another mug rug

Hi friends.  I apologize that this blog has been so neglected.  It's not that I haven't been creating, because I have. 

The last weekend of July and the first week of August was the Dare to Get Dirty Challenge scramble (haha, for want of a better description) on SCS.  The challenges are for SCS fan club members only as a special thank you for supporting the site.  This is an annual event, and this year there were a total of 42 challenges during that week.  There are random prizes drawn for participants, and some special prizes for those who create a separate card for each challenge, also called the challenge queens.  I qualified as a queen this year, so by the time the week was over, I was pretty exhausted.  I happened to win one of the prizes this year, which I think is pretty cool. It's a $25 gift certificate for Serendipity Stamps.  I'm going to have a hard time choosing. 

Here are a few of the cards I made that week.  For Dina's challenge:

For Alba's challenge: 

For Angie's challenge: 

For Sabrina's challenge - the flowers on this one were colored with milk & heated - a rather fun technique: 

For Robin's challenge: 

For Bev's challenge: 

For Nancy's challenge: 

I could add more, but maybe in another post. 

I also wanted to show you the special mug rug I made for Lydia's birthday, which is Wednesday.  She has a couple of rescue cats, and designed a cat image for some merchandise.  I wanted her mug rug to be meaningful to her, so I used her cat image as a starting point.  The cat is hand appliqued and the features are machine appliqued.  I did a lot of funky hand quilting in the background. 

I hope she loves it.   She should have received it, so I feel free to post this. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today. 

butterflies

Hi friends.  A couple of weeks ago, I started working on a new quilt - hand applique butterflies.  I know it's a big project, but I love that it's portable until the blocks are all sewn together. 

I like to use freezer paper when I do hand applique.  That means cutting each piece from freezer paper (which I do in multiples) - I fold the paper twice, trace the pattern as many times as will fit on the folded sheet, then staple the center of each & cut them out.  I iron the shiny side to the wrong side of the fabric & cut those out with an additional 1/4" seam allowance.  I don't measure that, just guess.  Then I clip any curves and glue the seam allowance to the freezer paper with a washable fabric glue. 


For this quilt, I just pulled scraps from my stash.  I only needed enough to have matching upper or lower wings, but I cut both from many of the fabrics.  I am not putting any of the same upper and lower fabrics together on the same block.  This picture just shows some of the pieces.  These are prepped, but not sewn yet.  The stack in the lower left is just a small amount of wings that I've paired upper & lower. 

I also needed to choose background fabrics for the blocks and I don't want to use 2 the same.  The finished blocks will be 9", so I'm starting with 10" blocks, & will trim any extra off to 9-1/2" after the butterflies are sewn on.  That will allow for any variance if my stitching is tighter on any blocks. 

The plan is to make 90 blocks (9 x 10).  I think I have enough wings cut & prepped, but still need to choose more backgrounds.  As you can see from the pictures, I'm using both light and dark fabrics for the wings as well as the backgrounds. 

I made a basic template block from paper with the butterfly drawn on, so I can put it on my light table, lay the fabric on top & glue the wings down.  This way I can be sure that I have the butterflies centered on the blocks.  I roughly timed how long it takes to stitch all the wing pieces on & that was about an hour. 

Once the wings are stitched (blind stitch by hand), then I cut out the backing, leaving the seam allowance.

I then soak the block in warm water for a couple of minutes and pull out the paper. 

Once the block is dry, it gets pressed and is ready for the butterfly body. 

I haven't sewn any of the bodies on yet, but the process will be the same as the wings. 

Thanks so much for joining me today.  I hope you'll follow along on this journey.  I'll try to post more pictures as I go along. 

hexagon progress

Hey, everyone. Happy hump day! I'm not sure where my mind has been, but this morning, it suddenly dawned on me that it is already Wednesday. I think I lost a day somewhere.

Anyway, I thought I share my progress that I've made on my hexagon quilt. Here's a picture of all the blocks I have finished. Well, minus the one I finished today. I now have a total of 32 blocks finished. It's exciting to find how quickly they go together.

And the second picture is a stack of the flowers ready to be put on the muslin blocks. Don't you love all those blues? I add the center as part of the applique.

I still need to cut enough hexagons for about 15 more blocks, but I've had enough cut to keep me busy, so I haven't done that yet.

I plan to make a scrappy sashing to put between the blocks, so I think it'll be a very colorful quilt.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonder-filled evening.

more hexagons

My, but it was hot today - yesterday, too. After running the air conditioning all day yesterday, by the end of the day, we realized that it wasn't working properly. The air coming out of the vents wasn't all that cold and it certainly wasn't cooling off the house. So today, I opened doors & windows. There was a little bit of a breeze, but 90 is still hot. And upstairs, of course, was worse, so I spent most of the day sitting in front of a fan downstairs working on my hexagons. How wonderful the way God provides. A card came in the mail today with a special on AC tuneups. This is a from company we've worked with before, so we'll be taking advantage of their special pricing.

