Once again, I am working on the disappearing nine-patch. If it seems like I’ve been working on this forever, that’s because I only sew on these blocks when I go to the quilt shop for the day.
You can see the pattern when the blocks are reassembled really clearly here. And today I reached a milestone:
I sewed the first row of blocks! It should go together a lot faster from now on. Gee! I better start thinking about what the next quilt will be!
After much thinking and delaying and more thinking . . . I finally ordered a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine. And it arrived this weekend! Oh boy!
This is the “before” picture of Sunday’s paper pieces. You can see that I used the butterfly shape and the reverse of the butterfly. I also cut a six petal flower.
What I really wanted the machine for, though, was to cut fabric for applique. Oh my goodness! It works beautifully!!
This leaf is fused and ready to stitch and all those curves are cut absolutely perfect! My head is all abuzz with ideas!
I had to try some shapes right away and made a journal page. This thing could become an addiction! If you don’t hear from me for extended periods, you know what I’ll be doing!!!
This quilt block is called New York Beauty. I always thought it would be too hard, but after taking the paper piecing class last fall, I decided to give it a try. It can really be a pretty block.
So, here are the finished blocks I showed in a Wednesday WOW post. Nice, huh? Wanna see what I did with them?
I made a shirt-tail on this green top! This shirt has been an old favorite of mine, except that it had a gathered band at the bottom. When you are getting older and becoming short and round, the last thing you want is a gathered band focusing on your hipline!!!!
Well, the focus is still at the hipline, but hopefully it will be on these bee-yoo-ti-ful blocks and not on my – ahem – generous anatomy!
Happy Easter to everyone! Today was a beautiful day, but I dutifully headed to the basement and turned to the next fabric embellishing technique.
This week involves paper, and ways to attach it to fabric. Here we go.
First I attached paper by stitching on the sewing machine. That’s pretty straight forward. The paper is a combination of mulberry paper and patterned/glittered card stock.
Next was hand stitching. I used two strands of embroidery cotton floss and did a straight stitch and french knot pattern. Easy!
Then I stitched the paper (mulberry again) down using buttons and sew-on butterflies. Sorry for the blurry shot. Those butterflies apparently were too bright for the camera!
Then I tried grommets and laced ribbon through the holes. I like the way this came out. Very neat but with a little flair.
Last (but not certainly not the least!) I used staples. Hmmm. They don’t really show in this picture, do they? I stapled a bunch of threads at each corner and then tied a knot in each bundle and trimming them short. Maybe if the thread bundle was smaller the staples would show. Wouldn’t it be neat to use those colored staples and a contrasting thread?
Here is the page with all five techniques. That was fun and I feel like I really accomplished something. You might recognize the background piece from when I experimented with stamping on fabric here. I think I will use a solid color when I bind this page. It needs something to hold all that busy together!
I wonder how many other techniques I can find for attaching paper to fabric.
I managed to get both appliqué pieces done to the stage of layering with back and batting. They will need quilting, of course, but they are small so I don’t need to clear space at the sewing machine!
This is the one I did Thursday. It is the first in a series that the local quilt shop is doing as a Block of the Month. Of course I had to sign up when I saw that Iris was the first block. And a lovely purple, too!
I managed to cut one of the stem pieces backwards somehow, so did some improvising. I seem to always make at least one mistake so that my version of a kit looks slightly different from everyone else’s!
This is the one I did today. It’s a McKenna Ryan pattern and I’ve been itching to do it for quite awhile. I do like all her designs, but so far this is the only one I’ve actually done. I plan to make this one a wall hanging for my kitchen. Maybe I’ll hang it over the new coffee maker!
Here are the two hanging side by side. You can see they are not very large (note the cabinet handle in lower left). At this stage, I could decide to put them together with other blocks in the series and make a larger quilt/wall-hanging. I may do that with the flowers. Something to think over, anyway.
April showers have arrived and it makes for a perfect day to spend in the sewing room!
I have a couple of appliqué projects started and spent the day fusing fabric and cutting pieces. Yes, the whole day! If tomorrow goes as planned I should be able to get at least one of them done. At least the appliqué part. It may take longer to quilt and bind, but they are small-ish pieces, so who knows?
So, there I was, all set to work on the Sunday Serendipity project . . . and Sarge had other ideas. After a “discussion” about priorities, I ended working on an entirely different type of project! You know. The type that involves actual work!
So, I will try again next Sunday. Just so you don’t go away empty-handed, here is what I’ve been working on lately:
