Snowman Fetish

I told my 15-year-old I had a snowman fetish.  He was disturbed and told me I shouldn’t use that word about snowmen.  However, I pulled the word up in the dictionary and the third definition was “excessive or irrational  devotion to some activity.”  For some “irrational” reason, I’m drawn to snowmen projects. One of the most recent is the quilt “Snowmen A to Zzzz… from Crabapple Hill.  When asked if I would take over a hand embroidery group this year, I knew exactly what project I wanted to do.  Back in September I started working on a sample and block A quickly lead all the way to block Z.  In fact all the blocks were embroidered in about a 2 month period.  Admittedly that was during Soccer season when the boys were taking my car and I would wait at various places.  Which meant I had lots of down time to work on this.  I changed the borders, because after all that work I thought the quilt deserved something more.  It isn’t quilted yet and ended up hanging in the shop before I got good pictures.  Sometime in the future when I’ve quilted it, I’ll post a better picture.

As mentioned this is a block party at work, but I figured I’d post information here as I went along.  You can follow in the Snowmen A to Z tab above if you like.

Lazy Daisy Stitch and Chain Stitch

I made a promise to upload directions for more embroidery stitches.  Today I got a couple of hours at home while the sun was shining and the lighting was good. Which means I’ve carried through on my promise and recorded directions for the Lazy Daisy and the Chain Stitch.  They are certainly related.  The chain stitch is basically lazy daisies connected together.

 

Embarking on Another Project

I’ve sat through Block Parties in the past, but this is the first year I’ve been responsible for any myself.  Not just one, but two.  It is eye-opening what goes on behind the scenes to pull it off each month.   This morning was the first meeting for the Northern Wilderness block party.  This is the block I presented.

I’m showing the process in PowerPoint presentations, and I thought I’d upload them here as PDFs when I was finished.  So if you would like to play along, you will find information under the Northern Wilderness tab at the top of my Blog Page.  I’m having fun with this.

The Elusive Quarter-Inch Seam Allowance

Have you ever carefully cut the pieces for a block or quilt, then just as carefully sewed the 1/4″ seam allowance and yet the pieces didn’t fit together correctly?  Most likely it wasn’t a mistake in cutting, but rather that 1/4″ seam allowance wasn’t really a 1/4″.  I can hear more than one response, “but I used the quarter-inch foot,” or “I set the quarter-inch setting on my machine.”  Sadly there is no guarantee either of those things will result in an accurate 1/4″ seam allowance.  Actual settings for a quarter-inch seam vary from machine to machine.  So to ensure an accurate seam allowance you need to test your machine.  Here’s how:

1.  Cut three strips of fabric that are 1-1/2″ wide, my samples just happen to be 5″ long.

2.  Stitch the long sides together using either a quarter-inch foot or the quarter-inch setting on your sewing machine.  I use a longer stitch so it is easier to remove the stitches from the test piece if the seam allowance isn’t exactly 1/4″

3. Finger press the seams, and measure the center strip. If the seam allowance is accurate that measurement should be exactly 1″.  In the picture below the arrow points to the edge of the center strip.  You will notice the strip is slightly less than 1″.  Which means the seam allowance is more than 1/4″.

4.  Since the seam allowance isn’t accurate, remove the stitches . . .

5. and try again, after changing the needle position.  This is how my screen looked when the needle was in the center position.

 

Because I determined my seam allowance is too wide, I moved my needle one position to the right.  (If the seam allowance was too narrow and your center strip measured more than an inch you would need to move the needle to the left.)

6.  After stitching the seams, I again finger press and measure the center strip.  This time my strip is exactly 1″.  If your’s isn’t repeat the above steps until it is.

7.  Just to be absolutely sure, I press the strips with an iron.

8.  Then measure one more time.

9.  Now that you have that perfect quarter-inch setting, write it down!  If you change your thread to a different weight you will need to test again.  Yes, thread weight can affect the seam allowance width.

On a side noet, but related — if you have trouble with the sewing machine pulling the beginning of your pieces into the feed dogs, you might want to consider a straight stitch plate for your machine.  Below is a picture of the two throat  plates for one of my machines.  The one on the left is the stand zig zag plate that came with the machine and the one on the right is the straight stitch plate.

If you do use a straight stitch plate, be careful when adjusting the needle position to get an accurate 1/4″ seam.  The plate is intended to be used with the needle in the center position, however the hole was large enough on mine that moving the needle one position did not result in broken needles.  I think two positions from center is probably the most I could squeeze out.

My seam allowance was just slightly off on my first try.  Some might think, what’s the big deal.  Let’s say you were working with 2-inch squares.  If you were off just 1/16″ of an inch, in 16 squares you would have lost a whole inch.  So what should have been 32″ is now 31″ and if you were making those two-inch squares with half-square triangles you have lost more like two inches.  It adds up faster than one might expect and can cause loads of frustration!

December Projects

As is our usual tradition, we opened gifts on Christmas Eve night.  Which means, I can finally show the projects I’ve worked on this month.  It has been several years since I did many handmade gifts and this year I made up for it.  First up is the whole cloth quilt I made for our quilt group gift exchange.  The color isn’t quite right on the screen — it is a red, red.  The quilting designs were derived from some Hawaiian fabric.

We only exchange gifts with extended family if we are together.  My sister and her family came here this year.  So for her I made this Handbag.  The Pattern is “The Large Angled Pocket Handbag” from Dixons Designs. (The fabric for my purse came into the store this week )

My sister and brother-in-law have a foster daughter who is 11 months old today.  For her I made a baby doll from a “Dinky Baby” pattern.  I used Doll Skin fabric rather than the craft velour called for by the pattern.  I think the velour would have been easier to work with.  The pattern directions come on a CD so there are loads of pictures which means the instructions are pretty easy to follow!  The real baby’s first reaction to the doll was to rip off its hat and bite it on the top of the head.  We think maybe she considered that a kiss.  LOL.

