A look at the projects I have been working on.
Wishing all my readers a wonderful Christmas day!
Praying for peace in our world this year. Praying for you to experience kindness with every interaction you encounter. Praying for those who are alone to find happiness and joy. Praying for comfort for those who have lost loved ones and are feeling lonely. Praying for warmth in your hearts and home.
I’m working towards finishing another Autumn Jubilee project that I started in October. (If you are new here, the directions for this project came from the blog From My Carolina Home. ) The Cornucopia project was meant to be down as a wool project, but as I previously explained , I went with cotton. (If you haven’t read that post, go take a look).
I decided that my Cornucopia needed some quilting, so that was done, just casually outlining the cornucopia to the edge of the fabric. Nothing fancy. I decided the piece was due for some trimming and I squared it up to 18.5×18.5. I dug out more matching fabric and cut a piece about 19″ wide. I cut two pieces out of that about 12″ x 19″ each and hemmed one edge. I overlapped those two pieces for an “envelope style backing” for a throw pillow. I made sure to double tack where the two edges overlap, and trimmed and turned it right side out and gave it a good pressing.
Of course, it’s bigger than most of my other sofa pillows, so a quick order on Amazon and I have 18″ pillow inserts arriving today.
UPDATE — Pillow inserts arrived…..looks happier stuffed!!
Other projects — I mentioned previously I needed to make a label for my “2 Season Quilt”, and I had that stitching on my embroidery machine while I was quilting the cornucopia. I used medium weight cutaway stabilizer in my hoop, tack down a piece of batting, and then float the label fabric, tacking it down with a basting stitch. I find having that piece of batting really gives some “teeth” to the embroidery.
When I design my labels, I use the free version of Embrilliance software. This label has 1/2 inch lettering and was done in my 8×8 hooped. I resized wording slightly smaller on the embroidery machine screen, then pulled in 2 different 4 x 4 hoop designs. I had to resize the designs slightly smaller to make everything fit in the 8×8 field. Those adjustments were done on the screen on the embroidery machine.
Once I trim all the jump threads on the label, I take a piece of lightweight fusible Pellon 911F, and with the glue side facing the pretty side of the label stitch around the edge, then slit the Pellon and turn the label out. Before turning the label I trim the seam to 1/4″, and go a bit closer with the stabilizer and batting that are in the back of the label. That keeps it less bulky in the seams. I also trim the corners.
I did trim with a rotary cutter and ruler in the 6th photo, but before turning, I took out my small scissors and trimmed away all the batting and stabilizer excess in the seam allowance, taking care to not trim the the label and pellon. I run my finger around the seam on the inside, poking the corners out and kind of rolling the edge of the seam in my fingers. Then off to the ironing board to affix it to the back of the quilt.
I put a pressing cloth over the label and really press for a good bit of time. Because there are 3 layers above the pellon (label, stabilizer & batting), it takes a bit of time for the heat to affix the label. Once it is fairly secure, I am ready to stitch it by hand to the quilt. The whole point of the pellon is to have a nice edge, without having to fold under etc. In the spots where it is peaking out along the edge, I will nudge it under with my needle when hand sewing the label down. The glue dots hold it fairly snug to the back of the quilt, so removal of the label would not be very easy.
I just love my Janome 11000 embroidery machine. I know I’ve said that before. I bought it used about 4 years ago, and have learned so much about formatting layouts on the machine screen, and it is just a workhorse. If you are ever in the “used market” and find this model, you won’t regret buying it.
Other projects I worked on recently were BOWL COZIES. My sister Cathi was visiting this summer and used the one I have and asked me for some. Funny story – in October I made her two bowl cozies, and I also made her two plate cozies…..and mailed them to her. A plate cozy is made in a similar fashion, just a bigger square of fabric/batting and less of a dart. I found a You Tube video with directions if you want to give it a try..
When I got home from my trip in November, she mentioned the package never arrived…sure enough, it was delivered…to her OLD address. I hope those people who live there now are enjoying her birthday gift! I was rushing to get it shipped, while my brain was already on my cruise. I pulled the wrong address off my phone when I typed the shipping label. SIGH! (It’s only been a year since she moved!!)
