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A couple of weeks ago I did a post on the PERFECT PROTEST. It was started by Brene Brown over on her absolutely wonderful blog, Ordinary Courage. Since then I have been visiting her blog regularly and today I found this video that I wanted to share with you. It's a tad long but TOTALLY worth it. Enjoy.
Here is the alternate colorway for block 10. I just finished making all those petals so now I need some advil and a hot shower
So apparently I have a tendency to cut off my opening “Hi Everybody” greeting when I upload my videos. All I can say is that I am still a total doofus at this.
Here is a little video I’ve made about how I glue baste my blocks together before I sew. I have been doing this for several years now and I just love it. It makes sitting down and sewing very relaxing because everything is right where it needs to be. Just for clarification. When I apply glue to my appliqué shape I always apply it to the seam allowance. I’m pretty sure you can see that in the video but I didn’t say anything about that so I’m covering my bases here. Another note is to NOT use too much glue, too much glue can make the sewing a little tricky.
Welcome to this week’s version of design wall Monday. Technically it should probably be called design table Monday since I am laying things out on a table instead of my design wall.
Last week I created my background for my challenge 2 quilt using the fat quarters that were given (see last week’s design wall Monday). Now I am in the process of designing an appliqué bouquet for the center. Luckily for me I had enough of the challenge fabric left over to use in the center appliqué. I picked the red-violet fabric for my big flowers and am using a solidish fabric for the inner petals. The centers are also from the challenge fabric. Before I get too far with the design I want to appliqué down these flowers and leaves to create a “base” so to speak for the bouquet. After that’s done I will design some more flowers. You can kind-of see what my ideas are by looking at the underlying drawing.
Head on over to Judy’s blog to see what everyone else is up too.
As promised here is Florabunda Block 10.The pattern has two formats. The first is a full size pattern (12” square you can download here) that you can save to a USB drive and take to a copy place to have printed. The other is a ¼ size drawing (download here) that should print on a regular printer. You can make 4 copies of this one and tape it together for a full size pattern.
For all you who like to share pictures you can join our FLICKR group at
http://www.flickr.com/groups/florabuddies
Have Fun and
Happy Friday
Thanks to Wendy from Ivory Spring I found Leah Day’s wonderful blog on free motion quilting. Both Wendy and Leah are inspiring me to get a little more serious about improving my free motion quilting. One of the things that has held me back is that my sewing table is well…a table. My parent’s dining room table to be exact. I’ve thought of altering the table so that my machine could sit down into it but the table is solid teak. Every time I look for a sewing table I usually have more than a little sticker shock.
Anyway, Day Style Design’s ( Leah’s online store) has a sewing table made my Arrow that is very affordable. I finally bit the bullet and bought one. But isn’t it just the case that once you decide to do something you need to re-arrange everything else. In my case, I needed to re-arrange my sewing room so I could add this table and still be able to walk. This meant I had to get rid of my parent’s solid teak buffet and find a place for all my stuff that I stored in it. Anyway, long story short, my sewing room got a very thorough purging and cleaning last week and I am absolutely thrilled. Here are my before and after shots.
Here is a picture of the table. The plastic insert hasn’t come yet so machine is sitting on top for now. I know it is small but I can move it over next to my big table for larger projects when I need to.
It was hard letting go of that teak buffet. My parents bought that dining room set when they were first married. I remember polishing the cabinets with Lemon Pledge when I was little. Luckily I sold it to a good home at our neighborhood garage sale so I know someone else will care for it. Funny how you get kinda sentimental ‘bout stuff.
Check back tomorrow for Florabunda Block 10
Two very special people in my life have needed portraits done and I am so glad they asked me to do them. I’m not a professional photographer by any stretch of the imagination but I do love taking pictures and am always game to give things a try.
My first subject was my darling friend Amy who needed a current picture of herself for work. I hauled out my background kit and tried to remember everything I’ve learned about portrait photography, which isn’t very much I must say. After a few tries I got this shot and fell in love with it. This is SO Amy! See the twinkle in her eye? The best part… no photoshop jiggery pokery…she really is that pretty.