I was cleaning out Jesse’s outgrown clothes a couple months ago and there was a large stack of T-shirts.  I was ready to donate them, and it suddenly struck me I had about enough to make a T-shirt quilt.  I stuck them in the closet and forgot about them.  I remembered them at the beginning of the month.  I bought the stabilizer for the shirts on December 4.  I didn’t have as many T-shirts as I needed to make the quilt the size I wanted, but I did have the backs.  So I digitized video game titles and images on 7 squares.  I was clearly reminded of the fact, I dislike auto digitizing.  However, I had to live with it as I didn’t have time to manually digitize and finish by Christmas.  I also didn’t stitch out samples.  All the embroidered blocks are the first try.  The boys got out of school on December 20 and I managed to finish the binding on the 21st early in the morning.  Thankfully they are fairly typical teens and slept in. There is Dr. Suess flannel on the back and wool batting.  It all paid off when Jesse pulled it out of the box and proclaimed he LOVED it!

For Guy I made a turtle police car pillow from one of the blocks in Amy Bradley’s “Traveling Turtles” pattern.  He had seen a picture of the pattern and asked me to buy it.  He said he would make a pillow from that block if I would help him.  I just saved him the trouble.  I think this pattern is a hoot, and after making this am considering a whole quilt.

I made pillow cases for both Nolan and Jesse.  The pattern can be found by searching either “Hot Dog Pillow case” or “Burrito Pillow Case”  I used this pattern.  Nolan got Converse like shoe fabric because he has a pair of bright yellow ones exactly like one shown in the print, and Jesse got cats, because he has been crazy about them for years.

Finally a new wall hanging for Guy’s office.  He has two already and this is to rotate out with one of them.  The Pikes Peak and Colorado Springs postcard blocks are from Olde America Antiques Vintage Quilt Blocks.  The pattern comes with the blocks but is also available free from their website.  I still need to hand stitch the hanging sleeve and will probably get to it today.

Whew, I should be tired just looking at this, but I’m ready to move on to the next project, or three.

The Power of Suggestion

Working in the quilt shop, it is fascinating to me how much power there is in a sample.  In the nearly 6 months I’ve been working there, I’ve seen people buy patterns and books they would never have looked at twice without a store sample.  We had a stack of “Frosted Memories” books from This & That which had been languishing on the shelf.  There are great projects in the book, but the whole thing was done with that specific line of fabric.  Most of it is long gone.  I really liked the pillow and decided to make it up from other fabric.  I hate to admit I used a couple pieces of Thimbleberries fabric.  (I’m just not a Thimbleberries fan.)

 

From the pillow scraps I had enough left to make this hexagon table topper (also from the book) if I just added the rusty-red from my stash.

 

I’m happy to report, the power of suggestion is alive and well.  The books are sold out and I was able to bring the samples home before Christmas!

What Do You Get…?

What do you get when you draw a name and then add:  fabric, stuffing, thread,  buttons, beads, fimo clay, card stock, ribbon, floss, ink, wire, press board, batting, a dowel, wood turnings, tape, paint, cardboard tube, skewer,  sewing machine, a compass, oven, chop saw, scroll saw, drill press, hot glue gun,  and a crimper?

Why, a barber shop quartet of course.

We are having a gift exchange at work on Sunday and I drew our sewing machine repair man’s name.  He sings with a barber shop quartet.

This just started with an idea, a couple of sketches and then a lot of hours making it happen.   As an original design, this is a one of a kind gift.  The only thing I had to buy  for the project was the dowel and wood turninsg for the barber pole.

French Dress — Store Sample

Working with certain people can be a detriment to the time I have at home.  When the French Dress line of Fabric from Marcus Brothers came in a co-worker held up a bolt of fabric and asked, “Do you want to make a store sample?”  I loved the piece she held up and so responded, “sure.”  Upon closer inspection of the line there were a couple prints that I really liked and also some that I detested.  (No offense to the designer, I’ve since had a customer buy some of the fabric I hated and gush about it.  There’s something for everyone.)

I used the free pattern available here, but did change things around some. (Warning the length wise measurement for the top and bottom border is about 6″ short in the pattern)  I replaced some of the prints from the line with other fabric that is slightly less busy.

I used wool batting and quilted it with a paisley  panto.  Nolan called dibbs on the quilt while I was working on it, so it will be his once it finishes its time in the store.

Winter Wishes

Finished another store sample yesterday.  One color-way of the Winter Wishes fabric by Benartex was moving well and the other wasn’t, so I looked for a way of sparking it up.  I pulled in some bright colors and am happy with the results.

The quilt is based on the pattern “Table Scraps” from the book Sprucing up the Castle with X-Blocks.  I reduced the number of blocks in the quilt to 25 and replaced 13 of those with the snowmen.  The blocks were cut with the 6-1/2″ X-block ruler.

There were 15 snowmen blocks in a panel so after finishing the top, I started thinking about what to do with the 2 leftover.  I also had all the remains from cutting the X-blocks.  So if you like the front  – what do you think of the back?

 Everything until the last border was scrap from the front and I was literally left with this small mound of scraps that might be considered usable.

Vintage Friday — Singer Oil Cans

I’m drawn to vintage sewing machines, but Guy feels the pull of oil cans.  He has a small collection going.  He bought all of them except the one for the featherweight, which I purchased.

They are far more interesting than the plastic bottles of today.