Me & Mimi's Crafting Nook

I want to take a moment to apologize for not posting sooner, the last several months have been super crazy.  Let me tell y’all whats been keeping us so busy lately.

Right after we did our Easter bunnies, I decided to work with my horse that was acting rather strangely(nervous, jumpy, spooky).  She has been acting strange for a few months, so I wanted to work with her.  I decided to do some ground work with her so I started to lunge her.  She wouldn’t lunge for me,  so I got the bright idea to run and have her run behind me……. oh boy was that a mistake!!!!!!! I guess something spooked her again and she knocked me off my feet and I hit the ground(that sudden stop was not fun at tall) landing on my left elbow.  As soon as I saw she was fine my arm flopped on the ground, I knew something wasn’t right and I would need to go get an x-ray.  I had Mimi to watch my kiddos and asked my Aunt to take me to the hospital.  That was prom weekend for several schools in the area, and that night had some major tragedies( I felt so sad for those families of the lost loved ones) I waited my turn and sure enough I did such a wonderful job breaking my arm they sent me immediately to Jackson to the hospital. I spend Easter there and that week where I had my elbow replaced(the ball joint) and put several plates and many screws in my arm.

Here are some pictures of my arm:

Before surgery (night it happened).

After first surgery (1st time I got to see it after surgery).

Here are the x-rays of the inside of my arm after the surgery.

So on the mend I went….. or so I thought, in roughly June I again had surgery to clean out the wound my arm was swollen and kept fever in it( very very uncomfortable).

After Second surgery(a view looking at a mirror).

Now

I am currently doing therapy and trying to get all my motion back in my arm.  It is slowly, slowly coming back this is going to be a long process but I am up for the challenge.

BUT while all of that was going on, and on the brighter side, we are working on a shop.  I have an trailer that I used to live in and we are turning that into a shop,so we will have more room to work and my munchkins wont be destroying what we are trying to get accomplished.   We took out the carpet and are repainting the floors and putting down wood flooring.

We aren’t quite finished with it yet BUT keep checking back on our blog because I will be posting the pictures of the renovation.

We are super excited to get this project up and going, and cant wait to be able to get back to working on crafting projects ( quilts, shirts, blankets, etc.).  We have so many things that we are wanting to start that I’m excited to see which project we pick to start first.  We are two excited people.  🙂

Easter is hopping our way very fast. We wanted to make some children happy this Easter so we decided to make some bunnies to share the real reason for Easter. God loves us all so much that He sent his ONE and ONLY child to die on the cross of Calvary to save us from our sins; if we would only do one thing, which is accept Him as our Savior. Jesus is the reason for the season.  The pattern and tutorial we used is found here.

I hope the children loves the bunnies as much as my lil ones do!!!!!

God Bless you and your family!!!!!

Happy Easter!!!! Remember that Jesus died for all of us!!!!!!

Love, from our family to yours <3 <3

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Ever need your blue jeans hemmed?  The following tutorial will help you with this.

Take your blue jeans that are too long, and measure the correct length.  Pen or mark of the length that they need to be.

Now take the original hem out of the blue jeans using a seam ripper.

Cut the access leaving enough to fold over twice.

To make sewing the seams easier take a small hammer(lady’s hammer- a pretty one ha ha) and hammer the seams to kinda flatten the seams a lil. Put this on a block of wood so not mess up your table. This compressed the fabric making it easier to stitch over.

For the thread we used the following thread.

Now its time to start stitching, go slowly over the seam of the pant leg. Going slowly will take some of the pressure from the needle to keep it from breaking.  However, sometimes needles will break.

Once stitched and pressed you can hardly tell that they have been hemmed.

Top is original stitch and bottom is the hemmed pant leg (not pressed)

We received a request to make a young man a t-shirt quilt.  This young man played baseball throughout his school years and had started college where he is continuing to play ball.

We had a blast doing this quilt for this wonderful family.

1st step is to find out exactly how big your wanting your quilt.  This will determine how many t-shirts you will need for this project.  Below you will find an excellent chart that will assist you in this.  Chart  We used this to determine the size of the quilt and the number of shirts to use for each size.

