Elim for the Day and Lots of Stitching

Yesterday Jen1 and I headed up to Elim for the day. Right behind us for the last few kilometers were Siobhain and Barbara, then shortly thereafter, Barb, Suzanne, and Jeanette arrived. It was only the 7 of us for the day. Jen1 took the photo.

I took 3 projects to work on but exclusively stitched on the Sunflower Sewing Pouch and got all the eyelets in the rows of Kloster blocks done. I used one strand of DMC 932. Taking a photo is an excellent way to find omissions or errors. I noticed I haven't done the antennae or body on the bee on the top right.

When I got home, I started cutting the threads for the centre motifs. 

I used tweezers to pull the cut threads so I could snip so closely that the end disappeared into the Kloster block. I also accidently cut the wrong thread and had to weave another one from the edge back in. Can you tell which one? it's the one that doesn't have the kinks in it.

Tonight I put a big push on and got all the threads cut in the centres of the Kloster clusters, and all the eyelets and specialty stitches.

All I have left to do is the bar wrapping, twisted bars, and spider web stitch. Then I can start FFOing it.

Again today, Jen1 and I ventured out to a couple of quilt shops. She had an accessory for her sewing machine to pick up and I tagged along in hopes of finding fabric to back my little EPP runner.

I lucked out getting this 1/3m at Sewing Essentials in Bowmanville. So that will go on my 'to be FFOd' pile.

After stopping at Allin's Orchard store and buying apples for my applesauce making, we arrived at Annie's Quilt Shop where I two pieces of dense cotton that will be excellent for surface embroidery.

Next we drove back to Whitby so Jennifer could buy some things at Michaels. They have all self-service checkouts now. We were able to navigate things well but I feel sorry for folks who are less technically savvy. They'll keep the supervising person busy. I hope they redeployed the checkout folks into stocking shelves and doing other useful jobs rather than just 'letting them go'. Then off to Oshawa to the Ultimate Sewing Centre where Jennifer made a couple more purchases. Finally, we stopped in at the Baker's Table where I picked up a sandwich and some cannoli to take home for lunch.

After I got dropped off and had lunch, I relaxed on the sofa and napped for almost 2 hours. All the early (for me) wake ups and gallivanting must have caught up with me.

It was really fun to hang out with Jen1 and my stitching peeps yesterday. Now I have lots of projects to keep me busy for quite a while.

Another Quilted Checkerboard...

In preparation for making another checkerboard project bag with a vinyl front, I made another quilted checkerboard today. I've outlined this before but here's a refresher about the steps I took for the 7 x 6 checkerboard:

I drew the grid lines 2.5" apart on the glue side of fusible interfacing. I don't worry about the outer squares being completely on the interfacing.

From the Promenade charm pack I took 6 dark and 6 light squares and quartered each 5" charm square into 4 - 2.5" squares.

I then laid the darks out in checkerboard fashion - wrong side of fabric onto the glue side of the gridded interfacing. I always make the bottom 2 outer squares dark ones. Sometimes the fabric orientation is important but not so much with these patterns.

Then I added the light squares in between. In the previous steps, I made sure there were no repeats in each column or row. Then I pressed everything onto the fusible interfacing and double-checked for the last time. Taking a photo and looking at it critically is an easy way to see if there are placement errors.

I then took the rightmost column and folded it right sides together and sewed 1/4"from the folded edge. 

Then repeated with the next columns to the left. 

Then pressed all the seams in one direction. I then sewed the horizontal rows as I did for the vertical columns. This created beautifully lined-up 2" squares

Then I clipped the horizontal seams open and pressed them well.

I then cut the batting slightly smaller than the stitched piece and centred the wrong side of the fabric on the batting, pinning through some of the dark squares. Taking a water-soluble pen, I drew quilting lines diagonally through the light squares.

Using my quilting/walking foot, and a 3mm stitch length, I quilted on the lines. At each edge, I turned the fabric 90° and sewed down the adjacent line. (blue arrows).

I removed the pins, and quilting lines with a damp sponge, then pressed well.

Done! Now I need to find appropriate fabric for the back and zipper bindings.

I found this cute, sunflower ribbon at our new Dollar Tree the other day. 

I'm going to make tags to sew into the bindings of my sewed pieces by folding it in half and sewing between the two motifs (red line).

I'm very excited for my day trip to Elim with Jen1 tomorrow. I have my projects and lamp all packed and just need to make my lunch to take with me. I also found out tonight that we don't have to take the bridge repair detour that would add another 20 minutes to our trip each way so there will be that much more time for stitching.

More Stitching on My Denim Shirt

I wanted to add some more stitching to the yoke of my denim shirt. I bought yet another pattern from and Etsy vendor.

Instead of daisies, my plan was to stitch echinacea. I knew the changes would be easy to execute.

They worked out well. It doesn't matter that the printer printed the daisies. I knew when I wash away the water soluble stabilizer, the echinacea will remain.

I changed the colour of the forget-me-nots to contrast a bit better with the blue of the denim.

Most of the stems were supposed to be split stitch but I really like the look of whipped backstitching.

I thought the recommended colour of the poppy needed to be redder. I checked the colours of another poppy piece I had stitched, and used them.

I've heard a lot about short and long stitching. Some folks hate doing it. But I rather enjoyed doing it and the overall effect.

The lavender was supposed to be done with bullion stitches but I chose to do lazy daisy stitches. I could have also used closed fly stitches.

I used two different techniques for the butterfly bodies, then tackled the long and short stitches on the wings. I could see where I could add a couple of one strand French knots on the lower wings.

I also needed to add the brown on the tops of the wings and I was done.

I just finished washing off the stabilizer and look forward to it being dry and pressed. 

The next morning...

I'm trying to decide on a sunflower pattern on the other side of the centre motif. More research is needed.

