Fabric Gift Bags

Finally, a little stitching for Christmas! This year I made fabric gift bags to hold our presents to our grandchildren. Sewing with Dr. Seuss, the Minions, Sesame Street and animal blocks fabric was a fun change for me. The bags are lined to make them a little more durable and are a little on the large side to make it easier to carry all their things home. A Grandma can hope, right?

 

More stitching, baking, and decorating to come!

Until next time, Mayleen

Is it really December?

 My Christmas Cactus is blooming, probably its most impressive set of blooms since I received it from my mother several years ago! It was her plant so I don't know how old it is.

I'm doing a little Christmas baking. This recipe, Oma's Soft Cream Cookies, can be found at the blog: Mennonite Girls Can Cook. The recipe is similar to the one my grandmother made when I was growing up. These are nearly all gone as I took some to share at my guild's Christmas meeting yesterday.

I'm finding it hard to believe Christmas is just a few weeks away. Our high temperatures have been in the upper 60's lately. Very enjoyable for me (and the cats) but very unlike weather one would expect in December! Not complaining though, the cold temperatures are sure to come soon.

Another reason its so difficult to think of Christmas is our home reno projects. During Thanksgiving week, we stripped wallpaper, primed and painted and now we're having most of the windows in our house replaced. This required a little preparation and I was faced with clearing a path from the door of my sewing room to the window!

Maybe I will put up a few decorations after this week and bake some peppernuts too. And maybe I will even get to work on a quilting project again! Guess which room had its window replaced, curtains washed and put back to "normal" first? Priorities.

Until next time, Mayleen

You could even say, "It glows!"

Looks like I've been missing since before I went to Houston! Whoops.

When I got back I decided to finish one of my class projects, Mediterranean Hexagons taught by Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy, so it wouldn't become another UFO. I have no idea why it took 3 weeks to finish the top but it did.  

I like these fabrics because of their saturated color and, of course, I like most reds and pinks! However, this much of them in one quilt is a little out of my comfort zone. If the top is a little out of my comfort zone, the backing - Brandon's Brocade - is way, way out of it! Showing the top to you now because I don't know when it will be quilted.

Its been difficult to motivate myself to work on my traditional projects again but after I finish a minky quilt (why does this scare me?), its back to my Love Entwined quilt.

Until next time, Mayleen

Toot, toot

Slow applique, very slow applique. This past week, I finished appliqueing the zigzags on both top and bottom borders. Then I started on the little pot of flowers on the upper border. It was fun to see how narrow I could make the stems.

Those little yellow flowers just about did me in - 55 little petals. The lower yellow flowers have been appliqued down (except for half of the centers) but all the other flowers and leaves are only glue basted. I see now why most other LE makers decided to do Broderie Perse!

Here's a shot of progress so far.

 Friends have told me I need to toot my own horn a little more so here it is: Toot, toot!

My quilt, "Selvage Star of Bethlehem", will be hanging in the "In the American Tradition" exhibit at Houston next week! It will also travel to other Quilt Festival shows this year.

I plan to be at IQF in Houston next week so if you're there and you see a gray haired, 55+ year old quilter wearing jeans and a T-shirt, be sure to say hello! Ha.

Until next time, Mayleen

LE - Stitching Part 8

This past week, I finished appliqueing the "pixies" or triangles with feet (whatever you want to call them) and have made and glue basted the zigzag appliques on the upper and lower borders. A few hours of stitching is ahead of me before I start the applique motifs which appear in the middle of the borders.

The thought has occurred to me there are more applique pieces in the borders than in the vases!

I'm also trying out border fabrics. I'm not convinced it will be gold but that's the best choice so far. When I finish the part 8 & 9 borders, I believe a trip to the fabric stores will be necessary!

Stitching,

Mayleen

The Bleed is Gone!

After a long soak, the fabric bleed is gone! This is what the Love Entwined center looks like now.

This is before the soak. If you look around the red petals of the six petal flowers, you can see some pink tinges. In real life, it was very noticeable. I used the soaking method using Dawn dish detergent recommended by Vicki Welsh. Go here for more information:

 http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field_trips_in_fiber/2014/01/bleeding-quilts-please-read-this.html

The LE center is only about 32 inches square so I soaked it in a storage tub in a mixture of warm water and blue Dawn. I weighed the center down with clean food storage lids and plates. I did not add a Color Catcher because all that would have done is shown me how much dye was in the water. 

While the LE center was soaking and drying, I was preparing to start work on part #8, the first upper and lower appliqued borders. I'm waiting to make a decision about the color of the fabric border between the center and the applique border. As you can see in the photo below, I plan to miter the part 8 & 9 borders and not make part 10 as a cornerstone.

What happened next is one reason I don't like to work ahead. I prepped all 144 triangles for both parts 8 & 9 only to discover I'd made them too large. At least it was too large and not too small! So now I'm remaking the triangles one border at a time. The first border's triangles are stitched down and I've started working on the lower border's triangles. 

It doesn't look like much progress this week but I know I've been working on it every day! After 2+ weeks, my cold is finally getting better and I'm feeling like I have some energy.

Some time during those weeks, a special package arrived from Australia. I've always admired Jen Kingwell's pattern "The Circle Game" and I won it in a giveaway on Carole's blog! Thank you, Carole! 

Until next week, Mayleen

Love Entwined Center

My goal was to complete the center of Love Entwined (LE) by September 30th and I've done it!

You might notice a few changes from my last post. I decided to use the red gingham "fried eggs" and replaced the multi-color triangles around the Mariner's Compass with scrappy blue triangles.

There are a few things I would still like to do - that crooked embroidered fern in the lower right hand vase is bothering me so I'll probably redo it and I'd also like to embroider around the edges of the calla lilies in the upper left hand vase. 

However, those things will all wait until after I soak the top to remove the fabric bleeds. I plan to do that tomorrow and will blog how successful it was next week. For now I'm just enjoying looking at the LE center!

Meanwhile, I've cut out 144 triangles to use in the next border and have started prepping them. Here they are, four in each color. That should be enough plus a few more. I use the starch method to applique so I cut, prep, then glue baste and applique onto the background.

The Love Entwined borders are all intense applique. Lots of pieces which is something that seems to attract me!

Until next time, Mayleen