Another Go! Baby giveaway info

Here's another chance to win a Go! Baby AccuQuilt cutter.

To get more information on this giveaway a blogger friend is doing, go here.

Good luck
Winner announced here.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hello everyone, I hope you had a good time either trick or treating, or handing out candy tonight! I know I did. I ended up passing out candy, like I always do every year. Love getting to see all the kids dressed up and seeing their faces when they walk up to the porch to spooky sounds coming from speakers that are sitting on my porch. Some of them get scared, but always manage to get up close enough to grab a piece of candy and be off to the next house to get more.

Our driveway is a bit long, so I always try to get the kids to grab a hand full of candy only to make it fair for them having to come down such a long driveway. Here's a couple of pictures of the set up on my porch, along with carved pumpkins my brother and I did and a pumpkin I decided to paint and my sister in law painted as well.

Enjoy!

Porch set up, kids were scared! Ha, lol

The pumpkin I carved, and a skeleton coffin - ooo spooky!

My brother's pumpkin to the left, and my pumpkin to the right

My pumpkin I painted, it was different than carving

My sister-in-law's painted pumpkin

Hope you enjoyed the pictures, and hope you guys share your Halloween setup as well. :)

I had a lot of fun this weekend with my brother and his wife visiting. Goofing around, going out for breakfast and then having Chili for dinner. Then Halloween topping it off. Can't get any better than that!

Although I'd have to say it was different not having the hubby around since he didn't have to work last year on Halloween. I'm sure all the kids didn't care for the whole "Halloween on school night" bit. But such is life!

Again, hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween! I'm off to watch "Ghost Hunters Halloween Special". I've had it DVRing while I was handing out candy. :)

   Happy Halloween!   

Tomorrow is Halloween

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I have to say that I'm ready to see all the kids dressed up. It's fun to see them coming up for candy in their costumes of what they chose to be dressed up as. It's also interesting when you get the real small ones, and they don't know what to do. He he! So cute!

This weekend was a busy weekend, had my brother and his wife over. They had to bring their boat over to store in our garage over the winter. Last night it was freezing rain, rain and snow mixed. Eww! I am not a happy camper for that. While my brother and his wife were over, we ended up carving pumpkins and painting pumpkins. It was actually different painting the pumpkins rather than cutting them. I did 2 pumpkins, one painted and one carved. My hubby still has his to carve but he did gut them just needs to finish carving his. I don't really decorate too much til the day of Halloween only because some stuff I don't really care for having outside for too long. Once I'm finished decorating the porch, I'll be sure to take a picture and post it tomorrow. :)

I think after I post this, I am going to take a nap. My shoulder is bothering me, I'm tired and my body is sore as well. Like I said, it was a long weekend and I think it's because I had company ha! I didn't even get to start sewing the baby blanket only because the sewing machine is in the guest bedroom and that's where the company stayed for the night. So I'll have to be sure to get that going and finish cutting it. :)

Anyways, hope everyone has a wonderful "Hallow's Eve" and a wonderful Halloween Day tomorrow.

  Happy Halloween Everyone!  

Go! Baby Go! Giveaway at a friends blog...

Just wanted to spread the exciting news that one of my blogger friends are having yet another giveaway! :)

How exciting can that be? Very!


If you'd like to find out some more of the giveaway, and of course you do since it has something to do with "Go! Baby, Go! Oh yes, please run and no jogging!! :P

You can find the giveaway information here.

You have til November 6th to enter, and then the winner will be announced!

Something in the mail!

I ended up getting my goodie that I had been waiting for in the mail. From Mauby's blog I won a Sewline mechanical pencil, and wow! I'm in love! I didn't realize that the pencil did 3 different things, a tracer, white pencil lead section, and black pencil lead section. Very cool!!! :) Plus an eraser at the top. Here's a snap shot!

