Tissue Holder Pattern- Easy Stocking Stuffer

If you’re looking for an easy stocking stuffer or a small table gift for a retreat, these tissue holders are quick to sew.   I found the tissue packs at the grocery.   There were 8 of them bundled together.  These are great to carry in your purse or to put in a retreat bag along with your stitching.  

Tissue Holder Pattern

                              (1)      Cut 2 pieces:    

                                1 piece at 5 ½” X 6 ½” (outside of                                                                   tissue holder)

                                1 piece at 5 ½” X 7 ½” (inside and trim strip)

(2)      Put right sides together and sew along both 5 ½” sides (short sides).   (You can see “the hill” in    

  the photo because one piece is an inch longer than the other.) 

(3)    Turn right side out and press so that your trim strips are even.

 

 (4)     Fold the edges into the center as shown in the photo.  Sew across short ends.

                                

(5)     Turn right side out and push the corners out so that they are square.  

What I usually do is cut a bunch of inside and outside fabric.  Then I chain them through first on one side and then on the other side.  I turn them all at once so I can press them all at once.   I do the same when sewing the short sides – first sew all of one side and then all of the other side.   Then you can turn them and push all the corners out at once.  

Until next time......

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.

How NOT To Clean Your Iron

After seeing Melisa's post today about cleaning her iron, I decided I'd go ahead and post my iron cleaning experience.   I found this in my drafts folder from a few years ago.  This method is something I found on the internet several times and thought it was a good idea.   

This is a basket block that I worked on several months ago.  If you look closely at my block, you can see there is some brown staining on the white parts.  My iron has needed cleaning for quite awhile.  I'm sure I ironed over something that I shouldn't have.  It was really raining hard, so instead of going out to by something to clean the bottom of my iron, I turned to Google to see what others had done.  Now, I know not to believe everything that I read on the internet, so I normally look at the first 5 or 6 entries.  If they all say pretty much the same thing, I give it a try.



Most people said to make a paste of 2 tablespoons of baking soda to 1 tablespoon of water and apply to the bottom of the iron and let set.   Then wipe the bottom of the iron clean, and clean the holes of the iron out by adding water and setting the iron to steam.  And, it also said that if it didn't work the first time, to apply more and repeat.

It looked better, so I decided to repeat the process and let it sit on the bottom of the iron a little longer.





 You can see by looking at the iron that by this time we were both getting tired of this.  I guess I wandered away for awhile........I don't put water in my iron because as a rule it has always ended badly for me.  I just keep a spray bottle of water handy to use instead.  But the directions said to fill the iron with water and turn it to steam to finish cleaning the baking soda from the holes of the iron.




There's no photo for the next part of the process.   I wiped the iron clean after the second baking soda application, filled the iron with water and set it to steam.  I guess I had wandered away for way too long.  I didn't know that baking soda would burn.......  I started to smell something, and the baking soda had dried so hard in the holes of the iron that they started to burn.  The water wouldn't come out no matter what I did.  I was pretty disgusted, so I set the iron up on end.  And the brown water came pouring out of the bottom from a place where water shouldn't come out.  So that was the end of that iron. 

After this mess, I realized that I should have done this in the kitchen or bathroom near a sink instead of on my ironing board.  The iron board cover was now not only dirty, but it was soaking wet.  So I decided to pull it off and check the washing instructions.  What?  Blot spills up at once with a damp cloth.  Well, that ship had sailed.  I decided to just go ahead and throw it in the washer.  I'd already lost an iron.  What's one more thing?

I'm not sure why the instructions said not to machine wash, because the cover is as good as new.  The iron in the photo below is one I ordered awhile back as a travel iron, but it is almost a full size.  I was going to send it back to Amazon, but the cost of the return postage was more than the cost of the iron.  I'm glad I kept it for a spare.  

Hope you are finding some time to stitch today!

Merry Mistletoe and More Knitting

 I’ve started another project.  I do have a lot of projects in the works, but since this is a Christmas project I didn’t think it would count, right?  I couldn’t resist this one since it has hexagons (my favorite thing to stitch) and embroidery.  I basted the hexagons first. 

