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 went to my mailbox and found my prize waiting for me, to my surprise. I never got an email or anything but I'm not complaining. Connecting Threads sent me the Fauna collection of thread. This collection and several spools from it were on my wishlist. How can you pass up thread with names like Milk Chocolate and Latte. They are scrumptious in person and I'm thinking up coffee or cocoa ideas for a mini quilt to try them out. The light colored ones are needed for piecing. They're the perfect shade to blend in to many colors. I do have a small wallhanging that I wanted to put more quilting on that these colors would go perfectly with so that's probably going to be the first thing I do with these threads. I also need to go pick up a new tackle box to keep them in since the last one I bought was filled immediately from my last order of thread from Connecting Threads . I've also joined their site and Perfect Points Quilt a Long.   The first official Q...

I was sick last weekend when I wanted to finish this quilt so it had to wait until yesterday. It's about 33 inches square and made from a kit by Connecting Threads that I got for Mother's Day last year. It's made exactly as pictured in the directions but I pieced the blocks the way I preferred. I thought about changing it up some. I wanted to put something in the light print squares other than the letters but I couldn't decide what to do. However, once I traced out the letters and put the fusible on the fabric, I noticed the fabric went perfectly with them. In the end, I'm happy I didn't do something off the wall.  Since this is a wall quilt, I free motion quilted it very tightly. I had so much fun doing it and picking out what I wanted to do in each square. I think my favorite are the pinwheel and the spool blocks. Quilting it around Valentines' Day also influenced my design. In the blue corner squares, I used a red variegated thread and did a sti...

Thread, thread, thread. It was on sale last weekend for 50% off so I decided to pick up some. I've never used Sulky thread so I picked up this lovely variegated red, on the left, to maybe quilt something for Valentine's day & try it. Next, I needed denim thread to hem some jeans but I didn't like the color very much so I also picked up some heavy duty in a couple other colors to choose from. The spools look much smaller than they used to, the jeans thread only has 60 yds, but the price was right. This is actually the results of 2 shopping trips. After I bought the first spools, I decided I wanted the Sulky in another color but I went to a different store & they didn't have the quilting threads so I instead picked up a Coats & Clark in a 30 wt. cream color and a spool of invisible smokey polyester.  I haven't used any of these threads yet but I did pull on the C&C machine quilting cotton one to test it's strength. I was impressed it d...

I finally got back to quilting the borders of my quilt this past weekend. I bought some green variegated YLI machine quilting thread to encourage me. I did some warm up quilting with this thread, pulled it out and got ready to put my quilt under the needle when I saw this: I have never gotten a spool of thread with a tie in it. I'm sure it happens but if I had found this on the top of my quilt I think I would have been upset. The thing was, I hadn't done much quilting before the tie so why include it in the spool. I guess it's because it's machines doing the work and people are not even watching them anymore. This knot wouldn't even go through my needle. I could have had a major thread break if I hadn't noticed this. I finally sat down and free motion quilted some swirly loops in a density to match the rest of the quilting. I gave up after 2 of the 4 borders were quilted because it was boring, really, really boring. I started another project instead. I...

The other week I was browsing Quilter Blogs.com when I came across a post with a picture of a beautiful bracelet like I'd never seen before . It was made from yarn in a Japanese braiding style called Kumihimo. I immediately searched the web to find out more. I found supplies , patterns and videos . It's so simple that you can start with what you have on hand if you want but I knew I wanted the disk made from thick fun foam. I searched around for it and found it at Jo Ann's in the kids' craft section as a lanyard  maker. It was very reasonable priced with a 50% off coupon so it came home with me. 

I call it "Welcome Spring" After that awful cold snap we had here in DFW, I think I wanted something really bright and cheerful. It's 22 inches square, thankfully. I don't think I could stomach these two colors together if it was much larger. This is a good representation of the colors. The blocks are each 6 inches finished. It's basically a sample to try out my new Tri-Recs rulers. I free motion quilted it with Connecting Threads' Essentials in Purple.