Saturday, October 23, 2010
First Meeting finally finished!
I could not believe how much I actually enjoyed the process of figuring out how to add the words and achieving the effect I wanted. At first I thought I would make a rectangle like an engraved label and cut the letters out, letting the brown show through. After booting up EQ7 and playing for a bit I decided to applique the letters directly to the border using some kind of gold colored fabric. I then went into the sewing room looking for the right fabric. I dug through my stash for a few minutes, then my eye landed on a rolled fat quarter of gold satin that was given to me by a friend. Perfect! Well, maybe. First I had to test out a couple of letters to see if it was practical to fuse and applique satin letters. To my suprise, it worked out pretty well. I wouldn't do it on something that would get a lot of wear, but this is a wall-hanging, so the tendency to fray won't matter much.
I spent a pleasant hour or so tracing and fusing, cutting, then fusing again and was thrilled at the results. I then loaded up my machine with some silk thread and stitched around the letters. I then drew an outline around my letters to look like an engraved plaque. That's the point where I took the picture. After this I added some stitching that looks like wood grain on the rest of the brown border. I did some more stitching on the body of the quilt, fixing my husbands hair so it's not so white, and adding some white to the horse's rear foot. Now I just have to sew the hanging sleeve on and it is finished! I'm so happy to get this done - no more guilt, and my husband will have his quilt to hang in his office.
Maybe next time I won't procrastinate so much about doing something I'm not confident with. After all, doing something badly is better than never doing anything at all!
Happy Sewing!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Ups and Downs
I'm ready for some new inspirations - isn't this a lovely one? It makes me think it's time to brush up on my applique skills! But, just like when you have a meeting you start out with the old business - before I go starting some new projects, I am working on finishing up some neglected ones. Many thanks to Pat Sloan and her blog for getting me organized and fired up about working on some of those things that are just hanging about my sewing room. So far, I've finished up a table runner and a wall-hanging. I'm thinking through what I need to do to finish up a quilt for my husband - he wants words on it. I think I might just tackle that tomorrow. And I have a couple of Christmas projects that I want to finish up that will be for sale. So, perhaps some finishing up will inspire some future creativity. At the least it will help create a little more room for that inspiration to show up! And in the meantime, it's another step up to a happier me!
Happy sewing!
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Trigonometry for Dummies?
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Fall Decor from the Quiltsy Team
These two collages show some of the fine quilted items made in fall colors that you will find on Etsy. Any of these would bring a warm, homey feeling to your fall home decor.