I 

This is called Merry Mistletoe by Lilabelle Lane Creations.  This is what the finished project will look like.  It finishes at 15” X 16” so it should be pretty quick to finish.   Those are famous last words. 

 Since I love sewing hexagons, I went ahead and sewed the rows together and then stitched them into the frame for the embroidery. 

 Then I started work on the embroidery.  It’s a lot of fun, but there’s a lot there.  I thought I might at least have the embroidery finished and the top put together by this Christmas. 

 I’m enjoying the embroidery, but there’s a lot of satin stitch which takes some time to do.  There’s still time to finish before Christmas so I’ll keep working on it. 

 Here’s the latest hat I’ve started.  This is different yarn than I normally work with.  I know someone will love this hat, but I’m not sure it will be as warm as the other yarn I’m using. 

 My Grandsons came over the other day to help us do some holiday decorating and undecorating.  The oldest helped Grandpa put the outside Christmas lights under the overhang all around the house.  We still have all the bushes and trees left to do.  The youngest helped me put the Halloween decorations and cross stitch away.  He thought we should leave out some things for fall.   These are the cross stitch pillows he left out.  I just noticed today that he left the witch cross stitch in the display.  I guess he must have liked that pillow.

Tonight is baked tortellini and garlic bread.  It's one of my favorites.  

Until next time......

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.

Knit Hats and Crocheted Scarves - Patterns

When the weather turns cool, I start to think about knitting and crocheting.   Around Christmas my youngest Grandson’s school collects knit or crocheted scarves or hats to donate to a local charity.  I have some of each finished from last year, but I’m starting to work on them again.  

I buy 2 skeins of each color of I Love this Yarn from Hobby Lobby.  It’s affordable and Hobby Lobby isn’t far from me.  From 1 skein I knit 2 hats.  With what is left, I start a crocheted scarf and add on the other full skein.   I knit the hats on 16” circular size 8 needles.  I have 2 needles so I always have 2 hats going and, I’m crocheting on at least one scarf at a time.  Crochet was my first craft when I was very young, and I still enjoy it and find it relaxing.  

                               Easy Knit Hat

Size 8 - 16' circular knitting needle

Worsted weight yarn

Marker

Cast on 80 stitches.  Place marker. Do K1, P1 ribbing for 14 rows.  Then knit until the hat measures 7 inches.

Then to decrease:

Knit 6, Knit 2 together for one round.   Then knit a round.

Knit 5, Knit 2 together for one round.    Then knit a round.

Continue decreasing this way on each round ending with knit 1, knit 2 together and then knitting a round.

Then knit 2 together for 2 rounds.  Using a yarn needle pull the last 5 stitches together and tie off.

                           Easy Half Double Crochet Scarf

Crochet hook Size I

Worsted weight yarn

Chain 18 loosely.  In 2nd chain from hook do 2 half double crochets.  Skip a chain and do 2 half double 

crochets in next chain.  Repeat to end.  Chain 1 and turn.  

Row 2:  Do 2 HDC in space between the HDCs from previous row.  Continue to end.  Chain 1 and turn.

Repeat row 2 until desired length.  

I’ll create a separate page and put a tab under my blog header with the patterns in case you ever want to come back and find them. 

 Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.  

Road Trip and Snow

I’ve been absent for a bit.  Our neighborhood is getting fiber optic cable.  When the guy doing the installation was digging to run cable to our next-door neighbor’s house, he cut the cable to our house.  We were without internet for over 2 days.  There were a lot of things that I had to log back in to, including google.   That meant I couldn’t get to my blog.  I think I finally have everything back up and running now. 

The weather here in Indiana has turned to early winter.  I live just on the south side of Indianapolis, and we had snow.  It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to cover the ground.    

This is the plant between our garage doors.  The weather has been warm enough that there were new buds on the plant.  This is a mandevilla plant.  I have 2 more in hanging baskets that we brought in to the porch. It's supposed to be back in the 60s this weekend so I can put them back outside.  

I really hated to see my mums go so early in the season, but before the snow started, it rained.  I think that insulated the plant from being hurt too much by the cold temperatures.  

