Peas In A Pod

My First Free-Motion Quilting

Good afternoon, everyone!  Whew!  It's been a busy day.  It's already 3:30, and this is the first chance I've had to get on my computer all day.

Last weekend, I finished the table runner I had started a week or two ago.  I quilted a flower at the center of each block and a cable around the border.  I also stitched in the ditch between each block and around the green border strips.  I think it turned out okay.  I also got the binding on.  I am proud of myself for trying some free motion quilting.  I have done some stitch-in-the-ditch quilting and some stipple quilting, but I really haven't tried to follow a drawn line before.  I think it's about a C+ to B- job.  I really need to improve.  But, overall, I am happy with it.

 

I still love the fabrics.  They are so bright and cheerful.

 

This was probably the best flower.  I really liked how the variegated threads look.

 

Here is the border.

I'm especially proud that the back looks as good as the front.  No puckers, thread nests, etc.

Some of my flowers aren't quite as good as this one.  The lines in the center don't really meet up nicely like the one shown above.  I don't like that.  I am thinking of sewing pretty buttons to the center of each flower.  But, that's always tricky on a table runner, because then it's hard to set stuff on it.  What do you think?  Any suggestions?  Should I just leave it as is, or should I add the buttons?  I just feel like it needs something else.

Hope you are all having a wonderful day.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

It's a good thing kids are so cute...

Hi Everyone!  I hope you are having a great day!

Here are some more updates from my weekend adventures...then I'll get to the meaning of the title of this post.  I have to share some craft fair stuff first to get to it. 

This was probably my favorite booth at the craft fair.  First of all, their stuff was sooooo cute!  Great fabrics, great designs.  Second, the gals who ran the booth were just as nice as can be.  I talked to them a little when I purchased my goodies (I'll show them to you below).  They make the designs themselves and then pay stay-at-home moms by the piece to sew for them.  Cool!  I want to be a stay-at-home mom now!  Check it out.  This stuff is from LoCoMaMa Designs (click the name to go to their website, where you can see more details on these products).  What a cute name for their store! 

Check out these ties!  They were so cute, it made me wish I had a boy!  So clever! 

Raw edge construction, with a little elastic around the neck for easy wearing!

Cute little roll-up crayon caddies.  Don't you just LOVE these fabrics?!

Such cute hair accessories...headbands, clippies, barrettes.  We had a hard time choosing.

Totes for your cell phone, business cards, and cameras.  Wallets, too.

Even their business cards are adorable.  (Sorry it's so blurry.)

Here's the loot I brought home.  Now, I know...I could make these myself.  But, seriously, when will I ever have the time?!  And the instant gratification was wonderful.  :-)  Besides, it's fun to support fellow gals who are so talented!

A headband for my daughter.  Notice the bra strap as the stretchy adjustable part of the headband.  How fun is that?

Cell phone keepers for me (pink) and the gal who does my after school care (blue).  Couldn't live without her.  Thanks, Myra!!!  Love ya!  Hope you liked the cell phone tote!

A card keeper for all my "frequent customer" cards.

The card keeper closed.  Don't you just love how they coordinate fabrics?!

Key keepers.  I love the long one.  You can put it around your wrist and still grab the keys to put the key in the lock, ignition, etc.  The shorter one will be for my spare house key.

Okay, so now onto the "rest of the story!"  Little Sweet Pea decided she would "help" me when I wasn't looking.  She decided the tag needed to be cut off my cell phone tote.  I liked that tag and didn't want it cut off!  But she apparently thought it needed to be cut off.  So, she got the scissors out and cut it off.  While she was at it, she cut the fabric at the seam!  Check out the damage!

See where the fabric's cut on the lower right-hand edge!  GRRRRR!  I was so mad.  I started to scold her, and she looked at me with these big, sad eyes and said, "I was just trying to help you, Mom."  Okay, so now I feel bad.  I take a big breath and tell myself to get over it.  I am now looking at this as an "opportunity to embellish!"  I am going to find some cute ribbon and use some nice fabric glue and glue it on right over the "boo boo."  I'll post an updated photo when I do that.