Next week will be busy including a couple fun outings with Jen1. It's always nice to have something to look forward to. My friends are the best.

Sewing with Stitchers

On Wednesday afternoon Jen1 and Marilyn came over to make project rolls. They're very useful for storing stitched pieces awaiting fully finishing. 

Basically, it's a small diameter mailing tube with some quilted fabric wrapped around it and ribbon to tie it up.

I was initially inspired by Vonna Pfeiffer's tutorial and then made several for my own use and as gifts.

Jen1 arrived with the quilting done, ready to attach the piece to the mailing tube. Marilyn got her fabric and batting cut, sewn, turned right side out, topstitched around the edges, and completed the quilting.  She only has to sew on the ends of the tube and stitch the ribbon on.

Considering Marilyn doesn't have a lot of sewing experience, she did so well! 

It was a really fun afternoon. 

That evening was our guild meeting. I won't go over all the details here but here's a link to the guild's post featuring this month's Show and Share, and our introduction to a stitching Round Robin.

Skip and I had a very nice week with visitors - Scooter last Saturday, Skip's brother and sister-in-law, Andy and Nancy on Sunday, and Norm and Lena - newly returned from living in Sweden for 6 years - yesterday. It was so nice to see them and we really appreciated the effort they made to come for a visit.

I continue to search for fun surface embroidery projects. I have the refund from one of the retreats I bailed on burning a hole in my PayPal pocket. Whenever I go to buy something I just click 'PayPal credit' and voilà - it's mine. Paid for by money I already consider spent.

I've also been making a bit of progress on my sunflower pouch. 

I need to take more progress photos and the lighting varies depending on the time of day, but I made a little movie.

I'm really excited to get the stitching done and fully finishing it and definitely want it done by next month's guild meeting.

Jen1 and I are planning to spend the day at Elim next Thursday. The rest of the Elim gang will be there from Thursday to Sunday. It's always a lovely time of the year for the drive there with all the fall colours. Hopefully then next day I'll accompany Jen1 to the greater Bowmanville area to pick up a sewing machine accessory and pop over to Annie's outside of Newcastle to check out their wares.

It's so nice to have things to look forward to and fun people with whom to spend time.

Yesterday and Today

I got the big Hardanger motif on the lower panel stitched yesterday. I was supposed to start in the centre and work outwards but it was easier for me to count down from the Kloster blocks and start at the top of the cluster and work towards the centre.

 

This made it tricky stitching underneath the long, lighter blue strands. Had I started in the centre like I was supposed to, the long strands would have gone over the already-stitched kloster blocks beyond the center. Oh well, it worked out OK.

I just got started on the sunflowers but was too tired to continue. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get some good stitching done.

There are always a bunch of chores to do inside and out of the house but I try to make time for my mental health activity - being creative in some way every day.

Once all the stitching is done, there is still a lot to do to FFO this into a pouch. I think it'll be really nice when it's all done.

Sunflower Sewing Pouch

I started the Sunflower Sewing Pouch last night, a Durene Jones pattern from her Etsy shop. The pattern calls for 25ct linen.

I used the same fabric as the scissor case, 28ct tea dyed linen from Charles Craft that you can get in the tubes at Michaels. I also already had all the required threads from the scissor case project and am stitching 2 over 2. The perle cotton looks a bit lumpy on the smaller count fabric but looking at the scissor case ( a couple of photos below), it looks good once FFOd. 

I kept making counting mistakes when doing the Kloster blocks and other Hardanger motifs with the #5 Perle cotton but finally got it all sorted out. 

This is what the inside of the pouch will look like. If I do the eyelets, I won't pull so tight as to leave big holes. 

I used HotFix 'jewels' on my scissor case instead of the eyelets. But there would be WAY too many if I used them on all the eyelet spots on the pouch.

Going back to the scissor case, I got the snap fastener sewn on. The metal dome fasteners in my stash were quite large so I used these smaller, white plastic ones. love this yellow fabric and think it will look very spiffy lining the sewing pouch.

I keep finding projects with only an hour or two of work necessary to finish them. 

All my stitching homies are back from the EGA Seminar in Boston. Even though I don't see them all that frequently (except Barb at Monday morning stitching), I missed them while they were gone. They did keep in touch though, via text, email, and some photos while they were gone. I hadn't planned to attend in the first place but I did feel included. It's good to have them back. I look forward to seeing them all at our guild meeting next week and hopefully some of the projects they worked on in their classes. I don't think I'll have my sunflower sewing pouch ready for Show and Share but I'll probably take the scissor case in.

More Sunflowers in My Life

I started stitching a Durene Jones sunflower scissor case almost a year ago. It has been languishing in a project bag ever since with only the Hardanger stitches left to complete. Last night finished it, I substituting woven bars instead of wrapped bars and HotFix 'jewels' for the eyelets (oops! Missed one - will fix).

I lined it with some of the Sunny Brook fabric, including the fabric behind the open Hardanger areas.

I actually increased the size of the pattern by enlarging the grid, stitching the front and folded back as in the original pattern and just shifted the sunflower flap design into the (now farther away) opposite corner. It fits my 4" scissors perfectly. It really does pay to measure ahead to get desired results.

What I didn't plan for was inserting into the flap tip, a loop for a closure. Now I'm trying to decide what to use instead. I'll either go with a little dome fastener (like Durene did in her photo below) or a piece of folded ribbon attached to the lining at the tip of the flap. 

There is also a wee biscornu that can be used as a scissor fob/pincushion that has all the Kloster blocks done, I just need to do the cutting, Hardanger stitches and sew the thing together. I will try to remember to make and attach the cording as part of the finishing.

I also purchased the other patterns in this set:

a sewing pouch,

and a pincushion pot.