a sign 'Gone Fishing'

 bicycle courier ... he gets a helmet, and his legs will be corrected

These pugs are lounging on the Adirondack chairs at the cabin

Yes, pugs play baseball

Pugs are Hiking -resting at the rocks square

Pugs are riding and driving the pickup truck

There will be bowling pugs, vegetable truck pugs, and food truck pugs... working on how those will be.. and take away the repeat squares.....Yeah Yeah, I got carried away... but I will laugh about this one a long time, and they both will get matching neckrolls to their quilts.

All of these are going to be fine tuned i.e. the one driving will be looking out the window or the windshield- on others there will helmets and adjustments to things like legs

We are getting closer... working on the details

Pugs Hiking

Pugs Playing Football

Pugs Playing Baseball

Pug Gone Fishin'

Pugs in Pickups

Pugs on the Dock 

Pugs Drivin' Food Trucks

Pugs in Backwards Baseball Caps

Pugs in Detective Caps

Pugs Bowling

 Pug Bicycle Courier... still needs  some details

Pugs Chillin'

Pugs In Farm Business Driving Vegetable Truck and Tractor

Pugs on the motorcycle quillow top block

Pugs Quillow pieced top Details- Remember this is actually a mock up.. so the borders are cotton, not minky and the binding is minky pulled around from the back- so the coloring of the two framing borders will be a cotton-muted blender color and flat black solid for inside border.

OOPS! Things Change As I am doing things... I believe I am going to change one of the pickup truck blocks to Pug Goes Golfing... You will see in the final Quillow Picture!

I might have found him a golfing visor hat... LOL-done and placed in top plan

I am thinking of adding a pug flying an airplane over the golf course - if I can fit it when I put his hat on.... Then Ready to put it all together... 

Exciting Final Stages... 

Here are the squares after being appliqued, but not puffed yet.

Each square has been satin stitched around appliqued items, and now they will be puffed appropriately by outline quilting each animal and some of their clothing- like helmets etc.... .and then of course the real quilting through the sandwich-the piecing will be done with the borders and then after back is applied the sandwich will be stitch in the ditch mostly around the squares themeselves....Done... sewing the details now!

I am in the process of sewing the borders on.. I am doing the side borders on each middle square, pressing open the seams and the sewing the in between the rows borders... BUT, I wasn't paying attention and I put them out of order at the bottom and had to do a seam rip... YIKES... what a waste of time... I could have padded a few dogs in the wasted time... So, NO, I am not finished...  I am padding each pug dog star on each square... I did the first row and then decided to do the borders and go back to doing the padding before I finish sewing the quilt together...But I love looking at them!!!

First set of borders are on and pressed, now I am going to do the black.... This is so you can see how each thing enhances it.

Next we will add the wide brown grunge border..  For the wide grunge border I bought 2.25 yards of the fabric and cut 5.5 inch strips to make 5 inch border- 4 which does the brown all the way around(55026).... The black and the neutral blender were using 2.5 inch strips(55017 which make 2 inch borders using again 2.25 yards so I could cut strips without piecing the borders.  The blocks also were cut using the Go -(55451) which cut 10 inch squares making the finished blocks 9.5 inches.  I have an  Accuquilt cutter, so I folded the fabric for the borders and ran it through my electric Go... so the cutting took no time-barely a minute each section.

Hopefully you can see how great these borders look colorwise.

Looking Good To Me

I decided to add soccer to the reversible pillow pocket... LOL... I just had to show this in the works  -looks like they are trying hard...HA

 Request was browns and earth tones.... to go with this quillow.... (HERS)  oh well, his is a little more colorful

When HER quilt is finished and open

When HER quilt is a Pillow

He got cold watching how cozy she was!

This will be his requested theme, but she wants it to match hers in color ranges....

Batting will be cut to slightly bigger than the backing and then the front will be pieced and squared to fill in the size correctly

It is easier to bring the back around to bind the front....especially if you are using something thick and plush like minky

A few Inches of scaling down will got it from 3 yards long to 2 1/2 yards long and then the half yard left will be the pillow pocket with the pugs on it on  both sides so it is reversible pocket...mostly minky to keep the toes warm

The back will be pieced minky browns and black with only the pillow pocket and the freemotion quilting or stitch in the ditch being the  design in the minky

Don't tell me you don't have room or a table.... I am using my bed you see.  Don't tell me you do not have a big quilting machine.... I am using my 23 year old Pfaff and curling in the metal rings as I sew..

Most fabrics are bought at GStreetFabrics and the minky is the extra soft Sherman minky

The pillow pocket picture will be created by appliquing the pugs from one fabric on to the motorcycle from another cotton fabric- all pre washed and I am planning on using some trapunto(slightly raised areas of the quilting to give a 3 dimensional affect) or just outline quilting the pugs in places like the coffee on the coffee quilt

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