Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop!

Hi and welcome to Sewing By Stephanie! Whether you're just stopping by as a part of the Let's Get Acquainted blog hop or are a regular follower I'm happy you're here. 

For those of you who don't already know me I'm Stephanie and I've been blogging as Sewing By Stephanie for a little over a year.  I started this blog in March 2011 thinking that it would be a fun way to share my finishes with friends and family but as I blogged more and more I discovered that there is a whole world of other quilty bloggers out there who share the same passions I do, so now I blog as a way to connect with other quilters online. 

With that said, I think it's time we got acquainted! 

How long have you been quilting?

I've been sewing since I was 6 but only got into quilting after I graduated college, so for a little over 3 years now.

Harriet's Quilt.

Favorite quilting tip(s)
The #1 tip I have for beginning quilters is to be precise with your measurements and your seams.  You'll save yourself a ton on time later on if you're precise to begin with. 

Little Leaves Hand Quilting (this quilt won "Favorite Hand Quilted Quilt" in the 2012 Blogger's Quilt Festival)

Favorite blogging tip(s)
Use Flickr!  I host (almost) all of my photos on my blog through Flickr and I love it.  There are so many great swaps and QALs hosted through Flickr that you're really missing out if you don't have an account.

Padded Camera Pouch & Wallet.

Favorite fabric (or wish list fabric)
I'm currently dying to get my hands on some Out to Sea by Sarah Jane Studios.  It's so whimsical and fresh, I love it.  Also, as a general rule I love any fabric with either gnomes or dachshunds on it.

Olive's quilt.

Favorite craft book
One of my favorite bloggers when I got started was Alicia Paulsen of Posie Gets Cozy and her book  Embroidery Companion is one of my favorites.  As far as quilting books go though my first and favorite is The Practical Guide to Patchwork by Elizabeth Hartman.

Dogs on quilt.

Favorite book (or book you are currently reading)

I have a deep love for books so picking one "favorite" is impossible.  I'm currently reading A Dance with Dragons (book 5 of Game of Thrones) and I'm really enjoying it.  Some authors I enjoy include Sarah Addison Allen, Deborah Harkness, Julie Garwood, Terry Goodkind, and Kathleen Woodiwiss. 

Reversible Tablerunner.

Favorite children's book  

This one's an easy answer.  My favorite by far is Pickle-Chiffon Pie by Jolly Roger Bradfield.  It's my sister's favorite as well and we fought over which of us would get to keep the original we had in our childhood.  She won and got to keep it, but luckily it's back in print so I have a copy for myself as well. 

Manly T-shirt quilt.

Favorite quilting tool

Either my mega mat, my huge ruler, or my rotary cutter.  I pretty much can't do anything without all of them!

Wonky Stars baby quilt.

Favorite music to listen to while quilting

I listen to Pandora a lot while working on my machine.  Currently I have it on a country station I made. 

Custom Dolls

Favorite TV show while hand stitching

I love historical pieces, but I watch pretty much anything.  Recently I've been watching Doc Martin and Misfits.

Back of ruffle onesie

Binding - by hand or by machine?

By machine to the front of the quilt and then by hand to finish.  I use the hand binding time to kind of wind-down from making the quilt.  It's so relaxing to sit and sew by hand knowing that the quilt I've been slaving over is almost done.

Tree applique quilt I made a friend's little girl.

If I'd only known - what you wish you knew about blogging before you started your blog

I don't really know what to say here.  I feel as though I'm still figuring all of this out.

Okay, enough with the introductions.  Let's get to the tutorial!

I don't know what the weather is like where everyone else is but where I am it's in the 90's, so today I have a quick tutorial on how to make a cool down for your neck.  I'm sure there are other tutorials out there on how to make these since this isn't my original design, but I wasn't able to locate one when I went looking so I thought it might be a good thing to write up a quick tutorial for.

For this you need a few simple ingredients:

-A piece of fabric 36 1/2" long by 4" wide ( I used my favorite Gnoming Around print, it has both gnomes AND dachshunds!)