Last Wednesday was a beautiful fall day.  My husband and I took a drive down through southern Indiana and over into Kentucky.  This was a test for me to see if I could drive that long without my knee hurting.    With him along, I knew if I couldn’t do the driving, he was there to take over.  Thankfully, I was able to pass another milestone and drive the whole way there and back.  We first went over the Ohio River to Hometown Pizza for lunch.  

Then we stopped at a few quilt shops so I could freshen my stash. OK.  I stopped, and he sat in the car and read.  The only time he comes into a quilt shop is to get me to come out!

The fall fabrics came from Back Door quilts here in Greenwood.  That was a separate trip on a different day.  

Some of the fabrics in the next two photos came from Little Golden Fox and L & L Dry Goods in Madison, Indiana.  Then I stopped at a new shop just south of Versailles, IN, called The Quilting Nook.  I’ve passed by there many times and didn’t realize it was a quilt shop.  Some of the fabric I bought has a purpose.  Other pieces were just because they were pretty.  My Christmas stash was pretty low so I bought a few things to add to it. 

This is the “just because” pile.  

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.

It's Halloween

It’s Halloween!!   I got the urge to do some embroidery, and I saw this cute pattern on Melisa’s blog, Pinkernpunkinquilting.  It’s stitched, but I’m not sure I’ll get it all the way finished by Halloween this year.  

Our grandsons came over and decorated the outside of the house the other day.   The oldest grandson, age 13, took the hand full of cords and lights and did most of the decorating.  The other grandson is 8 years old.  He had more fun decorating inside.

The ghosts are made from upside down tomato cages.  You can see my tutorial for how I made those here.  

This ghost has been in our family since my kids were young.  We made him from a round piece of foam and a piece of fabric.

The topiary is 3 different sized pumpkins with a hole drilled through the middle.  A dowel rod holds them all together.

My daughter made the diamond painting Happy Halloween sign.  

This is Snarky Cat a counted cross stitch design from Teresa Kogut.  He is one of my favorite decorations.

                                                  

I don’t remember who the designer of this pattern is.  I have lots more decorations, and some cross stitching that I didn’t get finally finished. 

 I hope you all have a happy and safe Halloween.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today. 

Fall Quilts, Pillows and Wreath

                                           

I’m slowly bringing out the fall quilts and decorations.  They probably won’t all come out this year, but that’s ok.   I have more fall and Christmas decorations than anything else, so I’m bringing out my favorites first. 

This quilt will go on my guest room bed.  That center block was an orphan block from another quilt I started.  It might have been a block from the book Old Voices New Impressions.   It looked like fall, so I added some squares and half square triangles and a border.

                                              

This pumpkin quilt hangs on the wall in the kitchen.  It’s from a pattern by Cluck Cluck Sew.

 The fall tree is from back in the day when we did watercolor quilts.  I used to have several books with ideas on how to make this style of quilt.  

The witch embroidery in the center of this quilt was from Sentimental Stitches from years ago.  I’d made these pinwheel blocks with no real purpose so used them for this lap quilt. 

 

This quilt is one of my favorites.  It is a Judy Martin pattern, but I rearranged the blocks when I put mine together. 

 

This star quilt is made with a product called Quiltsmart  You sew rectangles to a foundation so there are no set in seams.  I’ve made several of these quilts and have taught others the method. 

I still love to crochet.  Crochet was the first craft I really learned and did a lot of years ago.  My Mom was a crocheter, so it was natural that I did the same thing.  I find the granny square pattern so relaxing to stitch.  In this afghan I just started in the center and kept making rounds with the yarn that I had.  

The pillow is from my first pattern, Charming Hexagon Pillow.  You can use a mini charm pack or a regular charm pack cut into quarters.  You can find the link to the pattern in myEtsy shop in my sidebar.  The pattern is also available at Back Door Quilt Shop.    The fabrics were given to me by a nice lady in one of my classes.

 

The little pumpkin on the stand is another of my patterns called Pumpkin Patch.  You can find my patterns in my Etsy shop and at Back Door Quilt Shop.

 

The cross stitch in the middle of this pillow is Farm Girl Fall by Lori Holt. 

 

This cross stitch is by Primrose Cottage.

 

I made the wreath using a video from Still Waters Wreath Designs on You Tube.           

                                               

Until next time.....

Thanks for stopping by for a visit.

I hope you are finding some time to stitch today.