Thursday, May 30, 2013

Kitchen Towels & Washcloths - made from tablecloths

I halfway-made some kitchen washcloths and towels this week ...

ProsperityStuff Kitchen Towels made from tablecloths

Halfway, because I made towels & washcloths out of tablecloths.

Tablecloth to make into towels & washcloths

The thrift store was having a sale, so I got a couple of tablecloths for a dollar each. (Or was it a dollar fifty? Either way ...)

ProsperityStuff Tablecloth-washcloths

I liked the feel, the weight, the little bit of texture, and the 100%-cotton-ness. And I liked the price!

Recycling a tablecloth into kitchen towels

Not needing any tablecloths, though, and not being able to leave well-enough alone, I decided to make them into kitchen towels and washcloths. (In a previous blog post, I mentioned doing something similar last year. Other kitchen linens are mentioned here and here.)

ProsperityStuff Serger project: kitchen towels

Handy-dandy serged edges for all. 

ProsperityStuff Serger project: kitchen washclothsProsperityStuff Serger project: rolled hem on kitchen linens

I made a half-dozen washcloths AND a half-dozen kitchen towels from EACH tablecloth!

ProsperityStuff reclaimed textiles - tablecloth made into towels

I love my new kitchen towels & washcloths - AND I love the price! Since each tablecloth yielded a dozen items, the price was way better than even the cheapest kitchen linens out there. LOVE IT!

ProsperityStuff kitchen linens





Saturday, May 25, 2013

Pink flowers on a spike that grow from a bulb ...

So, Saturday on my blog is for flowers ... 
(I'm not sure why. It just works.)
Today's flower is a mystery to me, because I'm not sure what this one is called.


Our neighbors had some of these at the edge of the back of their yard, and they said we could dig one up a couple years ago ...


I thought it was gorgeous, so I dug one up and planted it ... and it's blooming!


It's just one tall spike, with two or three flowers blooming at a time. Nifty.
If you know what this flower's called, jot me a comment so I'll know ...




~ * ~
And God said,
Let the earth bring forth grass,
the herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind,
whose seed is in itself,
upon the earth:
and it was so.
~ * ~



Friday, May 24, 2013

Vintage-Sheet Kaleidoscopes

In addition to the vintage sheet I found at the thrift store for my last project, I found this one ... Same pattern in a different color scheme. Different day, same store. (What are the chances?)

Vintage Sheet - spring roses

This is the exact same kind of sheet that my grandmother always kept on her guest bed. The sheets we used when we were there. 

ProsperityStuff pieced backing vintage sheet

In a couple of recent posts, I showed bits of this project ... (here and here).

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet stacked posies

I made 4-patch kaleidoscopes ("stacked posies") for the quilt top. I love the look of quilt-y kaleidoscopes!

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt Top

I had another white sheet which became the alternate squares.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt Stacked Posy

Since my grandmother had these exact sheets, it was such fun to work with something so familiar and cheery.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt Top Kaleidoscope

For the back, I used another piece of sheet, with some of the oxford squares I've been working on.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt Top Kaleidoscope

I love all the cheery, light, summery colors!

ProsperityStuff Floral Sheet Quilt Kaleidoscope Closeup

I quilted it with my favorite kind of free-motion "doodling" all over.

ProsperityStuff Floral Sheet Quilt free motion

I'm fascinated by the styles and techniques of quilting that can be done with a regular sewing machine. My skills at free-motion quilting are pretty basic, but I'm impressed by the kinds of ideas that I find online, especially The Free Motion Project and Crazy Mom Quilts

ProsperityStuff Floral Sheet Quilt free motion closeup

I made this little quilt for my mom for Mother's Day (one reason why I only put sneak peeks on the blog beforehand.)

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet 4-Patch Kaleidoscope

I figured she'd recognize the sheets that matched her mom's sheets, and she did.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet quilt back, quilted

The little oxford squares gave a little interest to the back, in (mostly) matching colors. (I included purple squares, to round out the color "rainbow", even though there's no other purple in the quilt.)

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet quilt back

The quilt is square, fifty-something inches, a nice summery throw-sized quilt, and I had a lot of fun working on it.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Kaleidoscope Quilt

Since this is a finished project, I'll be linking this post to this week's Finish It Up Friday at Crazy Mom Quilts, and I'm looking forward to seeing what other quilters have been finishing there.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Saturday Flowers

On my blog on weekends, I like to post pictures of the flowers I'm enjoying in my yard ...


The pink/red/white ones are Sweet Williams that I planted a couple years ago. 
They keep coming back! 
The dark purple ones are May Night Salvia, perennials that I've enjoyed for a couple years. 