-A water soluble pen

-A sewing machine

-Jumbo aqua gems (I bought mine in the floral section at Joanns for about $4)

Optional: a 12-16" length of PVC pipe (I used one of the sides of my lap quilting frame)

Step 1: Cut your fabric to the desired size of 36 1/2 " by 4" wide.  Fold fabric along the long edge with right sides together and sew down the long side and along one edge keeping a 1/4" seam allowance.  Turn right side out and press.

Sew closed long side and one end.

Turn and press.

Step 2: Using a water soluble pen mark lines along the length of your tube every 6 inches, separating your tube into 6 sections. With your sewing machine stitch along the line you just drew that is closest to the end of the tube that is sewn shut, effectively closing off the section.

Mark lines on the outside of the tube every 6 inches

Step 3: Measure out 1/4 teaspoon of your jumbo aqua gems.  Using your length of pipe as a guide, put your aqua gems into the tube (if you're not using a length of pipe you can just put your aqua gems straight into the tube, just jiggle it to make sure that all the gems make it down into the bottom of the tube.)  Using your machine sew along the next line, making sure to inclose all aqua gems in the section.

Measure out 1/4 teaspoon of aqua gems

Insert the pipe into the tube and use it to guide aqua gems into the tube.

Step 4:  Repeat for the next three sections.  When you are done you should have 4 sections that each have 1/4 teaspoon aqua gems in them.  The two sections on the outside should have no aqua gems in them.  Close off the last side of your tube by turning the fabric in 1/4" and sewing shut.

Turn the end in and sew shut.

All Sewn!

Step 5: Soak your cool down in water overnight until the gems are fully expanded.  When you're done you'll have a nice easy way to stay cool in the summer heat! 

Soak!

20 hours later and ready to go!

I have 4 that I've been using and I love them.  I took them camping with me and whenever we got a little hot I just threw them in the ice chest and they got nice and icy cold for us.  Whenever it gets a little dry you can roll it on your neck or if you need to you can re-soak it and it will get full again.  Also, when the summer is over and you no longer need it you can lay it out and let it dry and the beads will go back to their original size so you can store it until you need it again.  I should warn you though that you cannot freeze them.  If you freeze them the aqua gels will burst and will no longer soak up water (so once they dry out, they're done).

I hope you all enjoyed this quick tutorial!  And I hope you come back again soon!!!

Don't forget to go and check out the other featured blogger for today, Kirsten from Gemini Stitches

And be sure to check out Tuesday's featured bloggers, Sarah from Sarah Sews Quilting Blog and January from Sew Sew Go.

p.s.  I plan on posting more pics of my gnome cool down once it's fully soaked up all it's water, but that will have to wait for the morning!

Edit: I added the pictures of the finished cool down!  Hope you enjoyed the tutorial! 

Edit: I made a pdf file that details how to use and enjoy a cool down if you want to make one of these as a gift for someone.  You can find the pdf here.

Small Blog Meet Post

"What is this?!" you might ask, "TWO posts in a day???"

Well, to answer your question, this morning I was doing my regular thing of reading through all of the blogs on my feed and I came across the Small Blog Meet at the Lily's Quilts blog and decided to join in since I'm always looking for new bloggy friends, so an additional post was needed.

The history of my blog is this: I decided back in March to start blogging. I've always made stuff and people always ask me about how I did it, so I thought I'd simplify things and make a blog where I could just post all of the pictures and the process in one place so that people could look at them and think "oh, how pretty is that?

Well, I ran into a few problems:
The first is that I'm NOT GOOD at taking pictures of things in-progress. I'll make something and realize that I didn't take any pictures of it while I made it.

The second problem is that I'm just not very good at taking photos. We have a big fancy camera and yet I still get blurry yellow pictures that don't show off what I make.

