grandmother's wildflowers

The baby hexies are finished! I know I said I would post this well over a month ago. Lets just say I severely underestimated the time it would take, and the time I would have available, to finish it.

"Grandmother's Wildflowers" is a take on the traditional grandmother's flower garden quilt pattern. While the technique and all the handwork I did was traditional, the open spaces aren't. I was inspired by a quilt in "Pretty Little Quilts" that had individual hexagons missing allowing the wall to show through.

I have one of my fellow quilting friends here in town to thank for the arrangement. I played back and forth with several ideas, even several different layouts, when Kathy sat down and began moving them in more of a color order arrangement. Bingo! A few minutes later I had them grouped the way I liked. I debated a bit about whether I should add a few more, but decided I'd stick with what I had.

All of these hexies are vintage fabrics that were precut and strung by an anonymous quilter years ago. Like the rest of us, she seems to have had a few UFO's in her stash. I bought them at the garage sale and can now consider them vintage project number 2 that's been completed from that huge find. (The first was the string quilt blocks.)

Every stitch in this mini quilt was done by hand - from basting the hexagons over paper, to the stitches joining the backing to the top. The back is a vintage feedsack. I would not use a feedsack again for a project of this type. The weave is too loose and I had to put in twice as many stitches to secure every loose thread in the weave as I finished the project. The quilt is tied in the center of each hexagon with matching embroidery floss.

And here's a quick shot of my next vintage UFO. More handwork, so it'll be a long time before I can post a finished quilt for this one. I have twelve of these dresden plates to applique to blocks. The long drive to New Hampshire a few weeks ago took care of 3 of them.

Step by step...

scout's honor

I've been wanting the skirt with girl scout badges in the Sew What Skirts! book for a few years now.
Despite rummaging through piles of junk on every thrifting mission, I've yet to run across old badges.
Carol came to my rescue:

These belonged to her mother and probably date back to the 50's (am I right on that estimate, Carol?).
No doubt I had the sewing badge on the top on my own vest. The cooking badge at the 2:00 position, I'm not so sure about. I also have no idea where my own vests and sashes went, which is sort of killing me now.

Best part of this sewing project: I didn't make the skirt. It came off a J Jill clearance rack. Fastest clothing project ever.

Lisa's block

This one is it! The last block has been sewn for this Common Threads round and it seems I finished it first. It's not a race at all, but it pleases me to no end that I'm on time(for a change).

Lisa asked for symmetry, perhaps a log cabin and for the patterned fabric to be featured. I thought the courthouse steps version of a log cabin block fit the bill. I may have blown the symmetry thing with the machine appliqued squirrel though.

Still, he's pretty cute.

pieces and parts

I've already shown you my favorite quilt pieces over the past few days, but there were more, so many more.

These are precut "thimbles". Their size is around 2 inches long. I'd say there are a few hundred of them. Not nearly enough for a quilt top, but a good start that I can add to over time. I'd guess that most of the fabrics in this pile(not all) date to the 50's and earlier.

Next up - about 75 butterfly shapes. These fabrics seem to be more of my childhood era - 60's to 70's. Also, there are some slight variations in the butterflies. From my first scan through them, I think there are two styles, though they're almost identical in size.

This one will keep me busy for years with hand piecing. Scallops? Clamshells? There have to be at least 500 of these (I also have the template she used). The fabrics look to be mostly from the 60's and 70's here too. Not pictured are an equal number of white pieces. I thought for a bit that I might eliminate the white pieces and just do all color fabrics, but then I saw some examples with white rows and I like them. I also feel somewhat honor-bound to finish the project as Shirley intended it. The ones that are pieced were done by her, but I think she abandoned the project after making some mistakes. I'll have to take those apart before moving ahead.

Petals, hundreds and hundreds of flower petals ready for applique. There are also a lot of black circle centers ready to go. I spent an afternoon sorting these babies out by fabric and color. Only a few of the fabrics are repeated more than 4 times in the shapes. My favorite is placed on top. I think I'll have to incorporate a snippit of it into something for a certain bird I know.

I have my work cut out for me, literally.

hand-me-downs

These jeans make me a little teary-eyed. A friend passed them down to Glenn over 11 years ago. The girls both wore them. We passed them on to sweet, little Nate. Considering he was at least the 5th child to wear them, it's no shock the knees finally gave way.

Not long after he outgrew them, his mom was invited to a baby shower that had a wonderful theme. The mother-to-be requested that all the gifts be used - either something your own children had worn or played with or something you picked up at a resale shop. It's so nice to know another little one will wear them.

