Category Archives: Sewing & Hand Quilting

Basting

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Last week I finished all the blocks for E’s quilt and started deciding the layout. Above is what I came up with and I thought something wasn’t quite there about it. Showing the picture to my mother, she suggested another dark border around the group of star blocks. Ah ha! So Tuesday I ran out to the LQS and picked an extra navy bit for another border, the backing, and the batting.

I switched the bottom right two blocks and made pieced the extra border. Much better! and more complete looking.

I finished up the quilt top Wednesday and now am basting the layers together (of course with a helper) and thinking about the quilting pattern. Any suggestions? The back is a light tan with blue and red flora (should show the stitches well!) and I have navy quilting thread.

Preparing with a quilt

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Serena of Evan Wren Quilting asked if I was going to make a quilt for our soon-to-be-here 6 year old son. My first thought was I’ll never be finished in time! But as I pondered it I realized that if I pieced the top with my machine it might be possible to finish in time depending on when we get him. I suppose if I don’t finish the hand quilting by the time he gets here he might appreciate it more because he’ll witness first hand my efforts for a gift. LOL Hard to say with a little guy though. :-)

So urged by Serena, I looked through a couple quilt books and thought the Union Star Quilt in Civil War Sewing Circle, The: Quilts and Sewing Accessories Inspired by the Era (That Patchwork Place) by Kathleen Tracy was perfect for a young boy. It’s not too big and if I keep to similar colors of blue and red he’ll probably like it. When I first browsed the book it was one of my favorite patterns and I had started setting aside some possible fabrics for it. After some shuffling these are what I came up with.

The last day and a half I’ve spent sewing blocks and have 4 finished and one more cut. I made a mistake on two but I’m probably not going to bother taking it apart and resewing them. I’ve already done some seam ripping to get the first 2 blocks to the right size. The 1/4 inch mark on my machine must be slightly off and made the finished blocks much smaller than should be. Most people probably wouldn’t notice the mistakes anyway especially with 8 more blocks. Would you have noticed them if I hadn’t pointed it out?

Quick projects

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Sometimes I feel the need to do a quick project, one that will only take a day or less. A lot of my projects are seem to take forever since I like to do things the slow way, by hand. Do you ever feel that way?

I was meaning to make an apron for myself since September from this vintage pattern and decided Wednesday to just get ‘er done.

Used my machine to make this and am quite pleased that it was so quick even though it was a Simplicity pattern (it often takes me forever to figure out what the instructions mean). Even had enough time and thread to do a little fancy over stitching ( it’s about the only non-basic stitch on my machine ;o) ) on the waist band.

Merry Christmas!

Cat and Goldfish Applique Pattern

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The second and third hand applique patterns for a playing cat, two goldfish, and a fishbowl.

On the template for the cat, you’ll notice that both ears are indicated that they are to be embroidered but you could do them my way as well with only the back ear embroidered and the front ear incorporated into the medium orange piece. I also thought that the left front and back paws being two separate pieces were easier than making them one.

The other difference in the template and my creation you’ll notice is in the fishbowl. I did cut out a gray piece for the opening but decided that I didn’t like the look as much as without.

Here is the PDF with the pattern pieces for the cat and goldfish: Download
and this is the PDF for the fishbowl: Download
Feel free to ask any questions!

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