Anyway, I got busy and made more, but this time, I made 4 bowl cozies. Of course, because I was using fat quarters for the first sets, I didn’t have any more of the same fabric. This batch came from yardage, but I’m not certain how much of it was left. Someday I might make her some of those plate cozies too, but not this week!
When I made the these 4, I cut the fabric a bit larger than most patterns call for. I think I used 11.5″ squares making this set of 4. I did a little tack stitch in the center to keep them from pulling apart in the center. The quilting was done “before the pieces were sewn together and I noticed with mine that it likes to pull apart when washing. The tack stitch solved that. On the previous set I did a bit more elaborate quilting. But, when you are in a rush, necessity is the mother of invention. I managed to get all four of these made, assembly line style, rather than one at a time. So, if making cozies for gifts, that’s my pro tip. Also, I included a note, reminding her to use them like pot holders to hold the bowl and to NOT cook the cozy in the microwave. Even though I used all cotton everything…I don’t want to be responsible for a house fire!
The package arrived and the bowl fit! My sister sent me this photo with one of her bowls in it. I’m glad I upsized from the typical 10″ square. Who knew they made square bowls?
What are you working on in your sewing room? Are you distracted by holiday cooking and Christmas decorating this weekend?
Are you deep into the latest Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt? I am following along, watching and saving the clues. I can’t do it because I have TOO many UFO’s, on hangers, waiting for borders and quilting. And way to many other projects in baskets and boxes and bins to start something else new.
Watch for my next installment of “finishing up Autumn Jubilee“, and maybe finishing up binding on another project or two. (My 2nd cutting table is absolutely buried in stuff and the only way to make headway cleaning it up is to grab the stuff I can finish quickly and get them out of the way!)
I know most of the people who follow my page are here for the quilting, but I am still working through the photos from my Canada and Colonial America Cruise, and the next travel post is coming soon, with highlights from Sydney and Halifax on Nova Scotia.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
If you have been following along, you know I left on a trip halfway thru October, and left my Autumn Jubilee 2022 quilt project partially made. Pattern details came out on Fridays on the blog From My Carolina Home so I couldn’t finish before I left.
Coming home from travels in early November, I was inspired by the fall colors along the way. Time to get my Autumn Jubilee projects finished.
The quilt along is the largest project, and I wanted to finish it first. When I stopped in October I had 8 blocks made and up on the design wall.
My method when I put the blocks together is to layout the pieces I want to use on my design board . I made my own design board by cutting a piece of foam core board, used some spray adhesive and covered in batting, and pretty tape around the edges. The blue tape was from another project, but it helped guide me for this size block. I keep the pattern info close so I don’t goof up the placement of the 16 pieces going in the block. I had baskets of pieces cut and ready to sew.
At first, I thought I would make the blocks into a table runner, but then, I set them 3 by 5 and it was just too wide for a table. It was plenty long, but I didn’t want to “unstitch” a whole row. I decided to “make 4 more blocks”, and ended up with this.
Then on to borders.
I deviated from the pattern at this point, because I didn’t want to cut up more yardage for the pieced border. Instead, I got out my “shoeboxes” of strings, and started making a string border or a “piano key” border. My method mimics Bonnie Hunter’s String Piecing on phone book paper. I decided how wide I wanted the border, and ripped out some phone book pages and trimmed them to that width with my paper cutter. I did a little math (gasp), measuring the diameter of the quilt and divided the length of the pages into it. That way, I knew I cut enough pages. My little local book phone book pages were about 9″ long. (Yes, we still get phone books here in Delaware, and I save them all on top of my sewing room cabinet).
When I make these blocks I do a lot of chain piecing, so when I go to the iron, I might have 6 or 8 blocks to press at once. Yes, the fabric hangs off the edge a bit, and I trim once all the blocks are made. Once trimmed, I take the paper off the back using my “purple thang” and a pair of tweezers. The paper comes off easily because you shorten the stitch length.
I sort them out into a pleasing arrangement, joining the ends and before you know it….I have enough to go completely around the quilt. I cut them to length, and attach to the quilt.
Because of the size, I either have to trim off a couple of inches or piece a backing. Giving it a little thought, I decided to dig in my bins and see what I could come up with. I came across some border print fabric that had been cut into 36″ widths. I did a little piecing and came up with a backing fabric that would turn this Autumn Jubilee quilt into a 2 season quilt.
I spent a couple of afternoons working on the quilting, using my walking foot. I used Superior Bottom line #653, tan, on top and a Superior bottom line # 622, silver on the back. The quilting shows better on the back of the quilt. It is simple but effective.
I selected fabric for the binding and made the 2 piece “binding with a flange” also known as Susie’s Magic Binding. It goes on by machine on the back, gets rolled to the front and “stitched in the ditch” of the flange by machine. I like the effect it gives the finished quilt.
Last job is to make a label for the quilt. I am happy with the colors and the fun of making this two season quilt. The thing I love most about this quilt is the Autumn colors and the scrappy feel of it. If you know me, you know that I never met a scrap I didn’t love, and I love being able to put them into a quilt that feels cohesive. Sewing is for my own joy with colors and patterns I love. If a loved one looks at the project and express an interest, I am happy to give it away. I did that a couple of years ago with a bag I made during Autumn Jubilee. A dear friend was enamored over the bag, so I gifted it to her. We can’t keep everything, but I do want to make certain that the gift is always welcomed. We all have such different tastes, don’t we?
Time to go on to finishing another project. What is happening in your sewing space?
Friday was “Week 2” of the Autumn Jubilee Quilt Along. Check the link for the pattern and block settings. Below is MY update. But first – I had pressing stitching to do!
I started on Friday morning with some fun sewing with my 6 year old granddaughter. When she arrived, she announced that she would like to “go sew”. Well, what grandma can say no to that, so off we went to my sewing room over the garage. When asked, she explained she wanted to make scarves for two of her dogs. You see, the last time she spent the night, we made a scarf for her newest dog, Tilly. So, scarves for 2 large male labs was on the agenda.
Not remembering sizes to cut, I looked to You Tube, and chose this video from Lorrie Nunemaker – https://youtu.be/rN63jQHP9DE . My granddaughter was diligent in watching from start to finish, where I was just there for some basics; sizes mostly. I brought out my tote of kid friendly fabric, and she chose 2 pieces. When asked, she explained that her dog Rudder, a very senior black Labrador, liked pink, and would be “happy to match the nightgown that grandma already made for me”. When asked, she said yes to putting the dog’s name on the scarf, like the lady in the video. So, after she ironed the fabric, with great emphasis on spraying it with water and getting out any wrinkles, I did the measuring and cutting. She helped me “find” the right numbers on the cutting mat. It was a tough explanation when I said the next press didn’t need quite so much water sprayed on the fabric. 😉 Watching the video with Lorrie, she observed that the pet names were put on the scarves, so of course, we did that as well. She sounded out the name and figured out what letters we needed, and keyed them in on the embroidery machine screen.
She iron, pinned, and stitched the triangular scarf for the dog. She understood the instructions to turn it right side out, pinned the gap and pressed, then top stitched to close the gap. She even helped me “squeeze the handle” on the kam snap setting tool. Of course, she selected the appropriate colors of snaps!! Before you know it, we were on to scarf # 2, with a short lunch break.
On this one, she explained that Rufus liked to play games and Red was his favorite color. Well, of course it was! Oh did she make me smile, and who’s to argue with a 6 year old about what her dogs do and don’t like! She remembered why we did each of the steps and asked after she turned and pressed the black scarf if she could sew it herself by hand. So, out came the needle & thread, and a demonstration about threading a needle with a needle threader and she closed it right up. We did top stitch around all 3 sides as well. Red snaps for this one and we were done in no time at all.
All that fun with a 6 year old, left me busy until nearly 3 pm, when I was able to get back on my own to the sewing room and start putting my blocks together for the #AutumnJubilee2022 quilt along.
I printed out the PDF that Carole provided in the blog post, and gathered my basket of pieces we worked on during week 1.
First block I kept out on the table so I could use it as a template –
Before dinner time, I had 8 blocks constructed and played around with a layout on the design wall.
Carole had a lot of layout suggestions on her blog post, and I love the one where you form a star and have a secondary pattern too.
Saturday I went to a local quilt show, and had more grandma duty, so I really only had time to work on 2 more blocks. There is “always tomorrow” to sew the remaining blocks. I do want to get them sewn and ready to assemble in the next 2 days. I have some travel plans beginning on Wednesday and will be gone for 2 weeks. You might get “one more Autumn Jubilee” post before I fly off for my next adventure.
My wrap up question to you is – Do you sew with children? How young and what types of things do you like to do with them?
I just love when I can take some time and work with my Janome 11000 embroidery machine. Early this week, I went to my monthly Embroidery Club. Our leader, Anna, is a whiz with all things embroidery. This month, she spent about an hour showing us her tips and techniques for successful embroidery on T-Shirts and other garments. She gave us a good lesson in marking our item to ensure we get the embroidery exactly where we want it to be.
Using a water erasable marking pen, and your grid that comes with your hoop is beneficial to getting centered. NOTE – keep the iron away until after you remove your marks!
Another trick she showed us was using a “hooping guide”. This hooping guide was made of foam core board and had pins in it. It was made specifically for her hoops, and really helped you line things up when the items were marked.
You set your outer hoop over the lines, place your item on the board, and push the tacks thru your markings to hold in place, then put your top hoop on. Really, a genius design. I think I will make a set of those boards!!
Another tip she gave us was to use spray basting to put our stabilizer (no show mesh) on the back of the shirt, and that kept it from shifting around while we worked to hoop the t-shirt. I used 505 spray and that worked for me. It’s a temporary adhesive, so you can trim away the excess after the stitching is done, and it doesn’t show through your shirt as a big rectangle. I’ve ironed on the fusible no show mesh stabilizer, then had to peel it off when the area covered was so much bigger that the area of stitching. Lastly, she reminded us to use a Ball Point needle (75/11) when doing t-shirts.
My first shirt turned out pretty well, but I realized too late, the crew neckline of the shirt is a bit “wonky”. So, I was a bit disappointed in the result, but feel like after I washed the shirt and actually wore it, no one but me would see what was so obvious while it was lying flat on the table.
So, do check the quality of the shirts you plan to work with. I have a dozen HANES t-shirts available to embroider (in the cabinet for 2 + years), so I wasn’t worried about ruining anything. One thing I observed is that the no show fusible mesh has a tendency to shrink a little and that is disappointing. An iron is helpful with these heavy t-s as they do wrinkle up in my washer quite a bit. I suppose after the are washed a few times, they will soften and look a bit better coming straight out of the clothes dryer.
After the club lesson, I decided the next day to do another one at home. Reinforce what I learned etc. Hooping t-shirts is a struggle to get things lined up, and I avoid doing them. I feel like I learned a few things with the demonstrations and having handy guides for measuring, and for hooping really help.
I like to color match my bobbin to my top thread, so I stitched all the blue elements first before switching to a red bobbin and red top thread.
I won’t refer to where this design came from because I have an annoyance with the digitizing of the shadow surrounding the words. If I was to stitch this out again, I would leave that off, because it just stitched poorly.
I do pre wash the tee shirts before stitching on them. They are 100% cotton and I don’t want them to shrink after the embroidery goes on. I do the same thing to dish towels or any other cotton garment. So say, it makes it look “used” if you are gifting. I think that washing them AFTER the embroidery is finished is helpful too, because you handle the heck out of the thing. If you gift it, you can tell the recipient that it is “freshly laundered and ready to wear”. Your iron is essential before stitching and after washing.
This week, one of the Autumn Jubilee projects was involving machine embroidery. Instructions can be found on Carole’s blog – https://frommycarolinahome.com/2022/10/12/autumn-jubilee-embroidery-sew-along-2/ . In her blog post, I am the “Mary” she is referring to. We often talk back and forth about tips and techniques we learn doing machine embroidery.
Here is my set up and I will explain as I go. I chose this design from Julia’s Needle Designs for my project.
I chose the 5×7 design you see above and loaded it in my machine. Because the size was larger than the final block, I used the options in my machine to slightly resize it, reducing it to 80% of the original size.
I created my wording for the block using fonts I have and setting it up in Embrilliance software on my computer. Once I had it saved, I imported it into my machine with the above design. I could see both designs on my screen and maneuver the placement until I was satisfied. Once all the “tech stuff” was done (very easily I might add), I got my fabric and hoop ready.
I hooped cutaway stabilizer in my 8×8 hoop. I cut a piece of Warm & Natural batting to the shape of the hoop, and used a tack down stitch to hold it in place.
I put pins around my hoop where the stabilizer is sandwiched in. This keeps your stabilizer from being pulled down into the hoop and really helps when you have a very dense design. I do NOT hoop my fabric. Instead, I place it where I want it to lay on top of the hoop. (The only thing hooped is the stabilizer).
Once it is positioned where I want it, I run another tack down stitch. You could use a shot of 505 spray, but with my machine and the tack down, it is unnecessary.
I also tack down my water soluble stabilizer on the top of the fabric. This keeps me from having edges get caught under the foot and making a big mess, and keeps me from putting pins inside my hoop to hold things. That just saves a headache.
One final thing I do before starting the stitching is to slip a piece of tear away UNDER my hoop. It will tack down with the first few stitches and won’t slide around. So, this set up has 1)water soluble stabilizer, 2)fabric 3)batting (all floating and tacked stitched), 4)hooped cutaway and 5) tear away floating under the hoop. This would work for a design with 30,000 stitches, but you can see looking at my screen, we only need to worry with 10,797 stitches.
The pumpkin border stitched out nicely,
and so did the wording.
All that may sound like overkill, but it does give a nice result. For now, I think I will leave it “in the hoop” and wait to see what the next step will be. I still have the opportunity to add more stitching if I decide, as long as I leave it in the hoop. That makes aligning easy! My machine will save the design for me to “edit” and add another element if I chose. Once you un-hoop, it is not so easy! I’ll wait on the trimming to see what happens next. Don’t you just love a bit of a mystery?
I hope you found my techniques and tips helpful if you are new to machine embroidery or if you are struggling with getting a good quality project done. Do let me know what your tips are for working with your embroidery machine.
Friday when you read this will be the next part of the quilt along! My bin is at the ready for me to sew and I can’t wait to see what we will do with those pieces we made last week and all the cutting we did.
I’m trying to fit all these projects in before I leave on a trip next week, and stay caught up. I’ll miss the rest of the month, but have enjoyed #AutumnJubilee2022 so far. Are you stitching along, or enjoying some of the books and recipes?
Last week, I shared with you my 1st project for #AutumnJubilee2022 . This week, the next step in the Autumn Jubilee Wool Stitch Along, was to “embellish your wool Cornucopia”. Go take a look at Carole’s post when you finish here, and see how fantastic her project is coming along. As you may remember, I deviated from the Wool & all that hand stitching. When I read today’s post, I got inspired to get busy, and do the machine applique stitching on my fusible applique pieces.
Before I could start the machine applique stitching, I needed to do a couple of things. I layered up my project with a piece of Warm and Natural Quilt batting and a piece of Pellon 806, stitch and tear stabilizer, behind my background fabric and batting. I will confess to using some 505 spray to keep everything in position until I could get a few safety pins in place. You may ask why do all that before applique stitching, and the answer is, I like the stitches to have something to “bite into”. I could use just batting, but putting the stabilizer behind the batting keeps me from getting all that batting fluff in my machine. Of course, some will get in there with each puncture of the needle, but my feed dogs will be clean.
I pulled out threads that I thought might work well, and started with an Aurifil tan, a 50 wt cotton for around the cornucopia and other light colored items.
