No-Sew Fleece Throws & Hot Chocolate

NO-SEW FLEECE THROWS

A friend of mine has made tied, no-sew fleece throws for a couple of years and donates them to charity.

So, when I found these Disney kits at my local fabric store, I used my 40% off coupon and got a couple.

So, how simple are they?  Incredibly simple.  The kits come with the printed panel and a solid piece of fleece - both approximately the same size, although you will have to trim them a bit.  The fringes are marked outside the perimeter of the printed panel.  So all you have to do is put them together and smooth out any wrinkles.  I safety pinned the two layers together to help prevent shifting; although, the fleece does a pretty good job of sticking to itself.

Cut out the corner and start cutting the fringes on the dotted lines.



Tie the two parts of each fringe together.



Here's a peek of what the back looks like.

I thought that it would take a while, but it was amazingly quick and easy.

HOT CHOCOLATE MIX

This frigid weather reminded me of the instant hot chocolate mix that I used to make when the kids were little.  You can make up a big container and all you have to do is add hot water.  It tastes so much creamer than the commercial instant mixes. 

1 lb. jar dry non-dairy creamer

1 box instant low-fat dry milk (to make 8 pints, or 4 quarts)

1 lb. powdered sugar

2 lbs. instant hot chocolate mix

2 teaspoons salt

Mix all ingredients well and store in an airtight container.  Add 1/4 cup of the dry mix to 8 ounces of HOT water.  You could add miniature marshmallows if you are so inclined!

Stay warm!

PAM

Pam's Rule of Three and What's For Dinner?

Someone once said that rules were meant to be broken - I just wish I wouldn't keep breaking my own rules!

Rule of thumb when buying fabric - buy a minimum of three yards.  That's what I call my Rule of Three.  When I see some fabric that I simply fall in love with but haven't the foggiest what I'm going to do with it, I need to buy a minimum of three yards.  And even when you have a project in mind but can't remember how much yardage you need, you're generally safe with three yards.

Red/Black Print with Long Sleeves


For example, I bought this black and red print cotton fabric to make this jacket, but I couldn't remember how much I needed.  I thought 2 yards would cover it.  But when I went to cut it out and couldn't fit all the pattern pieces on the fabric, I looked at the fabric requirements and was stunned to see "2-1/2 yards" for the jacket I wanted to make.  Now that extra half yard was critical!


Batik With 3/4 Length Sleeves


So, the other night on the way home from work, as the weather forecasters were predicting another wintery blast and folks everywhere were heading to the grocery stores to stock up on milk and bread, I had to stop at the fabric store to get that last little bit of fabric to work on my project in case I got snowed in!  Never mind food - I'll find something to eat - but not being able to work on my latest project - now that's a tragedy!  (Don't tell my DH - he already thinks I have enough fabric to start my own fabric store!)

Anyway, I have made two jackets from this particular pattern (A Little Somethin' Jacket) and I am still making small adjustments each time - mostly trying to do as much on my serger as possible.  But it's a cute jacket to wear both with jeans or dressier pants.   Check out this and other patterns on their website http://www.cntpattern.com/ .  They are quick and easy and just a little different.

WHAT'S FOR SUPPER?

It's the age-old question.  I have tried to make this a little less painful by planning my menus a week in advance, then making up my shopping list based upon the ingredients needed -- less what I have on hand.  I have written out 3x5 index cards with menus complete with the main entre, salad, bread - whatever I usually put together for a complete meal.  Then on the back of the card I will write all of the ingredients needed.

Once I have my 5-7 meals for the week, I can then make a shopping list and head to the store, confident that at the very least, I will have the ingredients necessary to make those meals.

A website that I have found extremely helpful in getting new ideas for meals is the Kraft Recipes website - http://www.kraftrecipes.com/.  You can search for recipes by category, ingredients, type of recipe, etc.  And you can save them to your own personal recipe box.  You can even save your own recipes.  And, if you're so inclined, you can submit them to Kraft along with a picture for their review and possible publication for everyone else to see.  I have not done that yet.  But I'm thinking about it - Kraft Velveeta Cheese is a staple in my pantry!

Another neat feature is that you can choose a particular recipe and actually ask the site to add the ingredients to your own personal shopping list!  You can then add your own items to that list and take off items you may already have on hand.  The only drawback to this is that you cannot add items from your own personal recipes to the shopping list.  So you have to add those manually.  But I've done this a couple times and it really is a nice feature. 