Third, I'm really BUSY. There's a stint in my blog where I went from one vacation to another to an out of town job to moving to another vacation, and what I ended up with was no posts at all in June and July and only two in August.

But I'm back now with a newly designed blog and a new name, and I'm getting back into the swing of things. I plan on posting about my finished hexi journal cover tomorrow, as well as my journal itself, and I hope to have some progress to show you on the chenille blanket I'm working on as a birthday gift for my uncle.

Anyways, thanks for reading, feel free to look around, and thanks for visiting my blog!

A New Name and a New Look

If you'll look around the page you'll see I've made a few changes.  The look has been overhauled and it's gotten a new name.  

When I first started the blog I had trouble deciding on a name, and finally settled on "The Things I Love" because I was blogging about the things I love on the blog.  For a while now I haven't really been happy with the name though, because it doesn't say at all who I am.  I've been going as "Sewing By Stephanie" in the blog world and my sewing business has the same name as does my flickr account, but other than it being in the blog address the name "Sewing By Stephanie" was nowhere in the title, so I decided to ditch "The Things I Love" and dive in as "Sewing By Stephanie".

If I was going to have a new name I needed a new header, and working with the yellow design I had up I was realizing that I wasn't really liking it.  For one thing, I'm not a huge fan of yellow, and for another the design had nothing to do with sewing.  I tried out the grey and white polka dot design that's up now amazingly enough because it was called "Stephanie", and once it was up I decided to keep it because I liked it so much.

Looking thorough files on my computer I found the frame and leaf images I used in the header, along with the stitching font I purchased last year for my "Sewing By Stephanie" business cards I made.  Looking at the stitches on the leaves I knew I was going to use it, so I decided to make a flower, and what better way to cement the sewing theme than to use a button as the flower center.

I got the image of the button from the internet and used the eraser tool to delete all of the image from around the button so that all I was left with was the round button. 

After putting it all together I put it up on the page and LOVED it.  To go along with the header I also made two small buttons.  I thought in the future that maybe I'll put them to good use somehow.  Maybe in the scrapbooking software giveaway I'll be doing soon.  I'll post scrapbooked pages soon, but for now here are the buttons I made!  Which one do you like more?

Baby Showers!

Today we celebrated the upcoming birth of what is sure to be a beautiful child.  Two friends from church are expecting their first baby girl soon and we celebrated with a baby shower today.  Since the majority of the gifts I've been making recently have been for either boy gifts or gender-neutral gifts it was pretty fun to be able to make something for a girl that could be girly.  And knowing that Emily loves butterflies certainly helped with the design.

At first I was contemplating making a blanket, but then I received an email in my inbox from the baby's godmother saying she was organizing a quilt for the family and wanted to know if I wanted to contribute a square or two.  To sweeten the deal she was having a night at her house where we could go and work on our squares... Sweet!

I ended up making two squares while I was hanging out enjoying banana bread and wine.  The first was a pink heart on a butterfly-print background with the words "Happy Family" embroidered in the heart.  

The second square I wanted to be simple yet beautiful.  I had some ivory eyelet scraps left over from making Wendy's dirndl (Hi Wendy!) for Oktoberfest so I thought I'd just cut a butterfly shape out of the scrap and sew it onto a green background.  

It looked so pretty that it inspired me for a future project to make a full quilt using blocks of eyelet butterflies on differing backgrounds.  Forgive the quality of the two photos, I took them with my phone at night in a dimly lit room.  

I didn't get a picture of the finished quilt today at the baby shower when Emily opened it, but it was BEAUTIFUL.  Sarah did a great job putting it all together and putting the backing on.  Maybe someone who was there snapped a photo of it and would care to send it my way...hint, hint.

Not onto the present!  Since a quilt was already being made I thought I'd go the onesie route.  I recently won a set of beautiful pink and green Riley Blake fat quarters at a giveaway going on at Melissa Stramel's Blog and thought that the solid pink, polka dot, and paisley prints would look great used together.

