Funky Scarf

I made this the other day to wear to a Church "birthday Celebration"  The fabric was the cupcake fabric I had left over from the pillow cases.

You will need strips of fabric cut 5 inches wide, and then either one long piece of 38-42 inches (depending on how long you want the scarf and how you are going to tie it.) I was using my scraps like I said so I had to sew mine together to make it 38 inches long.  I didn't want to worry about seams, so I just laid the fabric together and zigzaged the two pieces together.  

So what you should ended up with is 2 lengths of 5x38 inches.  I used the same color for the back and on the front alternated a white on white dot, and the cupcake fabric.  You will then take those two strips and putting them wrong sides together, sew two strips down the middle.  I made mine about an inch apart, so I basically sewed 1/2 inch from the middle on both sides.  Then take your scissors and cut into the fabric on both sides.  This doesn't need to be exact, because after this step you will be washing it and it will create a shaggy look and no one will notice the space between each cut.

After I had washed it and dried it, it still wasn't looking quite as "scrunchy" as I had envisioned, so I took some really thin elastic and threaded it up the two ends until it was the look I wanted.  

Quilting

My mom is an amazing quilter, and I got this technique from her.  I probably didn't do it exactly right, but it was still fun!  First you will want to make a 9 block square.  My squares didn't match, and I am not sure if it matters or not, but I was just doing a little pillow, so I figured it would work out okay!  I cut my blocks 5x5 inches.

After sewing your blocks together, take them and cut down the middle both ways, so you will now have 4 blocks from one. 

You then take those blocks and turn rearrange them so they look something like this.  The only rule is you don't want two big blocks or two little blocks right next to each other. I only did two blocks which was plenty for this pillow. So I am thinking for a baby blanket around 8 blocks. You'll have to do the calculation for the rest :) 



Down Feather Pillows

My father in law kept all the feathers from his goose hunting this past season and asked me to make some pillows, since I was using feather, I ended up using this fabric I had from some curtains someone gave me.  They are super thick and has a lining on the back, which I figured would help the feathers from poking through.  I was making nine little travel pillows, so I cut them 12x18

This just shows what the backing looked like.  If you are to make some I would suggest using a thick heavy decor fabric.

I sewed up three sides, and left one of the short sides open so I would have enough room to stuff the feathers.

I enlisted my stuffers to help!

The kids had a blast stuffing with feathers everywhere, in our hair up our noses, we all took turns sneezing!  If you haven't ever seen down feathers, they are a little different then feathers you buy at the store, most of them didn't have a "shaft",and are just a ball of fluff, so they would easy fly in the air. Think baby geese, how they are just a ball of fluff at first, that's what we were using!!

After we stuffed them, I just turned the edges in about a half an inch and sewed it together. Here they are all done, I ended up having enough to do a standard size for grandpa. Don't they look so fluffy!!  They were amazing how you would push down on them and move your hand, and they would bounce right back, not like the store ones at all!! 100% better!!

We went to the fabric store and let the kids pick out what fabric they wanted. I love how they look with the pillow cases.  A really good tutorial here for the pillowcases. That is for a standard pillowcase, but really easy to size it down or up.

Chenille Blanket

A few months ago I was searching for a tutorial to do a rag quilt, when I came across this site.  I wanted to try the technique out, so I did it on my daughters place mats for her birthday. . .

I then used it yesterday to make this one. . . .I am in love with how this one turned out!! It looks so boy!!

A few things I want to add to the tutorial is: she says to use 1/2 inch as a guide for the width of the stitches, which is what I used on my first project but I used more like 3/4 of an inch and it was much easier to cut-I could cut the length of the scissors, instead of just doing a bunch of tiny little snips, and the other thing is make sure you use the fabric she suggests.  For the place mats I used flannel, which frayed, but frayed so much that there are just a bunch of strings hanging off of it, which isn't that big of a deal for what she uses them for, but for a blanket you won't a million strings hanging everywhere.

What's nice about this quilt is that I used a bunch of scraps, and one of the fabric was a really dark blue with flowers on it, you can't even tell!!