The Painted Turtle

My neighborhood group of the American Sewing Guild met this week and made turtle pillows to be donated to The Painted Turtle Camp, a camp for children with life-threatening and chronic illnesses. The camp is sponsored by Paul Newman as part of his Hole in the Wall Gang Camps. This is the 2011 National Community Service Project for ASG.

The pattern is provided by ASG for members. The turtles will be stuffed when they arrive at the camp and given to the children who attend the camp.  

The eyes were digitized by  LindeeGEmbroidery, downloaded, and machine embroidered on the turtles.


Since there is a shortage of pillows in colors suitable for boys, we chose colors with that in mind. This is a picture of our turtles ready to be shipped to The Painted Turtle Camp.

A label template was provided by ASG  to iron on the back of the turtle. After checking the prices of printable fabric sheets, I decided to experiment with printing my own fabric. I cut a piece of  Wonder-Under Fusible Web to 8 1/2 by 11 inches. I fused this to white cotton fabric which was about the weight of Kona Cotton. I trimmed the fabric the size of the Wonder Under. So now I have an 8 1/2 by 11 inch sheet of printable fabric. It ran very smoothly through my printer. (Don't tell my husband!) I cut out the labels and ironed them to the back of the turtles.

Journal Cover

I love to make these little journal covers for gifts and for myself! They hold a 5 x 8 junior-sized legal pad which you can find at Wal-Mart, Staples, Office Depot, etc. The pattern is from Quilting Arts Gifts Holiday 2009/2010.

I use heavyweight fusible interfacing to make them crisp and sturdy. I use a ponytail holder instead of elastic because it comes in so many different colors.  There is a pocket on the left side which is great for coupons. I use mine daily for my shopping list. I also like to make them in Christmas prints for holiday shopping lists. If the brand name on the top of the notepad really annoys you, you can cut a strip of fabric and fuse to the top header of the pad. 

This is one of my favorite prints to use for this project. I bought this fabric years ago knowing that the right project would come along to use it for. I used a pearl button for the closure.

A quilting friend gave me this cute print with yarn balls. I use this journal for my knitting notes.

A sewing friend let me dig through her button jar to find the perfect button for this bright journal cover.

There are lots of other great patterns and tutorials for journal covers. What is your favorite?

Birthday Sewing

We had a double birthday celebration last Sunday for my daughters whose birthdays are July 11 and July 12. Sarah snapped this picture of Hannah's cake and posted it on her new photography blog.

No birthday is complete without a little something handmade. I made each daughter a Scrappy Loyalty Wallet and filled it with gift cards to their favorite stores.  This is such a fun, quick project to sew.

Hannah designed a little project for Sarah and it turned out great! Sarah has two awfully cute kitties so Hannah made a little embroidered pillow with their "pictures" on it. The back of the pillow is made from the scraps of a quilt (in the background) that Sarah made last fall.

What are your favorite little birthday gift ideas?

Treasure Hunt

I made a trip to Grandma's Attic in search of fabric or pillowcases to use for the Dresses for Haiti project we are working on at church. I found lots of pretty old textiles including linen calendars, pillowcases, and fabric.

I can't decide what to make with this old (1991) linen calendar towel that I purchased for $1.50. I love the little rectangles with the herbs on them. I think perhaps they would be cute appliqued on pot holders. Any suggestions?

 
I found this vintage looking pillowcase for 50 cents that will make an adorable little dress for our project. We are up to about 60 dresses now and still sewing!

I couldn't leave without this pretty printed cotton fabric. $1.00 for 1 1/2 yards! What a deal! I think I need to go treasure hunting again soon!

Scrappy Flower Headbands

This is one of my favorite projects for fabric flowers. Just grab some scraps from your stash and get started. The headband is a strip of fabric about a yard in length, hemmed on all edges. The finished width is about 2 inches at the widest center part, tapering to 3/4 inch at the ends. The flower is sewn on a little off center so that it doesn't sit directly on top of the head.

For this headband, I folded the strip of fabric for the flower lengthwise, formed little pleats in a circle, and quickly stitched it down to the headband by machine. I added leaves from green linen scraps.

This little blue flower is similar to the red flower from my previous fun flower post. It is hand stitched to a coordinating headband. Similar headbands sell for about $15 in a local boutique!

What do you like to embellish with your little fabric flowers?