Dedication Ceremonies of the World War II Veterans Memorial Park in Whiting, NJ

This has nothing to do with sewing. It has to do with my other hobby, photography and a dedication ceremony for our new Veterans Park. To view more photos of this historical event for our town, go to:

 http://wwiivmp08759.blogspot.com/

It has its own blogspot because I took over 300 photos that afternoon, which I narrowed it down to about 115 photos for that blogspot. It includes an aerial demonstration and many of our past and present armed forces people in the photos.

Click on the above photo and the photos at the other site to enlarge them.

As you may have guessed, we're in the NJ Pinelands/Pine Barrens in southern NJ, Ocean County. We're above Atlantic City, NJ. Our largest local newspaper is the Asbury Park Press. I met one of their photographers, as both of us snapped off loads of photos, along with many other photographers from the different branches of the armed force services and other private citizens.

  

Wine Tasters Wine Glass Necklace Holders/Totes

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Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Listing my hand made wine glass necklace holder/totes over on eBay, Etsy, ArtFire & NJ ArtFire. Doing this up quickly because the ASG, American Sewing Guild's monthly internet meeting is about to start within the hour. So, just dropping off some photos of the WGNH/WGT's

Did up a special order recently, in pink dogwood fabric on the WGT's.

Another recent Special Order

I liked this Special Order so much that I offer it in some of my internet listings. I offer 24 different fabric swatches for them to choose to have their custom-made WGT's out of. Some vary somewhat from this selection.

Hafta pay for my Brother SE350 Sewing/Embroidery machine somehow......LOL This is what I do and what keeps me busy inbetween my regular sewing projects. Right now, having OFF SEASON SPECIAL SALES on them over the Internet.....

Strawberry Shortcake Quilt Set

The Strawberry Shortcake Quilt really came out better than I expected it to look like when it was finished. My DIL really loved it. It was part of a set that I made and presented to her at the Baby Shower on April 3, 2010. I was a little late for it because I slept in. Was up unntil after 4 AM putting the finishing touches on the set, with making up the pillow last. Was supposed to have been there at 11 AM, but, was close to an hour late. All was forgiven, after they saw the hand made quilt set that I made for my granddaughter to be, who should be arriving around June 24, 2010.

  Click on the photos for larger views of them.

Making the Quilt

The first step was to cut out the fabrics for the front and the back of the quilt.  Squared them off to a little over 40 inches wide and long. Next was to cut the Batting. Had bought the precut 45 X 60 inch Morning Glory High Loft Quilters Polyester Batting a couple of months ago when I decided to give machine quilting a try.

Next step was to cut the batting to a 45 inch square. Then,  pinned all 3 pieces together, the fabric front, fabric back and the batting. After that, trimmed the batting down somewhat.

 

Next step was off to my Brother 350 Embroidery/Sewing machine. Left the original foot on it that came with it. Ran a row of stitches around the outside parimiter of the fabric and batting square.

Then ran rows down the back fabric design, going from top to bottom every time, trying to keep inbetween the two rows of red stripes.

When getting past the six inches to hit the machine sides, it started curling up.

When it was about ten inches or so from the needle  I started to hand roll it up and used a couple of hat pins to hold it in place, which I had to keep on doing.

 

It sorta looked something like a jelly roll you might say.

Straightened it out as much as possible, on both sides of the sewing machine, so I could follow the red lines as I sewed along. The machine quilting took the longest  time to do. Everything else was a breeze.

I just ran strips around the edges, doing first the top and  then the bottom. I added a row of pink rick rack when doing them up. When they were done. I repeated same on the sides. My baby quilt was done.

The bedding/crib skirt/duster

Then proceeded to do up the other parts to the bedding set. Made up the bottom ruffle/bed skirt. Used the Strawberry shortcake fabric remenant  that was 4 1/2 yards long for same.  Removed 1 1/2 yards and put it aside. Used 3 yards of stripping on each side. The Strawberry blossom fabric design ran sideways rather than up and down on the fabric, so the edging pieces didn't have to be pieced together. They were just long strips that I had hand pleated. 

Rather than sitting there with a pair of scissors measuring and cutting the long strips, I just measured the side strip, 17 inches and tore it down the 3 yards of fabric. Did that twice. Once for each side.  Spaced the pleats about an inch from each other. Didn't pleat all four sides at once. What I did do was to pleat each side individually, sewing them onto the center piece, the pink fabric with the butterflies on it.

I previously cut that part to the standard matress width and length for a crib and youths bed. After doing up both sides, I cut and tore the top and bottom sides from the 1 1/2 yards of fabric that I had put aside previously. Then, individually hand pleated them and sewed them in place.

I also hemmed each section as I worked on it. I hand pinned each hem with straight pins after joining them to the center butterflies fabric. Didn't join the 4 corners together.  Finished off their edges and left them open. When doing my hand pleating and pinning the hems I sat in front of the TV on the couch, watching TV, and not at or near my sewing machine that sits on top of the table in the kitchen. 

The sheets

There was nothing to doing them up. Made many of them up over the years. Making the sheets:

Just cut the corners out, sewed the sides together, did the casing/edging and added the elastic. That simple.

Made them the crib/youth bed size, 28 inches wide by 52 inches long for about 8 inch thick mattresses. Made the first one up from the pink fabric with the red butterflies on it. Same fabric I used on the bed skirting. The Strawberry Shortcake fabric has butterflies on it is how this one ties into it. 

The fabric was about 44 inches wide. Used 2 yards of fabric for the length (72 inches) with the cutouts being 7 inches ( 3 1/2 inches cutouts) on all corners. Used 1/4 inch elastic, 24 inches on each of the ends. Didn't run the elastic all the way around the edges. Just ran the elastic across the top edges and about 10 inches down both of the sides. Did the same on the bottom half. 

For larger youth beds, they'd have to be pieced. Measure the mattress and cut a piece of fabric out abou an inch longer and wider. Then cut and sew on about 10 inch strips to the lengths of each side and to the top and the bottom sections. Sew up the sides, make casing, add the elastic, with increasing the elastic length a wee bit more.

 

Used a different fabric on the second sheet that also matches the Strawberry Shortcake fabric that has flowers on it, not exactly the same as one ones on the main piece. Sewed this one up the same way that I did up the first one. Since the baby isn't due until June, I still have time to make up more sheets, too.

 

Laundry Bags   

Next items were the laundry/single draw string bags. Made up 4 of them. Did up each one individually. Started these the night before the Baby Shower. Took me several weeks to get to this point.  

Used a completely different fabric for them.  I Frenched seamed the bags. Instead of putting button holes in the fabric for the draw string to come out of,  I added other fabric strips to the tops of the bags. Each one has a different fabric strip/casing.

Plus I used 3/8 inch ribbons in place of shoe strings or cording  on them too. Put a little tag on each one of them after inserting the items that were heading to the baby shower.  Had other goodies to put in them too, including some stuffed animals for my granddaughter to be. Of course, my cat, Velvet, had to check them over.....  More sewing instructions below.

 The bedding set was in the one with the top fabric strip casing that matched the back of the quilting set.  Still have enough of this fabric to make a sheet from same.

Lastly, the baby pillow.

That was the easiest and the quickest thing to do up.

I Covered up one of those 12 X 16 inch Fairfield Poly-Fill pillow inserts that I had bought recently for this sewing project.

The front of the pillow matches the Strawberry Shortcake fabric.

With the back of the pillow matching the fabric that I used on the back part of the quilt. Also have a 16 inch square pillow sitting on the side that I also bought that I still have to do up to match the set. That's another one of Fairfield's pillows.

My DIL at the Baby Shower

The first Baby Shower gifts that my DIL opened up were my four laundry sacks. The first one she opened up was the tallest one, which happen to be a large frog holding onto a smaller frog. I bought them seperately and used a large green elastic band to join them together so they appeared as mother and baby frogs. Both of them were green and yellow, which sorta made them a good match.

 

MAKING THE LAUNDRY BAGS

Sewing instructions for the laundry bags continued: Two of the laundry bags were about 30 inches tall, one of which just held these two frogs in it. It's at the fartherest end in the photos. The other two were just about 24 inches tall. Used the fabric width, 44 inches wide that was folded in half for the bags. The shorter 24 inch bags corners were squarred off to 8 inches by doing 4 inch cutouts on the bottom corners.

