Small Business Saturday!

Will you support your local businesses today!  I will be at the beehive atlanta most of the day for what will hopefully be a crazy busy day for us!  Small business is where it's at.  If you are in the atlanta area, please stop by and see us! p.s. we have lots of sales going on, in fact, everything is on sale!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!  I just made an apple pie and have a rum cake in the oven as we speak.  There will only be five of us tomorrow but I think we have food for twenty!  I must admit, I'm a total ham this time of year.  I love seeing the holiday decorations go up, I love the cooler weather, and business wise this is my best time of year!

Speaking of which, this is what I've been working on the past few days and why there is no tutorial this week:

I'm stocking up for the weekend rush at The Beehive.  It doesn't look like much but man, those skirts take forever to make!  And just a little more promotion here- have you seen the new E-Zine for the beehive? It's chock full of great holiday gift ideas and most of the pictures have links directly to the designers online shop!

On a quilting note, guess what is almost done!  I got the alphabet quilt back from the quilt shop today and it is awesome!  I just have to do the binding.

Now, I could have totally done the quilting myself just following the ditch made by the piecing of the squares.  However, I don't have a quilting machine and it would have taken forever!  Plus, the swirls look awesome!  Stitch'n'Quilt is a lovely little quilting shop about a mile from our house so I took it to them and those ladies rocked it!

Wanna see the back?

I think I love it as much as the front.  The back is pretty simple, just a Moda print cotton with a stripe of fabrics from the front.  The stripe is a good trick for this size quilt because 45" fabric isn't quite wide enough but I didn't want to get another 2 yards just for an 8" strip so, I cut the main Moda print about 16 inches in (it could be anywhere, I just didn't want it centered) and inserted my 8" strip of randomly pieced rectangles.  the binding will be done with the same dark plaid as the border on the front.

A preview of what's to come...

Next Friday, December 2nd, I'm teaching a free workshop at the beehive to promote our sewing classes.  We will be making the little gift pouch above out of holiday fat quarters.  We only have room for 16 people.  It sold out in like 20 minutes! I know it's ridiculous to be so excited about that since it is a free workshop but still, that was fast!

I will also be posting step by step instructions here for anyone who may want to make it.  It's a great little pouch for teacher gifts or cookies or anything that deserves some pretty packaging!

Have a great weekend and don't forget to shop local on Saturday!

-jessie

Atlanta Falcons Applique

We are going to a Falcon's game this Sunday. SO excited, I love football season!  And, of course, Aiyden needs a falcons hoodie for the occasion.  I'm way too cheap to pay for the real thing so I decided to applique the logo onto a black hoodie. I will say, the falcons logo is not the easiest thing to recreate, it has a lot of small pieces.  I used felt since it is pretty easy to work with and doesn't fray.  Jersey knit would be good too but I didn't have the right colors in my scrap pile.

 I bought a black hoodie at Kmart, looked up the logo in google images and cut out a pattern.  I used white, gray, and red felt scraps.

I cut the main white piece from my pattern, then I used the same pattern for the gray and cut an extra 1/4" off all around.  Then some red triangles and tiny bits of white for the face.

I sewed the gray to the white to begin.

Then added the white and red accents.

In hindsight, I probably should have bought a pullover rather than a zippered hoodie but oh well! I cut the applique in half.

Pinned it to each side of the hoodie and stitched all the way around.  Be careful not to get too close to the zipper teeth!  I had to rip out a few stitches because it wouldn't zip.

It's not on the list of finest things I've made but it was quick, Aiyden loves it, and he'll be the only one with this falcons sweatshirt!

Have a great weekend!

-jessie

My Sewing Space

I always wonder about people's crafting space.  Do you have a designated space? When I started Bubby's we were living in San Francisco at the time and didn't have a big place, so every night I would haul out my sewing machine and supplies and sew on the dining room table.  Then I had to get it all put away by the time Aiyden woke up in the morning.  I'm lucky now to have my own room, of course, that means we don't have a guest room but hey, our couch is extremely comfortable! So, here it is, my sewing room (it usually isn't this clean, I reorganized this morning and took the opportunity to take some pics!)

 My sewing machine and serger sit opposite of each other on an Ikea expedit unit with the desk extention.  It works out great but I really want to get a chair on wheels.

 My cutting table is huge but I love it.  Most of the time it's full of unfinished projects but every once in a while it gets cleared off.  I made the needle and thread wall decal from black contact paper.

I have one little bookshelf that has all my fabric crammed into it.  I had to take the closet door off because I put a dresser in there and need to open the drawers.  I made the curtain from some scrap upholstery fabric and freezer stenciled a flower vine, which you can't see too well in this picture.

And that's it.  My little room.  I have a list of things I want to get for it.  Like this ironing board cover from Barefoot Lake, and this chair and curtain panels from Ikea, but for now, it serves its purpose.

In other news, the quilt is coming along.  All the appliques are done and I've started piecing it together.

 The piecing is pretty easy.  I started with the "a" and "e" blocks.  Using a 1/4" seam allowance.

 I think most quilters iron the seam allowance to the darker fabric but I prefer to iron my seams open.  

 Next, I sewed "c" and "f" together and the attached each two block panel to the sides of the big "b" panel.  Then I sewed "d" and "g" together and attached that panel.

 From there it's just a matter of sewing rows together and attaching them to each other.  I think the hardest part is making sure I have the alphabet in the right order!

Until next time!

