Hectic week around here....first week of classes. Lots of settling
in to do. I love it, though. I have a huge meeting on Friday. Big,
important meeting. Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.
In
the meantime, I thought I'd tell you that Ivy and I have decided to do a
swap. This harkens back to my post about how I haven't really engaged
in swaps. I got into a conversation with the lovely Cindy, who did a
personal swap with me. That was tons of fun. You might recall that she
sent me an adorable pouch, and I sent her a pillow.
Well, Ivy and
I got talking, too, and we also decided to do a personal swap when I
was done with my swap with Cindy and after the holidays. So, we're
getting started.
Our guidelines are pretty straightforward and simple:
It must be a quilt. (No bags, pincushions, etc.)
It must be no more than 36" square (144" perimeter), but it can be any shape (i.e., square, rectangle, whatever!).
It must be at least 24" square (96" perimeter).
We are to use the following inspiration mosaics to select the color and design for our partner.
Here is the inspiration mosaic I put together for Ivy. These are some of my favorites from Flickr:
I have never put together a mosaic before. So, that was a challenge in and of itself for me. I already feel a sense of accomplishment, just for having done that! haha!
Here is the inspiration mosaic Ivy built to inspire my design for her:
Some pretty good stuff in there! See anything you like? I have no idea yet what I'm going to do for her. If you have any suggestions or inspiration for me, let me know. I'd love to hear them. I will have fun coming up with something for her.
We don't have a deadline yet. We'll probably do something toward March sometime. We want to first gather up our supplies and decide what we're doing so we know how to gauge our time.
I have really enjoyed getting to know Ivy a little. We have some email banter now and then, so that is fun. The blog-o-sphere can be so cool. Remember how Cindy lives in Iowa, where I grew up? Well, Ivy lives in Florida, where my parents now live. Some small world it is.
In order to make this, I first ordered the paper pieces for the English paper piecing. I got them from Paper Pieces. I could have cut them out myself. The pattern by I'm a Ginger Monkey provides printables for cutting these out, but I bought them, because they were a reasonable price and it made my life easier.
In addition, I also got the acrylic cutting templates (also from Paper Pieces) for cutting the fabric 3/8" bigger than the papers. Again, I could have just cut them myself, but the clear acrylic templates made it so much easier to fussy cut my motifs. I felt kind of bad, because after I bought these, I did see that Katy-I'm a Ginger Monkey, the pattern designer sells them in her Etsy shop. I would have liked to support her for providing the free pattern. But I blew it. Sorry Katy!
I hand pieced all the pieces together to form this. Again, this is smaller than the pattern design. But this configuration would give me about an 18" pillow. I removed the basting stitches and papers from all the fabric pieces that were sewn on all the sides. All the pieces on the outer edges, where there is a side that is not sewn to something, still have the papers behind them and the basting stitches in them. You can probably see them. My next step was to applique' this onto a piece of fabric that would serve as the top of the pillow. (The instructions in the tutorial stop here...they tell you to do this step, and then make a pillow with an envelope closure. So, I thought it might be helpful to see where I went from here.)
I began to audition the background fabrics I had, using the leftover fat
quarters from my fat quarter bundle that I hadn't cut into yet. Here
was the green. I liked it, but I didn't like it with the red trim I had
picked out.
I tried the red and pink. Nope. Didn't like that pink in there. I even tried the solid red Kona that I used for the triangles but didn't care for that either. Too much red in both.
Ahh, yes, this red and white. This is perfect. Sweet Pea agreed with me.
Now, it's time to applique this baby on to the background fabric. Rather than do it by hand, I decided to do it by machine. I starched the English paper pieced top lightly to hold those edges under when I removed the papers. I pinned the piece carefully to the background fabric. I set my machine to a zigzag stitch. I wanted it to be pretty small. So, I set my machine to a 1.0 stitch width and a 1.0 stitch length.
I put a spool of Aurifil's invisible thread on my machine and threaded it through the needle. I used a gray cotton thread in the bobbin.
A while back, I had seen that Aurifil had finaly come out with an invisible thread. I was so excited, because I've used invisible thread before, and I've had trouble with my machine not liking it. By this I mean, even if I set my top tension to zero, I still get bobbin thread poking up through every stitch on my appliques. It's unsightly, and I don't like it. I wrote to Alex Veronelli at Aurifil, asking if I could try his stuff, do a review of it, and do a giveaway. He said, "Sure!" and a couple of weeks ago, a package arrived on my doorstep from Italy. I was so excited. But life has been so busy, and I haven't had time to play with it. Now was my chance. I played!
