Farm Girl Vintage

The first time I heard of the book Farm Girl Vintage was at quilt club, when I spotted this cute clothesline full of 6-inch quilt blocks. It was love at first sight!

For Christmas the kids bought me a copy of the book.

I have enjoyed looking through the book over and over again. My plan was to make this Mama Hen first, in the 6-inch block.

Before starting on the Mama Hen I first wanted to make a mini design board that is used to keep all the small pieces together.

Lori Holt, the author, has a website where she gives instructions on how to make mini design boards:   http://beeinmybonnetco.blogspot.com/2011/07/mini-design-board-tutorial.html

In the tutorial Lori Holt uses foam board but I didn't want to pay for it, so instead I glued two pieces of cardboard together; it worked just fine. The back of my board shows the cardboard instead of a pretty white, but that doesn't bother me since it's the front I'll be dealing with. By the way, if you decide to make a mini design board, be sure to use cotton batting; I used poly for my first try and it didn't work very well.

As I was cutting out my fabric for the Mama Hen, I was glad to have the project board; some of my pieces were 1-inch square!

The Mama Hen turned out just darling and I'm anxious to try out another block soon.

I love that my kids gave me this book for Christmas. It's so country, which is exactly the style I love in quilts.

Sewing Class Drawstring Bag Project

Project number two for my upcoming co-op class is a drawstring bag. The outside is a lightweight denim and is lined on the inside with a red checked lightweight cotton fabric.

The monogram was made using a medium weight cotton apple print fabric. The bag has a nice country feel and I'm very pleased with how it all came together.

 For the drawstrings I simply used the same fabric that was used to line the bag. The ties were cut at 2-inches wide, the width of the fabric, tri-folded and iron before stitching.

As I was working on this bag I was afraid it might be too hard for a beginner sewing class, but decided it was nice enough to have the kids make it anyway; we'll simply spend the extra time needed to make it work.

Sewing Class Pillowcase Project

This semester I will be teaching a sewing class for our co-op group. Our first project will be a basic pillowcase. 

Normally I use two coordinating fabrics but decided to see how it would turn out using the same fabric for both the body and the cuff.

I top stitched my seam with a narrow satin ribbon which turned out better than I had expected. 

The kids should be very excited to make this as their first project!