My next project was my daughter Hannah’s senior pictures. I don’t know about you but I pretty much hate all the senior pictures I see. The smiles seem so fake and the kids so posed. Luckily Hannah was a really good sport and we tried a bunch of things and had some fun too. She loves to paint so she smeared her hands with paint so we could get that in. After all was said and done the one we both loved was this.
I love the honesty of shots like these, no fake smiles, very little editing. I think you “see” the person inside. I could never be a pro, I just couldn’t handle the pressure, but I do love “shooting” my friends and family. I don’t think I could get shots like these if I didn’t know the people.
One of the really great things about participating in the McCall’s Design Star Challenge is the mail. When I signed up for this contest I knew about the Grand Prize, a new Bernina, but I had no idea there would be fun prizes along the way as well.
The first surprise came right after we started challenge 1. It was a gift pack of Aurifil thread. I know many quilters rave on and on about this but I hadn’t tried it yet. What was I waiting for? It’s great thread. It’s really fine so your piecing comes out great and it’s also lovely to hand appliqué with. Like I have said before, I’m a little dense sometimes. Anyway this is my new favorite thread and I hope I can find some small bobbins of it for my appliqué soon.
This past week a rather big box showed up.
It was a present for completing challenge 1. As you can see, it was 7 POUNDS of present! When I opened it there was this lovely tote (I’m a sucker for a good tote)
But wait! It was full! Of this…
I got a little swoony….It was like Christmas but …better.
Thank you McCall’s…um, can the contest go on for a few more months?
Today’s design wall is also my sneak peak for what I am working on for challenge 2 in the McCall’s Design Star contest.
The rules for this contest say that we have to use 8 of the 10 fat quarters that were provided. I took my little fabric bundle on a shopping trip and the more I looked at it the more I wanted to eliminate the brick red and the golden brown.
Without these colors you can kind of see that there are two sets of compliments here. The red violet and the yellow green form one compliment. The blues and the bright orange form another. The two beige fabrics and the black fabric are neutral so I can work them in.
Since I primarily design appliqué my next challenge was to see how I could incorporate these fabrics into an appliqué design and still have the fabric consist of 50 % of the quilt. I decided to use piecing to make a background for an appliqué design. This way the fabric will provide a foundation for the appliqué and you will be able to see the design in the fabric.
Here is a preliminary look at my background so far. I’ve used “Birds in the Air” blocks set on point to construct my base. I had to use 2 other light beige fat quarters but this background consists mainly of the fabric I was given. Luckily, I have enough scraps left over to make some really fun appliqué designs.
Head on over to Judy’s blog to see what other people are up to…it’s fun AND inspiring.
Check back later this week to see my cleaned out sewing room, new sewing table and….Florabunda Block 10. Wooo Hooo!
And the name is……Miss Dottie. That was, I think, the most popular name in my very un-scientific poll.
Today I have a little tutorial on how I made Miss Dottie using my standard hand appliqué method with a little modification. First, I would like to tell you that this pattern is perfect for the back-basting/ no template method. I even tried it but I was all thumbs at it. I plan on learning that method but for now I will send you to All About Applique for instructions. Kay does this so much better and then you won’t have to listen to me cry.
First download your free Miss Dottie pattern here. Instead of using templar for my templates I am using this
Freezer paper. I draw my appliqué templates on one of these sheets ( you can find them here) and iron a second one on the back. I find these templates hold up fairly well to starch and press appliqué but after a few uses the edge gets a little soggy. This is a great method for larger appliqué shapes because the freezer paper stays inplace while you are pressing.
Now you can press your template to the back side of your fabric.
Then starch and press just like always.
After you are done with this it’s time to make the dimensional fin, I call it the flappy fin.
Here I am using two different fabrics from Miss Dottie. Draw you fin on a single piece of freezer paper.
Press onto the back side of one of your fabrics and layer that with the other fabric right sides together.
Cut out your fin and mark the sewing line.
Sew on your sewing line.
Clip inside curves.
Turn
Stitch some detail lines, whatever you feel like.
I placed my flappy fin on my pre-basted fish and sewed it down with my machine.
After that stitch away and you will have your very own Miss Dottie!
