! Sew we quilt: 15 April 2012

Hi everyone! My name is Susan, and I blog at So Sue. I am thrilled to be guest blogging at !Sew WE Quilt! to share with you my latest addition in my kitchen. Thank you, Madame, for the opportunity.

I recently dropped one of those narrow and tall olive oil bottles. It was pretty traumatic. I had just filled up the bottle all the way to the top the night before I knocked it over. The bottle shattered into a million tiny pieces and the olive oil was all over my nice jeans, counter top, white cabinet door, hardwood floor and an ugly black floor mat ($8 from Home Depot!). I used almost an entire roll of paper towel to clean up this mess. Needless to say, I tossed out the floor mat with olive oil all over it and was convinced that it was time to make a nice quilt for us to step on! *sarcasm*

I have been eying Robert Kaufman's Treasures & Tidbits collection and knew this would make the perfect floor mat. I selected seven green and orange fabrics to match my kitchen. What do you think!?

Ah! Go ahead! Go step on your quilt; it feels amazing!

MATERIALS:
- Seven different 1/8 yard cut of fabrics for the top
- About one yard of fabric for the back
- About 1/3 yard of fabric as binding
- Fleece
- Non-slip drawer lining to go under the mat so it won't slip

INSTRUCTIONS:
1. Prewash all fabrics. This is a must if you want to machine wash this floor mat!

2. Cut the 1/8 yard of fabrics into thirty-five 5.5" x 5.5" squares.

3. Assemble the 5.5" x 5.5" squares into a quilt, with 1/4" seam allowance, that measures 35" x 30" when finished (seven squares across and five squares down).

4. Quilt them using fleece as it holds up better than cotton.

5. Before you bind this off, create four corners so you can tuck the "non-slip" drawer lining into each corner. This will allow me to remove the liner when this mat needs to be washed.

6. Bind off, and that's it! I used a 2" strip for the binding; I wish I made it a bit wider. I think I will use 2.5" to 3" strip next time.

I cut up two pieces of non-slip drawer liners and taped them together. They work so well!

Happiness is stepping on my beautiful quilt and looking at it every time I walk by my kitchen!

Yes, it's official. My husband thinks I am crazy for spending the time and money on this. But he agrees that this looks fantastic in our kitchen. Now he wants to me to make matching chair cushions, placemats, potholders, etc. I know how I plan to use up my scrap fabrics from this collection!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and will make one for your kitchen too! Be sure to stop by my blog and say hi. I can't wait to meet you!

It's a month of kitchen stuff and with Lisa, she is serving up some TEA coasters ...

Hi there, its Lisa here from Lazy May embroidery. I was so pleased to be asked by the lovely Madame Samm to contribute to her wonderful blog once again, and even more delighted to find out the theme was 'in the kitchen'.

I love (almost) everything about the kitchen, cooking, baking and especially eating (you'll notice washing up and cleaning are excluded from the list!) and I also love embroidery! So here is an easy little embroidery project that combines the two, simple stitched (and pre-stained!) mug mats.

So when you have finished toiling in the kitchen you can sit down with a nice cup of tea and a large piece of cake and place your mug on a fabulous handmade mug mat. I hope you enjoy this little make, if you like what you see you can check out more of my iron on embroidery patterns and makes at www.lazymay.co.uk.

To make 4 mug mats you will need:

About 1 metre/yard patterned fabric (I used pink spotty cotton)
About 1/2 metre/yard lining fabric (I used some old fleece material but you could use heavy interfacing or toweling material too)
Embroidery thread in four shades of brown, pink and red
Needle, pins, scissors, embroidery hoop, ruler
The mug mat pattern below printed out on A4 (letter) size paper, click the image below to get the full sized version.

1) Cut four squares from your fabric, the squares need to be large enough to fill your embroidery hoop.

2) Transfer one of the four mug mat patterns to the centre of each square, there are various ways of transferring the pattern, you can find a handy guide printable guide here

3) Once transferred embroider over all the lines apart from the square border. I used the following threads and stitches:

4 different shades of brown for the coffee/ tea stains, I used three strands of embroidery thread and a stem stitch.

Red for the text, I used 2 strands of thread and a backstitch

Bright pink for the brackets, I used 4 strands of thread and a split stitch.

You can find some simple stitch diagrams here

4) Next you need to trace the transferred square through to the back of your fabric, push a sharp pencil through each corner and then join the dots up with a ruler on the back.

