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My sister-in-law called today looking for advise on a Christmas present for my nieces Kelly and Nora (THE Miss Kelly and Miss Nora). Apparently there is some interest in a sewing machine. Does anyone know of a good kid friendly sewing machine that little girls (8 and 10) could learn to sew on? With Aunite help, of course.
I’m sorry this is a little late in coming. Here is the alternate colorway for Block 11.
I’m in the process of getting Block 12 together for everyone and it’s making me a little sad…to think that Florabunda is almost over.
I’m off to wrack my brains on challenge 3. I will post more on that later.
I just found out that I have been selected to go on to challenge 3 in the McCalls Design Star contest!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
for all your lovely comments and support and votes
Hugs
Erin
First, I want to thank you all so much for the support and the voting during the McCall’s Challenge. I will know by tomorrow afternoon if I have been selected for the final round. Regardless of what happens I feel very blessed that I have been able to participate in this. The other contestants that I have “met” through facebook and e-mail are very neat people. That combined with all your lovely comments have made this one of my 2010 highlights.
Here (at top)is my design wall (table actually) for today.
Does this ever happen to any of you? You find a fabric you LOVE, you buy a whole bunch of it, you make several quilts out of it and now you are on your last little piece. It makes me so sad when that happens. It’s kinda like when they discontinue your particular style of jeans and you have to go out and find another style that fits your body. OK OK so maybe I’m the only one that gets that attached. The red fabric in the picture has been in several quilts and now I think that the only thing I can squeeze out of it is a couple of table runners. SIGH, now what am I going to use for Christmas quilts?
Here are some shots of the other quilts this lovely fabric has made it into.
Head on over to Judy’s blog and see what other people are up to.
To get us back in the mood for work after our Holiday
I didn't realize until the end it was an ad but it was a very fun ad.
I hope all my US readers are having a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have yet one more thing to be incredibly grateful for….it turns out that my teenage daughter likes to cook…A LOT. So I am happily sewing and blogging while she is laboring over pies and sweet potatoes. Life is good.
Voting for challenge 2 in the McCall’s Design Star competition is in the final days. The voting ends this Sunday November 28th at midnight (I don’t know exactly which midnight but I’m guessing Mountain Standard Time). You can vote everyday so here is my bit of shameless self promotion. Please, please, please, please vote.
And for all of you who have already voted and left your lovely lovely comments THANK YOU.
I think I will find out early next week if I make it to the final round.
I’ve gotten a few questions recently on how I exactly sew down these pre-assembled flowers. There isn’t a simple answer because it does depend on the flower.
Here are a few examples.
The first things I sew down are stems, almost without exception.
On a simple flower like the one right here I sew down the bottom layer and work my way to the top layer. These are pretty straight forward.
On flowers like this daisy-type flower I just sew around the petals one by one. There is usually enough space to slip my needle between the petals. After that is all done I do the outer circle then the inner circle.
On tulip I usually sew the outer cup-like shape and then the middle petal like this.
For a more complicated flower like this one from the Florabunda center I do a few things.
I pre-assemble the flower and glue baste it to the background. If the petals don’t overlap too much I can usually hold one out of the way while I sew the petal underneath down. If this doesn’t work I can pull the petal on top off the background (carefully) sew the petal underneath down and then re-glue the top petal and sew it. For flowers like these it’s usually best to use as little glue as possible so you don’t have a hard time getting to layered petals. If I do peel back a petal I am very careful to re-glue it back in the same position.
For a complicated flower like the ones in the center of Bouquet for the Birds I still pre-assemble. I start with the bottom most petal and work my way to the upper most petal so that every layer is attached.
I hope that helps.
I’m off for a few days here to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. As I shared yesterday I DON”T have to cook the turkey but I am in charge of pies this year so tomorrow my daughter and I are going on a pie baking binge. The kids in the family have specifically requested this one. YIKES, I’d better walk the dog everyday if I’m going to eat that!
See you Monday.
Ah..technology...when it works it's really really great...and when it doesn't....it TOTALLY STINKS.
Long story short...after weeks of monitor struggles I now have a new monitor that doesn't give me a headache and actually turns on in the morning without me having to wrestle with the power cord.
I meant to have a post today about the sewing order for my pre-assembled flowers but that will just have to wait.
All I can say is THANK YOU to that nice man at Best Buy who told me how to upgrade my video driver software and
THANK GOD I DON"T HAVE TO COOK A TURKEY ON THURSDAY
Ok, that was random, but I really do hate cooking turkey.
As promised here is Florabunda Block 11.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