The 24 inch bags have mini plastic laundry bags in them for shaping the bottoms that are about 8" wide by about 11 1/2" long.  They can actually be left inside those two bags and the upper sections hanging loose inside the laundry baskets to give them a covered look if left on a shelf or the like in the baby's room or can be used as large tote bags or grocery shopping bags as well as just plain ordinary laundry bags for the babys room.... Multi uses for them. 

If you go back to the top of this, to the beginning, you'll see my DIL holding up the baby quilt, along with a photo of her with my son, who arrived later on to help load their car up and a cargo van with all of the items for their daughter to be, who will be my first grandchild.

A word from our ASG Princeton NJ (SJ) chapter

We are going green.

This is the first time that I am sending everyone the newsletter through email, which will come to you faster, in color and it will save trees and the environment.

You will be getting a hard copy for now but my goal is that by the New Year we will be all green.

It takes a lot of time to pick up the newsletter from Staples, fold, label, sort by zip code and then take it to the Cinnaminson Post Office. It takes an extra ordinary amount of time which we all know is volunteer work. Please share the word with the other members of our groups that this is taking place.

Green by 2011 is my new motto.

Rose Wilkins

President of SJ / Princeton Chapter

American Sewing Guild

March 2010's recently completed sewing projects.

Click on the photos for larger views of them.

1. Made up 2 of these table runners. Gave both of them to Marie. They match her chair pads, table mats, and her kitchen curtains.  

2. Made 2 of these wristlet purses. Gave one to Marie. She was planning on putting her "Crumb Catcher" in the mini purse inside her larger everyday purse. The grape fabric was an eBay.com purchase. My YKK zippers also came from eBay. I buy them in bulk batches. Same with they keychain rings, which were another bulk eBay purchase.

3. Made 2 of these Traveling Kleenex covers. Gave one to Marie.

4. Made up 4 of these brown table runners. Center fabric from Walmart's. Edging fabric from eBay.com.

5. Made up 4 of the Santa cat table runners.

6. Made up 4 of these plain cat table runners.

This is the reverse side of the cat table runners. The front Cat fabrics from Walmart's. The back cat & fish fabric from JoAnn's on the internet.

7. Made up 2 of these Craft Aprons, Style "A." 

8. Made up two of these Craft aprons, Style "B."

The difference between Styles A & B? 

Style B (top photo) has two strips of fabric going across it for pockets.

Style A (bottom photo) only has one strip of fabric going across it for pockets.

Style B has 4 pen pockets.

Style A has only 2 pen pockets.

Both are about 12" long. Used the same fabric on both of their waist bands. Each of the waist bands were made out of 3 strips of fabric. Check fabric widths and lengths below for all.  The smiley fabric has been setting in my fabric stash for years. Believe I bought it from Walmart's because that's where most of my fabric came from before going on line and finding all of the other places on line that sell fabric.  The black and white fabrics also were in my fabric stash. The red fabric  came from Fabric.com on the internet. Waistband fabric from Walmart's.

 

You can see where the waistband strips were joined together on each side of the apron in this photo because I used the white thread on the black fabric as a decoration.  You can also see the wood grain pattern on the black fabric in this photo, too.

The pen pockets on on both aprons are about one inch wide and will hold both a pen and a pencil in each of the slots. This is shown in the above photo.  The pocket below is holding 4" X 6" Post-It Matt photo paper. That's the print, peel and stick  kind that comes in a pack of 25 of them.  

I loaded the pockets up to the gills. Besides the 4 pen pockets, craft apron Style B has 9 other pockets. That's 5 of them across the bottom row with 4 of them in the row up above. Style A only has the 4 pockets with the 2 pen pockets on it. Yes, that's a Fabric.com yellow coupon in the top end pocket. That's where some of my fabrics come from, such as the red swirled fabric used on this apron.

Another feature that Style B has are two pockets that have Velcro on them for closurers on the bottom row.  I bent the fabric down so you can see both the front and the back sections of the 2" strips of Velcro.

Making up these 2 Aprons you will need:

A= Waist band - 3 strips of fabric 5" long X 20" wide (regular), 22 " (XL), 24" (XXL) -  folded in half lengthwise for each apron.

30" (regular) 32" (XL)  or 34" (XXL) wide fabric strips in the following sizes in length:

(all the same width)

B & F= Body - 24" folded in half lengthwise.