Once you find this out you are ready to pick the shirts. Now starts the fun part, start arranging the shirts the way you want them on the quilt. (We made a list of how she wanted them placed.)  Also at this point, we measured the design or decals that your putting on the quilt.  After doing that step we start to cut the shirts.  We cut the shirts from the side seam to the collar.  This allows you enough space to  trim to the correct size.

Once you have finished cutting the designs and decals out of the shirts, it is time to take the stabilizer and cut to desired size.  The stabilizer we used came from Hobby Lobby.  The stabilizer will have a glue like substance on one side, this is the size that is placed toward the wrong side(or back side) of the fabric or t-shirt.  If glue like substance is turned the wrong way(toward the iron) the stabilizer will stick to the iron( very very messy, Mimi has done this).  Irons are ok if you don’t have a Singer Iron Press,( this is a larger form of a regular iron).  You do not have to have a iron press however it makes it a lot easier to do the larger pieces.

The next step is to lay out the designs like you did at the beginning.  If you have different sizes as we did you may have to take some of the t-shirt fabric and fill in to make the row the same size.  This will make the rows a lot easier to assemble.  Mimi sewed a complete row together then went to the next one and so on. Once all the rows were sewed she then sewed each row together making the top of the quilt. ( At this point I had a camera malfunction and took me some time to get a new one,  Sorry for not have pictures for this step 🙁 )

You will have three layers of this quilt:

1. quilt top ( which we just made)
2. batting (we used batting from hobby lobby )
3. backing ( we found our backing on e-bay)

**Note: The batting and backing of the quilt should be larger than the quilt top the average is 4″ to 8 ” larger.

Lay the backing out spray with Spray-n-Bond basting adhesive .  Lay the batting on next and spray that with the basting adhesive, now is the final layer the quilt top.  Make sure that you smooth out all the bubbles(making it flat as much as possible)  from each layer before adding the next layer.

Now we are getting close to finishing the quilt.

After all the layers are bonded together we take it to the sewing machine and start quilting it.  The following pictures are how we did ours.

When finished with all the quilting, you would trim that excess batting and backing to make it even with the quilt top.

The last step is to put on the binding.  For full instructions on this you can refer back to our post or click here.

And Finally the finished product.

I hope you enjoyed our lil tutorial making a t-shirt quilt.  Stay tuned to our next project and I hope your enjoying our site as much as we are making memories together.

This recipe will starch from 12 to 20 small angels

To make the starch

1/4 cup of Argo gloss laundry starch(we found ours at Piggly Wiggly).

1 cup of water

First, mix the Argo starch and the cup of water into a sauce pan. Dissolving  the starch over medium heat( This mixture will thicken like pudding and turn clear when it is ready to be used). Let cool.

Pudding like(above) and clear ready to starch(below)

We use snow cone cups or birthday hats (stands) covered in plastic wrap for our stands to starch the angels. Depending on the size of the angel depends the size of the stand to be used.

Next, take a boiler of hot water add a pinch of dish soap and place all the angels into a water.  This step removes all the oil from your hands off the angels.  After washing them also rinse them again with just plain water.

Squeeze out the remaining water putting the angels now in the starch mixture we finished earlier.  Make sure all the angels are drenched in the starch.  Now remove the angels after drenched and squeeze out remaining starch. Washing hands to remove extra starch that maybe on them.

Stretch the angels over the stands shaping the head and wings then allow to dry( this process will take over night at a minimum).

We add a gold thread through the top of the angel’s head to allow it to hang on the Christmas tree.

This pattern comes from a Family Circle Magazine from the 80’s.

If you have any older starched ornaments that need to be re-starched you can apply this method and just wash and re-starch them.

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial, if you have any requests that you would like us to do email us and let us know.

We have several projects underway now so stay tuned and see what is coming up soon…..

On October  7th, 8th, and 9th in Hattiesburg there was a Pine Belt Quilters 13th Biennial Fiber Art & Quilt show.  So guess what?  Me, Mimi, and my two munchkins loaded up and headed for Hattiesburg. We had a blast even my oldest had fun.  I had my camera and he had my phone taking pictures.  He did a great job on them too, but he loves selfies and oh boy did we have selfies. ha ha ha. Look for the ones my oldest munchkin made too.

