Hooded towels

I've made baby towels before but my kids wanted bigger kid hooded towels.  The pattern I used before wouldn't work for bigger kids since it doubled up the hand towel that made the hood.  That made it way too small for their now school aged heads.  A little thinking and testing before I went to cutting and I came up with this idea.

What you'll need,
A bath towel
A hand towel
Pins
Scissors
Ruler
Marking pen or pencil
Sewing machine

First cut off those pesky outside bands off the short sides.  They are really really tough to sew through.  It's not good when you have to sew them into seams.

Fold the two now cut sides together and pin.  I used my favorite marking device, a dress makers chalk wheel and marked in two inches from the edge.  Sew along this line and then

Trim the excess near the edge, leaving 1/4 to 1/2 in seam.

Open up your hand towel,  The seam you just made in in the middle vertically here.

(Pretend you're ignoring all the fuzz that comes off onto the floor as well)

Pin one edge up about 1/2 an inch or so.  The inside of the towel and the seam is showing at the bottom there.   Sew in the middle of your turned edge.

Find the center of larger towel and use a pin to mark it

Lay your hand towel hood with the sewn edge on top (the raw unfinished seam is still showing at the bottom, the same orientation as above) and match up your middle seams placing the larger towel on top of the hood.

Sew along the band of the larger towel all down the length of the hood.  This will enclose the edge you flipped up on the hood.

The kids love their towels and now I'm trying to figure out how to make adult sized hooded towels as well.  I'll report back later on those.

More sewing and more projects coming up.

One more bag

I really try not to have too many projects going at one time.  I needed to get the baby blanket done before I made my sister in law a Nikki bag.  

I added a key ring on some satin ribbon sewn  into the middle of the bag.  I think I'll do this for all the bags from now on. 

Next up for this pattern, I need to add zippers of some kind.  I know it shouldn't be too difficult and there are tons of tutorials out there.

I think I'm going to try a new bag pattern next time to be honest.  I just need something new to work on.  This one, a free pattern from Amy Butler, the Blossom  Bag.

Another nephew

Finished another nephew quilt in 2014.


All washed and crinkly.



The navy and white backing fabric was a whopping 38 inches wide once I took off selvages and got it washed.  Luckily I had some extra blocks that I didn't use for the front that I used to make it wider.



I had pinned a similar pattern but I was able to draft it myself.  The pattern called for little bitty squares and triangles but I tried my hand at improv piecing.  I wasted a bunch of fabric and it really was a stretch to not think so hard at it but it was a lot of fun.

The basics of the quilt were half square triangles, one solid and one patterned and then add really wide sashings between them.

Another Nikki bag

I made a Nikki bag for a friend recently.  This picture was before I added the buttons.  

 The inside of the bag (the colors are better in the first picture.  I blame my iPhone pictures and bad white balance).

Cat approved.

Can you guess which color I needed?

I foolishly bought only one spool of thread for quilting my latest project.  When I ran out of thread, I sent my husband out for more since he had the next day off.  He looked once and found they were out.  I tried another store and they were out too.  One last store the following day and we were able to score some New Leaf #6280. Note to self, don't but just one spool of thread for quilting!

One more baby quilt

Here's my latest almost finish.  The binding isn't turned to the other side yet.

I'll get better photos once it's washed and dried.  

And for my youngest

I realized in my posting frenzy that I had forgotten the pictures for M's quilt.

He wanted a teal and red quilt.  Here's what he got.





And the pieced back.