Now, I don't know if this is the best or only way to do this, but here's how I did it, and it seemed to work okay for me. I lowered the needle into my fabric. I pulled out the basting threads on this first square.
I carefully reached under the square and pulled out the paper. I then got my fabric laid back down nicely, with the edge folded under. (This is where it was nice to have lightly starched the fabric, as it held the crease pretty well.)
I used my open toe foot so it was really easy to see where my needle was in relation to the fabric. With my machine set at 1.0 width and 1.0 length, the needle entered the fabric just to the left of the folded edge when the needle zigged....
...and it landed just next to the fold (only going through the background fabric) when it zagged. Some people refer to this as just "kissing" the edge of your applique' piece. I repeated this all the way around that big piece I had hand pieced. It was extremely relaxing!
I actually forgot to take the paper pieces out a few times. It was okay. They came out easily, as the needle didn't really pierce them much, given that it entered so close to the fold. Whew!
So, here is how it looked when I was done appliqueing the piece down. I am sooo happy with this Aruifil thread! Look at that! You can barely see the stitching. It's nearly invisible. And you don't see a lot of my gray thread pulling up from the back (even on the white fabric!), which is a problem I normally have. I didn't even have my top tension set a zero. I think I had it set at 2, my normal Aurifil cotton tension. I am so, so happy.
Here's another shot of another area. The stitches are even less visible here! Wow! I am sold on this invisible thread!
Here is the back. You can see all my little gray bobbin stitches on the back.
I was going to leave the entire piece of fabric on the back for stability, but then I thought, "Gee, that is a lot of good fabric back there that no one will ever see. I'm going to cut it out." So, I took my duck-billed applique' scissors and CAREFULLY trimmed away the extra backing fabric, leaving about 3/8" seam allowance from those zig zag stitches.
So, now I had this nice big scrap I can play with later. Totally worth cutting that away!
Next, I layered it with my top, batting, and a piece of white fabric, and I quilted it. I started sewing straight lines across the entire thing, like the Katy-I'm a Ginger Monkey did on her original pillow. I loved it on her pillow. But I didn't like it on this one. I had four lines sewn in, and I spent the next couple of hours ripping them out. I decided I would rather just quilt in the ditch around all the shapes. I didn't want to detract from the shapes and the fabric.
Here is a closer look at the quilting stitches.
The thread I used for the quilting was also Aurifil.
I won this thread collection a while back from Aurifil. I won
this collection of threads from Aurifil for submitting one of my
photos of my finished project for the monthly embroidery projects this
year. My project was randomly selected for the prize. I about died when I won it. What a prize! Thank you again, Alex and Aurifil! You've been awfully good to me!
I decided to use this gray thread for quilting. It's Aurifil's cotton Mako 28 weight, color number 2600.
You can see that the 28 wt thread is quite a bit heavier than the 50 wt I piece with. But I love this gray. It just blends so nicely with all the colors in my pillow top. I used it both in the bobbin and in the top. I probably should have used a lighter weight thread in the bobbin.
In this shot, the pillow top is appliqued and quilted.
Here is the back. You can see my quilting stitches better here.
My next step was to trim it to 19" by 19" to give me a 1/2" seam allowance all the way around. This is where it would have been better to have something a little bigger than a fat quarter. I just barely made it for this size. Luckily, my fat quarter was cut a little generous. On the sides, I actually had to cut off some of the shapes. That sort of makes you hold your breath--after you've done all that hand piecing!
I won't go into a ton of detail on how I turned this into a pillow cover at this point. What I will say is that I pulled out my DVD from the Pam Damour workshop I had attended a year or so ago, because I remembered she had lots of great tips on making a professional looking pillow. I just followed her instructions to the "T." They were really clear and easy to follow along. The DVD is about 30 min in length. If you are interested, you can get one here: http://www.pamdamour.com/products/training-dvds/
Here is a link I found on You Tube that sort of outlines some of the steps I followed. I didn't follow all these steps, because I didn't have mitered corners and welting on my pillow top. But you can see sort of how I inserted my zipper and how I cut the pillow:
The instructional DVD I own is more simple than this You Tube tutorial. It is also more detailed on some of the steps. So I prefer the DVD I have. I did curve my pillow edges--as shown in the video--so that this pillow top wouldn't have "dog ears," and I think it was pretty successful. The DVD I have has a slightly different zipper installation, but very similar to this You Tube video. All in all, it was pretty easy.