This reminds me of something she did about a year ago.  I bought this great Vera Bradley purse:

Before I could even use it, I was sewing one day, and Sweet Pea comes in the sewing room and says, "Look, Mommy, I decorated your purse for you."  And she shows me this:

ARGH!  I got really upset.  I tried to clean it off.  Who knew ball point pen was so hard to get off of shiny vinyl?!!!  I told her she shouldn't have done that.  She again looked at me with the big, puppy dog eyes and said, "I was just trying to help, Mommy."  I melted.  I told myself (1) it's just a purse, (2) the ink's on the bottom so it's not ruined, and (3) in a few years, I'll probably treasure this purse because of the nice little drawing my daughter did on the bottom of it for me.  Well, it's a year later and the drawing already makes me smile and laugh.  So, I just need to get over it!

Yes...good thing kids are so cute or we'd probably kill them more often!

Well, that's enough for today.  More updates tomorrow.  Hope you liked LoCoMaMa's stuff.  Check out their website.  I thought these ladies were great.

More on my quilting progress tomorrow.  (You could see the table runner I finished in the background behind my cut up cell phone pouch and under my purse.  I'll fill you in on that tomorrow.)

Have a great day!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Another Productive Weekend

Hi Everyone!  Well, it was another productive weekend at my house, so I'll space my productivity out over the week.  I also went to a craft fair this weekend and have some fun stuff to show you from there.  I'll post some of that over the course of the week also.

First up:  I finished the applique on my Meadow Breeze block from Pat Sloan.

I am pleased with how it turned out and really enjoyed doing the applique.  I am ready to move onto the next month's block.  I think I'll order the finishing kit for the pieced blocks, too.

News about the craft fair:

It was a pretty good craft fair.  Having just moved from Pocatello, Idaho, where I could hit all the booths at our local craft fair in about 15 minutes, I thought this one was decent sized.  It was nothing like the huge ones I used to attend when living in Spokane, but this was not bad.  Here's a view of about 1/2 of the booths.  They were set up at the ice arena, where our hockey team plays.

There were also booths all along the perimeter up top, where the concession stands usually are.  So that was a lot of fun.

Here are some photos of one of my favorite booths.  This gal takes her own photos of architecture and nature that resemble letters.  You can pick out photos of letters you want (there are multiple photos of each letter to choose from) to spell a word.  She mounts them together, and you can hang them on the wall.  I thought this was one of the most clever things I've seen in a long time.  The cost is $9 per letter ($8 at the show).

 

In the photo above, you can see the one on the upper left says, "Family," and the one to the right of it says "Johnson."  The one in the middle says, "WMU" (for Western Michigan University--I really liked this one, because that's where I work).  On the bottom left is "Wine" and to the right of that, "Love."  You can see the gal assembling one in the background.

Here's a close-up shot of the "Family" one.

I really want one of these, but I ran out of money.  I think I will be ordering one of these in the future, and I think this would make a wonderfully unique thank-you gift for someone I need to thank.  You can learn more about it at "What's in a Name Pictures."

More on progress and the craft fair tomorrow.  Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Cork Board from Wine Corks

I have long wanted to make a cork board from wine corks.  I have been saving corks for a really long time and have a whole lot of them.  Some of them are pretty special corks from special occasions.  Today, a friend sent me a link to this blog, where LittleNannyGoat described how she made a similar cork board.

http://littlenannygoat.blogspot.com/2009/02/cork-boards.html

I am thinking I would love a place to keep my good fortunes (you know, the special ones you get from fortune cookies and you just can't throw them away but you don't know where to put them), fun quips and quotes, some of my favorite cartoons, etc.  I think it would be fun to have them hanging in my craft room for inspiration and a good laugh now and then, or at least a grin.

Sigh....another project I would love to start and actually finish!  I am going to try to show some self control, however, and hold off until I finish a couple of other projects first!  On tap for this weekend:  covering some paper maché eggs with spring fabric using Mod Podge (see http://www.modabakeshop.com/2010/03/bunny-eggs.html for detailed instructions), secretly making some little bunnies for Sweet Pea's Easter basket, and maybe a little progress on my other projects.  I'll provide updates next week!

Have a wonderful weekend!  Hope you get lots of crafting time in!

