Fast and Easy Aprons on my Janome Memory Craft 9400

I love quick and easy gifts to give to coworkers, bring to parties or simply give as a gift.
With the holiday season upon us, I opted to make gifts for the cooks in the house. One that would not only be practical but make them feel festive and stylish.
This cute apron does up in no time at all. In fact if you get an assembly line going, you can do up a batch of them in a few hours.

Supplies
hand towels often found at dollar stores, pick up some holiday ones or everyday ones

long strips of corresponding fabric

Instructions

Cut a strip of fabric 64" x 2 1/2". You  will have to piece it to get the length. This is for a narrow band, if you want a wider band, make it 64" x 3".

Sew narrow ends under 1/4" to the wrong side.

Fold the fabric 1/4" on each long side to the wrong side and press.

Fold in half and press.

Find the centre of the strip and place a pin. Do the same with the top of the handtowel, lengthwise.

Matching the two pins, taking the long side of the top of the hand towel, place the towel on the wrong side of the strip opened up, about 1/2" in towards the centre.

Fold over the top half of fabric and pin along the strip ensuring the towel is tucked in  and pinning the fabric together.

Sew along the bottom of fabric catching the hand towel as you go. You can see I chose a fun decorative stitch from the 'Play' menu! It even tells you which foot (F) to attach to use with the stitch!

Enjoy your beautiful new apron!

Making Merry With Janome

Christmas is the best time of year for sewing those special items for those special people!

Today I have the pleasure of not only showing you what I have been making, but being a part of

I do all my creating on my Janome! 

I love my machine. This was the first machine I have ever bought new!  I thought it only fitting that I dress it up for Christmas.

I had this fun fabric from Riley Blake Fabrics that was hexagons in red and green. I knew I wanted to use it in a way that still kept the pattern of the fabric.  And I love stockings!   Oh and ric rac and pompoms too=) By combining all three, I would have pure Christmas magic!

I decided to make two at the same time, one green and one red. Wait until you see what I put in for lining!

See the yellow elephants?  That is Amanda Herring's fabric from Riley Blake!  Can they be any more fun to see when you reach your hand in to get a surprise?

Giant white pompoms adorn this stocking!

Mini red pom poms went on the other stocking!   

Wait!  It didn't end there, a friend fell in love with them and she wanted a set for her family!

On the blue one I added some jumbo ric rac.  The red stocking has no trim as that is for a guy and I thought he would appreciate that!

Thanks Janome for such a fun time showing my Christmas project!

Published and Free Block Patterns!

What a great few weeks it has been!

I received my copy of 'Where Women Create' and they did an absolutely amazing job of the article I am in.

I had a local photographer come over, Peter Baumgarten, who is so talented and took hundreds of pictures of me and my studio, and of course my quilts.  WWC was so accommodating, allowing me to choose my favourite photos. 

Janome is doing 100 quilt blocks in 50 days with Michael Miller.  

This summer, I was invited to participate and lovely fat quarters showed up at my door step, with the basis of creating 6 1/2" blocks and writing a pattern up for them. 

I was lucky enough to have 2 accepted to this fun adventure.   The best part is you can download the patterns for all of the 100 blocks!

Diagonal Diva

Match the Patch Block

100 Quilt Blocks in 50 Days!

Solid modern colours, free patterns, fun blocks, what more can you ask for?
Janome and Michael Miller Fabrics have paired up to offer us 100 free quilt block patterns in 50 days!  Free!

They have only released 6 blocks at the time of writing this post, but you can either sign up by email to get two free block patterns delivered right to your inbox, or go and check it out online!

All the blocks are a finished size of 6" x 6" and can be downloaded.
Check out Canadian quilter Heather McArthur's block 'Spinning Star'.

Now what has me really excited, is that I was invited to contribute and I have 2 blocks being released in the next week! We were sent a collection of solid fabric from Michael Miller Fabrics and could use one or all of them.  I simply had to use them all as they were so beautiful. I also couldn't just make one block so submitted two and was lucky enough that they chose both!

Even though I can't show them to you until they are released, I will give you a sneak peak.

Check back in a week, as soon as they are released I will be shouting it out!