Here's a shot of my pillow, after I've sewn all my layers together. I haven't turned it right side out yet. You can see the back of my quilted piece. There are two sewing lines, because I first basted my red trim to the right side of the pillow top. Then, I put on the backing, right sides together with the front piece, and sewed them together with a 1/2" seam allowance. I clipped my corners. My machine has an overlock stitch on it, so I did overlock all the layers for a nice, clean finish. (Another suggestion from the DVD.)
And here's how the zipper edge is finished. Looks pretty nice, huh? I really like a clean, professional finish.
Here it is turned right side out, with the threads I used on it.
I took this picture to show you two things. First, I don't know why I agonized over the background fabric so much, you see so little of it! LOL. But, I do think one reason it looks good is it just blends right in so nicely. I am so happy with that choice. Second, this photo shows where the two pieces of trim meet at the bottom of the pillow. I just overlapped them and tucked the raw edges inside the seam allowance. I think it's a barely visible join.
A final look at the completed pillow. It's definitely a Christmas Carnival. Nothing subdued about this pillow. :-)
Now, how about a giveaway?! Would you like to get your hot little hands on some of this Aurifil invisible thread?
Alex sent me some spools to give away! I'm going to give away two spools of the invisible thread: one of the clear (which I used) and one that is smoke colored. I use smoke on darker fabrics, because it is less visible than the clear (which actually stands out a lot on dark fabrics...not just Aurifil....all clear invisible thread). If you would like to win this pair of spools, please leave a comment below.
I also have two sampler packs of threads....different weights, different colors, and one variegated...to give away. Leave a comment below, and I will randomly select two names and send you some thread. So, that's three total chances to win!
If you'd particularly like the invisible thread or the colored threads, let me know in your comment. If it works out when I draw names, I'll try to abide!
You are going to LOVE this thread if you've tried other invisible threads.
I will leave the giveaway open until Sunday, December 2. Sometime that evening, I will close the giveaway and draw a name! Good luck!
A huge THANK YOU to Alex Veronelli for allowing me to try this thread and to let me give some away. I am hugely appreciative and apologize profusely that I've hung onto them for so long! I'm sold on it and will only buy this brand from now on. My machine likes it! It really likes it! (Said like Sally Field!) I can't say that for any other invisible thread.
THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED. THE WINNERS WERE COMMENTS NUMBERS 6, 20, AND 24. THANKS FOR PLAYING ALONG!
I still have some embroidery weight thread he gave me to try, too. I will blog that another time. I still need to play with it more! I'll have another thread giveaway with that post.
Hope you enjoyed this process post. I truly enjoyed making this pillow for Cindy. It was a ton of fun.
I'm so excited, because we are going to a Mannheim Steamroller concert tonight. I have wanted to see them for years!
Until next time,
NOTE: The threads I blogged about were provided to me by Alex Veronelli and Aurifil threads. You can take that into consideration when considering my evaluative comments. I would have loved these threads just as much had I purchased them, but I feel it's fair for you to know they were given to me.
Cindy, from Adventures of the Singing Quilter, commented on that post. She's an Iowa girl, too. We struck up some pretty nice conversations. We decided we were destined to meet sometime, we have so much in common.
Anyway, I had started reading her blog, and I saw some of her stuff in Flickr--in particular pouches...like this one and this one (and here's the back of that one). (While you are on Flickr, check out Cindy's sewing room! It's the same color as I want to paint my new sewing room when it's built. I think Doris has a sewing room the same color, too! Check out Cindy's photos here, here, here, and here. I wanna go to Cindy's house and play right now! This room just looks so HER!) She participates in lots of swaps. I mentioned to her that I had never done any of that, except for the Gruber's swap that I engaged in with my Gruber's buddies a little earlier this year.
So, she offered to do a swap with me. I thought it sounded like fun! We made an agreement to swap by November 20. We both got our items from each other on Friday after Thanksgiving. How's that for fun?!
