If you enjoy quilting, chances are you have friends and family who have approached you and asked you how much you would charge to make a custom quilt. Unfortunately, it’s not so easy to figure out a fair price for sewing a custom quilt. Between fabric prices, labor for making the quilt, and “invisible” costs like the time you spend shopping and preparing the fabric, there are a lot of factors to think about.

Over at eBay*, I’ve written a comprehensive guide for How to Charge for Quilt Making, so go check it out and let me know what you think about my formulas. (*I wrote that article as part of a paid collaboration with eBay.)

If you are a quilter, check out some of my quilting projects I’ve posted here at Dollar Store Crafts.

Make Easy Crazy Quilt Coasters

Creative Baby Shower Quilt

The post How to Charge for Quilt Making appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

The third Iron Craft challenge of 2011 was “Just Bunt.” Since we created something functional last week, this week we went completely for whimsy and created a bunting or garland. What Iron Craft likes about this challenge is that it is ripe with possibilities for different applications & materials.

[See all the submissions from Iron Craft]

Heather’s favorite submission was the Bunting Pillow by Crafty Dame. Stunning! Crafty Dame is now auctioning it off to benefit the Queensland Flood Relief, so go bid on it!

Our IC3 Submissions:

Rhonda Greene’s Submission: Miniature Dollhouse Birthday Bunting

This week, Rhonda was still in “miniature mode,” so she made a miniature dollhouse birthday bunting! She’s had a bunch of ideas in her head for a dollhouse birthday party kit, so this was a great place to start!

See more photos of Rhonda’s submission. Read about her inspiration and see the complete tutorial on her blog.

Melinda Hileman’s Submission: Sparkly Cupcake Bunting

Melinda was visiting her father this week, so she created this cupcake bunting with items she found at the dollar sections of Jo-Ann and Target, and the entire project cost under $5.

See more photos and a description of the supplies used to make Melinda’s submission. Download the printable template Melinda made – it includes blank cupcakes to color as well as the template pieces to create your own cupcake bunting! [Download the template PDF]

Did you submit a craft for the third Iron Craft challenge? Share yours in the comments section!

The post Bunting Craft Roundup (Iron Craft Week 3) appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Bandannas have been showing up at my dollar store lately, in two-packs, but they’ve always been cheap even when they weren’t available at the dollar store. You can usually find them for a dollar per bandanna at your local big-box retailer, and the blue store carries traditional bandannas as well as some in fashion prints and colors. Anneliese at Aesthetic Nest has a great bandanna tablecloth tutorial (and a great cheap source for bandannas, too). She made a really cute tablecloth for a party – I’m sure her tablecloth will get lots of use for many summer activities to come! [click here for the bandanna tablecloth tutorial]

Project Estimate:

• 15 bandannas, buy 8 2-packs, $8
• Sewing stuff, on hand

Total: $8

The post Make a Bandanna Tablecloth appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Here’s a quick and easy handmade version of the classic children’s birthday party game, Pin the Tail on the Donkey. Instead of buying a disposable paper game at the store, why not make one that you can use for every birthday party? It’s cute, colorful, and your kids will love the tradition of playing the game at their parties over the years.

My mom asked me to bring Pin the Tail on the Donkey for my sister’s birthday party (she’s a grownup, but my two sons would be there and we were kind of doing an outdoor carnival theme for the party). The party was in six hours from the time I got the request, and my mom envisioned me making a paper version of the game. Well, I didn’t have any paper suitable for the project, and so I looked in my stash for other potential materials and whipped up a quick project. It took less than an hour.

I found a full piece of hot pink felt, a partial piece of dark brown felt, and some scraps of ivory and bright green felt. I also found this brown dotted fabric, ric rack, and buttons. I really wanted to use a placemat for the background, but I liked the brown dot fabric more than the one or two placemats I have in my dollar store crafting stash. To make this project SUPER quick, use a readymade placemat for the background fabric. It should take you about twenty minutes if you do that!

I used recycled disposable diaper tabs for the backs of the tails  (did you know diaper tabs are like space age Velcro material now? They are awesome crafting material, and work like the “sticky” side of Velcro.) Diaper tabs stick well on the felt used to make the game. Alternately, you can use the sticky side of real Velcro.

Project Estimate:

• 2 sheets of felt, plus scrap felt, about $.50 or on hand
• Ric rack, $.75 or on hand
• A placemat, $1 (I used stash fabric, mine was on hand)
• Buttons, on hand
• A googly eye, on hand
• Velcro, on hand
• Craft glue, on hand
• Sewing stuff, on hand

Total: For me, FREE

To Make:

I drew a simple “donkey” shape with chalk (from a dollar store chalkboard) on the brown felt. Okay, the donkey looks more like a Swedish Dala horse, but I think it’s cute. I cut out the donkey and sewed it to the hot pink felt and added the green saddle. I then glued on a googly eye because my three year-old asked me “but where’s his FACE??”

I sewed the ric rack around the edge of the pink felt square.