I also used some Coats & Clark variegated thread, which is also a 50 weight quilting cotton. This was used around many of the leaves and pumpkin.
As I stitched, I decided that I needed a dark red and a green, and pulled those from my wall of embroidery threads. Using a blanket stitch, (#42 on my Janome 8900) I was soon finished. (I did take a short break this afternoon for an eye appointment, and was SO happy that they didn’t dilate my eyes, and I could get back to stitching!)
After reading Carole’s post today about embellishing her Cornucopia, and her suggestion to maybe do a little embroidery, I decided that I would do just that.
Early this month, I downloaded a cute embroidery design from Sew Sweetly, and thought it would work nicely on this project. If you are looking for cute Fall designs, the ones sold by Sew Sweetly stitch out very well. You might remember I used some of Sew Sweetly designs in a 2020 project during Autumn Jubilee 2020.
I decided to add the embroidery design on an angle on the left corner of the project, using the same thread colors that I had previously stitched with in the machine applique. The exception is the gold for the leaf. I couldn’t use the Coats & Clark in my embroidery machine, so I pulled a deep gold for one part of the embroidery. Note, I started with a 5×7 design, and resized it by reducing it to 80 % and rotating it in the machine. In the photo below, you can see the basting stitch that my machine does (black thread); which really helps me with the placement.
I think the final stitching looks pretty darn good. Note – the machine embroidery was done on my Janome 11000. This time I used the 6×8 magnetic hoop, and just hooped a piece of tear away stabilizer. I did a basting stitch in my hoop to hold the project in place, showing me the “field” that it would stitch in. Once the stitching was finished that stabilizer that was hooped easily tore away. There is still a piece on the entire back of the project that will be carefully removed once the project is closer to finished.
So here is how it looks at the end of Monday – and oh, dinner was late because I was just having such fun!
I’ve pretty well decided it will be a wall hanging. I think I might want to do a bit of embellishing stitching on the leaves, acorns, and pumpkin so that Pellon will stay on the back until I know I am ready to quilt. I’m kind of waiting for the “next” from Carole at From My Carolina Home, just in case she has another brilliant idea. When I cut the background piece, I cut it at 18×21, so I do have some room to play a little bit more. It’s a nice size for a small wall hanging.
Are you stitching along with #AutumnJubilee2022? ? ? Go take a look at Carole’s blog and keep your eye on her wide variety of projects! She will be covering everything from quilting, cooking, sewing, stamping gardening along with the wool applique, and there are lots of giveaways. When you follow, tell her I sent you!
Happy Stitching!
Friday last week the #AutumnJubilee2022 quilt along started. The quilt along is run on Carole Carter’s blog From My Carolina Home. If you would like to participate in this quilt along, the “first step” is to hop over to her blog, and check out the instructions – https://frommycarolinahome.com/2022/10/07/autumn-jubilee-quilt-along-begins/ . It’s helpful to subscribe and follow Carole’s blog if you don’t want to miss anything. I don’t post sizes or amounts of what I am cutting, as the pattern belongs to Carole. Go check it out after you see what I am up to.
The first thing I did on Friday is pull my bin of Autumn Jubilee fabrics.
I’ve obviously been following along with Carole & Autumn Jubilee for a few years! Time to update the label. I keep all the fun fall fabrics I acquire in this bin, adding to it when I find a fat quarter that meets the criteria. I used to take the bin to all of my quilt bees and work on projects like table runners and placemats all year long. I have made at least 3 table runners and 18 placemats, and a fall quilt out of that container.
Here is what was hiding inside to work with for this year’s quilt along.
Inside the container, are also some small baskets, with squares already cut in useful sizes, left from previous years, or put there as I was trimming down scraps and found them to be appropriate colors for fall.
There is even leftover binding ready to use on a placemat and bits and pieces for leaves and stems if the pattern called for it. Often times I will cut up scraps in fall colors to these very useful sizes.
I even keep a basket of autumn colored scraps in the tote with the squares and folded fabric. This gives me the opportunity to have a real mix, lots of choices and some continuity year to year, when a fabric will “reappear” in something new.