I asked Cindy to make me a pouch with hexies on it, because I love some of the ones she has already done. She asked me for a Christmas pillow. I was happy to oblige on that, as I had a pillow pattern I was wanting to make, anyway!
Here is the beautiful pouch she sent me. Isn't it awesome?! I am just so tickled and thrilled with it. It's more than I could have hoped for. She designed it herself, which I just love. Every time I look at it, I discover little details I didn't see before. Let me tell you what I love about it. First, I love the size. It's about 12 inches tall and 8 inches wide---good sized! It will be just right for carrying a small handwork or knitting project. I love that! So often, pouches are just too small to take the whole project in. But it's not too big either. Perfect size. Second, I love the colors. I love the oranges, pinks, blues, grays, and tans. It's very different, and I love it. Third, I love the "big stitching" along the hexie flower! (Of course, I LOVE the hexies, too...but that oges without saying!)
Let's take a closer look. Fourth, I LOVE the Sweetwater fabric in the center of the flower. You know I'm all about Sweetwater! And I just love the fussy-cut flower, the text fabric, and the thimble fabric. I am just giddy over the little pieces of fabric in this! I never think to collect/use such cool fabrics in this way. Awesome! Along with all this, Can you tell from the photo that she stuffed the center of the flower a little, so it sticks out? It's details like that that I just love!
Oh, yes, and fifth, how about this little birdie charm on the zipper?! And it has music notes on it ("Singing Quilter!"--I'll think of Cindy every time I see this and use it!). It coordinates with the fabric on the front of the pouch and with the birdie fabric on the handle...
...which is the same fabric as the lining. And sixth...POCKETS inside! Yay! How helpful!
And here is the back of the pouch. I love this blue fabric, but seventh, I also really love the little detail of the patch on the back. (Also, eighth, notice the bright turquoise zipper! I never would have thought to use such a bright color, but I love it!)
Isn't it adorable?!
Inside the pouch was this little bundle of joy.
Some really awesome twill tape (along with the twill tape that tied the whole bundle up). Thank you, Cindy! I was lamenting to her that I had no cute twill tape, and she uses it so expertly in many of her projects!
A cute clip that I think Sweet Pea will probably steal from me for her or her dolls. How about that cute hedgehog fabric?!
And a cool vintage hankie. I'm going to stash this away until I can figure out a cool use for it. I'm sort of digging the color inspiration in this hankie. Aren't you? Do you have suggestions or ideas for how I should use this hankie?
And if that was not enough, she also included for me a set of cloth napkins she made to go with my kitchen! You might remember I blogged my kitchen curtains, which are red and black. This is so perfect! And I have no napkins in these colors (I have been thinking I need to make some), so I am really grateful for these! They are finished on all the edges and reversible. Cindy you are too much! Thank you! (She emailed me and said she was going to do this, because she felt like a pillow was a lot more work than a pouch. She wanted to do something more. I'm telling you, I came out ahead on this bargain!)
To top it all off, she enclosed this adorable, handmade tag. Isn't it neat?!
On the back is a little pocket that holds another tag, on which Cindy wrote me the nicest note.
Thank you, Cindy, from the bottom of my heart. I just love this and will treasure it! I will think of you every time I use these items (which will be very often!). I loved doing this swap with you. I hope we can do more in the future! I have so enjoyed getting to know you!
Cindy said she'd try to blog the pillow I sent her later today, so if you want to see that, hop on over to her blog, Adventures of the Singing Quilter.
I'll do a process post on the pillow this week also. I have a few things to say about the construction, a review of some thread, and a giveaway! So, be sure to come back!
I'm going to go pet my pouch a little more now. I do adore it so. And we'll be having dinner in style tonight with our new napkins!
Sorry I've been gone so long. Sometimes things just get so busy I can't seem to sit still long enough to compose a post. And I have so much to tell!
But I'll start by showing you what I sent off to Rene' for our Gruber's "Happy" exchange. You might remember I recently showed you what Terri sent me in the exchange. So happy!
Well, when we were at Gruber's and we agreed to do this, we were talking about what kinds of items we'd exchange. I had just shown my mini duffle pouch to everyone, and they loved it. I felt so honored, because these people I retreat with are so creative---I bow to them! Someone said to me, "If you draw my name, that's what I want you to send!" (or something to that effect)
So, I knew what I'd be making! LOL.