You can find more about the quilt show on their Facebook page  and their website.  I had been with Mimi before to it and enjoyed it, but it was when my oldest was little.   There was so many quilts and all of them were so unique and beautiful.  If you haven’t been to this quilt show, you are missing out on a blessing!!!!!

Some of the quilts are:

I think this is my favorite.  I love the puzzle pieces. I call it the Autism quilt.  The puzzle pieces are the quilting design of the entire quilt.

this next one is called “Rejoice in the Spirit”……..

America  the beautiful

I loved the hair and flowers the way it was done

Don’t you want to just reach out and touch the cotton

Now the pictures my oldest munchkin took (I know yall have been waiting for these)

the selfie picture ha ha ha LOVE this kid!!!!

Now at the beginning I said that my two munchkins was with us. Well my lil munchkin wanted out of her stroller and fussed at me most of the time. ha ha ha  She didnt want to just look at the quilts, she wanted to touch them also ha ha ha.  Maybe next time she will enjoy it more.

Until next time…………..

Next up we will be starching angels.

Last weekend Auntie, my cousin, me and my lil girl went to the MS Pecan Festival.  This was our 1st trip down there, and we really enjoyed it.  I love outside, animals, old stuff and crafts, so it was right down my alley.  The crafts were quilts, wooden bedding, bowl making, etc.  You can find the MS Pecan Festival on Facebook at the following link: MS Pecan Festival.  

While looking around  I found a mother/ daughter team that has Alpaca’s.  They ‘re going to have a Festival on November 19th from 9-4.  You can find  them on Facebook at the following link Stinger Alpaca Festival.  They also have a website which is https://www.astrokageneusalpacas.com/.  I am wanting to go. I hope my schedule will allow for me to.   I loved the stuffed animals and the lap blankets.  Here are some pictures of their work. 

Look at the spinning wheel.  Super Cool!!!!

           There were another set of ladies that had pretty quilts.  One of the lady’s name was Sylvia Rolison, you can get in touch with her at threeoaksfarm@earthlink.net

Here are only some of their pretty quilts they had made.

The following are some more booths with crochet and quilts.

These ladies  had spent a lot of time one these the large round crocheted table top was 52 in  I believe.

There was a mule pull, my first time to see it and it was cool.

Then there was a mini horse and cart my lil girl loved it. ha ha she wanted to ride.

They also had old farm equipment that was actually working.  One was shucking corn and the other was grinding up the stalks.

These are some of the wood craft booths:

Beautiful Wood Bedroom suits. (I love these)

The bench and chair was awesome!! Just didn’t have room to bring them home…ha ha ha LOVED them.

The following 2 pictures are bowl making. (these are so interesting watching someone make these)

There was a guy making brooms there too.  I didn’t get to see him actually make one from start to finish but there is always next year.

They also had a black smith.  I have seen these before and I am fascinated with this.

This took place in a pecan orchard.  It had old buildings around the area, which set the mood for me back in the older days.  Here are some of the buildings  and the stage where they had singing going on as well.

This quilt we call one of our UFO(unfinished objects).  We started this quilt years ago, when I was about 9.   Mimi was trying to teach me how to hand quilt and get me interested in crafts.  But it wasn’t long til I lost interested in quilting it.  At that time, sitting and hand quilting was not fast enough for me.    Throughout the years since, Mimi finished hand quilting it.

This is not a pieced quilt top, this is what is known as a cheaters cloth, which means the design was already printed on the fabric, leaving it only to be layered and quilted.

Layering the quilt is as follows:

Backing

Batting

Top

Once you layer this, quilting and binding is your next steps.

Here is how you bind a quilt.

The binding is cut into 2″ strips, and then joined together.

Overlap in an L shape right sides together.

Draw a line diagonally from corner to corner.

Stitch from corner to corner on the diagonal line just drawn.