C= Top Pocket - 16" long folded in half lengthwise.

D & E= Bottom Pockets - 12" long folded in half lengthwise.

After assembling the lower body parts before joining to the waist band, pleat the lower body part to about 18, 20, 22 inches. I space the 1/4 inch pleats about 2 inches from each other, with using 4 of them on each side, thus a total of 8 mini pleats on the apron.  You will need about an inch on each side for joining the 2 apron back tabs to the main center tab and for sewing up the tie ends.  

RECAP:

I'll do up tutorials with photos the next time I make these aprons up.  The flat Waitresses Aprons are similar. They use fabric strips about half of the width of the strips that these Craft Aprons use for the lower body and the pockets without the pleats.

BROTHER SE350 USED

Used my Brother SE350 Sewing/Embroidery machine for making all of these up. Had no problem with sewing through the 6 to 12 layers of the cotton with the machine when making up the apron with the two rows of pockets on it. The 12 layers of fabric came into play when doing the edging on the apron. I used the foot that was on the machine when I bought it and didn't need a walking foot to do same. I also cheat and leave the same foot on when sewing in zippers. I just change the needle position to do same. Just love the machine's feature for self-threading the needle. It also has the capability of cutting the threads too. This machine seems to do just about everything you want and need a machine to do.  The more I use it, the more I seem to be falling in love with it and really completely satisfied with this purchase.....  Would probably be a breeze for doing up the Lazy Girl Design Wonder Wallets on it because that pattern calls for multiple thicknesses of fabric, and, after doing same with making up Apron B, this machine should be capable of handling the LGD WW's too.

American Sewing Guild

Seeing that there doesn't seem to be an American Sewing Guild Neighborhood Group in Manchester Township, NJ, am interested in starting one up here in Ocean County.

The only problem is, finding other members of the Southern NJ chapter (Princeton) of ASG in Manchester Township which covers Manchester, Whiting and Pine Lake Park, with the zip codes of 08759 and 08757. Also notices that there's none listed for neighboring Toms River, zip 08753 & 08755, either, here in Ocean County, NJ.

American Sewing Guild

If by any chance you are a member of ASG in this area, or know of other ASG members here, please contact me or have them contact me so we can start up a Neighborhood Group. Click here to send me an e-mail

Crumb Catchers/Adult Bibs

One Crumb Catcher/Adult Bib for coffee

And one Crumb Catcher/Adult Bib for tea.

I started making up the Crumb Catchers in the early 1990's for my terminally ill father.  Have made up plenty more for other senior citizens over the years. I call them Crumb Catchers because of the pocket I put across the bottom of them. These adult bibs are actually reversible. The other side of the bib is the same as the pocket fabric.

Some senior citizens even have two Crumb Catchers. One for home and one for eating out, which includes me.  I even carry one in my purse. Never know when one will be needed when out and stopping to and eat. Not unusual for some of my friends to do same, too. Some folks seeing us breaking out our Crumb Catchers in restaurants smile and chuckle. We, of course, say that we come prepared.  They usually grin some more.

When making up the Crumb Catchers, I usually use different fabrics for them. Some folks even put in special orders such as the ones for a newly wed couple in their 80's that the coffee and tea ones above were made up for. They were the first Crumb Catchers that I did up on the Brother SE350 sewing/embroidery machine. All of the others were made on my older sewing machine.  Another neighbor had me make several up for her with using a glittering gold fabric along with one that had a pink background with printed desserts on the fabric. Also made up some Crumb Catchers in silver, too.

Another neighbor wanted grapes on her Crumb Catcher. These were made up on my other sewing machine last year.  I did up something different with hers. I made up a mini purse from the cutout from the neck area. Put a brass button on it along with a ribbon for a loop for the closeure.

The grape Crumb Catcher and mini purse.

Made up a matching mini purse out of the neck area cutout for the grape Crumb Catcher which is seen folded up next to it in the above photo.

The Crumb Catcher is inserted into the mini purse in this photo.

I've been thinking of makeing up matching Panty Purses for carrying the Crumb Catachers in. Both the Crumb Catchers and the Panty Purses are novelty items, and, will most likely go well together. If and when I do same, I'll post a photo of the set here on this blog.