Nothing says Spring like baby chicks, even when they are the type you stick pins in (No live animals have been harmed in the creation of this blog). Make these chicks in different sizes and colors. Use them as a center piece for your Spring table or add pins and send them off to live with your sewing friends.  Some of your chicks might be versatile and able to hold different jobs at different times.

Supply List:
Two 5” squares fabric for the body
One 3 1/2” square fabric for tail
One 2 1/2” square fabric for tail
Felt for the comb and beak
Polyester fiberfill for stuffing

Instructions:

1. Cut beak and comb shapes from felt. Think of the shape of a beak and add an extra 1/4” or so to the back of the beak for the seam allowance.  Apply the same concept to the bottom of the comb.

2. Lay out one of the body pieces right side up and arrange beak and comb pieces as pictured.
3. Pin to secure beak and comb in place.
4. Place the other body piece right sides together over the comb and beak.
5. Stitch along three sides leaving a small opening for turning.
6. Leave the the last side open.

7. Prepare the tail pieces, aka prairie points.
8. Fold square, wrong-side together,  to form a triangle.
9. Fold again.

10. Repeat with the other tail fabric piece.
11. Place the smaller triangle on top the larger one and pin.
12. Align the top and bottom seams of the body – this will form the pyramid shape of the chicken.
13. Center the tail relative to the opening, push the tail into the opening, and pin all layers.  NOTE – the smaller triangle tail piece must be against the seam that  holds the comb.

14. Stitch the seam closed.

15. Turn the chicken right side out through the small opening.
16. Stuff with polyester fiber fill.
17. Hand stitch the opening closed.
18. Add the eyes.  These can be rhinestones, buttons, large-head pins, sequins, beads, or – - – - use your imagination.

Totes are great for carrying a variety of things. Totes are easy to make, usually without much effort or time. They can carry groceries from the store, books to and from the library, and a current project to work on while waiting somewhere for an appointment. Add your own uses for a tote or three.

The only thing I frequently don’t like about totes is the plain webbing that is usually used for the strap. On commercially made totes, that can be expected, but on my totes or totes you might make, there is little excuse for a plain and boring strap. I decided to try two techniques to see if I could take that plain webbing strap and make it a bit more interesting.

Technique 1 – Adding fabric:

Supplies:
Cotton or poly webbing – in desired width and length. I prefer one inch wide for tote handles.
Fabric Strips

Instructions:
1. Cut webbing to desired length – make sure you have allowed extra for attaching to your tote.
2. Cut fabric twice the finished width you want the decoration strip to be.
3. Use a bias tape maker, or any other method you prefer to fold and to press the edges.

4. Use either Wonder Tape or glue stick to hold the fabric strip in place on the webbing.
5. Set sewing machine to sew a blind hem stitch with a stitch width of 4.0 and a stitch length of 2.5. Use a contrasting or variegated thread on top and a bobbin thread that matches the webbing.
6. Edge stitch along both sides of the fabric strip.
7. Attach strap(s) to your tote.

Technique 2 – Adding chenille

Supplies:

Cotton or poly webbing in desired width and length.
Bias cut chenille fabric 3 times the length of web strap. This can be purchased or you can cut your own.

Instructions:

1. Cut fabric strips one inch wide on the bias.
2. Three layers gives a nice full chenille appearance.
3. Sew down the center of the three stacked strips. The photo above shows a chenille foot on my machine. If you have a chenille foot use it, if not, use your regular presser foot.

4. Trim the sewn strips to ¾ inch finished width.
5. If your machine has a chenille foot, it makes applying the chenille sandwich strip much easier.

6. Place webbing next to feed dogs. The chenille strip goes through the guide on the foot if you are using a chenille foot. If using a regular foot, keep the chenille strips centered on the webbing.

7. Sew chenille sandwich along the center line  to the webbing.
8. Using a chenille brush, or other stiff bristle brush, brush the bias strips to fluff them.