As you can see, this giveaway on Mauby's blog was by Fat Quarter Shop. I'm so happy to have this be my first giveaway prize. I'm certainly anxious to try my pencil out. I'm sure you are probably asking. You haven't tried it already? Are you crazy?! I just haven't had a chance to try yet. I will though! Trust me. lol

I'd like to say thanks to Mauby's for giving me the chance to win and thanks to Fat Quarter Shop for offering the Sewline pencil for the giveaway.

Goodies for myself, cutting, and blog updates...

First, the other day the hubby and I went to the Dollar store. I can't say that I don't shop there, but this one particular store sells a nice selection of craft stuff and I can't pass it up at times when it comes to sewing items. I came home with a handful of items. I think I had a great buy if you ask me!

• Cutting mat
• Velcro
• Elastic 1/2"
• Name Tape Kit - iron on (cool)
• Measuring tape

I didn't really need the cutting board since I had a larger one, but I was thinking for smaller stuff I am able to take and swivel the smaller cutting board above when need to rather than having to pick up the piece and move it. This way my cutting is hopefully accurate? Ha! We'll see. :) The velcro I needed for my camera case I made. It's the stick on kind, but I can also do some stitching through it to make sure it stays. The 1/2" elastic was for a cardi-wrap but then when I got home I realized I bought the wrong size - oops! That only means next time I'll have to be sure to see if they have the 1/4" elastic instead. We'll see! The name kit I'm not sure if I'll use, but I thought it would be a way to put a name on the quilts, or other things I make. It's iron on kind, and then of course I could possibly stitch around the edge as well to be sure it stays. Then of course, I'm sure you know what the "measuring tape" can be used for. Ha!

Finally, got my cutting done for the baby quilt I've been working on. I've just been so side tracked lately I can't even begin to know where to start. But the cutting is pretty much done, just have to sew the fabrics together. Of course since I'm doing pinwheel's I'll have to do a little cutting after sewing from one corner point to the other corner point. I'm sure you know that. Ha!

Blog, blog, blog...

I have to say that blogging is not such a bad thing, however when you run into issues and have to do everything from scratch but thankfully backed up your "posts" you have made previously kind of sucks. But hopefully I'll get some followers that followed me previously back, hopefully! But anyways, I'm looking to possibly change my layout (blog template) but don't want to do it til I find one that I absolutely fall in love with and won't want to change for quite sometime. I don't want to have to change stuff all the time and confuse people as to where things are. lol! However, if you have some suggestions or know of some great "free" blog templates please share in a comment. I'd highly appreciate it, thanks!

Anyways!  I'm off to watch my DVR'd Ellen DeGeneres! Love her! :)

Back to normal?

Well I am certainly hoping we're back to normal on my blog. I have added who I could remember as far as who I followed, and haven't gained any followers yet I don't think. Hopefully soon I will. :)

Yesterday, today and tomorrow and the day after I will be cleaning the house because we have some people coming over for the weekend. Plus, Halloween is on Monday! I'm sure kids are just thrilled Halloween is on a school day, ha! I certainly wouldn't like that. But such is life!

I definitely need to get moving on the baby quilt I've been working on. I haven't started sewing yet, but only because I keep getting side tracked and tomorrow I need to try and clean and re-hem my husbands hunting pants because I didn't do it right the first time and need to correct them. So hopefully I'll be good on that tomorrow.

I just wanted to announce incase anyone come across my blog, there's some exciting tutorials and giveaways going on listed over at *Sew I Quilt*. Head on over there and check it out!! You'll see some really cool ways of creating quilts, bags, and much more! :)

It's late, and I'm off to bed. Now that I'm pretty happy with the blog, I can relax now.

I apologize!

I'm so sorry for those who couldn't find my blog. I've lost all my followers! I'm so sad. I had to "export" my blog and start a new account for my blog and "import" my blog. Little did I know that I would lose my followers, and my list of followed bloggers I had. I'm so disappointed. I'm mad, upset and don't know what to do. :(

Please accept this as a sincere apologies. I am hoping I can find and re-add all the blogs I followed. Makes me mad! Not your fault, but only mine.