I made Rene' a little mini duffle bag out of some of my Lucy's Crab Shack scraps. I also had another label left from Sweetwater. I think Brooke gave it to me. So, I used that, too. I also attached a zipper pull that I had gotten from Zipit a while back. It turned out cute! (If you want information on the pattern and a review of it, I posted all that here.)
Instead of making the lining scrappy, I used some of the larger scraps left over from the little lunch mats I made out of Lucy's Crab Shack.
I filled the duffle bag with this cute little wool pincushion that I picked up at Fiber Fest for Rene'. I love little pincushions like this for my needles, because I hate it when needles disappear down inside my big wool pincushions. These are too small for your needle to go inside of. I also included some washi tape for Rene'. I don't know why I thought she'd enjoy washi tape, but I did, and I ordered it here on etsy. The day after I ordered it, I saw that Rene' did a post about how much she enjoyed playing with washi tape! Wahoo! Nailed it! Oh, and I sent her a "What the Fudge?" chocolate bar from Zingerman's, a restaurant in Ann Arbor I visited this summer. (If you like Texas barbeque, you should definitely check out Zingerman's if you are in Ann Arbor. YUM!) They make these candy bars, and they are FANTASTIC.
I had so much fun with this exchange. It was a lot of fun picking out stuff for Rene'. I really enjoy making these little duffle bags. They are so stinkin' cute and so satisfying to make. I already want to make another!
This summer, when I went on retreat in Minnesota at Gruber's, it somehow got started that everyone was trying something new--challenging herself to do something they'd never done before. One person was learning to crochet, another made something 3-D (a pincushion)... I mentioned that I had never been in a swap, and I wanted to try one. That led to someone proposing we do a swap amongst ourselves. I about squeeled with delight....Correction....I did squeal with delight! I couldn't believe everyone would do this for me!
We put our names in a hat and each drew a name. We were to make the person whose name we drew a little "happy" and send it off at the end of August. (A "happy" is a little gift for no other reason than to spread happiness to the recipient.)
We all fell a little behind. But we've all made our exchanges now, so people are starting to blog their "happies."
Terri drew my name and sent me this wonderful gift! It was tied up with a lovely ribbon, which I promptly stashed!
She included a lovely card. The envelope was addressed with such grace. I love it when people take extra care with stuff like this. I wish I thought to do it and was talented enough to carry it out like she did.
Here is the card. I could tell by looking at it that it was one of Terri's own designs. I am sure she silkscreened it herself. I've been reading on her blog about the graphic design classes she's been taking, where she's been challenged to make her own designs and silkscreen them (among other things). I'm a touch jealous of all the cool stuff she gets to do. This design and color scheme are so Terri!
There were so many lovelies in the package. First off, there was this totally adorable zipper pouch. I have oohed and aahed over Terri's design on these pouches before. She always has one at retreat. The handle is attached to the zipper. I love that. So, Terri said when she drew my name, she knew what to make for me. I am amazed at her thoughtfulness! I adore it and will probably use it for carrying handwork in.
The little yoyo is actually a cute little pin. So cute!
And there is a beautiful lining, with Terri's own label inside. Adore this.
And Terri was so sweet to send me all the scraps leftover! She knows I'm trying to get more variety in my scrap pile. Again...so thoughtful!
Inside the little pouch were a couple of goodies. Some new pins and a cute little keychain/pincushion. I can really use both!
And, finally, she included this adorable little house ornament! I keep wanting to make something like this, myself, but I haven't gotten around to it (what else is new?). So, I'm doubly appreciative for it!
Terri, thank you so much! I can't tell you how much you made my day when this package arrived. It's extra special to me because so much of your own design went into all the pieces, and because you were so thoughtful of the things I love.
I enjoyed this swap so much. I'm still too chicken to join a swap on Flickr or anything. But, recently, when I've blogged about my Sometimes I Really Miss Iowa art quilt, a lovely person named Cindy, who hails from Iowa, began commenting on my blog. I'm so happy to have met her. I've noticed from reading her blog, that she engages in a lot of swaps. We've gotten to chatting, and she was kind enough to offer to do a private exchange with me. I'm pretty excited. We've set a target date of November 20 for our exchange, so I'll be sure to show you the outcome! I'm really excited to do this swap with her!
How about you? Do you engage in swaps? Do you enjoy them?