The patches are thrifted, vintage, iron-on cordouroy patches that I cut into shapes and zig zagged for more stability. (So easy to do on pants that still snap on the inside seam.)

Chicks in New York pay top dollar for frayed hems like that.

Wear them well, Theodore Penrose.

yes, another sock monkey project

More applique work on tee shirts. Recognize that block? It's the same paper pieced one I used in Lynn's block this month. This was actually a practice run I tried a few months ago. It sat on the sewing table for ages waiting for something to happen with it.

This shirt is for Trixie, but Ellie has the same long sleeved brown tee with a tree applique. I'm trying not to make everything in twos even though the girls tell me that they love to dress like twins. (I swear they're into it. Honest.) Ignore the major wrinkles, please. For some reason the automatic folder and put on a hanger function on my dryer is broken. The wrinkles didn't look so bad in real life.

To finish the edges of the block I sewed it to a same size piece of muslin, right sides together all the way around the edges with a 1/4" seam. Then I cut a slit in the muslin, trimmed the corners, turned the block right side to through the opening and pressed it flat. It's blanket stitched to the shirt with embroidery floss.

I still have bits of that monkey fabric left. I think it reproduces in my scrap bag.

ellie's tee

Today is Ellie's turn. She spotted a teeshirt from Lands End that she loved. The store was out of her size, so we set about making our own version with a brown shirt they did have in her size.

This one was made the same way as Trixie's - wonder under to hold the pieces in place and a tight zig zag stitch. I forgot to mention yesterday that I also use a tear away stabilizer underneath the area to be worked (I spray baste it to the wrong size of the tee shirt, but pinning would work too). That extra step prevents the tee from stretching all over the place and is worth the time it takes to remove it when all the sewing is done.

Sorry, but I can't remember where the chipmunk patch is from. The buttons are out my stash as were the fabrics. Grandma Bev - do you recognize the top of the tree?

trixie's tee

Lately I've been snapping up teeshirts that are on clearance for applique work.

This started with an applique of a kerchief girl's head from superbuzzy. I built the body out of fabric scraps and a bit of ribbon. Wonder under and a tight zig zag stitch hold the body in place. The head was just edgestitched.

I've been loving all the matryoshka dolls that have been out in pattern, fabric and ribbon form and think there'll be a lot more of them in the girls' future.

oiyi's block

Have any of you other common threaders had a hard time with the design of one block in particular? This one turned out to be the biggest challenge for me. I thought it was going to be an easy one. As I sketched out ideas, none of them felt like me, so I kept walking away from it. I think because this one is really for Oiyi's daughter, Melody, I wanted something that felt special. All the pieced blocks I came up with felt forced.

I took the sketches to my quilting group in the hopes someone would have a suggestion for me. Carmel suggested a heart with a swoop and that got me thinking of a small decorative pillow I'd made my sister years ago. The pattern I drew for the pillow was too large for a quilt block, but I used that as my starting point. Once the decision was made to applique a heart, the rest fell into place.

The background is pieced from all the scraps Oiyi sent and like others in our group, I thought they had a real sense of my 70's childhood in them, so the Little House on the Prairie/Holly Hobbie type patchwork felt perfect. I was a little nervous about the applique. The last time I used it, I covered the edge with a blanket stitch. That wasn't an option this time.

The embroidery was important to me. I wanted a red running stitch that alluded to a Chinese saying that there is an invisible red thread that connects people who are destined to meet.

I also wanted two hearts representing a mother and daughter. I love how the tails of the hearts sort of nestle into one another. (My previous design attempts with two hearts were supposed to have a "piece of my heart" theme, but wound up looking like broken hearts instead. NOT what I was going for.)

It should be in your mailbox shortly, Oiyi. I hope Melody likes it.

bunny wallet

Okay, I'm pretty sure I have the Zakka Sewing book out of my system - at least for a little while.

I need a bunny wallet about as much as I need a bunny pencil pouch, but here it is anyway. That paw over her mouth cracks me up. I just realized that I don't have a picture of the face without the paw on it. There's a 1/2" snap for a nose and embroidered mouth underneath. To make things move along quickly, I used a stitch on my machine that goes over each spot 3 times to machine embroider the lines on the face. The eyes are doll clothes buttons.

The book calls for one pocket for paper money and one for credit cards. I added a second credit card pocket to hold various insurance cards, loyalty cards, etc. You can see by the extra cards in the money pocket that I could have used even more.

Twill tape was used for the coin pocket tab instead of fabric.