I printed out the pattern PDF file that Carole thoughtfully included on her post, and got busy, pulling, cutting, stitching and making ready the first of the units for the quilt along.
I love making half square triangle (HST) units. Years ago, I purchased the June Tailor Perfect Half Square / Quarter Square ruler. This helps me to mark and trim and always have the “perfect” unit.
The ruler has great markings and uses slots for your pencil and your rotary cutter. If your curious about HOW to use this tool, check this video – https://youtu.be/gexINKyOzl4 on You Tube.
If you are in the market to buy one, shop around, as the prices vary considerably, running around $22 on Amazon and as high as $30+ at some national quilting retailers. Hopefully your local quilt shop has it in stock. A quick google search will give you an idea where the best prices are. I’ve gotten at least 10 years worth of use out of this particular ruler. And, I have made several thousand HST’s in that time frame.
I recently treated this ruler and several of my other rulers with a shot of ODIF GRIPPY non-slip coating spray on the back. You can buy it at local quilt & sewing stores and online. Previously I had used those little sand dots and followed Bonnie Hunter’s suggestion for NEXCARE Medical tape. When I sprayed my ruler, I left the tape on where it was between a couple of slots. After the spray dried, in less than a minute, I peeled the tape off the ruler. The result of the spray is your ruler has a slightly frosted look, but it is still very transparent. One of my friends introduced me to this spray at a quilt bee, and a little goes a very long way. I have sprayed nearly every ruler I own and it’s like magic. I tripped over a you tube video where another quilter shows demo of how “grippy” her ruler is – https://youtu.be/tWnFtD2H9lk .
Well, my units are all trimmed, and I have a little more cutting to do before next week. Hopefully you are following along with #AutumnJubilee2022 and enjoying the variety of projects Carole is sharing. I loved the book list last week and the recipe she shared today, and can’t wait to see what is coming next.
I love sharing my methods and tools and tips that others have shared with me. Do you have a favorite unit or tool for making a particular unit? I’d love to hear about it and why it goes to the top of the list. (We quilters love a gadget, don’t we?)
Linking up this week to OH SCRAP – Quilting is more fun that housework.
My friend, Carole Carter, runs Autumn Jubilee on her blog From My Carolina Home. I may have mentioned once or a hundred times. 🙂 HEY, it’s fun and I don’t want you to miss out! Anyway, the first project was posted on Monday and it was for a Wool Stitch Along. Kudo’s to Carole for rounding up sponsors for the posts. If you like wool…her sponsor, One Of The Flock, has some beautiful things in their shop online.
I contemplated going out and making a purchase to participate in this first project, but as the day went along, I just could not justify in my mind making the trip and the buying wool for hand applique. I am just not loving hand work (note two hand surgeries in last 5 years and cortisone shot just a month ago); so I decided I would give the project a whirl with cotton, doing fusible applique (thank you Heat n’Bond light) and doing some machine stitching instead of hand stitching.
I got busy, printed out the pattern pieces and set to work with my reliable felt pen, tracing the pattern bits onto the Heat n’ Bond.
Next up, I dug into my scrap drawers for fabrics that might make a good Cornucopia and for the various vegetables and leaves. I found some excellent pieces to use for the leaves, and I added probably more than the pattern called for, but I just “wanted to”. Initially, I used the leaf pattern but then I picked out some leaves on a scrap I had and fussy cut them out.
My background fabric is 18″ wide. I made it fairly large so I can decide as this month progresses what I might want to do with the project. Pillow? Table Topper? Wall hanging? Too soon to tell. I did reserve the other half of the yard for a backing of some sort.
I figure some stitching will be in order in the next couple of days. I have another wall hanging, hanging around, that needs the stitching finished on it, and both projects call out for my “cashmere” thread from Superior Threads. (Fantastico #5035 Cashmere Cone). May be time to get another spool on order. Looking at Superior Threads website, I began to drool over all the new colors that might work. Oh…I need to get to a big quilt show and shop in person!!!! Maybe the Hampton Roads show in February. I keep a spreadsheet with all my Superior threads, by type, color and number. There are a couple that are on my list for replacement soon, but others that I picked up “just because” and they languish on the shelf. I wonder if anyone else does that?
