Stitching in the Barn

I'm still working on my potholders.  I used an old friend from high school to help me baste them. Aqua Net is cheap and the fumes are not as toxic as basting spray. I basted them in the bathroom so it wouldn't get on the carpet. I ONLY use it on small projects. It's not the stickiest stuff.

I sent out my fabric postcards last week for the swap. I made two more for a total of three so I should get three back. I used these postcards to try out a no mark method of sewing hexagons together that Jacquie over at Tallgrass Prairie Studio posted. It made sewing hexagons super simple and fast. I started with my Bits & Bobbins scraps and cut some hexagons with the small hex template from Marti Michell. I used set H template 52a which makes a 1.5 inch finished hexagon.  First I sewed a strip of them straight across. This actually already has two strips pieced together and I'm in the middle of the third but the idea is the same. The previous stitching lines make the 1/4 inch from the end marks, as long as they are accurate. You're basically stitching the seams in order starting on the side touching the previous piecing on the top or left then to the next counter-clockwise until it's attached. Above, the light blu...

My mother-in-law came to visit last week during Spring Break. It was fun. We had a quilt project me, her and my daughter were in the middle of before she visited. It was great for National Quilting Day. It was like we celebrated all week. We completed them, well mostly. I still need to attach the binding on my daughter's quilt. It was a kit we picked up a while ago called Misty Pines by Jeri Kelly. It finishes at 7.75 inches by 21.25 inches. It came with a paper pieced center and all the fabrics to finish it except batting. We bought three to work on them together. It was my daughter and MIL's first quilt. It was a great idea to buy a complete kit for their first project because we didn't have to spend the extra time debating over choosing fabric and some of the pieces were already cut to size so we could get right to working on them. They came out great. Here's mine: And my daughter's: The kit didn't include a binding so we went out to buy...

I'm trying to post/document my sewing more often. Today, all I have is a list of stuff I bought to sew with but haven't done any sewing, yet. Actually, I repaired a car seat cover for my husband this weekend but that doesn't really count because it wasn't for me. I scored some $2/yard flannel solids from Jo Ann's last week when they were on sale, about 5 yards. They're for the backing of my daughter's quilt. I looked at the backing and realized I probably didn't need that much. I wish I had had the money to get more. With the price of cotton ready to go up, who knows what it will cost next year. Also at Jo Ann's, I bought some muslin and Warm & White batting to start the quilting on my BOM blocks. I brought a 40% & 50% coupon with me and told the cashier I specifically wanted the 50% coupon used on the batting. That evening, I looked over my purchases and the receipt and noticed the 40% came off the batting and the 50% came o...

Today I stitched & turned it with the batting & the backing and did the stitch in the ditch to prep it for free-motion quilting. I used Purple thread from Connecting Threads and I love how it looks. I used a tip I picked up recently. I used hairspray as basting spray to stick the two layers that weren't getting turned together. Since it was a small quilt & I had an old can of Aquanet hanging around I thought I'd try it and it worked very well. I didn't even have to go outside for better ventilation to use it. I sprayed it on both sides to be sure it stuck and everything went fine. There were no puckers on the back side of my quilt, just on the top that was only pin basted.

I just finished watching The Quilt Show's latest free episode featuring the gorgeous quilts of Philippa Naylor . She has some amazing bright and colorful quilts! Her quilting and trapunto are exquisite and she shares her techniques and tips in this episode. The best tip I saw was what she uses for gripping the fabric for machine quilting. Here's a screen cap: It's that drawer liner stuff that looks like a puffy web and grips. I'm so excited about this tip! No more hot gloves in the Texas heat for me! She just cuts a piece 4in by 6in and places her left hand on top of it and grasps the fabric with her right hand to move it. I'm going out to get some today! She also shared her experiences of living in Saudi Arabia for 15 years, it was enlightening, to say the least, and took a tour of some of the vendors at the Houston International Quilt Festival after the show. It was a really great episode and has inspired me to try trapunto, someday ^_^ My ...