I love large totes, but finding stuff, particularly small stuff, in a large tote can be a bit of a challenge. This humbug bag is a great solution for keeping small, similar or related items together. One or more humbug bags might be corralled in a large tote. The natural-but-strange three-dimensional shape of a humbug bag is the result of the end seams being twisted 90 degrees. A full humbug bag has no parallel sides. A humbug bag does not lay flat without wrinkling somewhere – these qualities make a humbug bag easier to single out from other items in the dark unknown of a large tote, or whatever name you want to give to an enclosing structure that you may or may not attempt to carry, but if you do attempt to carry, the distance will likely turn out to be much farther than you thought it would be, and the tote much heavier than you ever thought it could be.

The bag can be made almost any size that fits your needs. You might find some scraps of fabric just too wonderful to toss are large enough for a bag – killer solution, solves two problems with one project.

I’m using oilcloth and a basic sewing machine for this blog project. This is quite a change for me as I usually use quilted or upholstery fabric and sew bags like this on a serger. Oilcloth is not as easy to turn inside out  as ‘regular’ fabric, and a serger sometimes combines two or more operations into a single operation. There is no ‘step skipping’ here – miss a step or commit a misstep and you may not get the correct results.

Supplies:
Rectangle of material – Oilcloth or heavy fabric. Short side of rectangle must be about 1 inch longer than the desired finished opening.  Long side of rectangle slightly longer than twice the desired length of one of the twisted end seams.
Zipper – nylon tooth zipper, at least 2 inches longer than the short side of the fabric rectangle.
Wonder Tape (optional)

Instructions:

1. Follow all the steps to create a wrong-side out, open-ended fabric tube, with a lengthwise zipper. With oilcloth or fabric right-side up, place the zipper face down, aligning the edge of zipper tape with the short edge of the fabric. Make sure the zipper extends equally past both long edges of the fabric.
2.  If you are using oilcloth, you may find it helpful to use Wonder Tape to hold the zipper in place  while sewing.

3. Using a zipper foot, sew zipper tape to fabric.
4. Align the remaining loose edge of the zipper tape, right-sides together, with the remaining short edge of oilcloth or fabric.
5. Sew zipper strip to fabric.

6. Working with the end where the zipper pull is located when the zipper is closed, fold oilcloth or fabric so the zipper is centered across the tube end. Pin end closed.
7. Open the zipper about half way so you will be able to turn the bag right-side out after sewing both tube ends closed.

8. Stitch across the only pinned end.
9. Flatten the open end 90 degrees from the sewn end and pin.
10. Stitch across the end.

11. Trim the excess zipper tape even with the edges of the bag.
12. Turn the bag right side out.

This popular block has been around for a long time. It is still a favorite to use up those wonderful scraps of fabric that quilters love to save. The block can be made with random color fabric scraps or only 3 strong colors, used in the same location in all the blocks.

The block I am doing for this blog uses two different Hawaiian print fabrics, one primarily red and the other blue, and black fabric for the center of each block.

When only three contrasting fabrics with no or only small patterns of color are used, a quilt of these blocks will have a very uniform geometric design in both color and shape.

Supplies (per block):
9 fabric squares – all the same size. How many squares in total for each color you will need depends on the finished size you want your quilt to be. The desired finished size of the quilt and the number of blocks in the quilt determines the size and total number of fabric squares of each color.

Instructions:

The basic 9 patch block is sewn with the fabrics arranged similar to the image above. My quilt block colors are different, but you should be able to follow the process.
1. For every block, sew the squares together, keeping the black square in the center and the other squares in the same location, i.e. four of one fabric in the corner positions and the other four in the middle of the outside edges. Make as many nine-patch blocks as you need.

2.  Each block gets cut into 4 smaller pieces. The center square should be cut in half both vertically and horizontally. Measure the center square to locate the cutting lines. Make two cuts  – one vertical and one horizontal in the middle row.
3. The nine-patch block looks like this after it is cut into 4 smaller pieces. NOTE: because the smaller pieces have two new edges with seam allowance, every ‘reassembled’ block will shrink by twice the seam allowance in both height and width. If your quilt MUST be a specific size, you must allow for this shrinkage. This means you need to adjust the size of the patch pieces, and thus the block size to create a ‘reassembled’ block size that meets your needs.
4. Take the upper right and lower left small pieces and turn them 180 degrees. Those small black squares are now at the outer edges of the block. You should rotate the same relative position squares if you want a uniform geometric pattern in your finished quilt.

