Let's Get Acquainted! Blog Hop

Welcome!!  I am so excited to be a part of the Let's Get Acquainted Blog Hop.  I have a fun little project to share, but since I think we may have some new visitors stopping by I'm going to share a little bit about me first.

I'm Kelsey, of KelseySews, and I live in Northeastern Ohio with my husband Thomas.  I work for an insurance agent during the day and spend my nights running or quilting.  We just bought our first home last year and I love doing projects around the house - we just put in a veggie garden this weekend!

Beth also put together some crafty get-to-know-you questions for us to share-

How long have you been quilting - A year and a half or so

Favorite quilting tip(s) - Keep your thread snips on a ribbon and tie it around your sewing machine - then you can always find them!

Favorite blogging tip(s) - Blog for you first!  Worry more about sharing what you love than how many followers you have.

Favorite fabric - Ruby by Bonnie & Camille

Favorite craft book - The new Fat Quarterly book - It's amazing!!

Favorite book (or book you are currently reading) - I like non-fiction and cooking books a lot - I just finished a great one about canning at home 

Favorite children's book - Charlie & The Chocolate Factory (the book is so much better than the movie!)

Favorite quilting tool - Sticky grips for the back of my rulers

Favorite music to listen to while quilting - The Beatles ( I walked down the beach "aisle" to a Beatles song at our wedding last summer)

Favorite TV show while hand stitching - Criminal Minds, my favorite show

Binding - by hand or by machine? -  Usually by hand

 Please browse around my little blog and check out some things I've made.  Here's a little mosaic of some of my recent projects:


Mosaic
  

Now here's a little background on the project I'm about to share for the blog hop.  I don't know about you, but at our house we have a dish drainer that we sit on the counter to use when we hand-wash dishes.  The one we have didn't come with a plastic tray to go underneath (plus those aren't anything great to look at) so I've always just layered some dish towels underneath to try and keep my counter dry.  I decided to make a cute little dish mat for my counter, then I can put it under my dish rack or just set dishes on it to dry and it will add a little something to the kitchen.  I knew I would use a towel for the back but I needed to figure out something for the front.  Beth challenged us to use novelty prints for our blog hop project but I don't have very many and none seemed right for this project.  Then I thought, what about using something other than quilting fabric?  That's a novel idea!  I don't know about you but I'm not sure I want my dishwater dripping onto something made out of $10/yard fabric!  I was looking through a miscellaneous fabric bin and found two shirts that were my husband's.  He has a habit of putting his elbows right through the sleeves and then I have a pack rat habit of washing them and keeping them because I'll "use them someday".  Well now I did!

The Dress Shirt Dish Mat

Finished Size 18" x 21" - I measured my dish rack to come up with this size, you can easily adjust to fit yours

You'll Need:

• Two dress shirts (or fabric)
• Cut each one into twenty-one 3.5" squares
• A bath/beach towel - I bought a new one at WalMart for $2.75
• Walking Foot - Not required but highly recommended since we'll be sewing through the towel

A little note - all seams are 1/4" unless specified and I pressed all my pieced seams open

First, take your two clean dress shirts and cut a large rectangle out of the back.  Then, using your rotary cutter cut each one into twenty-one 3.5" squares.

Take your squares, pair them up (my case - one blue w/one green) and piece them all together - chain piecing will save you a lot of time.  Then set 7 of the now sewn together pairs aside, pair up the remaining 14 pairs, and sew those together (again matching a blue w/a green).  This will leave you with 7 sets of 2 and 7 sets of 4, pair those up and piece together leaving you with 7 strips of 6 squares in alternating colors.  Lay these out to keep your rows in order.



Next, piece all your rows together.  Once you've done that, you'll want to lay out your towel and then lay the completed patchwork on top similar to when you're basting a quilt, but we want right sides together.  Cut the towel around the patchwork leaving about an inch or so extra of the towel on each side.

Using your walking foot stitch 1/4" in from the edge of your patchwork on three of the sides sides and 1/3 of the way in from each corner on the 4th - This will leave you with an opening so you can turn it right side out.

Before you turn, trim the towel to match the edge of your patchwork.  Now turn right side out, be sure to use something with a point to get the corners, and then tuck in the edges of the patchwork and towel where the opening was.  Using your walking foot sew on the top, the complete length of this side - you'll need to go a bit closer to the edge than 1/4" so that you can catch the fabric you folded in.

The final step is to quilt it!  I just did 1/4" from each seam line which created a nice grid and 1/4" in from all the edges to match the edge where I top stitched to close the hole.  Now you have a great little mat with lots of uses - dishes, diaper changes, bathroom counter etc!

Erin from Billy Button Design is posting as part of the blog hop today and Nik from Bold Goods and Alyssa from Pile of Fabric are posting on Thursday so be sure to head over and see what they're sharing!  Also, you can keep up with the whole blog hop, see the complete list of participating blogs and check out the blog hop news every Monday over at Plum and June. 

I had a great time sharing and I hope you had a great time visiting!