If only blogger would have helped me solve my problem but didn't for over a month or so I decided to solve my problem by transfering my blog. So now I'm having to redo everything, except I didn't lose my posts which I'm glad.

Previously, I couldn't access the dashboard at all. Anytime I signed into my old account with the blog it would kick me to a error page and it was driving me nuts! But now I'm able to since I created a new account. But I'm okay with that since I am able to have it all on a separate account. Again, now I have to start all over with my blog as far as template design, following blogs and etc.

Hang in there! I was saying that to me really, sorry! lol

Hopefully things will be back to normal fairly soon!!

Yesterday was a long day!

Yesterday, I was helping my husband's brother get his things out of his ex wife's house and that was not fun. Of course things were rough and we were there from 2PM til 8PM getting everything, packing and what not that was his belongings and what he wanted. There was even a cop named Paul there to witness everything and keep his ex wife from doing anything she would regret. But I tell ya, on another not my brother-in-law (husband's brother) better not buy anymore shot glasses or glass mugs because I'd have to hurt him. I was put in charge of wrapping and packing boxes for him so that he could get the bigger stuff since I wouldn't be much help getting and moving bigger stuff anyhow. Needles to say, little did I know how many shot glasses and glass mugs he had. He had over 300 shot glasses, and I would like to say about 50-70 glass mugs. Thank god I had help when it came to wrapping all that. I would probably still be there this moment! lol

On another note!

Another blogger is doing a giveaway at Love Affair with My Brother. You have 4 entry chances to win 4 charm packs. To get more information, head on over to her blog here. Contest ends on October 31st at 11:59PM. Good luck!

Started baby blanket/quilt

Yesterday I finished cutting the 60 blocks of 5" by 5" that I needed for pinwheels. Now I'm off to having to cut the sashes and border. Then I can start to sew together the quilt. I wanted to get most of the cutting out of the way so I can just sew and not have to go back and forth. I think this way I won't get discouraged as easily with all the cutting (if that makes sense).

Do you guys cut then sew, or sew as you cut?

I know the last quilt I made I sewed as I did the cutting and I think that is what took me the longest but I'm okay with that because if was my first quilt and I did all the cutting with scissors. But I noticed how important it is to have a rotary cutter because it does go by a lot faster! Yay for rotary cutters!

A while ago before starting dinner I starched my fabric that I'm using for the sashes and border so that it can soak in and set into the fabric before ironing. I noticed this technique seemed to work better for me, I know many others do it a few different ways. Some wait 30 seconds after starching to iron, some wait 15-20 minutes and others wait a couple of hours. I'm one of the ones to wait a couple of hours, and sometimes if I know I'll want to start cutting the next day I'd starch the day before so all I have to do is iron and cut.

For those who do embroidery by hand or something like that, do you sometimes put the name of the baby in the corner of the top or backing of the quilt? I don't know the name of the babies yet, but I was thinking about doing but I know that it's always a good idea to do it before sewing the quilt sandwich together so your not sewing all the way through if that makes sense. Any suggestions on this would be great since I don't do a lot of embroidery stitching by hand or machine but thought it would be nice to do. Thanks!

Good luck hubby (part 2)

Well, just got word a few minutes ago he finished his test and he passed! I knew he would, and I'm sure he is happy to have that off of his shoulders of worrying about it.

Yay honey! :)

Good luck hubby!

I just wanted to make a quick post to say I'm still here! Just been busy the past week. Although today is a big day for my husband. He works at CVS Pharmacy as a Technician and he's currently sitting in a building in Troy, Michigan taking a test to get nationally certified. I definitely think he'll do good, he was studying all night last night, the night before and months before this. He's been taking the test since 2PM, and not sure when he'll be done. I am sure he'll do just fine though! But if you could give some good luck, that would be wonderful!!