I’ll update the progress when I make some! What are you working on this week? Are you “stitching along” with the #AutumnJubilee2022 this month? Lots of other fun things to do as well, so do check it out.
This past week has been my week for sewing with a group. On Tuesday I met up with some of the members of the Queen Bees. We meet at the library once a month for our quilt bee. It is SEW much fun to sew with a group of friends. It’s lovely to catch up with each other and chat while we sew. Often times, I will spend more time wandering the room than sewing. I love to see what everyone is working on as well.
This bee, I took kits for a project that the members of the bee are working on together. We are making a small quilt to gift to the Friends of the Library organization. They will use it as a fundraiser in a raffle next fall. We are doing this as a thank you to the library, for allowing us to meet there at no charge. When we first discussed the project, one member said she had something we might want to consider. Next thing you know, her husband had been dispatched by phone, to her sewing room to pull the project. (I was in awe that she could give him directions to the right storage location. ) In a few minutes we had a photo and made the decision that the project would be a great starting point. I introduced that quilter in my last blog post, https://dulcequilts.com/ . Did you have a chance to pop over for a read?
Over the last month, the project went home with one member who did the needle turn applique of stems, leaves and nose, as well as the embroidery of the face, minus the eyes. Then I shared a sample block that we could use around the existing piece. I pulled the block out of my Lori Holt Vintage Christmas Quilt book. Everyone agreed, and we collected fabric and I cut the kits for 28 blocks. Only a few got done during the bee, and many more went home with members to work on. I brought home 7 kits that were left.
On Saturday, I had fun on a Zoom “Virtual Retreat”, hosted by Carole, of From My Carolina Home . There were 9 of us on the Zoom call, and we started around 10 am. The most fun of a zoom call is you are at home, and you can have all your sewing things close at hand. No packing up and carrying out like to my regular quilt bees. The negative is my internet is spotty in my sewing room so sometimes it goes on and off. Carole’s purpose for the Virtual Retreat was to give her blog followers a chance to clear up a UFO or two, before Autumn Jubilee starts on Monday. Follow the link above to Carole’s blog or the button on the side of this post to Autumn Jubilee.
I worked on 7 of the snowflake blocks during the Virtual Retreat, and put the snowman up on my design wall with some of the finished blocks so the others on the zoom could see what I was up to.
I’m going to wait until all 28 blocks are finished, and square them all up at once. Then we will see if we need any space, an extra border etc before we add them to that wonderful snowman. This will be a fun winter quilt. I’ll let you know when the Friends of the Library put the tickets on sale next year.
One of the participants in the Zoom retreat was Mary Ellen. She had several things she was working on, and no doubt there will be a blog post coming from her soon, including a screenshot of the attendees. Happy Birthday Mary Ellen. Her blog is QuiltMouse, and you will find her blog here – https://mefutch.wordpress.com/ She is quite inspiring and I always learn something when I read her blog. Recently she reminded us of the value of prewashing fabric for a Quilts of Valor. She has her fingers in lots of projects, so do go take a look.
That’s it for this first Sunday of October. Go check out those 3 bloggers, Dulcequilts, FromMyCarolinaHome and Quiltmouse.
What have you been doing in your sewing room lately?? Have you found any new bloggers?
Now, let the Autumn Jubilee begin!!
I would love to share with you a new blogger, DULCE QUILTS, which I think you may find interesting. The writer of the blog is Trisha, and she is a member of my guild, and a member of my small group QUEEN BEE’S. She has just started this journey of blogging, and it is fascinating to me to get to know her better through her lovely posts. As I have seen some of these projects she writes about, up close, I can tell you she is an amazing artist!
Do go take a look, and subscribe.
https://dulcequilts.com/blog/my-favorite-subjects
Be sure to leave her a comment and introduce yourself as well. Tell her I sent you to visit!
Happy stitching everyone.
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