 

Awhile ago I bought several blank white onesies in two sizes to embellish and use as gifts, and so I used one from each size for the gift.  For the 6-9 month sized onesie I decided to make a matching skirt for her to wear with it.  I used the same pattern for the skirt that I used for the Cthulhu skirt, but since I had a limited amount of fabric I shortened the yoke so that it was basically just a waistband.

I decided to make it as versatile as I could so I made it reversible, with the paisley print on one side, the polka dot on the reverse, and the pink as the waistband. 

Construction of the skirt was simple. If I had taken any photos of the process I would try to make a tutorial, but since I didn't I'll leave it to your imagination how I put it together...

For the onesie that matched the skirt I made a butterfly template out of paper and then with right sides of the fabric together I machine stitched all the way around.  I then trimmed the edges and clipped corners, then I cut a slit in the center of the butterfly on the side of the fabric that would be against the onesie.  I then used the slit to turn the butterfly so that the right sides were facing out, and pressed it with my iron.  I attached the butterfly to the front of the onesie using a zigzag stitch, and then cut out a butterfly body shape in a contrasting fabric and appliqued it onto the wings shape.  With a pink embroidery floss I then secured the body to the onesie so that it wouldn't fray in the wash.  Done!

For the 0-3 month sized onesie I didn't want to make a skirt, so I had to think of something different. I made a similar butterfly to the one I made for the other onesie, but I switched which fabric was the wings and which was the body, and constructed it and attached it to the onesie.  For the "something different" to go with this onesie I decided on some butt ruffles.  I've seen this done in several patterns on diaper covers and so I figures it couldn't be that difficult.  I took a this strip from each of my three fabrics and used my serger to serge all the way around the edges.  I then basted across the top of each and used the basting stitch to gather the strip into a ruffle.  I then pinned them to the butt of the onesie and attached them with a zigzag stitch.  The zigzag allowed the ruffles to stretch with the fabric, which I thought would be a VERY good idea since the ruffles are supposed to stretch across the baby's butt.  I then made a bow out of the pink fabric and attached it above the ruffles. Done!

I really like the way these outfits came out.  The fabric I used was perfect and super soft... a great quality fabric all the way around.  

Since I was so pleased with the project I decided to do something special with the photos (and this is fun)... I enlisted Granite as my photographer's assistant and we headed outside.  I've seen a lot of photos on blogs recently where the project was displayed hanging on a clothes line in front of flowers and plants, and I wanted to duplicate that effect.  In our complex we have several different "pockets" with pretty plants and flowers so we headed over to one with our clothesline, clothespins, camera and tripod and set up.  Granite's job was to hold the end of the clothesline.  The other end we secured to a tree.  It actually worked really well, I just wish it hadn't been as windy as it was.  Oh well, I only needed to get a few good shots to make it worth it (and it was definitely worth it!)

All three pieces with the paisley side of the skirt showing...

All three pieces with the polka dot side of the skirt showing...

The backside of the smaller onesie.

A closeup of the butt ruffles.  Cute, huh?

And since no present is finished until it is wrapped with a card, I made a butterfly card and decorated a bag with a matching butterfly.

P.S. I'm linking this post to Quiltstory's Fabric Tuesday.  See my sidebar for their button and go check out other people's entries!

Giveaway over at Fairy Face Designs!

While I've just recently discovered this I'm sure a lot of you out there haven't yet discovered the joy to be found in the online craft blog world.  Particular favorites of mine include blogs on quilting and general sewing goodness.  Another perk?  Giveaways!  I've been lucky enough to win two of the giveaway drawings I've entered (winning the felt camp set and the Riley Blake FQ set), and so I thought I'd pass along a little link love while at the same time introducing you all to a giveaway going on over at Fairy Face Designs.... and in the interest of full disclosure, I have to admit that by the simple act of me re-posting this blog post I'm getting myself another entry in the giveaway.  yay! 

So hop on over there and check it out! 

FairyFace Designs: My Big Scrappy Giveaway