These colors look so elegant together, and somehow, I think they give this part of the flowerbed a "classy" look.



~ * ~ 
To every thing
there is a season,
and a time
to every purpose
under the heaven
~ * ~


Friday, May 17, 2013

Vintage Sheets in a Quilt

Like I said in a recent post, it's apparently all the rage to use vintage sheets in making quilts. And, no wonder, since lots of older sheets were well-made, are still in good condition, and have pretty designs that you just don't see any more.

Vintage Sheet Throw Quilt

Not long ago, I was surprised to find a sheet set I recognized at the thrift store. (Gotta love thrift-store fabric!) This sheet is the exact kind that my grandmother ALWAYS kept on my great-grandfather's bed. I've never seen one just like it anywhere else. 

Vintage Sheet with Roses - Brown, Yellow, Orange

Naturally, I had to buy the set. ($2.00 for the set of two? Yes, thank you!) And, naturally, I had to make something special. For starters, I added some snowball corners (of shirt fabric) to squares of the vintage sheet, and to squares of another (not-so-vintage) sheet.

ProsperityStuff Snowball Corners on Vintage Sheets

The snowball-corners construction is just like one of the window-quilts I made a few months ago. I talked about the style & inspiration for that one in this post.

I made the quilt top big enough to be a nice throw-sized quilt, added backing and batting and "doodled" all over it with a basic free-motion quilting design.

ProsperityStuff Free Motion Quilting on Vintage Sheet Quilt

Did I mention that I just discovered how much easier a darning foot makes the job?! A while back, I found a ridiculously great deal on a basic, simple, no-frills, old-but-barely-used sewing machine ... The sewing machine came with a walking foot and a darning foot!!! Super deal!

ProsperityStuff Detail of Free-Motion Quilting with Darning Foot

I actually got this little quilt put together pretty quickly, which was nice.

ProsperityStuff Detail of Free-Motion on Vintage Sheet Quilt

I love how the finished product looks from different angles.

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt with Shirt-Fabric triangles

The back is a nondescript, non-vintage cotton sheet. (Actually, I found TWO king-size sheet sets on clearance at Wal-Mart: the good kind, 100% cotton, 300 count, solid colors, $11.00 for each set! Again, that's my kind of deal!) And, the quilting is not perfect, but I'm getting better at it.

ProsperityStuff solid sheet for quilt back

Up close, the "plain" blocks actually have a tiny tone-on-tone print. I think this makes the quilt a little more interesting, without making it overly busy.  

ProsperityStuff Quilt detail - shirt fabric on vintage sheet

Another angle-view of the finished quilt, which turned out to be 53" x 63".

ProsperityStuff Shirts and Sheets Quilt

And, I think this quilt will live for a while on the cedar chest my grandfather made for me ...

ProsperityStuff Vintage Sheet Quilt on Cedar Chest

Reading quilt blogs and seeing other people's quilt-process pictures is something that's helped me improve my quilting skills tremendously. It's also something that gives me continual inspiration for what's next on my quilting project-list.

This week's "Finish it up Friday" at CrazyMomQuilts is a great place to see what some other quilters have been working on. CrazyMomQuilts is one of my all-time favorite quilt blogs, and I'm linking this post there, and looking forward to catching some more inspiration.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Kaleidoscope Cutting

I love Quilt-y Kaleidoscopes, and I'm working on some new ones ...


The other day, I cut some 60° triangles out of 4-inch strips of 6 layers of stacked pattern-repeats. (Yeah, that sentence was about as clear as mud ...)


I have a new ROTATING cutting board, which is awesome!


And I ended up with a stack of enough triangles for 48 kaleidoscopes ...


I love watching these come together. And I love that they're all so different, even though they're all cut from what used to be a single piece of fabric.







Monday, May 13, 2013

Bits of Free-Motion Quilting

Lately, I've been doing a lot of this:

ProsperityStuff Free-Motion Quilting on white

That picture in my last post? Here's how it looks quilted: 

ProsperityStuff Free-Motion Quilting Little Oxford Squares

Here's the quilting on the back of another project.


I don't have a whole blog post ready yet for either of these projects, but stay tuned for more details in a few days!




Friday, May 10, 2013

Little Squares on White

Like I mentioned in a previous post, I've been sewing on some vintage-sheet projects, which is lots of fun.

And, the vintage sheets look great with my little oxford squares, which is lots of fun.

I'll plan to have more pictures in a few days, but for now, here's a bit that I sewed up yesterday. 

ProsperityStuff Little Oxford Squares on white

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