On another note, I'll be working on the baby quilt today. Got a little behind in doing other stuff, so I'm going to definitely be sure to work on that. I want to be able to get all the cutting done so that way I can just sew and start piecing stuff together.

Question for other quilts. Do you guys cut and then sew? Or do you guys sew as you cut?


Oh! I wanted to also state that I finally won a contest, and was excited with such delight! :) I won a sewline mechanical pencil from Mauby's like I said, I was excited! My first win of a contest, thanks Mauby! :)

Another note, I want to say thanks to those who have started following me. I appreciate it! :)

Yesterday, happy hubby!

Yesterday after 4PM was a long day. Hubby went out hunting, and around 5:40PM he called and told me that he got a deer. It was actually funny how it happened. He was texting me on the phone telling me he was getting bored because ever since bow season started he hadn't seen a thing but squirrels. Well, this is how our texting went...

Me: We need to get you a call.
Hubby: Here deer deer deer. Here deer deer deer deer. There I just called them.
Me: Freak lol

My hubby a few days ago broke his call because he was trying to change the sound of it when he used it, well a small piece fell from the tree stand and it's a small black piece. No way finding that in leaves and dirt and etc. So that's why I was saying he needs a new call. A few minutes passed.

Hubby: The call worked I just shot.
Me: Are you serious?
Me: For real?
Me: Do I need to smack you?

Hubby and I are jokers, we like to pick on each and what not. So I wasn't sure at the time if he was just bullshitting or really telling me that he shot one. It was just funny the way it happened. So after about a hour and a half waiting to make sure the deer laid down and died in piece we went looking. The blood was spotty, but we found it with the help of his friend Nick. He was a nice looking deer, 6 point buck. Let's just say that the hubby was pretty darn happy!

I do have some pictures, but I won't post the actual picture but link you in case there are some people who do not want to see the deer. Which is completely understandable! :) This morning we got quite a bit of meat out of the deer. Tons of steak, a package of stew cut meat, 24 pounds of hamburger, tenderloins, a roast, tons of chops, and that's it til hubby gets another one.

Here's the links:
Him and his 6 point after finding the deer
Deer hung up in our garage and hubby next to him

I'm very proud of my husband, and he's ecstatic that he finally got a deer on his "own" property now that we've been here for almost 3 years now.

Thoughts running through my head...

Simplicity 1961 Misses Knit Cardi Wrap

I bought a pattern a few weeks ago that I've been wanting to buy off the wrack at a store that is already made but never could. With me being small, and never being able to find the size to fit me always irritated me. Now that I'm getting into sewing, I thought now is the chance to give it a try. So when I seen the pattern at Joann Fabric's was on sale I snatched it up the moment I seen it. I bought the Simplicity 1961 Misses Knit Cardi Wrap. When I bought the pattern I didn't get any fabric material because I had to ask some questions to the lovely ladies that I met on the forum board, which can be found here.

I know with me being small, I am going to have to alter the pattern a bit and I'm a little nervous about that since this is my first "clothing" I'll be sewing. So I'm a little clueless on how to alter the pattern. I've been trying to search for other's who have possibly made this same top to see how they went about doing it, and if they ran into any problems. I also noticed that this pattern calls for "elastic" which I didn't get any and was hoping I could see if anyone "steered" away from using the elastic. If I'm looking at it correctly, the elastic is being used on the back upper part of the neck area to keep the "fabric" gathered to give the cardi wrap the "drappy" look on the front.

Simplicity 1961 Misses Knit Cardi Wrap

1. I know I probably don't have many readers of my blog, but for those that have made "similar" or have made this particular pattern, did you use elastic? 
2. Do you think it's "essential" I use elastic like it calls for? 
3. Do you think the drappy effect will look different if I don't use the elastic?