After stitching the binding press seams open and clip 1/4″ for seam allowance.

Once cut, this is what the strip looks like.

After stitching all the strips together, press the binding in half (1″ strips). Mimi would normally use 2 1/2 ” strips now.  This binding was cut years ago.

Now for attaching the binding to the quilt.

Start by leaving a 6″ to 8″ tail, so that you can piece the binding together.  You will be using a 1/4″ seam allowance to stitch the binding.

Continue stitching til you reach 1/4″ from the corner.

Fold binding at an angle as shown in the following picture:

Stitch using the 1/4″ seam allowance (this will make a square corner).

Continue to stitch binding around the quilt til  about 8″ from where you began.

At the center, mark a 2″ line on both pieces.

After marking both pieces cut off the short tail(or to the 1st mark).  Open up the binding to where it is 2″. Overlay in a L shape the two right sides together.  Drawing a diagonal line as we did in stitching the binding together. Stitch on the drawn line. Clip off the access but leave the 1/4″ seam allowance as we did on the binding.

Fold the binding back to 1″ and continue to stitch the 8″ space together.  Binding will be stitched all the way around quilt.

Fold the binding over to the front side of the quilt and hand stitch with a blind hem stitch all the way around the front.

When you reach the corners fold in opposite direction from the back side to form a mitered corner.

When all sides are completed, the quilt is finished and ready to be used.  Here is our finished product.

Auntie took Mimi for her birthday to The Old Man River Quilt Fest in Vicksburg.   The fest was August 16th -20th. You can find out more about it here https://www.oldmanriverquiltfest.com/.  They had a blast there and and can’t wait for the next Old Man River Quilt Fest.  Maybe I will be able to attend that one.

This 1st quilt was called “The Supper”.  This quilt amazed them with all the 1/2 in. squares.  You can learn more about this quilt here http://thesupper.net/.

This gorgeous quilt is made up of 51,816 1/2 in squares.

this is the creator (Don Locke and his wife) “THESUPPER”.

here are just a few more quilts they enjoyed there.

Mimi has made the pipkins for several years now.  She started making these cute little holders to keep the grandchildren away from the thimbles.  Several people have inquired about these, so we thought this would be a good start for our little adventure.

For this project you will need the following list:

1. fabric of your choice
2. glue
3. felt
4. cardboard (cracker box or cereal box)
5. quilting thread
6. thread that matched the fabric you used
7. frixion pen ( this pen will disappear when heated)
8. embroidery thread ( optional)

First thing, draw a football shape the size you would like your pipkin.  We used the dimensions 3 1/4th in. by 1 3/4th in.  These can be made any size you would like.

When you have these the size you would like, cut 3 out of the cardboard.

At this point, you will need three more about 1/8th in. smaller.  These will form the interior of the pipkins, once you have done this lay these aside we will come back to them a little later.

Now take the larger cardboard shape footballs and glue one side of them to a piece of felt as shown in the picture below.

Once dry cut them out.

On the three larger football shapes, draw the outline using the frixion pin onto the fabric and embroidery if desired.

Once you have completed this, you will need to cut out the football 1/2 in. larger than the drawn lines on the fabric.

You will need to use a gathering stitch about 1/8th in. from the outside of the football shape.

Before gathering the football, place the cardboard/felt shape, that we previously glued, placing the felt side down, then pull one side so it will gather around all the sides as shown in the following picture.  All three of the larger shapes should be done the same way.  You will also need to gather the fabric around the smaller shapes, that we have set aside earlier.  These smaller shapes do not have the felt glued on them.

Glue the wrong sides of the small and large pipkins together, and clamp until they are completely dry.  We normally do them and leave them clamped over night.

Now they are ready to be stitched together.  Hold the bottom side and one side together and stitching them together with a blind hem stitch.  This will hold the two sides securely together.

Once that side is completed, the remaining side needs to be done the same as the side you just completed. Leaving the top side open but stitching about 1/2 in. on each side to secure it together.

The opening or mouth of the pipkin should look like the following picture:

The finished products

If any of the ink from the fixion pen remains, heat it with a blow dryer and it will fade away.