One Piece at a Time

My Tweets...Today is the LAST day

Today is the last day to download the My Tweets patterns for free.

TheWINNER Is...

Kelly, who had the most unusual answer of the whole weekend, here's what she wrote:

"neither, with bacon!!!"   YIKES...I wonder if that's good?

Thanks for playing everyone!

Design Wall Monday

OK, I have to apologize for the fact that most of my design walls these last few weeks have basically been piles of fabric. I do actually sew stuff from time to time, I really do. My excuse is that it’s January and I’m “planning” my year. Anyway, I found this lovely line of fabric at Fat Quarter Shop a few weeks ago and it made my heart skip a few beats. I LOVE blue and yellow together…especially in florals…so I bought myself some. With all this appliqué lately I have been craving some piecing so I thought I would come up with a pieced sampler quilt to go with these lovelies….stay tuned.

I’m going to be a little hit or miss on the blog this week… I have gobs of paperwork to fill out and I had better be a responsible adult for a couple of days.

Head on over to Judy's blog and prepare to be inspired!!!!

I will be back later to announce the Perfect Ovals winner.

GIVE-AWAY: Karen Kay Buckley is a genius…again

For all of you fans of Perfect Circles by Karen Buckley she has done it again. Now she has Perfect Ovals. These are made of the same high quality heat resistant mylar as her other products. Just look at these sizes (probably should have put a dime in there for scale..oops)

I love these so much that I have an extra set to give to you. To enter just leave a comment telling us your answer to this pressing question. Chocolate chip cookies…with nuts or without?

Random Creative Moment

I’m introducing a new category here today called Random Creative Moments. This is for non quilting but still fun things that I like to try from time to time and share with you. Today I’m going to show you a fun little project I did for my niece’s birthday card. Here is a shot of the original (no kidding) Miss Kelly at her birthday party last year. I thought this was too cute, so this year I decided to make her a card using this picture. First I printed out a copy.

Then I cut her out and put glue on the back.

I then adhered her cut-out to a folded 7” x 10” piece of cardstock and went all out with some markers.

For the envelope,

I doodled (Zentangled) a design around her name…She loved it and it was tons of fun for me too!

Making the Vase

Here is a short tutorial on how I made the vase for the corner blocks.

I really love this freezer paper. You can find it here.

I can make appliqué templates out of it and they will hold up to a moderate amount of starching and pressing. I use this for all my larger shapes because you can iron it onto the back of your fabric and it will stay put while you starch your seam allowances.

Trace your vase parts onto the NON shiny side and iron a second one onto the back. Make sure the top piece is stuck to the non shiny side of the bottom piece.

Cut out your shape and iron it onto the back of your vase fabric.

Trim the excess fabric and starch like you normally would.

Here’s the front.

Once everything is dry you can remove the template and use it again.

Poor Man’s Light Box

I have a light box that I absolutely love, but sometimes I am not in the mood to haul it out. Especially for something simple. So here’s what I do instead. Take your pattern.

Find a sunny window and flip it over and trace the lines on the back side.

Ta Da..now you have your full sized pattern.

AND here is how you get the second block off the download!

Design Wall Monday

So, once again my design wall is actually a table buy hey it works for me. Here is a shot of a little scheme I have in the works here. I’m planning on writing up my appliqué directions in a downloadable form…complete with in depth photography and a pattern to practice on. You will probably see some shots from this in the next few weeks and the whole thing will be available in my shop soon.

Head on over to Judy’s blog for a dose of inspiration.

THANKS!

OK I know I am sounding like a manic quilt blogger by posting three times in one day but I just want to say THANKS to you lovely readers who pointed me in the direction of Aurifil thread kits with small spools.

If you read the comments from the last post you will see there are some really great sources out there.

Thanks

Aurifil Pleading....(scroll down for most recent posts)

OK everyone I have a wild idea. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE Aurifil thread for applique. The problem is that I cannot find the small spools anywhere except the internet and the only thing I can find is a $700 suitcase which I can't afford. I think it would be really wonderful if they started selling packets of the smaller spools much like they do with the larger spools. I'm thinking something like a packet of 10 greens, a packet of 10 blues etc etc etc. That way those of us who use it for applique could start building a collection with all those lovely colors.

So, now for my wild idea...why don't we ask them for this? Maybe if we all ask nicely, they might do this. Here is how you can contact them:

http://www.aurifil.com/Aurifil/Home.html

just got the ABOUT tab and use those e-mails.

Or if you are on Facebook you can go to thier wall and ask there:

http://www.facebook.com/aurifil.quilt.thread