If you're tired of the same old thing, give this website a look and see what new possibilities you can come up with.  I'm sure there are other websites out there that do pretty much the same thing.

More next week....................

Pam

Let It Snow-Man!

We spent the day taking down the Christmas decorations (it's my tradition to leave everything up until after January 6) and then got out the Snowmen!  My winter decorating theme revolves around trees and snowmen. 

I bought this snowman panel a couple years ago and finally got it finished.   You can get panels (usually 1/2 yard) in most fabric stores; but I find that the quilt shops have the cutest ones and usually have several cordinating fabrics.  This panel had not only the patchwork fabric but several of the other fabrics in the panel.  This particular panel was manufactured by Troy Corporation as part of its Riverwoods Collection and I have seen it in several quilt shops.  I purchased mine at the Sterling Thimble Quilt Shop in Mt. Olivet, KY.

Purchasing a panel and then adding to it is a quick way to get a seasonal wall hanging.  The panel itself is the picture of the snowmen and penguins with a 1" black border and the patchwork.  I trimmed the patchwork border so that it was equal width all around and then added the red border and another 1" black border before completing it with the patchwork fabric for the outer border.

Before quilting, I embroidered snowflakes randomly on the red and black borders.  Then I quilted it on the longarm, using the patchwork fabric for the back.  A 3/8" black binding along with a hanging sleeve completed the project.

UNTIL.......I decided to embellish with some crystals.  I used a 4mm hot fix crystal with a wand applicator and put a crystal inside each of the snowflakes in the sky behind the snowmen & penguins.  Then I put a few more randomly placed crystals on the dark blue above and below the main panel.  It was the perfect finishing touch! 

Here are a few more of my Snowmen. This is picture of my dining room where I have two bakers racks that I love to decorate for each season/holiday.  I make sure that anything I put on these lower shelves are 'grandchild-safe."  I don't care if they take them down to play with them.  Most of them are stuffed animals anyway!

Not to be left out, I always put a seasonal wall hanging above the cart in my kitchen and try to put seasonal items out such as my snowman cookie jar (it has never held cookies, however!).  The wooden napkin holder and shelf were made by my husband in junior high. 

Think of ways that you can easily and simply dress up your spaces for each season.

Organizational Tip

I store all of my seasonal decorations in clear plastic tubs so that I can easily see what is in them.  When I take them out and then put them away each season, I purge the inventory - getting rid of anything that I have not put out for 2 seasons.  I like to dontate them to a place such as Goodwill Industries or St. Vincent dePaul. 

What Am I Working On?

My next project is a jacket called "A Little Somethin' Jacket" which is published by CNT Pattern Company.

Pam

A New Year Begins

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

I started this blog a year ago and then I'm not sure what happened, but the year took off and I never seemed to catch up!  So, my one and only resolution for this year is to SIMPLIFY MY LIFE. 

One project I did manage to finish by Christmas was a large stuffed elephant for each of my four grandchildren.  The pattern is "Eloise and Elmore" by Indygo Junction.  I fell in love with this pair of elephants (one large, one small) when I visited the Nautical Needle Quilt Shop up on the Marblehead Peninsula on Lake Erie in Northern Ohio.  So, I made four of the larger elephants and gave them to the grandkids for Christmas.  The pattern was pretty simple to follow.  But the one thing I found a little awkward was that the body and head are put together and stuffed separately - then you hand stitch the head to the body.  All the other seams are machine stitched and are pretty sturdy.  But I felt that hand-stitching the head to the body was a weak point.  I did use some stronger thread, even hand quilting thread, and even went around the neck twice.  Time will tell if they will hold up to use by toddlers! 

I still love the pattern and plan to try to redesign the assembly so that the head and body are machine stitched together.  I'll let you know how that goes!

The pattern also called for putting felt & button eyes.  I did not want anything that the kids could possibly pull off and choke on.  And I could not find an embroidery pattern for animal eyes that looked right.  So, I found an embroidery for a vase of flowers and edited it down to one bloom which I duplicated and manuevered to the location of where the eyes were to be placed.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it worked.  If anyone knows of an animal eye embroidery pattern out there, let me know!  I found cartoon eyes and horse eyes - but nothing that seemed suitable for my elephants!

Well, stop back on a weekly basis to see what I'm working on.  I've decided that writing this blog at least once a week is an activity that will add value to my life and help keep me on track.  So please let me know what you think.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!  And may 2011 be peaceful and prosperous for you, your family and friends.

Pam