Last Minute Gift Countdown

Cotton Spice magazine is hosting a Last Minute Gift Countdown from November 20 to December 4 - just in time for the holidays!

Here is a fun project to make for holiday gifts – "Quick to Sew" Holiday Napkin Rings. They are easy to make, use scraps of fabric and will be used for years to come. The person you give them to will think of you each year! Be sure to make a set for your holiday table too. You could make different ones for each season. Or use a different fabric for each member of your family to identify their cloth napkin if they are re-used for a few meals. We use cloth napkins all the time to save paper and they are so much nicer. You can make your own with a fat quarter of fabric by turning all the edges under twice and topstitching. Or cut a strip off the long end and make a matching napkin ring following these directions:

Materials (for one napkin ring):

Double sided fusible stiff interfacing(fast2fuse® or Peltex® 72 by pellon®) : 1¾” x 7½” rectangle
Outside fabric: 2¾” x 8½” rectangle
Lining fabric: 2” x 7¾” rectangle
One ½” to 1” button
Thread to contrast with outside fabric

To make one napkin ring:

Centre the interfacing rectangle on the wrong side of the outside fabric.

Fold the excess fabric over the rectangle and press in place with the tip of the iron, being careful not to set the iron on the fusible interfacing.

The corners can be folded ‘square’.

Turn under all the edges of the lining rectangle ¼” and press.

Place the lining rectangle on the fabric/interfacing rectangle, wrong sides together and press to fuse all the layers together. The lining rectangle should be slightly smaller than the outside rectangle.

Use contrasting thread in your sewing machine to sew a decorative stitch along both long edges of the napkin ring. You may want to test a few stitches on scraps to see which one you like best.

Form a ring with the finished rectangle, overlap the edges about ¾” and sew the button through all the layers. Here is my napkin ring all ready for our Christmas table.

No – I don’t really have the table set now! But I will have it set before we go to my Mother’s for our traditional Christmas Eve clam chowder supper. Saves one thing to do on Christmas Day.

Be sure to check the Cotton Spice Blog for more last minute gift ideas.

Stamping Fabric

I wanted to make a small quilt with some motifs cut from a medium-scale print.

To accent the design I chose a purple and lavender stripe fabric but needed another print for the cornerstones of my design.

I had an orange fabric that would do but what I really wanted was something with orange AND purple. I decided to stamp the orange fabric to have the right colour combination.

I chose two stamps – a spiral and a triangle spiral. They are both small stamps that would be the correct size for a cornerstone square for my sashing/cornerstone arrangement. This is the triangle stamp.

I like Jacquard’s Lumiere paint. It has a bit of sparkle and I chose the Pearl Violet colour. I squeezed a small amount of paint onto a paper plate and then added a few drops of water to thin it slightly.


The easiest way to apply the paint to the stamp is with a small sponge. You can see a bit of the sparkle in the paint here.

Then dab the sponge onto the stamp, being sure that all the raised areas are evenly coated with the paint.
I pre-cut the small 1½”squares for the cornerstones and then carefully stamped in the middle of each square. I was careful to press the stamp evenly to get a complete spiral. I stamped 4 small squares with the spiral stamp

and the remaining small squares with the triangle spiral stamp.







I washed the paint off the stamps right after I stamped the fabric. I used soap and water and a small brush to remove all the paint.











And here is the finished quilt.

Next time you don’t have quite the right colour fabric, why not try stamping to make it just right!

Cotton Spice Summer Workshop

Cotton Spice is offering a great series of Summer Workshops on their BLOG starting TODAY! A new project will be posted each day until August 3rd. These are fun projects that won't take a lot of time - perfect for summer creating. My project will be posted here and on the Cotton Spice Blog on July 23rd. Be sure to check it out - just a bit of stamping fun!