Tues Tutorial~ Quick Country Style Drawstring (Gift) Bag

 

  The farm guys in the family have traveled twice in the past year to sell cattle. So for Christmas I made a drawstring bag to hold their gift and also thought might be suitable for a cowboy hat wearing guy to stash away in his clothes bag. I don't think they carry rolling suitcases? 

   The thing that takes me time in making draw string bags, is threading the string through the casing.  I require 2 strings so it can be pulled from each side. That means double threading. I've decided this type of casing works easiest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Tuesday Tutorial

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Please do not get hung up on measurements.

My green pieces were already cut when I got them in a scrap bag.

You use the size you need to hold your gift. 

These 2 green pieces are 12½ inch square.

These pieces are laying on a 1 inch grid. 

 

The brown pieces to be the channel to hold the string,

is cut 1 inch shorter

than the width of the main piece.

This brown piece is 11½ x 4½ inches.

Fold each end of the brown pieces 1/4 inch and top stitch.

Then fold the pieces in half lengthwise "hotdog style" to meet raw edges.

Stitch to green pieces as shown.

A serger was used here for a clean finish.

 

Notice the ends of the brown piece is short on sides

by a seam

so you have room to stitch seams

without catching the string channel in the seam.

My bag needed to be longer,

so I added pieces to the bottom.

You do what you need to fit your item.

Starting below the string channel,

use your favorite seam finishing method.

A serger was used here.

You can use the French Seam if you have enough seam allowance.

Cut or make your string to go about 2 inches beyond each side.

A tip I saw recently was to use something like this thing

that could hold 2 strings at once.

Slide both strings through one side at one time.

 

Pin one string down

and take the other through the other side.

Tie the first string off (see on right)

then slide the other through the other side and tie.

Done.

 

I added a key chain trinket that came in this box,

because they are all deer hunters.

The red ribbon is attached to the gift tags I made. 

 

Hope this tutorial was easy enough to follow

to make any size bag

with the size of fabric pieces you have.

 

Consider piecing together fabrics to make a patchwork bag.

 

Fun Fri~ Holiday Pillow Covers

 

For this past Christmas I decided

I'd give my daughters and grand daughters

a pillow with a generic colored cover

for anytime use.

With it they got a pillow cover for Easter.

The applique was just a free image downloaded

from a blackline masters site.

I plan to make pillow covers for other holidays in the future.

The popular vote for the next pillow cover was 

Halloween.

I might throw in a patriotic one as well

since I have QOV scraps.

(Mr G's ole sitting spot)
 

Thoughtful Thurs~ 2nd Grand's 2024 Bday Card

 

She's the Mother of my first Great Grand Child.

This was my last visual of them

on Jan 1 after I had lunch with them.

They were walking down the strip mall corridor

on their way to another store.

Unfortunately, I didn't have my phone with me to take a picture.

However, I froze this in my mind, knowing it would be the next card.

 

Since I didn't have a photo to go by,

I sketched out a picture the best I could.

I think this helps my muscle memory anyway.

The pieces aren't cut out.

Instead I free hand cut the pieces.

 

My pallet has been out all through Christmas.

 

Tues Tutorial~ 2023 Christmas Postcards with Free Dove Embroidery File

 
For the past few years, I have embroidered a Christmas post card for all my Church Family and for the family and friends I mail a card. 

 

You can find them here and some of them also have free embroidery files. 

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Tuesday Tutorial

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First I used Open Office Writer, a free program

to format a card. 

The font you see here is called Curly Stars

which was downloaded free from DaFont.

I was able to print 4 cards per card stock sheet.

My favorite way to cut apart

is the same as cutting fabric.

This rotary cutter is used only for papers.

Notice it is the smaller size.

I dedicated it for paper, because I rarely cut fabric with it.

 

I retrieved Ms. Ellie from the closet.

I do wish I had a place to set her up permanently.

She is still good at embroidery,

but man, it's a heavy chore to move MC and set her up.

Both are monsters for me to lift.

The 5x7 frame is set up with painter's tape

as you see here.

The sticky side faces up.

The card is held by the sticky part of the tape.

It centers nicely in the frame as the corners of the card

touch the corner of the frame.

I had to maintain a long thread to start.

The bobbin thread always had to be pulled up

to start the stitching.

Even at that, 

sometimes the first 2 or 3 stitches might skip.

I don't know if it was Ellie the machine,

because she is temperamental

or how I wrote the file.

About 5 cards out of 50 didn't work.

The cards that were mailed,

were folded cards.

Notice how they lay in the frame.

A bit backward.

 

When the embroidery is finished,

carefully push the card out from the back,

and press down the next card. 

 

I made about 50 post cards 

and a dozen cards

in about 4 hours,

but I'm slow.

With the 2 sets of all occasion cards as gifts,

a lot of cards were made last Christmas.

Hopefully, you can download the

PES Bird Embroidery File here

which I made from a free black line master

with my Master Works Embroidery Software.

I had to delete a lot of stitches,

to make this a 1 line stitching file 

that card stock can handle.

enJOY!
 

 

Fun Fri~ SIL #1 Birthday Card 2024

 

You may know by now

my Fabric Scrap Birthday Cards

all have a story behind them 

involving the past year.

My son-in-law works in the Safety Department

of a major delivery company.

He and my daughter have also recently

adopted a new grand dog.

Above sketched with heat sensitive pen.

Below stitched by machine with brown thread.

 Brown fabric edge stitched to stabilizer.

Cut out doggie

Then stitch around body, legs and face.

Ears were left free.

 

Edge stitched to card front.

Wrote Happy Birthday from Nana Joy inside

Made an envelope.

Glued closed 

and mailed.