Free Skate Cover Tutorial

Today is a tutorial day again! 

Today we are making a super cute skate cover! It can be made for any size skates, for todays tutorial we are using a child's skate. My little one received some skates from Santa this year and she needs a cute quilty cover! This is a GREAT place to practise a little Free Motion Quilting! Or even better, why not use some of the samples we made with Leah Day?

Materials

1. You could start with  2 sample sandwich's we made with Leah Day, or we can make our own small mini-quilts! I made my own, finishing with an 11 by 11.5 inch rectangle

2. Two old face cloths, dish rags, basically anything that will absorb water to line the skate cover to avoid rusting our blades.

3. Two pieces of elastic, about 12 inch's long or more. Depending on the size of skate you are using.

Lets Get Started!

1 . If you are starting with  2 practise sandwich's, skip this part and go to "Attaching the towel" portion.

If you are starting fresh you will want to either find a scrap of material that is a couple inch's longer than your skate blade and fairly wide. For example, for a childs skate (size 8) I used an 11 by 11.5 inch rectangle. For a more "quilty" look, why not find some strips in your stash and make your own rectangle?

Here is my example;

I then lined these pieces with a large scrap of fabric. I did this by finding a piece of material slightly larger than my pieced rectangle and stitched it right sides together. I then flip it inside out and press. If you would like, you could make a quilt sandwich in the traditional way, with batting. This is up to you, I chose not to because my daughters skates are not that sharp or large, keep in mind though that adding the batting will provide extra protection for the blades. This is what makes the quilt sandwich samples with Leah Day so great! 

2.  Towel Lining

Now it is time to attach the towel to the inside of your square/rectangle quilt sandwich we have just made. 

You will need to find a towel scrap slightly smaller than your quilt sandwich. An inch smaller all around is ideal for this step. 

I used some old facecloths I had made to practise some embroidery work from a few years ago. I cut them down and made sure there was some space all around the towel. Sew the towel down to the lining (or wrong side of our quilt sandwich) just stitching along the edge the entire way around.

3. Quilting the Skate cover.

You can now quilt your quilt sandwich with the towel attached. If you are using an already quilted- piece, why not echo quilt what you have quilted previously? Or maybe you could try to travel stitch and mimic some of your quilting lines?

If you are like my sample here and it has no quilting, this is a great place to experiment with some designs you wanted to try. When quilting, I placed the towel side down, I found this worked better so that the needle did not get hooked into the towel loops. If you do not like free motion quilting, you could simply quilt some lines accross. This is basically just to keep the towel in place.

4. Fold your quilted rectangle in half, right sides together. Sew along the edges, this makes the envelope for the skate blade.

5. Attaching the elastic- Final step!

Now it is time to attach the elastic to the top edge of our skate cover. With the towel side out, Take the beginning of your elastic, place one pin and lock stitch. Now using your zig-zag stitch, gently pulling the elastic, sew all the way around.  Lock stitch when you get back to where your stitching started. If you can remove the bottom of your sewing machine (as if we were sewing a sleeve on a garment), that will help you sew continuously around the skate cover.

You can now turn your skate cover right side out and slip over your skate!!

For information on great FMQ designs, and how to make the quilt practice sandwichs I mention in this post, please go to www.leahday.com for more information! She is inspiring if you do not already know who she is!

January is mine!

Hello and welcome. Today is about the middle of the month of January and I have to say, resolutions.. are going fantastic. I know it is merely the beginning of 2014 but that does not mean I can not be enthusiastic about the accomplishments so far!

All my BOM's in separate cute bags :) 

This month I really wanted to stay on target with all my quilting and home style goals. I want to work on fewer projects, but have the accuracy be outstanding. We are talking quality over quantity. I have been working on my BOM's I signed up to and they are very accurate. I equate this success with some small changes in my sewing life that had some big results. Want to hear them? Here they go;

1. Change the time of day I sew - This means no more midnight sewing with crazy seams and mismatched pieces. This has been one of the best things I have ever done.

2. Only sew when I can dedicate my whole attention. - No more cooking the lunch, sewing a seam and wiping a 3 years old sticky face all at the same time. 

3. Respect my quilting. - I know what I am capable of, but often, I settle for wonky seams and make-shift blocks. No more! I rip out seams that do not match, and ensure I have all my materials before I start. 

4. Work on my body. - This seems a little funny, I know, but it is actually a really big help. I FINALLY got a raised cutting surface. I found some little bench's left behind by the last tenants in our home and made a little raised mini table I can plop down on my sewing table to give me about 8 inch's of height. 

5. One thing at a time. - No more starting something, then stopping, working on something else, you know the story. I will set small goals such as "finish all the blocks on this baby quilt before I work on my January BOM" This has been working well because I feel more accomplished and can really focus. That doesn't mean finish the whole quilt before working on my BOM, but maybe I get to a milestone. 

So that is it for today. We are feeling accomplished! We are even beginning the steps for a winning quilt for maybe a quilt show? Bring it on 2015 Quilt show! Your mine ;)

But before we part... did you want to see that baby quilt I finished? Of course you did! 

Good friends of ours are expecting baby number one very soon. A little boy! This quilt is actually quite thick and I am planning it to be more of a playmat for some tummy time.

My fantastic 'only child'!

Today I received an odd comment from a mom at a playschool function. The lady was speaking to another mom who happened to be pregnant (and not really in a mean way) about how her second child will make her "a real mom". This made me a little puzzled. I have only one child and I have always considered myself to be a full mother.. so why was this woman so adamant about not gaining the title until the second came along?

Her point was not meant to be mean, it was her opinion that having only one child is very easy, makes you less of woman even because you are not as busy as other mothers with multiple children. While I can understand how more little faces to wipe, play dates to get to and nap scheduling mayhem would be difficult, I felt she was missing some of the challenges and unique situations that mothers of only-children deal with.

For instance, having only one child means we do not have "the more the merrier" effect, and sometimes it can be very lonely. To counter this I have my daughter enrolled in ballet, pre-school, library groups, Friday picnics ect. ect. Part of my job is now prepping her for social interactions with other children. If you had more than one child they will have to learn to get along and share and all the wonderful things that having a sibling teaches you. Loneliness is something we deal with by finding friends, and almost more importantly, I get to be the friend sometimes.

Often times I find myself stopping everything to have an hour of playing with barbies, colouring, dancing, just so my daughter does not always have to play alone. Social interactions and how my child will handle them is something, I would argue, that I maybe have to think about and put more effort into than a mother with a few children of similar ages.

Todays blog post is to salute all the mothers (and fathers!) of an only child. There are many benefits of only having one. It was not our choice to only have one but God and my biology decided that is how it is going to be, it took time to accept but now we are thriving! In fact, my husband and I have decided that one is perfect for us and that is where our little legacy will stop. It is now our choice to have one and be appreciative of the blessing that is our daughter. Enjoy your only child and be excited about all the opportunities and energies you have to help them learn and grow!

Did I mention only having one child means there is an extra bedroom that is perfect for a sewing room?
Happy Friday!