It's been fun to use this week, but I'll probably empty it in a few days and save it for more springlike weather.

sock monkey goes to school

Thought you'd seen the last of the sock monkey projects, did you?

Trixie couldn't start preschool without a backpack - one that wasn't larger than her.

The basic size/pattern is McCalls 5341, though I didn't use their embellishment patterns and I altered the straps.

The applique is woven fabric from the funky monkey line by Moda with wool felt for the arms and mouth. (The brown fabric was also used to line the pack.) The orange cordorouy fabric was thrifted. I sketched out one of the basic monkeys from another fabric in the same line. The ears were sewn separately with a pleat in the center so they'd have a little dimension. The applique was attached with wonder under and a zig zag stitch. The wool felt was applied with edgestitching.

The pattern calls for a standard length of strap, but there's no way the same size will fit Trixie if she has her winter coat on. I cut the straps longer and added D rings for future adjustments.

If I play my cards right, I might have a sock monkey on Halloween...

halloween tote

Gearing up for Halloween.

Yes, I need a tote specifically for the month of October. The pattern is Haunted Handbags by Artful Offerings.

I changed a few things from the original pattern. They call for black felt as the lining, but I wanted to use some of the fun Halloween fabric I have stashed. That completely changed how I put the bag together. I changed the pockets a bit too. And while it's not shown in the picture below, I tried my hand at finishing the seams ala Vera Bradley. Because all of her bags are of quilted fabric, the inside seams are finished with bias binding. I did the same and it worked very well. One of these tools came in very handy.

The "31" charm (it's hung on the button by ribbon) was done using my machine's needle punch attachment to applique the wool pieces together with felting. The ovals were put together with a machine blanket stitch. I need to use that stitch more often. It's very easy to make the stitch larger and looks great on applique.

I'll have to plan my entire wardrobe for the month around this bag.

just ducky

Another pillow for the girls' room.

I can't remember if Carol thrifted the embroidered piece or if I did. One more item that's been waiting patiently for me to get to it - at least 4 years. It's not like I didn't know what I would do with it - the motif goes perfectly with the ducks fabric in their room.

It was appliqued onto the gingham fabric with a simple straight stitch hidden in the crochet detailing around the edges of the duck piece. After that was done the pillow cover was sewn together. This was another one of those things that went together so quickly I'm kicking myself for putting it off so long.

Quack.

hand-me-downs

Ellie gets a lot of great hand-me-downs from neighbors and friends. As she (and the children they're coming from) get older, some of the items have seen better days. This pair of overalls had a few holes and some wear on the knees, but fit her great.

The holes were covered with the flowers on the right leg above. Worn knees got some polka dot reinforcement.

Because I can't leave well enough alone, I threw some patches on the back as well.

Wonder under was used to iron the fabric onto the denim before stitching. Any other fusible web will do. Because these are so small, I opened up the seam on the inner leg from about an inch above the hem on one leg all the way around to the other hem. If they had been very baggy on her, I'd have just cut that seam allowance off, but since the fit was more on target, I had to use my seam ripper. With that opened up, it was easy to do the zig zag around the patches. I set my zig zag at its widest and much longer than normal. You may have to use the handwheel to stitch through areas that are very thick and uneven under the presser foot, like the pocket edges. When I didn't, I had a few skipped stitches, but this only happened a couple of times when the foot didn't seem balanced. I didn't want to use that plastic dohickey that you slip under one side of the foot. Once the leg appliques are done, you can sew the inner seam again and serge the edges. If you don't have a serger, just zig zag them.

I had trouble figuring out the bib pocket at first. I wanted it covered in fabric, but didn't want to sew it shut at the top. Cutting the fabric at the top about an inch longer than the pocket so it could be folded over the top and fused into place seems to have worked. We'll see how it holds up in the wash. If I have to hand tack it into place later, the stitches will be hidden on the inside.

One more back to school outfit finished.

pj redo

Yes, more pajamas. These were supposed to be off the rack. They're Nick and Nora silk jammies from Target that I found on the clearance rack. When I got home I found out why they were on clearance. The original menswear top was a medium. The pants were an XXL. Dang.

The pants were cut down to the proper size and reserged together. New elastic went in the waistband. All in all an easy fix. I thought I was done.

Then I tried on the shirt and I can't begin to explain how weird it fit. Maybe it was the choice of fabric in that style. The silk pulled and shifted. There was no way I could sleep comfortably in it. In a last ditch attempt to save the set, I cut out a motif from the shirt and appliqued it on a tank.

Not exactly a clearance bargain for all the work that went into it.