If you use a placemat: Sew the felt square to the placemat. Add ribbon or ric rack loops to the top of the placemat.

If you make your own background with stash fabric: Cut out two same-sized pieces of the background fabric and sew the felt donkey square to one of the squares.  Place the two background pieces right sides together, and sandwich two loops between them (if you do it right, the loops will be sticking down inside the fabric, and the raw edges will be sticking out the top, you’ll sew across them). Sew around the edges of the brown fabric, leaving a four-inch gap along one of the sides. Turn right-side out. Topstitch around the edge of the background fabric, taking care to turn the turning hole edges inside. You might want to “quilt” around the donkey just to be sure the background fabric lays flat when you play the game.

For the tails: I cut the diaper tabs into quarters, then sewed them along an edge of ivory-colored felt. I cut out eight tails, and sewed on a brown teardrop shape at the end of the tail. I glued on different-colored buttons at the top of each tail because I thought it was cute, and also because then people can keep track of which tail is theirs when they’re playing the game.

To Play the Game:

In the unlikely event that you’re unfamiliar with Pin the Tail on the Donkey, it’s a traditional birthday game (in the US – not sure about other countries!). The game is hung on the wall. The player is blindfolded and then given a tail. The player is spun around three times to get them a bit dizzy, and then pointed toward the game. They hang their tail on the donkey, trying to get it near the right spot. The player who is closest to getting the tail on the target is the winner.

I made this Pin the Tail on the Donkey game for Craft a Day September, Day 2.

The post Make a Quilted Pin the Tail on the Donkey Game appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Ever have small pieces of fabric that aren’t big enough to make what you want, but you can’t bear to throw away? There are lots of projects that make use of scraps to make little things, but you can also use scraps to make larger things! How? By sewing scraps together patchwork-style to create a new, larger piece of fabric.

This is the second installment in my Star Wars crafts series! I recently made a few Star Wars-y items for a craft swap, and I was WISHING for a Star Wars sheet (in fact, I asked if they had any in stock at my favorite craft thrift store – yes, there is such a thing! If you’re ever in Portland, OR, you MUST visit Knittn Kitten), but I know that you never find something like that at thrift stores when you really NEED it. And then I was rummaging around in my garage and FOUND ONE!! I had one in my stash of scrap fabric dedicated to making Morsbags (reusable grocery bags). I had no idea it was in there, but I was so excited when it surfaced!

So, in order to squeeze every precious drop of Star Wars goodness from the sheet, I used a scrap of it that I had off-cut when making another project to make a scrappy bib. This is a very simple project that you can use up all your lovely scraps on! You can also use this technique to make nearly anything else you can think of!

The process is simple: sew scraps together in a sheet until you get a piece of fabric large enough to cut your pattern pieces out of.

Project Estimate:

• Scraps, on hand
• Small square of Velcro-type tape, on hand
• Sewing machine, thread, etc., on hand

Total: FREE

For the bib, I sewed two Jedi robe-colored fabric scraps together for the back, and a piece of the sheet and a brown scrap for the front.

Iron any seams on the patchwork sheet flat (doesn’t look like I ironed this seam very well!)

Place your pattern piece (in my case, I used a bib we had on hand) on top of the patchwork sheet and cut out. I left a half-inch seam allowance around mine.

Pin pieces right sides together and sew around, leaving a two-inch gap on one of the straight sides for turning.

Turn bib right-side out. Press edges (make sure open gap is folded under neatly like the rest of the edges), and topstitch around edges, sealing the open gap closed.

Add squares of Velcro-type hook and loop tape to top of bib.

You’re done! You’ve made a reversible scrappy bib, and it only took you about 20 minutes!

The post Make a Scrappy Bib: Tutorial appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Project Estimate:

• Stash fabric, scraps, thrifted sheets, etc., on hand
• Sewing machine
• Old dryer sheets or other stabilizer, on hand

Total: FREE

The basic process for making these is sewing scraps to a piece of stabilizer like interfacing, muslin, or light paper. I’ll get into the process of how to make the blocks in a minute, but first let’s talk materials.

Materials:

• Stabilizer
• Fabric scraps

Stabilizer choices: You have two basic genres to choose from for a stabilizer. Either fabric-type stabilizer (muslin, other scrap fabric, or light interfacing), or paper-type stabilizer (tracing paper or plain newsprint from a pad). If you choose the fabric-type stabilizer, you can just sew and go. If you use the paper-type stabilizer, you have to remove the stabilizer after you’re done sewing. I recommend these lighter papers if you are going the paper route, because removing anything heavier than this is ANNOYING! For my quilt, I used good-quality printer paper (that had already been printed on one side and was supposed to be thrown away), and then it took FOREVER to remove it all from my quilt.

There is also such a thing as tear away paper specifically for quilting, and there’s also a kind of paper that dissolves when you wash it in the washing machine. Personally, since I don’t think you should invest a lot of money in a project like this (i.e. a STASHBUSTING project), I’d recommend using whatever you have on hand, with the fabric-type stabilizers being at the top of my list. If you can avoid the paper, I recommend avoiding it.