5) Now you are ready to assemble your mats, cut around the square line leaving a gap of around ¾ inch, do the same with your other 3 embroideries. Then use one of your cut out squares as a template to cut another 4 squares of your patterned fabric and four squares from your lining or fleece fabric.

6) Stack the squares in threes in the order show below.

7) Place the three squares directly on top of each other and pin in place.

8) Stitch over the penciled square leaving a opening of about 1.5 inches, you can either machine stitch this or do it by hand using a small tight back stitch.

9) Turn the mat inside out, use a pin to pop out the corners as much as possible

10) Trim the lining fabric that is poking out and tuck the two layers of patterned fabric inside, sew up the hole neatly.

11) Press your mats with a hot iron and make yourself a nice cup of tea, you’re done!

Monday, April 16, 2012

It's a month of kitchen stuff and look at what Cherry has for us in her Retro Kitchen

Hello everyone! My name is Cherry and I'm so happy to be back sharing my little kitchen quilt with you all!

Thanks Madame Samm for having me over.

Back in the 70's, both my Mom and Grandma had these large fork-n-spoon sets hanging in their kitchens, and then, the other day, I was at a friend's house and spotted a beautiful modern version of those in her kitchen! That's when I decided I needed to have my own quilted retro fork-n-spoon set!!!

So, this is what I came up with...

a fun, easy, and fast little project for a retro kitchen made with a few charm squares!

This is what you'll need

1 fat quarter for the background

12 charm squares for the fork-n-spoon

1/8 yd binding

1/2 yd backing

Matching thread for appliques

Paper-backed fusible

I had this beautiful Chrysalis Charm Pack in my stash that had the perfect colors to match my kitchen. To make my fork-n-spoon fabric, I chose 12 of the darker squares for good contrast against my background fabric

Start by cutting (2) 2" x 5" strips from each charm square

Arrange (2) matching rows and sew them together

Press the seams open.

Next, using a fine tip Sharpie marker,

trace the fork-n-spoon templates onto the paper side of the fusible

and cut them out about a 1/4" away from the drawn line.

Place the fusible side down onto the wrong side of the fork-n-spoon fabric

and fuse down with a hot/dry iron.

Next, cut right on the drawn line.

Cut a 13.5" x 21.5" from the background fabric.

Center the fork-n-spoon and fuse onto the background fabric with a hot/steam iron.

Stitch around the appliques with a blanket stitch.

I like to reduce the length and width of my stitch so it barely shows :-)

Square the block to 12.5" x 20.5"

And it's done! Wasn't that fast?

For the quilting, I wanted my fork-n-spoon to pop out, so I used two layers of batting: Warm & Natural Cotton on the bottom and Quilter's Dream Wool on top, then added heavy quilting all around the fork-n-spoon. Don't you you think they really stand out?

Before binding, I wanted a little hanging sleeve...

Well, I've never been too crazy about the whole sleeve idea, until I found this wonderful method for small quilts at The Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative for Fast Finish Triangles

So... what do you think? Are you making one?

Come by my blog to get the templates and for a chance at a little giveaway ;-)

Bon appétit,

R U Kidding me....line up...there will be many

who will want this...love it Cherry..

*editors note

Who Manages Sew "WE" Quilt? "WE DO"

Sew who is "me"? I'm Madame Samm. ( you get to my age and being known as a "Madame" it's a nice compliment)

Some would tell you I am funny, inspiring and downright creative ( and they would be sew correct lol)

I will tell you I have a great sense of humor and I am the kind of person you would love as your friend. I count my blessings every single day.

I am organized to a "T" and I develop business models. In my past career I worked in Pharmaceutical in Marketing and Sales. I Loved my career. I am now retired hence my blog is called Sew we Quilt , I am proud to say I am a Quilter! I am completely surrounded by over the top creative quilters whom I am "heart" with everyone of them!

Everything in my past has led me here, to manage all of this. I won't lie to you and tell you it is easy. Nothing ever worth doing "well" is ...but I will tell you that every moment is an utter delight...WHY ? Because you are sharing it with ME.

You, the visitors who come by regularly to check in are treasured. The comments that are left by you, well- let us just say, your words warm our hearts.

Sew many people write in asking who does all of this..?

I would SIMPLY say! "We Do!" and lot's of coffee. Sew I will be here -till I am not!