It's Fun to be an Elf

In the fall I received a call from my best friend's mom; she asked if I'd come over because she had something to ask me. Well, of course I went. Not only because I've known her since I was 18, but I was curious to know what the big secret was.

Mrs. M said she'd seen a pillow made from neckties once and had thought it was really beautiful. She asked if I'd make two pillows for her to give her daughters for Christmas. She leaves the room and returns with two hangers filled with the late Mr. M's ties. My eyes filled with tears to think that she would ask me to use something that was evidently so dear to her. "Absolutely" I said, I'd be happy to make the pillows. She had one overriding rule "Don't tell Sally Ann. I want her to be surprised."  Gulp.

I had done necktie pillows before and knew what not to do; don't attach them to a stabilizer and then cut strips because they will fray something fierce.  You can see in this photo that I tried to use some fancy stitches from my machine to hide the fact that the edges weren't finished.

 
I decided to do a paper pieced design. I wrote a post about this in October as you can see It Pays to Plan Ahead .  Basically, here's the Cliff's Notes version of what I did:

1. Deconstructed the neckties. Then I just  had the silk etc. and not the double thickness and lining that is sewn into a tie. In this case, the bow tie was Mr. M's signature look, so there were  a lot of little pieces.

2. Because I did have so many little pieces, I knew that I needed a small repeatable pattern. I came up with a repeatable block that could accommodate small pieces of fabric. Everything fell into two primary colorways: brown and navy.

After I had a couple sample blocks done  I emailed Mrs. M to keep her in the loop and ask for her opinion. She liked my samples so I marched forward with the rest of the blocks.

At this point I knew I needed sashing, so I took the blocks to show my Magpie Quilter friends. The gave me some great suggestions which included a little block at the intersection of each row/column.

I bought tweed-looking flannel for the back. But much to my horror, the print on the one flannel was crooked! What should I do; cut it crooked so the print appears straight or cut in on the grain of the fabric? I did what any other person with a support group would do; I asked my Magpie friends. The feedback I received was valuable; cut it on the straight of the grain because flannel can stretch and then I'd have a real mess on my hands. So that's what I did; I cut the flannel, used it for the cornerstones because that really tied the front to the color scheme on the back. 

Since the pillows are a non-standard size, I made my own pillow forms with muslin and some polyfill. I stuffed the corners with some loose polyfill to fill them out a bit more.

Then the day came to deliver them to Mrs. M. And I'm happy to say that she was as happy with them as I was. It was fun being her elf this Christmas and designing something I know her daughters will treasure.

And what was the hardest part you ask?...not slipping and telling Sally what her mom had asked me to design for her, of course!

Tis the Season for Machine Embroidery

"They" say that embroidery of all kinds is very hot in quilting right now. I enjoy hand embroidery and actually I'm working on a Magpie Quilters challenge right now that includes embroidery. I love working with all of the fabulously colored threads.

When I got my Bernina the embroidery machine came with it as a bonus. I didn't think I'd use it much, but what the heck I thought; give it a try. And I must say it's been fun. In this post I thought I'd share how it works.

First I hook up my embroidery machine to my Bernina and laptop. It looks something like this: Wait, wait, wait...that's not quite true. FIRST the fabric needs a good stabilizer. I use 505 with a tear away stabilizer. Also it's recommended (trust me here) to slow down the stitch speed; especially with metallic thread. And lastly, use a full bobbin. Running out of bobbin thread in the middle of a design isn't the end of the world, but it isn't really fun either. Okay, so now back to what I was saying...I hook up my embroidery machine to my Bernina and laptop. It looks something exactly like this:

Then I search through my designs for something interesting. In this case I bought an awesome CD set of Christmas motifs that include festive holiday shoes; something that every woman needs, am I right? 

In this photo you can see how it stitches out. There is a lot of stitching that goes on as a base for all of the pretty stitches you see later. It helps keep everything secure. All of the better designs should start with this type of stitch. You can see it sketched out here.

 

Once I'm happy with the design, I send it from my laptop to the embroidery machine.  Here I can manipulate where the design will be located. In this case I wanted it at the bottom of my fabric so you see it at the bottom of the hoop.

Once everything is ready to stitch, I'll see a display like the one below. The display tells  how many stitches the machine will make for the design and how long each color will take to stitch. Please note: while the program tells me how long it takes to stitch, it does not count how long it takes me to find the right thread and thread the machine.

The arrow shows what colors of thread the manufacturer of the design recommends. Once the program has completed all of the stitches of a particular color, the machine will stop which is my queue to select the next color and thread the machine.

Here's the stitched out design. Since the machine stitches one color at a time, there will be a lot of connecting threads that will need snipped. Little scissors with a curved blade are ideal for this.

Then you can integrate the design into something fabulous like these little make up bags I gave my friends at work. But I filled mine with chocolates so they loved the insides as much as the outside!

If you have the chance to get an embroidery machine, I'd recommend it. They are a lot of fun and there are more and more websites where you can download patterns to stitch out for a pretty reasonable price. Enjoy stitching!

Selvage Square

Marcey Arter from Whimsey Square Quilts was the guest speaker at the Columbus Modern Quilt Guild meeting last month. She shared her technique for working with those selvages I've been keeping (and not knowing what to do with them). 

For this post, I've used the supplies she generously gave each of us; strips of selvage and a square of fusible interfacing. The most narrow strip is 1 1/2" wide, so keep that in mind as you save those selvages!

Here's Marcey's technique:

First and foremost, be sure you keep the interfacing with the shiny fusible side up.
The only stitching you need to do is to sew two of the strips together across the middle of the interfacing. In this case, it was sewn corner to corner, but certainly doesn't have to be.

Then finger press the seam open. FINGER PRESS is key because you don't want to use an iron and adhere the fabric yet!

Now just tuck the remaining strips under the previous one in an order that is pleasing to you. In this case, I alternated colored strips with black & white prints for some contrast. I also like to see the actual selvage information, so in most cases, I left that side exposed.

 Once you like the arrangement, you can press with the iron. Trim it up and voila! 

Be sure that you stitch it down now; whether it's a straight stitch or some quilting, you'll need something to keep the strips in place.

I've always wanted to learn how to do this so I was really thrilled that Marcey shared her technique. Hope you like it too!

Goldilocks Thread

There are times when we are so involved with what we're sewing that don't realize the bobbin thread has run out; right? Don't you just hate it when that happens? You don't want the bobbin thread to be too short or too long; it needs to be juuuuust right!

Here's a tip from my friend Angela at Blue Tree Studio: fill two bobbins with thread. Use one in the conventional way and use the other in place of a spool of thread.

That way you will be able to keep an eye on how quickly the thread is being used. When it's about out at the top of your machine, you can be pretty sure that the bobbin is out too. Pretty cool idea to an ongoing problem, don't you think? Hope you like this idea. Any tip that makes it easier to complete a project is a tip worth sharing!