Another cool thrifty option is to use old used dryer sheets for stabilizer. You just have to do a LOT of laundry. The drawbacks to these are that they are a lot smaller than a piece of paper, so you’ll need even more blocks if you’re making a big project. I used dryer sheets for the coasters shown above; they were a perfect size for that particular project.

Scrap choices: Don’t try to match fabrics up, just use whatever scraps you have. The amazing thing about a crazy quilt is how once it’s all sewn together, it looks like the pink and orange actually go with the turquoise and brown. If you don’t have that many scraps, ask someone who sews if they have any leftovers (your grandma, mom), or just buy some remnants (leftover ends of fabric bolts at a fabric store — usually marked down from 25-75%), or recycle some old clothing.

Other tips:

• Each square will probably take you about 8-15 minutes, so it takes awhile to make a whole quilt. If you do it, put on your favorite TV series on DVD and sew while you watch.
• Even though this quilt takes awhile to complete, it’s actually not that tedious. It’s kind of fun to sew wacky fabric scraps together into something. And the fact that you are sewing without major planning does something for your creativity.
• If you don’t have time or patience for a quilt, four blocks would make a spiffy pillow or tote bag! Or, put three blocks together to make a purse with a flap. You’re creative, you’ll think of something.

Now, on to the instructions:

To make a block:

Step ONE: Prepare your stabilizer. Square it up if it isn’t already. We all know how to make an 8.5×11″ piece of paper into an 8.5×8.5 square, right?

Step 2: Put a piece of fabric face up on the corner, across the diagonal folded line. Make sure the fabric hangs over the edges of the corner.

Step 3: Put another strip of fabric face down on top of the first piece of fabric. If you are using paper as a stabilizer, set your sewing machine stitch to fairly small (this will perforate the paper to make it easier to remove later).

Step 4: Sew the two pieces together along the edge.

Step 5: Open the fabric so both pieces are facing up, and finger-press to flatten them.

Step 6: Repeat this process with other scraps of fabric, until you have covered the whole diagonal of the paper.

Step 7: Put a long strip of fabric face down on the edge of the diagonal section. Sew across.

Step 8: Finger press and repeat this process for both sides, until the whole square is covered with fabric. Make sure there is no part of the paper showing!

Okay, now the square looks funky, right? Not really like a square exactly, anymore. And you may have sewed your rows kind of off center (like I did on this one). It doesn’t matter! This is a crazy quilt block.

Step 9: Iron, iron, iron.

Step 10: Turn over and trim excess fabric.

Step 11: Admire your new cool square! And repeat!

For the Quilt:

To make a quilt, sew these squares into rows. Then sew the rows together. (Try to match up the seams between each square with the seams of the squares next to them)

I chose to sew these together so that the diagonal is alternating like this: /\/\/\, but you can lay it out so it does this: ////// or \\\\\\ or just let it do whatever it wants to do.

If you lay it out alternating, like I did, your quilt will have a cool diamond pattern-y thing going on.

The quilt pictured here isn’t actually big enough for even a twin bed, but I made 56 squares — phew! I’m just going to sew some strips of plain fabric around it until it is big enough to do something with.

To complete the quilt, you will need to cut out batting in the same size, and also a quilt back (you can use an old sheet). You can either do some kind of binding around the edges, or do what I do and cut the quilt back larger than the front and fold it over the edges and sew around it, or you can make a quilt top, quilt bottom (facing the top), batting sandwich and sew around the whole thing leaving a decent-sized hole somewhere so you can turn it inside out and then finish the hole.

To “quilt” you can just use yarn or embroidery thread to make ties (google this for more info), or quilt any other way you know how or want to try.

Let me know if you have any questions!

The post Make Easy Crazy Quilt blocks appeared first on Dollar Store Crafts.

Reader Judy Streger tipped me off about her amazing experimentation with plastic Easter grass to create a substance much like Angelina Fiber. She also had to tip me off about what exactly Angelina Fiber is, but once I found out (an iridescent fusible fiber used for fabric, paper, and other crafting), I was impressed with her findings! You can find Easter grass a-plenty at the Dollar Store this time of year, so go pick some up and start experimenting according to Judy’s findings! Or save the grass from your kiddo’s Easter basket to use after the holiday is over!

She also experimented with fusing punchinella (the background left after sequins are punched out) into beads! I love that idea! She fused the punchinella around a dowel using an iron and two layers of parchment paper.

Project Estimate:

• Easter grass, $1 (or on hand, after Easter!!)
• Parchment paper, on hand
• Iron, on hand

Total cost: FREE and up

Thanks, Judy, for sharing your findings with us!

Here’s a photo of fused Angelina Fiber from Sojournersheep.com (some info on Angelina at this page). [The Sojourner Blog]

For a very good idea of what Angelina Fiber is and how it works (plus lots of gorgeous pictures!) check iHanna’s page.

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