Quilt Swap - It's Coming Together

Off to a good start

This is Sunny from my little quilt called "Sun's Flowers".

Sunny is coming along pretty good. 

His window box still needs flowers 

and he still needs his face and arms completed.

The detail work that needs to be done 

with fabric markers will be done last. 

I had a little set back this week when I messed up 

my hip just bending over to measure a rug last Sunday.

Getting better and should be able to sew by next week.

It's given me time to think about Sunny's flowers.

I've gone threw several ideas and made flowers with

free-motion on wash-a-way stabilizer, and then looked

at folded fabric flowers, but in the end I think they 

need to be big cartoon pieced flowers to fit into 

Sunny's world. So now I need to draw up some flowers

and get to cutting and sewing. I want these flowers to

be slightly 3-D and not flat on the wall hanging. So I'm 

going to try Timtex interfacing. I've gotten some good 

tips from the ladies in the ACEO group on Quilt With Us.

I'll let you know how it works. I've been looking for a good

stiff stabilizer and hope that this is it.

100 Year Old Southern Lady Finds A New Home

Today was a really fun day. My friend Paula went by our favorite sewing machine shop to get one of her featherweights worked on and while there saw a beautiful Singer treadle machine.

It is in excellent condition and she just fell in love. Her dear husband got this for her, for an early birthday present So today we drove out and picked it up. I'm not used to driving a pick up truck, or well any truck for that matter but I hopped up in it and off I went. I drove out and picked up Paula and her DH and we were off for late breakfast. You have to have nourishment for a task as exciting as this.  So we had a good brunch at the Blue Goose. Then off to pick up her new machine.

Paula is watching as her sweet new friend 

is being rolled out to the truck.

Paula named her new machine, Annabelle Greene,

after her grandmother.

Annabelle is very heavy. But isn't she pretty.

Here the owner is showing Paula and 

her hubby how to replace

the belt on the machine.

And here she is. Beautiful. 

Her stitches are so perfect. And she still 

has all the attachments.

Paula loves old machines and really uses them.

I have 2 old children's machines but they are 

just for looks in my sewing room.

I fear I'm in love with the computerized 

buttons and touch screen on my Pfaff.

Making Pillows

Decorative Pillows

The cool texture in the center of the square pillow is prairie points.

These are done a little different from what I'd done in the past. 

They are all on one section of fabric not cut out separately.

So I didn't have to space them out and pin in place.

I've made several pillows before, but they were not for looks and pretty much just 2 sections of fabric sewed together over a pillow form. I don't use decorator style pillows around my house. All the ones on our couch are used to napping and the dogs lay on them so there is no need for fancy. I make them coordinate with the room and that's pretty much it. 

Recently I got a book of Rami Kim's, Folded Fabric Elegance and was really wanting to try some of the very cool techniques in her book. So now making a pretty pillow was tempting.  One thing I must mention is the techniques in Kim's book look complicated when finished, but are not that hard. Her directions are excellent and I had no problems. I'm not one for following patterns and just made up the pillow designs which are super simple. With the techniques in the centers simple is good. I know I've mentioned this book before and have used another of Kim's techniques in some of my ATC's. I love the dimension it gives fabric. Comes right up there with the Baby Lock Embellisher for wonderful texture. Now I want to combine the 2, wouldn't that be nice.

Rainy Days Are Good For Sewing

Today was a good day for sewing. It has rained all day, it's been doing a lot of that lately. We took the babies (our Yorkies) in for their summer cuts this morning and they look so cute. After we got back from a few errands I finished one project I was working on and started another and even got it finished. I got the Rami Kim book Folded Fabric Elegance at the quilt show in April and have been looking over it a good bit and finally got around to trying several of the techniques in there. For them to look so complicated they were very easy. Her directions are great and it made for quick learning. I'm a huge fan of her work. I first saw her on Simply Quilts a good while back and was very impressed. I really miss Simply Quilts. I used to watch it every morning. I wish I'd recorded them. 

One of the techniques I did from Kim's book was machine smocking. You have to be a lot more exact than I normally am with Kim's techniques but the finished look is well worth the measuring and marking. I'm practicing these techniques on small projects and would love to make a quilt using some of her styles as the blocks. I've been playing around with upholstery fabrics in some of my wall hangings and the fabric folding works just as well with thin upholstery as with cottons. I did some experimenting on an ATC.

I have bought fabric to make my new kitchen curtains, which is just going to be a topper and I'm thinking some folding will end up on my windows. 

Quilt Swap

As you will see in my side bar I've joined a quilt swap, called Spring Blooms Mini-Quilt Swap. This will be my first swap and I'm really looking forward to it. I've just received the name of the person who will get my mini quilt when I'm done. It's kind of like Secret Santa. Today I drew up the design for this quilt and it's so cute. The name of the quilt is "Sun's Flowers". It's a fun quilt showing Mr. Sun watering his prize flowers in his window box. This quilt will be 14" x 16" and made mostly of cottons. There will be some fabric painting and tons of free motion quilting. 

Ever since I went to the AQS Show in Kentucky this year I've been thinking small. The mini's I saw up there were amazing and greatly influenced me. Soon after I joined an ATC group and have fallen in love with these tiny quilts. 

We are remodeling our kitchen so I only have time for small projects. Just thinking about taking every single thing out of my kitchen and laundry room is overwhelming and in our small house finding a place for it to rest till the remodel is over is a quest. But as long as I have a path to my sewing machine I'll be fine.

My New Love of ATC

I've become quite fond of these little treasures. I knew

I was hooked today when I was making a new curtain for 

the living room and saved the fuzzy selvage for an ATC.

If you have a need for instant gratification then this is for you.

I pretty much am a non-planner and let my design flow as I go.

I got a book about fabric folding and used this one to test one

of the techniques. I'd used plain old white on white and

then used dye from the bottle and just dropped it on 

this card and let it spread. It was a surprise when I 

could still see the little flowers. Since I'm new to dyeing fabric

I'm not always sure what will happen, it's wonderful. 

This one also used folded (pleats) fabric and 

the black part in the middle is rolled.

I just love these tiny little quilts. 

I'm in between bigger quilts now

and wanted to make a few of these today 

to recover from the dull curtain sewing.

I'll be starting the quilting on a lap quilt I'd put together about 5 months ago. I just have to add a border on the backing then quilt away. That's the fun part for me the quilting.