Please let me know if you have any suggestions, tricks or anything like that. :) I'd highly appreciate it!!

Camera Case

Naked camera needing a case - before

I got this camera a while back for my birthday, my brother got me it. I got to pick it out and everything. I didn't get a camera case because I didn't feel the need to pay $40 bucks on one at the time when I knew if I really wanted one I could buy one cheaper. Well, since I started sewing I decided to make myself a camera case because I wanted one that could slide into my purse without taking up a lot of room and etc.

Camera case - after

I know that it's not perfect, but I'm happy with it. I used some jean material that was cut off  a pair of jeans when I had to hem them, and used some scrap material for the purple touch. Right now it doesn't stay closed because I need to buy some velcro so I can velcro it shut. But I'm pretty happy with what I had made. I was inspired by another blogger that created a camera case, and I kind of used her technique in a way but went into a different approach since my camera was shaped differently and much smaller.

You can find the actual Camera Cozy Tutorial here.

Past couple days...

Do you ever just "dig in" without thinking about it and not draw out the pattern cut it out and use that as a template? Well, I did. I thought I was doing pretty good, and then realized I did it wrong and should have cut it in one piece instead of separate pieces. I've been working on making a small camera case for my new digital camera. Well I ended up having to stop because the way I had sewed it up and had separate pieces was just making it worse to put together. So, this second time around I decided to make a pattern on paper, cut it out and use that as a template instead of having separate pieces (if that makes sense).

Yesterday I went to Joann Fabric's and got some fabric (of course) for a baby quilt I'm planning to make. A friend of mine and hubbies is having a baby in December and I wanted to make a baby quilt for them. I'm also going to be making their son a quilt as well. He's into camouflage, so I have to think of something for that but right now I'm focusing on the "baby quilt". It took me a hour and a half to pick out 4 pieces of fabric to go together, I'm still having a bit of trouble piecing together what fabric goes together well and what's too much print and etc. I just didn't want the quilt to be "over powering" with one fabric and not enough of the other fabric and etc.

On another note, this past weekend's weather has been gorgeous! The only thing is, I wish it would "frost" for 2 good days and then be nice like this. I say this because I want the mosquitoes gone. I hate those bugs! AND BEES! Ew! lol Yesterday the hubby and I went out and put some more feed out and put his new camera out as well. I definitely can't wait to see if we caught any pictures on his new deer trail cam. Although he's getting a bit frustrated because the last few times when it's been on his days off he hadn't seen anything while out hunting. But hopefully in a couple days he will have better luck, he has 5 days off which will be nice to have him around.

Anyways, good luck to anyone's husband who hunts as well. Can never get enough luck when it comes to hunting. :) Wish my hubby luck too! lol

Inch to Yard Conversion Table

Making a quilt or a garment and need to know how much fabric you need? Here's a chart to help you out. Inches converted to yards. The chart below goes up to 1 yard. Hope this helps someone. :)

Inches	Fraction of Yard
1.00"	1/36
2.00"	1/18
3.00"	1/12
4.00"	1/9
5.00"	5/36
6.00"	1/6
7.00	7/36
8.00	2/9
9.00"	1/4
10.00"	5/18
11.00"	11/36
12.00"	1/3
13.00"	13/36
14.00"	7/18
15.00"	5/12
16.00"	4/9
17.00"	17/36
18.00"	1/2
19.00"	19/36
20.00"	5/9
21.00"	7/12
22.00"	11/18
23.00"	23/36
24.00"	2/3
25.00"	25/36
26.00"	13/18
27.00"	3/4
28.00"	7/9
29.00"	29/36
30.00"	5/6
31.00	31/36
32.00"	8/9
33.00"	11/12
34.00"	17/18
35.00"	35/36
36.00"	1 yard

My first pinwheel

Sorry about the ruler... was measuring LOL

The other day I was practicing, trying to decide what size I want to go with for a pinwheel. I pieced together my first pinwheel and used a technique I seen online that seemed pretty easy. I used the technique where you sew on all 4 sides of the two squares facing right sides together and then cut from corner to corner and then corner to corner without moving it. I know this probably sounds a little confusing, but my first pinwheel didn't turn out too well. A little wonky and it was probably because of the way it was cut and the bias played a part in it. Then I took and cut 4 squares and pieced together the pinwheel the old way. It takes a little more time to piece it together but this way my block wasn't all wonky. I do not think I did too bad on my second pinwheel and seems pretty easy. :) Here's a snapshot of the pinwheel.

The only thing I'm having trouble understanding is how to get the middle part on the back with all the seams not so bulky. I think I made the mistake of not trimming off the "ears" as they call it before sewing the 4 squares together to make the pinwheel. But that's okay! I'll probably figure out a way to get the bulkiness gone.

If you anyone reading this blog knows some techniques that shows up close photos of how to get rid of the bulkiness please let me know. Point me in the direction! lol

Fabric Selections: NOT easy!

I'm still a beginner pretty much for quilting, and I'm still learning the tricks of fabric going together and doesn't go together. I'm not saying that I don't know to not mix "pink and orange" together something. But I'm just saying the whole not having enough print and too much solid colors, or having too much print and not enough solid colors and etc. I've been at it for a couple of days now trying to find the perfect selection of fabrics to make a baby quilt and I tell ya, it's not easy.
I know your probably thinking, "get a fat quarter bundle" or "charm pack" which will select the fabrics you need. I would, but most charm packs and fat quarter bundles either have too much pink or isn't the exact pattern I'm looking for. My friend is having a baby girl, and I know most girls love pink but I was hoping to steer clear of pink or try to and stick with some blues, browns, purples and if I see something with pink but has hints of pink I'm good.

All I have to say is, picking fabric for projects like quilts is not an easy task! Not for me anyways... lol

Sewing Machine Mat w/ Pockets

I decided to make this because I had seen others have similar sewing machine mats with pockets. I wasn't sure if I would like the pockets draped in the front and figured it would be neat to make the pockets off to the side instead that way it's not in the way when using the sewing machine! This is basically a tutorial/walk through of how I went about making it and what kind of design I came up with.


Note: Please keep in mind that some of the pictures are not perfect and may be a bit blurry. Sorry if they are hard to see. If you need to, click on the images to enlarge them.

Ingredients & Materials needed:

• Scissors or/and rotary cutter
• Cutting board (for rotary cutter)
• Quilters ruler
• Marking pen or pencil
• Scraps of fabric
• Batting (scraps of batting can be used too)
• Iron if needed

Notes: Now when I started this project, I had some left over fabric from when I had made my first quilt for my mother. I ended up using that fabric for this project. You do not have to do the exact same thing as I did. You can choose to use different colored and printed fabric, please do. In fact if you can use up your fabric stashes up!

Instructions:

For the type of design we are going for, you will need the following cuts of fabric:

Cut example for 1 1/4" by 2 1/4"

   5 - 1 1/4" by 2 1/4" (4 green, 1 purple)

   6 - 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" (3 green, 3 purple)

   9 - 3 1/4" by 2 1/4" (5 green, 4 purple)

   9 - 4 1/4" by 2 1/4" (6 green, 3 purple)
    7 - 5 1/4" by 2 1/4" (1 green, 6 purple)

Note: Keep in mind that you do not have to do the "purple and green" patchwork. You can use all kinds of scraps of colors and print. This just helps know how many rectangle strips there are for each size.

Once you get the blocks you need cut and ready to be sewn together let's first lay it out. What we want to do is have this laid out so that it would come to an approximately 23" long and approximately 10" wide. Here's an idea of what I'm talking about.

Lay your cut out pieces like above - click pic to enlarge

As you can see I have it lined up where it's checkerboard type layout. It's not perfect, but I like the way it looks. Please remember that you do not have to do only 2 different types of fabric like I have above. If you have different fabrics in your stash you'd like to use, please do so.

