Stockings and Zippered Pouches for Christmas

Life and Electric Quilt went off the list this month, except for fixing my Fall quilt!

We had a great workshop sponsored by our guild in October.  Although I don’t need more UFOs, I always enrol in guild workshops for 2 reasons:  to support the guild and to learn more – I find that I learn from the teacher and also from the other participants!  This one was a workshop by Marilyn Maki of Sault Ste. Marie (no link because she doesn’t have a website, but she does belong to the guild - www.saultquilts.com.  Here topic was crazy quilt stockings or pillow tops.  One of my oldest friends had given me lace, tatting and handkerchiefs from women in his family, so I took those to use to make a stocking for him as a family remembrance.

Once I got to the workshop, I found that Melissa McIntosh (our amazing longarmer  https://www.facebook.com/see.melissa.quilt/ ) had brought a large bin of fabrics given to us by Connie Wilson before she died).  Then our workshop leader, Marilyn, had also brought a plethora of ribbons, beads, amazing fabric to share!  Yes, to share, not sell!  How generous of her!  She also brought a friend, Susan Bailey, who showed the amazing crazy quilt blocks she is making with her family’s clothing.  One block even contains a piece of the suit her father wore when he married her mother. 

With Marilyn’s guidance, I worked on the stocking that has the navy and pink sections to it.  I had to coffee-dye some of the pink pieces, because I wanted to see a more ‘dusty’ version of the colour.  Although I seldom finish workshop pieces, I went home and finished sewing the stocking and started right away on the other side.   For the back side I decided to use the handkerchiefs Michael had given me and I folded them to fit.  It wasn’t until I completed the back that I realized that it had been so long since I had made a Christmas stocking that I hadn’t checked which side of the foundation to sew on!!!  Well…I had 2 fronts now. 

The backs of the stockings

 What to do?  Should I just use plain backs?  No!  I took a group of plain crocheted doilies and handkerchiefs and layered them on a large piece of gold fabric.  I placed tissue paper on top and then sewed all over it with invisible thread.  After I had secured all the pieces, I tore off the tissue paper and sew more carefully in some places.  I then cut out the backs.  For the black one I took apart 2 crazy quilted vests I didn’t wear anymore.  I used one for the front and one for the back and the lining of the vests for the lining for the stocking.

Now I have 3 stockings for my friends and enough to make another one!

Closer look at quilting

Next gifts:  I’ve been wanting to make more zippered pouches, so when I saw this tutorial:  https://weallsew.com/two-pocket-pencil-case/ I decided to make 2 for my nieces for Christmas.  I had coloured pencils and pens for them, along with some black leather and zippers.  I embroidered the front with their initials (S and SJ), then sewed them together.  I also had to watch a YouTube video, because I wasn’t sure from the tutorial how to sew it together, but I think they look alright – what do you think?  At one of the local Christmas market, I bought a bit of jewelry to use as zipper pulls.  Then this week I watched Man Sewing with a boxy pouch, so I’m going to make that one now!!  https://mansewing.com/2018/06/boxed-zipper-pouch/  I’m not saying I’m over being afraid of putting in zippers, but I feel a little more comfortable now.

Oh...and a couple of mugrugs for my grandson's study area - Of course I'll have to explain what a 'mugrug' is.  He studied piano for years and I make him a quilt with a piano key design for 2 borders, so I had some sections left over.

a few more reusable gift tags - vinyl pockets on the backs

 

Thanks for visiting!

Snowball Blocks for Happy Garden quilt

I wrote before about my Happy Garden Quilt that our quilt club is using as inspiration for table mats, runners and small quilts.  I decided to take autumn, Thanksgiving and Hallowe’en as my inspirations

I have the middle row finished and most of the 9-patch blocks are done.

Since I was going to be doing a lesson at the club about a variety of fun ways to work with snowball blocks, I did some research and came up with some options – a few very difficult ideas that eventually got scrapped, and some that I actually sewed!

The first one was pretty simple.  I had an old crocheted table mat and the elements reminded me of pumpkins, so I cut out a couple of rows and dyed them orange.  I embroidered a ‘redwork’ pumpkin at the top of the snowball block and then added two rows of crocheted pumpkins. 

Now I just have to decide if I want to add some green embroidery floss as vines.  What do you think?

I had already embroidered my favourite fall item from emblibrary.com this fall – a truck full of pumpkins, so I appliquéd a strip under the truck to look like a road and now I have to figure out how to put a few trees in the background.

Next I got out my bag of ‘texture magic’ (or fabric magic) and put it on the back of some fall and black fabric.  It’s been a while since I’ve used it, so after reading the instructions, I drew a 1” grid all over the fall fabric.  I wanted to use the black for a witch’s hat, so I drew curvy lines on it.  They both worked out well and after sewing, I steamed both pieces and they are really wrinkly now.  I cut the fall fabric into 4 – 3 ½ “ squares to use as the centre squares of my 9-patch quilt blocks – these blocks will be in the centre blocks around the edge of the quilt.

The witch’s hat pattern was printed right from Electric Quilt so was easy to cut out – the only change I made was to cut the brim away from the top so that I could add a decorative strip and a buckle that I added Jones foil (glued to black fabric) to. I was going to use the hat so that it was right side up, but I need the orange triangle in the top left position, so I think it still works fine, upside down!

The next snowball block I planned was to show the use of 3 shadow techniques – shadow appliqué, shadow trapunto and shadow confetti.  I started with the shadow trapunto, drawing 3 ghosts shapes onto tracing paper and pinning it on top of a piece of white sheer fabric and white polyester batting.  Then I sewed around each ghost with a short stitch and cut out the extra batting.  They don't show up that well in the photo and I'll have to decide how to quilt them to enhance the shapes.

For the shadow appliqué, I cut out bat shapes and placed them on the snowball block.  Then I put the shadow trapunto work on top and sewed around the bat shapes – pretty easy way to appliqué! 

Then I thought about all the landscape confetti quilts I’ve seen and decided to add a fire at the bottom of the block.  I cut out the shape of a bonfi re from Steam a Seam and put it on a piece of parchment paper.  Then I cut small coloured pieces of fabric out and covered my ‘bonfire’ shape.  After ironing it down, I trimmed the ‘fire’ and transferred it from the parchment paper to the block and added some stitching to hold it all down (I’ll do more when I quilt the project).

Great news from the Modern Quilt Guild this week – I have a swap partner!!  Although I’m not really very modern, I’m really going to try to make her a great little quilt!