More tab top curtains

As a follow up to the last post...This weekend I helped a friend make some tab top curtains for her bedroom. She picked out the fabrics (the zebra is an old bed sheet) and we sat down and made up the design together. She did most of the work, I just showed her how to do it and helped with some of the more prominent seams. I did the top-stitching where the brown and plum meet up. I am usually horrible at sewing straight, so I was really happy with how well this part turned out. I think they turned out great. She did a great job, especially for her first time sewing! I can't wait to see them hung up in the room!

Tab top curtains, oven mitts, and a recipe book

Earlier this year I decided I needed curtains in my kitchen. Although I have had a sewing machine for years and have sewn things before, the truth is I really am a novice and am just learning how to sew. I don't really know many people around where I live that can teach me the tricks of the trade, so I have been learning a lot from reading other people's blogs. The point is, I knew I wanted to make simple curtains with tabs at the top and I didn't want to mess with a lining and I needed a little guidance. I found very helpful instructions here. It worked out perfectly and I was very pleased with the results. I also just made something up for the tie back and used Velcro to close it.

I was so excited by the idea that I could finish an entire project in a weekend (I mostly had been crocheting for the last few years) that I was inspired to make coordinating items from the left over fabric. I made these oven mitts following Soozs' tutorial and this hot pad that I just improvised.

At this point I had entered into some sort of crafting frenzy and just couldn't stop. I had seen this post recently and really liked it so I took inspiration from it and modified it to be a recipe book. I just cut a piece of stiff interfacing and slipped it inside the 'pillow case', tucked in the ends and top stitched around. I used the insides of a cheap binder style photo album that holds 4x6 photos, or in this case, note cards. Two eyelets each at the top and bottom with a yellow ribbon holds the pages in the book.

Multi-color baby quilt

My most recent craft project was a quilt for a friend who is expecting. The quilt top was inspired by Oh, Fransson's Paitbox quilt. I followed her pattern to make the blocks. The back is Alexander Henry's 2-D Zoo that I got from Sew, Mama, Sew. I got the solid fabrics from Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts as well as some of the prints. However, my favorites (like the block below) came from my local quilt shop, Common Threads Quilt Shoppe. I just found out that the quilt arrived today (I had to mail it) and they loved it! I was really happy with how it turned out and loved getting to pick out all the color and pattern combinations.