Once you lay it all out like above sew them together like the following:

Sew close to edge

Try to sew close to the edge, but not too close. I probably should have done the cuts for example like 1 1/2" by 2 1/2" instead of 1 1/4" by 2 1/4". I guess it depends on what your sewing allowance preference is. Please choose your sewing allowance that you prefer. 

Iron to set stitches and iron the seams to the side all in the same direction

Now back to sewing. Keep sewing til your rows are complete and iron your seams facing the same direction. Then sew the rows together and you will have one complete square/rectangle.

Rows sewn together to make one piece

Once you have those sewn together, you are going to make 3 strips to go on three sides of the piece you just made. These strips are going to go on the top, left and bottom. The strips are going to be 1" wide, and the same length as wide as your piece above like below:

Note: It may help if you make your strips a tad longer so that way you have a less chance of coming short, this way you can trim away the extra. Also, it's best to first sew on the shorter strip (left strip) then the top and bottom strips.

Sew strips on as shown above.

Top, left and bottom 1" strips sewn on.

Now the next step is getting the backing made. Now I didn't really measure the backing, I just basically eyeballed it where it was close to be even on each side like the following picture:

Lay backing out, and lay front of mat on top

Once you got your backing cut, now is the time to get some batting out. This would be an excellent time to use up your scraps of batting if you have any If not, use some of the whole pieces you have as well.

Batting scraps

Now say you do have some of those batting scraps you can use up. All I did was piece them back together by using a zigzag stitch on my sewing machine over lapping a bit. Once you have them pieced together, lay it under the front of the quilt piece, and cut to the edge what you don't need.

I hope you can see the stitches of how I pieced it together

Now put your batting and front piece of your mat together and pin them together so the front and batting do not move around on you. This way you can also shift it around with worrying about the pieces shifting themselves.

Pin the batting and front of mat together

You only need a few pins put in just to stabilize the two pieces together. Once you have that done go ahead and place the two pieces you pinned on top of the backing you cut out previously.

Front of mat centered on mat backing

As you can see in the image below, take the raw edge of the backing and over lap a little bit. That is your first fold as you can see in the left image. Then you make another fold which completes the two folds you need to make for your "binding" technique.

First fold, picture 1

Second fold, picture 2

In picture 1 you can see I took the raw edge of the backing and placed it just over the front part of the mat. Raw edge is the red line, and blue line is where the raw edge would end up. In picture 2 you have the second fold, the yellow line is the edge of the first pictures raw edge and the blue line is the new edge. Now keep in mind we want to still be able to see the strips we created, so do not go over that and try to keep from completely covering it. So in picture 2 I made sure that I had about that much all the way around the mat not covered up. The only edge that will not have a "border" is the end that will have pockets.

Be sure to stick with folding and pining the top and bottom of the mat first. Once you have those pined, you are going to do the exact same thing to the ends, however you are going to have just a regular folded over corner instead of a mitered corner. Like shown in the following images:

Pinned edges ready to be sewn

Square folded corner

Note: We're going to sewing the binding down with the sewing machine. Now is the time to be able to use one of those neat looking decorative stitches that is built into your sewing machine. I'm going to be using the same stitch that I used when piecing together my batting scraps I had earlier. The zigzag stitch.

Once you have picked your the type of decorative stitches you want to use, align your sewing foot to the left side of the binding so that you are at least somewhat close to the edge but not too close. When you get to the corner, keep your sewing needle down and pick up the sewing foot and swivel the mat and sew down the other side. When you are done sewing, it should be looking like this:

Binding sewn on

Now I know the corners have a bit of a flap, but to fix that all you need to do is a blind stitch or also known as hidden stitch or ladder stitch. If you are unsure how to do the blind stitch, check out this tutorial on how to do that here.