5. Sew the four small blocks together.
6. Repeat the process for all the blocks you need for your quilt.

I think it is time to do a project that requires embroidery design software. Many people use purchased embroidery designs, and can change the finished results by omitting or repeating certain stitch-out parts of the design as instructed in an earlier blog. But, there are limits to the modifications you can make during the stitch-out process.

The instructions in this project are specific to Floriani Total Control Pro software. Basic familiarity with Floriani TCP is necessary to supplement these instructions.

Supplies:
Floriani Total Control Pro Software
Red and White felt
White embroidery thread
Floriani Tear-away stabilizer
Floriani Water soluble stabilizer
Pinking shears

Instructions:
1. Turn on Grid and set size to .50 inches.
2. Click on Appliquè Shapes.

3. Select Heart shape and click OK to Select.
4. In the Properties box, change Appliquè width to 4.5mm.
5. Click on Apply.

6. Click on Copy icon.
7. Open New workspace.
8. Click on Paste icon.

9. Click on  Shape Tool.
10. Place cursor about 1 and 1/2” down from the top of the Heart on the left side, right click to bring up menu and left click on  Split Line.
11. Repeat above step on the right side of the Heart.
12. In the Sequence View, you will see two appliquè shapes instead of one.
13. Select the top half of the Heart and Delete.
14. You should only have the lower half of the heart left.
15. Highlight the lower half of the Heart and right click to display pop-up menu and click on Convert To and select Run.

16. Copy and Paste the lower half of the Heart.
17. To create a color stop, change one of the lower halves to another color.
18. You should have two shapes that look like the letter V in the Sequence View.
19. Select the Text Tool and left click on the workspace.
20. In the Properties Box type in XOXO.
21. Select Curlyq font and set the height to .40 inches, click on Apply.
22. Position XOXO on lower half of heart where you want it.
23. Open the appliquè heart design workspace and Copy the Heart design.
24. Return to the lower half heart workspace page and Paste the appliquè heart design. (If the Paste icon is grayed out you are likely still in Text mode. To exit Text mode left click on the Select arrow.)
25.  If the designs do not line up, move one of them so the bottoms of the hearts line up.
26. Save the design as heart pocket.c2s and Save again in the format for your machine.

At the Embroidery Machine:

1. Hoop the tear-away stabilizer in the 130mm x 180mm hoop, or a hoop size available for your machine.
2. Place the hoop on the machine.
3. Thread machine with white embroidery thread on top and in bobbin.
4. Sew the placement line (shown in red above) for the lower heart.
5. Place red felt over stitching line and sew the tack-down line.
6. Sew text.
7. Remove hoop from machine and stabilizer from hoop.
8. Use pinking shears to finish the top edge.
9. Cut felt close to the outer stitching line on the two sides. Set aside.
10. Hoop water soluble stabilizer in the 130mm x 180mm hoop, or a hoop size available for your machine.
11. Attach hoop to embroidery machine.
12. Sew the placement line for the whole heart design.
13. Place white felt over placement line and sew the tack down line.
14. Remove hoop from machine, DO NOT remove stabilizer from hoop.
15. Trim white felt close to stitching line.
16. Place the lower half heart on top of the whole heart with the bottom edges aligned.
17.  Use clear or painter’s tape to hold lower half in place. Place tape at each top edge corner and the lower point.
18. Attach hoop to embroidery machine.
19. Sew the last color.
20. Remove hoop from machine and stabilizer from hoop. Remove tape.
21. Trim away excess water soluble stabilizer.
22. Use a wet sponge to remove remaining stabilizer from outside edge.
23. Your heart pocket is now ready to fill with a special message or gift.