I put dinner in the slow cooker this morning (made some yummy Swiss steak) and then finished appliqueing 4 more hexagon blocks. I just didn't have enough energy to do anything more strenuous. Of course, when the rest of the family came home after their volleyball league, my daughter convinced me that we should go out for a walk. Since we were already sweaty, it seemed like a good idea.

I took the pictures and transferred them onto my computer, but didn't have time to do a blog post before dinner. The first picture is the 3 blocks that were previous done, plus the 4 that I finished today.



The second picture is a stack of about 20 more blocks that are glue-basted ready to applique. I know that you can't see them all, since they are stacked on top of each other.

After dinner, I finished the block that is on the right in that picture. So I actually finished 5 blocks today.

I have been trying to work on these about an hour each day. Some days get more, some less, but I'm having fun with them.

I have a lot more of the hexagons ready to sew into the little flowers, but I think I need 90 blocks, so I still need to cut more of the hexagons.

Today I noticed that Sizzix is coming out with 4 hexagon dies. I don't think they are available yet, but I'm sure they'll be a big help for making this type of quilt. I don't know if any of the sizes would work for this one I'm doing now, because I made up my own pattern, but it sure would be great if I didn't have to cut them all by hand.

Thanks for stopping by. Be blessed.

and then there were 3

Hey, bloggers. I'm still waiting for a correct guess on my age. You've all been very kind. Here's another clue: I'm well rounded. You can put your guess on any post starting with this one and following. I'll be generous and allow another guess even though you may have already guessed. I have some crochet flowers and edgings for the winner.

My man and I went out to eat last night with some good friends at my favorite Indian restaurant (the Taj Mahal in Hales Corners, WI) -- just extending the celebration. I had mullgatawny soup and coconut chicken as well as several types of naan. We always order 3 different ones and share. Good eating. Of course, I can never eat it all, so I'll have it for lunch one day this week.

I'm having so much fun with the hexagons. This morning I sewed another block together. I have another one glued and ready to stitch and a couple more rings done, but those need to be pressed and have the papers removed.

Have a wonderful day. Thanks for stopping by.

The start of something new

Hey, everyone! How's your Saturday? I had a great birthday yesterday. I got to have lunch with my family and then I spent some time working on a quilt.

I slept in a bit this morning, but only because I didn't go to bed until 2:00 a.m. Yup! I just couldn't put it down. I was working on a new quilt. And just in case you're asking, no, I haven't finished quilting the last one yet. But the most fun for me is the creative process of designing and piecing one together, so I have... uhh, at least 4 or 5 (maybe more) in progress. Now, don't get me wrong. I do finish them. In fact, I gave one to some special friends of ours last week.

Anyway, to get back to my new one. I've been seeing these on blogs recently - they call it one flower Wednesday. And the flowers that are referred to are flowers from Grandmother's Flower Garden. They are all made from hexagons and hand pieced. I thought it would be a nice portable project and there is no time limit. I haven't decided yet if I'll join the blogger group, but I did start my own.

The first thing I needed to do was make a hexagon pattern. I really had to stretch on this one. This would be really great to have a die to cut all these, but as far as I could find, the only one available is Accuquilt and it's too big to fit in my cuttlebug or big shot. One lady had her husband saw off about 1/4" and then file off the rough edges, but I don't know that I want to go that route. So, I copied the picture of the die into a word document and adjusted the size until I was satisfied, then printed it, cut it out and transferred it to template plastic. After all that, I don't think it's a perfect, perfect hexagon, but good enough. I'm actually using two sizes, because I'm doing English paper piecing, so the smaller one needs to be more accurate than the larger one. I'm cutting the pieces as much as possible with my rotary cutter to speed up the process.

I started this all about a week or so ago. I cut lots and lots and lots of paper hexagons and fabric hexagons. The paper ones can be used more than once, so I don't think I need to cut any more of those, but I still need to cut a lot more fabric ones. Each flower consists of 7 hexagons - 6 petals and 1 center. I won't go into all the detail of piecing them together. If you'd like that information, I can direct you to that. Just ask.

So, I've pieced 4 flowers together minus the center so far. I decided to applique each flower on a muslin background and putting the center in is part of that process. And last night I was appliqueing the first one. I did another one this morning. I almost forgot to pull the papers out of that one. I had it half stitched down, when I realized that and had to pull it up where it was glued to get the papers out.

Here's a picture. These haven't been pressed yet, so that's why you are seeing a lot of wrinkles. The muslin blocks are 7-1/2" square and will be 7" when finished. At this point, my plan is to put a scrappy sashing in between the blocks. I think that'll be fun to make.

*****Please note****

No one has guessed correctly yet on my blog candy post here. So keep on guessing on that post and if you already guessed there, take another guess on this post!

You've all been very generous in your guesses. A hint: I am part of the baby boom generation.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Be blessed.