Note: In case you were wondering, I started from the outside corner in towards the zigzag stitch. I did this that way I can make sure the flap laid flush to other edge. For those who just learned the blind stitch, it was pretty easy huh?

Corner fixed, after

Corner flap, before

Now our next step is attaching the pocket! The pocket is going to be one piece which you just sew down and then sew a line or two  to divide the pockets up. What you are going to do is measure from the inside of the border to the other side and add 1/2" to each side to fold over.

Measure from the left inside to the right inside

So the piece of fabric you are going to use for the pocket, you will want to cut 10" for the length. This is a little long, only so you can fold the edges a bit to fit to the inside. You will also fold the bottom and top as well. I made my pockets 4 1/2" wide to finish off as 4" wide.

Fold all four edges a bit

Once you have your edges folded, lay it down on your mat on the correct side and make sure it fits in nice and snug. Once you have it fit you are going to take and stitch as close to the edge or if you used a decorative stitch when you did the binding you can use that same stitch to attach the pocket. I used the zigzag stitch when I did the binding, so I am going to use the zigzag stitch to attach the pocket.

Pocket fits like a glove

Note: Just wanted to remind you that when you sew on the pocket to start at the bottom first then do the sides and pin pin pin that pocket down to keep it from moving.

Pinned pocket on

Once you have it pinned, go ahead and start sewing. Be sure to only sew in the red zone and not in the blue zone. If you sew in the blue zone, it will no longer be a pocket. We don't want that, now do we? ;)

Sewn on pocket

Now we need to divide the pockets. This is where it's up to you, you can divide it by three pockets, a small pocket and a large pocket or make four pockets 3 small pockets and 1 small pocket. I did 3 pockets on mine. I took the same type of stitch I used to attach the pocket on and made my pockets.

To make it easier on where to sew the lines, I measured, marked and drew a line where I wanted to divide the pockets.

And mark

Measure

The lines I drew in, in the above (right picture) were kind of hard to see since they were starting to disappear so I added digital red lines next to it. (Remember, you can click on images to blow them up.)

Pockets created

There is one optional step that I added to my mat. I wanted something where I can put my scissors on and not have them in the pockets itself. So I added a strip of fabric and attached the strip to the mat with a button and on the other end of the strip was a button hole to be able to attach and detach the strip which holds the scissors. This you do not have to do. But this is what I did to make the strip.

Optional Step (strip):

Just an example

Now, I cut the strip about 9" length (approx) and 2" wide. Now the length in what you want is totally up to you. I wanted to make it long enough to be able to hold scissors, or whatever I didn't want to have in the pockets that can be looped onto this strip.

Now first I took and folded the 2" wide strip and ironed it. So in the image below the purple line was the first fold, then I took and opened it back up and folded it so that the blue lines touched the purple lines. So the red lines are now the new folded lines.

Folding for the strip

Once you have the folding in place, iron it to make sure it stays and doesn't unfold on you. Then at the ends of the strip make sure you fold it in as well so it has a finished fold instead of a raw edge.

Folding the ends in

Then once you have folded the ends in you should be ready to sew! Sew as close to the open edge to close the strip up. I used white thread, but in the first image on the example strip I used a red thread so you could see it. Once you have it sewn, now you can sew the button hole. When I did the button hole, I tried to make it a bit wider than the button itself so it makes it a little easier to unbutton and button back up. I'm sure you get what I mean.

Marked and ready to sew

Measuring where the button hole will be

Now that my button hole has been sewn, I'm ready to sew the button onto the strip and mat together.

Strip attached and button sewn on

Marked where button and strip goes to be sewn

If you make this mat, please link me or let me know how it went. I would love to be able to see your creation at some point. Please leave me a comment and let me know if there were any bumps or issues when following through with this tutorial.

Here are some more images of how my mat looks under my sewing machine.

Side view of mat

Side view of mat

Thank you, and enjoy!