{Memories} Heirloom Wedding Quilt

This quilt was one of our most special wedding gifts.

It was a gift from my grandmother and made by her and the Ladies Benevolent Society she belonged to at her church.

I love the morning glory design that was made custom for us.  The other side is a small floral like the fabric in the flower in the right.

It even came with a matching morning glory pillow.

I haven't used it on our bed for awhile but I recently pulled it out to fold up and display in our living room.  I think it gets better with age (like us?).

I dug up the photo that my grandma sent me when the quilt was finished.  She's third from the right in red shirt.  The letter explained how they put the quilt together on the (then) 100 year old frame that had been willed to the church.   How cool is that?

I also have a card signed by all of the ladies!

Seeing this note in her handwriting brings back so many memories of her.  I really treasure it (time to start scrapping my old photos and mementos now!)

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On the back of the note she summed up why she loved being a part of the quilting group, "Anyway, it's fun to do this kind of thing. You're being virtuous and doing good Christian labor and at the same time getting all caught up with the local news."

Linking up with:
Time Traveler Thursday
Catch A Glimpse
Favorite Photo Friday
Craftastic Monday
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No-Sew Hemming Ikea Curtains

Remember when we got these new curtains a few weeks ago from Ikea?

They started out looking like this (even after two hot washes and dryings).

Since they didn't shrink at all enough I had to hem them (darn).

Here's what I needed to hem them:

Iron & Ironing board

Measuring Tape

Straight Pins

Chalk

 Heavy Duty Fusible Tape

Yard Stick 

Courage

 I put the curtains on their rods and decided where I wanted them to hit the floor.  I put a few straight pins in the panel where I wanted the hem line to be and measured the distance to the bottom of the panel.

Then I popped it up onto the ironing board and flipped it over to the back side of the fabric. I transferred the measurement to the back of the fabric with chalk and the yard stick.

Instead of making one deep hem (or cutting any of the fabric in case I messed up), I ironed the fabric up to the line, making a straight edged fold.  Then I unfolded it and doubled it up so the hem was about 4 1/2 inches total (just doubled up in thickness).

I used the chalk and yard stick for measuring and marking on the back side of the fabric.

The fusible tape made it easy to hem the curtains. I made an initial hem with half of the fabric then folded it up again for the finished hem and closed off the ends. I think it looks neater when they are fused shut.

I repeated the process with the other panels.  There were a few tears and curses along the way but I'm fairly happy with how they turned out.

In fact, I love them!

Linking up with:
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{Tutorial} Make a Floppy Bow Tie Out of a Blouse

She needed a big floppy bow tie for her White Rabbit Costume.

We couldn't find one so we decided to make our own.

Out of a thrifted shirt of course--she wanted polka dots.

See everything we thrifted for this costume here.

 

{I did all this during the power outage and used my phone to take the photos.}

We had a generator running so I was able to plug in the iron.

First I cut a rectangle out of the back of the shirt and ironed it.

 

I used fusible interface to give the fabric a little stability.

I folded the rough edges of the rectangle and ironed them down with the fusible web.

I didn't measure, just eyeballed it.

Then I folded the rectangle into pleats (looks like one rough edge wasn't ironed down yet).

 

Once I had ironed all of the folds, I pinched it together to see how it would look and it passed inspection.

Onto the center of the tie.  I cut out another (smaller) rectangle

 and followed the same steps as I did with the larger one to finish it off.

I wrapped it around the center of the folded up tie to check it out. 

Looked ok to me.

I stitched the folds together.

Then I stitched the smaller rectangle around the bow tie.

A view from the back.

And the front...

I attached some elastic to the bow tie and voila

The White Rabbit had her tie!
Linking up with:
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Women's Tank Turned Renaissance Vest

How I turned a women's ugly tank top into a Renaissance Vest in Ten Easy Steps. 

I'm not really sure how many steps....but it's easy.

I promise!

Here's the tank that we purchased on this thrifty outing.

And, here goes nothin'. 

I cut the tank top down the front middle.

{snip, snip, snip}

My daughter put the vest back on for sizing and I folded back the excess fabric and pinned it under.

I used these same grommets to make the holes but mine were silver-toned.  I had them from a previous Renaissance vest project (don't ask).

Basically, you make a tiny hole with your scissors where you want the grommet to go and position the underside of the grommet under the hole and the top piece of the grommet over the hole.  Then you hammer it together with the handy little grommet tool (included in the package).

Underside view.

I lined up the holes/grommets as well I could. I just kept checking to make sure they were close.

I hand stitched the raw edges down on the inside of the vest (I knew pulling out the sewing machine was only going to end in tears and frustration). 

I found a set of  unused black shoe laces and used one for the lacing.

Voila! 

Renaissance vest for $1.

Here she is on opening night!

Linking up with:

Alphabe-Thursday

Wicked Awesome Wednesday

Wow Us Wednesday

Nifty Thrifty Tuesday

Twice Owned Tuesday

Thrifty Things Friday

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Place mat to Pillow...my turn!

Come on, all the cool bloggers are doing it...making pillows out of place mats!  I wanted to try it out but had to find the right place mat.
The key to making a pillow out of a place mat, is that the place mat must be two layers thick.  I found this paisley cutie at Pier 1.

The colors, pattern and price were right (red sticker=on sale). I liked the pom-pom trim too.

When I checked out, the price was even lower. It was $2.73. {Happy Dance!}

I flipped it over and used a seam ripper to open up the place mat. I only opened it enough to be able to get my hand inside.

I stuffed it with Poly Fil that I had leftover from our sock monkey project.  Once it was stuffed to my liking, I sewed it back up and I had a pillow!  A very inexpensive, but lovely pillow (why are pillows so expensive anyway?) that was completed in about 10 minutes. Instant gratification!

This is where I sit and blog most of the time.

Have you jumped on the place mat to pillow bandwagon yet? I know I'll never look at place mats the same way ever again!

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