-jessie

Continuing the Quilt- Applique Techiniques

So, the next step in making the quilt is stitching all the appliques.  The stitching isn't hard but it will be tedious.  If you have never appliqued, have no fear, you will be pretty darn good by the end of this since we have 27 appliques to do!  26 letters and the smaller square in the feature letter block.  I don't think I clarified the feature block in the previous post but it could be any letter.  I chose "B" because their last name starts with a B.  The feature block is the size of 4 of our other blocks minus seam allowance, so 15.5" instead of 16".  I'm going to show you two different ways to stitch the appliques.  Personally, I will be doing a straight stitch on the letters that were cut with pinking shears and a zig zag on the straight cuts.

 For the zig zag stitch, set your machine to a fairly wide zig zag and a pretty short stitch length.  You can use a scrap piece to test your stitch.

Place your fabric so the edge of your letter is centered under your presser foot.  Don't forget to back stitch.  If you would prefer to use a longer length zig zag you can lock your stitch in with a bit of a straight stitch before zig zaging to ensure it doesn't come out.

Don't forget the inside of letters!  If you noticed that your fabric is rolling slightly under your stitch, it's ok!  gently pull your fabric as it is going to keep it taught.  because quilters cotton is light weight it tends to do this.  You could also lengthen your stitch a little.

For a straight stitch, set your machine to a straight stitch (no width obviously) and a medium stitch length.

Stitch just inside of your pinked edge.  Don't forget to back stitch!

If you have trouble turning corners, sink your needle before turning, lift your presser foot and turn your fabric, then lower the presser foot and continue.  That way you keep one nice continuous stitch.

And there you have it!  now, repeat 25 more times!

The changing of thread can be a bit much to match each letter.  I recommend winding a full bobbin of whatever color and just changing your top thread.  If your machine has proper tension settings, you'll never see the bobbin thread.  The picture above shows the wrong side of my fabric with brown bobbin thread.  Also, group letters by thread color.  It doesn't have to be sewn in alphabetical order!

Until next time!

Alphabet Quilt

I have been obsessed with quilts lately!  Maybe it's the weather turning cooler or another technique to learn.  When I picked up the latest issue of Stitch Magazine and saw the Alphabet quilt, I fell in love!  And, it just so happens that my best friend is pregnant with her first child.  What better reason to try it out!  I've done a few lap quilts with no patch working and free motion quilting but this will be my first "real" quilt.  This quilt is fairly easy in the large scheme of things, large blocks, squared edges.  I think the biggest challenge is the time it takes.  I'm used to starting and completing a project in two hours tops.  This, however, will take some time.  I don't know how it will turn out but I'd love for you to join me in this adventure!

Supplies for the Quilt Top:

I picked up 12 fat quarters and had a good sized remnant of the Mod Bird cotton pictured above.  If you happen to have the Stitch Mag that features this quilt you will see that I did not follow the dimensions given.  Their pattern is for a twin size quilt and I don't want this one to be that large.  I cut my fat quarters into 8" squares (26 of them) and I cut the large feature block (the birds) 15.5" square.

You will also need about one yard of wonder under/heat n bond, any double sided fusible interfacing (to applique letters).

So, we have our squares cut!  Now we need letters.  I printed mine in Microsoft Word.  I alternated between Tahoma and Arial fonts and chose random sizes between 250 and 700.  I also alternated capital and lower case. 

I cut out the paper letters to use as templates for the appliques.  I used leftover fabric from the fat quarters as the letters.  I picked fabric at random and ironed on the wonder under, paper side up!

The great thing about fusible interfacing is that you can trace directly onto the paper backing.  Again, I randomly traced letters on to the various fabrics.

After tracing I alternated between regular scissors and pinking shears to cut out the letters.  The pinking shears aren't necessary, I just wanted a few letters to have zig zag edges.  Finally, the cutting is over!

Now we have to iron our letters onto the squares.  I laid out all my squares (the floor usually works best for this) to make sure the different patterns were nicely arranged. The easiest way to peel the paper backing is to score it in the middle with scissors and peel from there.

Place your letter, right side up onto the right side of its designated square and give it a good hot steam to adhere.  I placed the letters randomly on each square instead of centering each one.

Now line everything up, take a step back, and admire the (probably) fours hours worth of work you have already put into this sucker!  Up next- stitching our appliques.  But we'll save that for another day, I'm pooped!

Adventures in Candle Making

Have you ever made your own candles?  We tried it last night for the first time and it was fairly easy and very satisfying!  We started with a kit that we purchased from Hobby Lobby for $20.  Everything included is pictured above.  The pouring pot, thermometer, wax, votive molds, dye, scent, wicks, and instructions.

The first step was to pour the whole bag of wax into the pouring pot.

To heat the wax you need to create a double boiler.  A simple pan filled with water did the trick.  The thermometer needs to be clipped to the edge of your pouring pot.

It doesn't take long, maybe 15 minutes for the wax to melt.  We had an old wooden spoon that has become the candle making spoon.  The wax needs to heat to 185 degrees.  When temp has reached 185, your put your dye in and still til dissolved and then the same thing for the scent.  We followed instructions on the first batch but it wasn't nearly enough scent so we doubled it with the second batch.

The wax got to around 200 degrees so I removed it from heat until it got to 180, which is the pouring temp.  Meanwhile, place molds in an old pan or pie plate...anything to protect your counter in case of spills.

Pour the wax to the very top of the molds.  Wax shrinks as it cools.  Wait about 5 minutes and then insert the wicks.

The wicks will move around in the liquid wax so you need something to keep them centered.  Toothpicks would probably be great but we didn't have any so we used knives!

And that's it!  It took about an hour for them to harden.  We stuck them in the fridge for 20 minutes or so.  To remove them from the molds, gently pull on the wick.






This would be a great craft for homemade gifts!  I've already been searching ebay for more supplies.  Soy candles will be our next project.  Hope this helped, happy candle making!