Posts don’t just publish themselves

Happy New Year all!  There were several posts rolling around in my brain during December and for some reason I thought they had been uploaded.  Sadly WordPress can’t just pull the post out of my brain and put them up here for you to read.  One of the big ones I had planned was the completion of the Northern Wilderness Quilt top.  I was sure I had posted the final PowerPoint presentations until I was talking about the top to a couple of customers today.  I told them there were some corrections to the border and that I had put them on my blog.  Oops — they weren’t there.  They are now.

Just the top will hang at Ruth’s Stitchery for a while.  I haven’t decided exactly how I want to quilt it yet.  You can find all my PowerPoint presentations on the construction of this quilt under the Northern Wilderness tab at the top of the Sonya’s Snippets page.

Idle Hands are…

It is said “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”  I wouldn’t know, my hands are rarely idle.

My boys are driving themselves to school everyday now, which means I don’t usually have a car.  As a result some days I get dropped at work 2-1/2 hours before I actually clock in.  On Monday, a couple weeks ago I knew I’d be sitting around for a few hours.  So at about 5:15 am I marked a stitchery design for another pillow.  I’d finished all the embroidery by Wednesday and the pillow by the week-end (that was all during my “idle” time).

The pattern is from Once Upon A Vine.

 

Andrea’s Star

Every year for the past 6 years, at the beginning of December I’ve completed a small whole cloth quilt.  Because I load my life up with so many different things, I usually start these quilts about 1 week before my deadline (Not until it is the most urgent thing on my list).  This year was no different.  I finished the binding on this quilt the day before I needed to give it away.

I wanted this quilt to have an antique appearance, so I didn’t do machine trapunto, I didn’t prewash the materials, and I did use Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 batting which is made to shrink when washed and dried.  I used a Maywood Shadowplay for the front and back.  Andrea seamed to be pleased with her gift.

 

Because I Can!

If you’ve been following along for a while you are probably aware I like a challenge.  Yep, I’m one of those strange people who actually enjoyed standardized tests in school.  I like to try to figure things out.  Guy will be happy to tell you, I sometimes jump out of bed in the middle of the night just to research something that came to mind.

We were given the assignment to make a place mat for our boss for Christmas.  The unifying aspect for all of these place mats  was to use at least one piece of fabric from the Primitive Gatherings Seasonal Gatherings line.   I will admit, I was not feeling  inspired!

Out of the blue, an idea came to me and I sketched out this little drawing.

It looked deceptively simple.  I needed to know yardage so I went home and played with Electric Quilt v. 7.  I settled on this rendition.

After drafting the design I knew it wasn’t going to be simple to stitch.  Yes, I could have used squares, but the seams would have disrupted the flow.  If you haven’t played with Electric Quilt, this is what you can expect to see if you ask for yardage.

I also printed out the rotary cutting instructions and kept the color key handy while piecing.

There were a couple of options for putting together this design, I could either have Y-seams or I could work with partial seams.  I chose the latter.  I’m not going to try to explain partial seams in this post, if anyone wants a tutorial let me know and I’ll add it to my “To Do List.”  It took about an hour in piecing time and mental gymnastics, but I did it!  Is it perfect?  No, but the next time (if there is a next time) will be better.  The appearance did improve from this after I pressed the finished product.

By the way, there were about 20 completely different place mats made by my co-workers.  There were several that were much prettier than this one.

 

 

 

 

 

Bristle Brush Santa

My co-worker, Beth and I saw these Santas in some paperwork prior to Quilt Market and requested them.  The ones that came back were all gone before they even made it out onto the floor.  More were ordered and they are available in the store.  I finished this one in way less than an hour.  If you are local and prefer demonstrations to written directions there are going to be two class sessions coming up in the next few weeks.  The price of the class includes one kit.

Everything you need (except glue, blush, needle and thread) comes in a kit form Happy Hollow Designs.  I wasn’t excited about the brown fabric that came in my kit for the hat so I switch it out.  That’s what a stash is for, isn’t it?  There are three different sized brush kits.  I’m on the look out now for inexpensive brushes so I can play around on my own.

I’m not usually a big Santa fan, but these guys make me smile.

Envelope Pillow Back Tutorial

“Full of Thanks” by Once Upon a Vine was a last-minute Autumn decoration.

I’ve mentioned before, that I disregard pattern directions if I can buy a pillow form to fit whatever pillow I’m making.  I don’t sew the pillow form into the pillow, which means I can more easily store just the covers for seasonal items.  I thought I might as well take pictures and do a tutorial for this type of pillow back.

1. Measure the height of the pillow.

2.  Cut a strip from the pillow back fabric as wide as the height of the pillow by the width of the fabric.  (If you get much bigger than a 16″ or 18″ pillow you will need more than the width of the fabric.)

3.  Square off the ends of the strip, removing the selvedge.

4.  Cut the strip in half.  I do this by having the former selvedge ends together and taking a sliver off which includes the fold.

5.  Now there should be two strips that are as wide as the pillow is high, and half the width of the fabric.

6.  Fold the strips in half, right sides together.  What was the selvedge and the center of the original strip should meet.  Align raw edges.

7.  Press fold.  Repeat with the other strip.  Now you have a choice.  You can either just place right sides together and sew all the way around the edges of the pillow, or you can place wrong sides together and bind like a quilt.  The second option is what is shown in my finished pillow, but I’ll show you both.

First I’ll show how to layer to turn the pillow without using a binding.

Option 1 #8 — Lay the pillow top on the work surface, right side up.

Option 1 #9 — Lay one of the backing pieces over the pillow front matching the raw edges as shown above.

Option 1 #10 — Place the second backing piece over both the pillow front and the first backing piece as shown.  Pin the cut edges in place and stitch with a 1/4″ seam allowance all the way around the outside edge.  Turn the pillow through the opening in the back.  Press stitched edges.

Option 2 #8  – Place the pillow front on the work surface wrong side up.

Option 2 # 9 Lay one of the backing pieces over the pillow front matching the raw edges as shown above.

Option 2 #10 Place the second backing piece over both the pillow front and the first backing piece as shown.  Pin the cut edges in place.  I choose to machine baste all the way around the outside edge inside the 1/4″ seam allowance.  Add binding exactly as you would to a quilt.  Turn right side out through the opening in the back.

11.  Now it is time to insert the pillow form into the finished pillow top.

12.  The first side is the easiest.  Shove the pillow form into one side.

13.  Scrunch up the pillow to fit into the other side.  Smooth out the pillow form inside the pillow cover.

14.  This is the view of the pillow back once the pillow form has been smoothed inside the pillow cover.  There is enough of an overlap that the pillow back doesn’t gap and the pillow form doesn’t show.  It is easy to remove the pillow form for cleaning or storage.

 

An Autumn Mood

“An Autumn Mood”

I have a couple more autumn posts I need to get uploaded before Thanksgiving comes and goes.

I recently finished a wool/wool felt table runner called “An Autumn Mood.  The Pattern is from Nutmeg Hare.

For the most part, I used Wool Felt.  However the Owl and main part of the basket is wool.  The pattern had a red and white checked wool piece for the napkin in the apple basket.  I couldn’t find a similar piece.  Now when I said I couldn’t find it, that just means there wasn’t any at the store and I didn’t have any in my stash.  I haven’t had time to run around hunting for things anywhere else.  So my napkin is a plain white piece of wool felt with a blanket stitch around the edge and running stitches in the body of the napkin.

As you can see I actually managed to get some pictures before it went into the store as a sample.

In the wool patterns, I generally disregard color recommendations for floss and perl cotton.  I use what I have on hand that works with the piece.

Detail of “An Autumn Mood”