Quilted Wall Hangings

My sister's birthday is today so I dug into my box of flannel scraps and made two wall hangings for her.

They're both 18 x 18 inches and they have the same backing:

My sister sews, too, but these are most likely things she wouldn't make for herself and I think she will like them. A lot of her sewing is for dogs -- Check her out on Facebook where she's known as K9Tailor. Happy birthday, B!!  

New Light Fixture

Several months ago, we started looking for a new light fixture for our front porch. We wanted to have a fixture on only one side of the front door, and we couldn't find anything which would look good as a single fixture. After doing a bit of searching on the internet we found Turtle On A Rock Studio, which is the home of Laura Armstrong, a terrific metal artist located in Texas. Laura worked with us to get exactly what we wanted. 

The fixture is 27 inches high, 7 inches wide, and 4 inches deep. It's made of steel and has our house number on it. Laura included all the wiring needed to install it, along with a set of clear installation instructions. There's a fitted cap on top and a bug screen on the bottom. She gave us the option of using whatever kind of glass we wanted and we chose to use stained glass. The glass is mostly shades of green with some purple swirls which don't show in the pictures you see here. Even though I can't manage to get a decent photo of it, you get the idea, right? Honest to goodness it looks great. At night, when the lights are shining through the stained glass, it's beautiful. 

Even if you aren't in the market for a light fixture, you might want to take a look at Laura's website which shows you more of her work. (No disclaimer needed. The only interest we have in Turtle On A Rock Studio is our interest in promoting art!)

Kenmore 1336

In the late 1970s (I think it was 1976, but I'm not 100% sure), I bought this machine brand new from Sears. For years, the 158.1336 was my only machine and it has always done everything I've asked.  

As you can see, it's a free arm machine and the little tab over on the right lowers the feed dogs. It's a low shank machine and it uses class 15 bobbins. One feature I like a lot is the way the presser foot lever works. You can use it to raise the presser foot what I'll call a "normal" amount and you can keep pushing the lever up to raise the presser foot higher if you're sewing something thick. A lot of machines can do this, but not all of them can. 

You turn the dial on the top to select the stitch you want to sew. This machine can sew straight, zig zag, blind, straight stretch, rick-rack stretch, and overcast stretch stitches. It does not use cams, so it doesn't do any fancy stitches. The pressure regulator (in the upper left corner on the machine in the photo above) on this machine adjusts more precisely than any of the regulators on my other machines. 

There's not much to see on the back side, except the label saying the machine head came with a 25 year warranty. Fortunately, I never needed to use the warranty. A bit of oil and a good cleaning now and then has kept the 1336 perfectly happy. The machine fits inside a plastic case which doesn't have room for much of anything except the machine and the foot controller and cord. 

When I said this machine has always done everything I've asked, I wasn't kidding. I've used it to sew everything from a silk jacquard dress with double-layered silk organza sleeves . . . 

. . . to the seat and side panel upholstery for a 1991 Geo Metro convertible.

I can't imagine I paid very much for this machine, because I didn't have much to spend. Whatever I paid was well worth it, though. Happy sewing everyone! 

Hot Pepper Relish

Recently, we picked 20 pounds of peppers from our garden. We didn't want to freeze them because we've been freezing peppers all summer and we have enough frozen to last through the winter. We didn't want to use them fresh because we have plenty of fresh peppers left in the garden and because even though we love peppers, it would take us quite a while to eat 20 pounds of them. So, we decided to make pepper relish. 

Half the peppers we used were mild -- orange, red, and green bell plus some red banana peppers. 

The other half were chilies, jalapeños, and some little red fireballs which are a lot hotter than either the chilies or the jalapeños. They taste like I imagine molten lava would taste. One of my aunts gave us the seeds for these years ago and we've grown them (and saved the seeds) ever since. 

We seeded the mild peppers and the jalapeños, chopped up all of the peppers and some onion, added sugar, salt, cider vinegar, and mustard seed, and set things on the stove to boil.

Then, we filled pint jars and processed them in a hot water bath.  

We thought this batch would be warm, not hot, because only half of the peppers were hot. Instead, we ended up with 15 pints of the hottest relish we've ever made. We plan to add a little bit to anything that needs some zip. A very little bit! 

Flannel Animal Quilt

You're probably wondering whether the box of flannel scraps is ever going to be empty. Well, I'm wondering the same thing. The more scraps I use, the more scraps seem to be in the box. This small (38 x 38 inches) quilt has lions and tigers and bears. (Oh my.) It also has sheep, chicks, frogs, giraffes, elephants, monkeys, sea creatures, bunnies, owls, an alligator, and a hippopotamus. The animals joined forces to create alternating light and dark diagonal stripes. The backing is a blue blender flannel which I rolled forward to create the binding. Happy sewing, everyone! 

A Flannel Quilt for July 4

This is the second small flannel quilt I've made from scraps someone gave me. For this one, I chose airplanes, trains, trucks, hot rods, boats, scooters, some solid pieces, a few pieces with a sports theme (the orange ones), and some with small flat-head screws on them (the red ones). I used a zig zag stitch, my Singer 401, and a walking foot, the same as I did with the quilt I told you about on June 9. To make the binding, I brought the backing fabric toward the front of the quilt, turned the raw edge under, and machine stitched it in place.

I have a lot of scraps left and a few ideas for what I want to do with them, so expect more posts like this one -- eventually! 

Flannel Quilt

Two months ago, someone gave me a box filled with flannel scraps. There were lots of long, skinny strips and hundreds of irregularly shaped small pieces. The two largest pieces in the box were 9 inches square. The smart thing to do would have been to shove the box into a dark corner of my sewing room and forget about it. Instead, I made this 38 x 38-inch flannel quilt.

Working with stretchy flannel was challenging for me. After I cut my pieces, I sprayed them with Magic Sizing and ironed them flat before I sewed them. The directions on the sizing spray can said to use a lower heat setting than the one appropriate for the fabric, but this didn't work for me. I set my iron on cotton and left it there. After I sewed my seams, I sprayed them with sizing and ironed them open instead of pressing them to one side because I thought the seams would have been too thick otherwise.

I started quilting using a straight stitch in the ditch. But, when I was about half way finished I decided I didn't like the way it looked so I picked out everything and quilted using a zig zag stitch which I liked a lot better. I used my Singer 401 with a walking foot for the whole project, including the zig zag stitches. You can see the zig zag stitching in this photo of one of my favorite squares – The one and only piece of sock monkey fabric in the entire box.

The binding is made from scraps, too. I made it 2.5 inches wide, but would make it 3 inches if I had it to do over again. I machine stitched the binding to the top side and hand stitched it to the back. The back, shown below, is a piece of flannel from my stash.

There are a ton of scraps left in the box and I have a couple of ideas for what I might like to do with them, so stay tuned. Happy sewing, everyone!