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Progress on Meadow Breeze BOM from Pat Sloan

Happy Thursday!  It’s almost the weekend again.  I hope this weekend is as productive as last weekend.  Here’s yet another post about my progress last weekend.

Remember that awesome fabric I showed you last week, which I ordered from Pat Sloan to do her BOM?  This one is appliqué and piecing combined.  The first block is a medallion block that will go in the center of this quilt.  It’s all appliqué.  I don’t know what the rest of the quilt looks like; this is the only part that’s been revealed thus far.  I kind of like the mystery.  I haven’t really done a mystery quilt before.

This quilt will use the raw-edge method of appliqué.  So, I traced the pattern on some fusible web and cut it out.  I tried cutting out most of the center of the fusible also (so just a ring of adhesive will go around the edge of the appliqué piece.  I have not done this before…usually I leave all of the fusible in.  But I heard doing this will keep your appliqués nice and soft, rather than hard and stiff.

I cut all the pieces out and assembled the appliqué on an appliqué pressing sheet first.  Then, I peeled it off the pressing sheet and ironed it onto the background fabric.  I was pretty happy with how it looked.  What do you think?

I am a little concerned with how you can see the green fabric behind the pink flower petals so well.  After I stitch down the petals, can I trim that fabric away from the back?  Does anyone know?

Also, I put a piece of stabilizer behind the applique work before I stitched it.  I thought it might be a good idea to give the fabric more stabilization while I stitched it.  My stabilizer didn't quite cover the back, so there are some sections that got appliqued without it.  I don't really notice a difference, so I am thinking putting the stabilizer behind it is an unnecessary step.  Any feedback?

I made two mistakes.  First, I used the wrong fabric for a few of the circles.  But, no worries.  I think they look fine, and I’m not worried about it.  My second mistake involved accidentally placing two of the circles wrong side up before I pressed them onto the pressing sheet.  (My lighting isn't the greatest by my ironing board.)  Oops.  So, now I have glue all over my iron and have to clean it.  Drat.  So, I was too lazy to cut new little circles--Yes, I know…that is pretty lazy, huh?  How long would that have taken me to cut two new circles with adhesive on the back?  A whole 10 minutes?  But, I have this great adhesive spray that is supposed to be permanent.  It is 606 Fusible Spray.  (Click on the name of the spray for a link to where I purchase it sometimes.) 

Have any of you used it?  I’ve used it a few times on another project, and it seems to work well.  So, instead of cutting new circles, I just sprayed the 606 Spray all over the back of the fabric, stuck it down, and ironed it on.  It seemed to work just fine.  And you know what?  It was as soft as my other pieces of fabric that didn’t have glue all over the back.  Hmmm…this gives me some ideas for future appliqué projects.  I need to think about it some more.

Amazingly, I even had time this weekend to start stitching down the appliqué.  I got all the green done (both light and dark), but I haven’t finished any of the coral/orange/pink yet.  I really enjoyed the sewing process here.  I am loving using the new Aurifil thread I bought from Pat Sloan, also for this project.  I have used Aurifil for my piecing for the past couple of years now, and I love it.  I mostly use neutrals for piecing though, so it was really fun to use these pretty colors.  I think it’s turning out quite well.  You can see the stitching on the light green the best.  It doesn’t show up on the dark green much, and, as I said, I haven’t done the pinks yet.

Working on this project has renewed my interest in machine appliqué.  I have usually done the kind where you cut out freezer paper templates and turn your fabric edges over the freezer paper, either using starch or just the wax on the freezer paper to hold the edge down; then you stitch it down with a small zig zag stitch using invisible thread.  I think I like the fusible a little better, because it’s not quite as tedious to prepare the appliqué pieces, and I enjoy doing the blanket stitch around the appliqué pieces.  Also, I have a little trouble with the invisible thread.  It always seems to want to pull the bobbin thread up to the top, even though I have the top tension as low as it can go.  However, I really also enjoy the look of the other form of appliqué.  I think this has renewed my interest in a few different appliqué projects I have in process.  Maybe I’ll dig one of those out and get going on that again, too.  You may see that in an upcoming post.

Have a great weekend everyone!  I hope it’s productive, fun, and relaxing!

Until next time,

Mama Pea