Autumn Jubilee 2022 Cornucopia progress, quilt label and bowl cozies

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!!

18 inch pillow insert from Amazon arrived

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.

Still need to trim the jump threads

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.

Ready to hand stitch to the “Christmas side” of the quilt

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..

Plate Cozy – quilting in a spiral in the center to keep it flat

Plate cozy – quilting in the center in a spiral to help keep it flat

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!

Fits my cereal bowls just right

4 bowl cozies

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?

The cozy fits the square bowl

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.

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Autumn Jubilee 2022 Quilt Along FINISH

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.

8 blocks on the design wall with one of the layout options

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.

Arranging the placement on the design board

Trying to stay organized with all the pieces

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.

Blocks set 4 across and 5 down

Then on to borders.

The first border went on to frame the blocks.

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.

String Borders

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.

String borders added bringing the project to 44 1/4 x 52 3/4

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.

Simple walking foot quilting

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.

Gold binding with a green flange

The binding just shows the gold fabric on the back

Finished Autumn Jubilee 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?

Week 2 — Stitching with a grand daughter- Autumn Jubilee Quilt Along progress is slow –

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?

Autumn Jubilee update

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.

Aurifil 5011, 50 weight cotton.

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.

Coats and Clark quilting thread

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!)

Machine applique complete

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!