Friday, February 3, 2017

Cold Days and A Quick Project

IT'S COLD OUTSIDE!!!

If I'm not mistaken, the temperature only reached 21 degrees today in my little area of Upstate New York.  Even if the house is warm inside, my bones certainly make sure I'm aware of how cold and damp it is outside.

Prior to my trip to Tennessee, I had loaded the backing fabric on my longarm for the late wedding signature quilt gift.  It's only been about 1 1/2 years since the wedding.

The backing stayed loaded, ready and waiting for only a couple of months....that's all. :) :)

As we were driving back home earlier this week, I made the decision to prioritize this project to the #1 slot and get the batting measured, cut and loaded along with the quilt top so that quilting could begin FINALLY!!

Not only did everything get loaded, I even got a couple of rows of quilting done.  I'll give more details on this in my next post.  Due to my bad hip, I'm not able to quilt more than a couple of rows each day....not even sitting on the saddle chair helps.

After I'd finished quilting for the day, I started searching for a quick and easy project.  The decision was made to make some much needed bibs for my Ava Jean.  She is teething, which means we can't keep up with the amount of drool this kid produces on a daily basis.  I've lost count of how many bibs she can go through in a single day.

Ray is madly in love with her and whenever she is here when he gets home from work he can't change out of his work clothes fast enough to get in the floor and play with her.

I've been excited to try out this Sizzix Bib Die.....

I'm always trying to figure out the easiest and quickest way to get something done. Just like in quilting when cutting out half-square triangles to sew together...the idea popped into my head that if I placed the flannel bib fabric face to face on the die...the pieces would be cut, and would automatically be face to face and ready to sew around the edges.

Second piece of flannel placed on die facing the first piece......

I went ahead and placed 6 layers of flannel on the die to produce 3 bibs in one cut.....

Don't they look cute?  This is so much easier on my partially torn rotator cuffs than having to cut them out myself.

Because of all the curves, I thought it best to use several pins to keep everything in place.  I decided to leave about a 3 inch wide opening on the left side since that was really the only straight place to do it.

In my excitement, I forgot to take a picture of the bibs sewn together before turning them inside out. 

After turning them inside out, I pressed them really good with the iron, then simply did a straight top stitch to close up the side opening and give them a nice finished look.

This project also gave me the perfect opportunity to experiment with using snaps put into place with this handy dandy snap plier set.

Wow!!!  That certainly was fast and fairly easy (once I put the right parts in the right sections of the pliers that is)!! :) :)

This will be so much nicer than the Velcro that's on all her store bought bibs.

There's actually a second bib made from the Sesame Street Flannel.  I now know that 1/2 yard of 44" wide flannel will produce 3 bibs using this Sizzix die.  I only had an odd piece of the Sesame Street...just enough for 2.

Not too bad for a day's crafting....a total of 5 new bibs.  This has been a good day indeed!

Until next time!

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