Five County Fair

The Five County Fair starts tomorrow and tonight I have gathered up my projects that I will submit for judging. I have a baker's dozen of items that I have chosen to enter into the fair competition. They are all in the handicrafts division.

Here is a list:

1. Neptune Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt
2. Halloween Owl Quilted Table Topper
3. Halloween Bird Lapel Pin
4. Needlefelted Carrot Eyeglass Case made with felted wool
5. Crow and Sandcastle quilted wallhanging wool applique
6. Doll Quilt made from vintage sheets, green with basketweave
7. Basket of Flowers Wool Applique wallhanging
8. Crow with Pumpkin Wool Applique Pillow
9. Purse sewn from a ladies cargo skirt decorated with wool flowers
10. Patchwork Purse made with Amy Butler fabrics
11. Bird in Cherry Tree Wool Applique Wallhanging
12. Redbirds in Bower Quilted Wallhanging
13. Winter Hat made from felted wool and embellished with wool flowers

The prizes are small shiny ribbons and a few dollars for first thru third places. Last time I entered with far fewer items and won enough $ for a few candy apples. I had a blast making these things and if I win prizes that is just the icing on the cake.

Wish me luck!

Crow Perched on Pumpkin Wool Applique

This is made with all felted wool fabric. The orange was hand dyed in the kitchen. The shapes are all hand cut using designs traced on wax paper and ironed on. It makes it so easy to cut once the wax paper cools off.

Here is a detail of the stitching. I did this with the sewing machine and the free motion quilting foot. I used contrasting thread for the pumpkin to suggest the texture of real pumpkins. The fabric was not fused down before quilting, which makes it more difficult to make totally smooth, but for this I preferred a more rustic, primitive look.

This is the same bird as the pins, without a contrasting wing color. When I sewed him on and added the legs with more free motion quilting, he appears to be looking up at the sky. Totally un-intentional, but I love how it turned out.

The leaves around the base of the pumpkin are stitched to show the texture. Not perfect, but rustic and primitive.

I finished this off by making it into a pillow. I used the same color wool as the leaves and sewed on a two inch border on all sides. I backed it with a green wool fabric from my wool stash and stuffed it with a pillow form. It is 16 inches square. Love it!

Halloween Crow Pins

Detail of the largest bird, about three inches. I used 2 layers of wool, cotton quilting fabric and perle cotton in 2 colors. The eyes are glass seed beads in orange. They have pin backs for wearing on a jacket or bag. I made some similar for someone that I added floss for hanging the ornament on a tree or cupboard pull.

I had a small assortment of halloween fabric squares that came from a swap on swapbot. It is just enough to make the wings with cool halloween prints.

Little Hall'ween Birdie!

Doll Quilt Swaps Sent and Received

Here is the quilt I sent Allie for the DQS7. She blogged about it here. These are her pics. Mine were too dark to suit me.

Here are some goodies from Tracy that came with my quilt. There are two patterns for quilts and a charm pack of cool 30's prints.

Look at the detail of this stitching. The quilting is done by hand with such even stitches. Very hard to do. Also, she used over 70 different prints of fabric to make this top. Tiny blocks of 76 different fabrics!

Here it is in all it's glory! I will cherish this for a long time.

I like participating in the doll quilt swap. Many beautiful quilts were created and shared. There is a flickr group for this swap if you want to check out the photos.

Fall Felt Time Again

I have made things with almost exclusively cotton this summer. Now I have begun some fall projects using felted wool.

Halloween birds with assorted cotton print fabric wings. The birds are felted wool dyed black in my kitchen. The wings are cut from quilt fabrics. I have stitched the wings on using apricot perle cotton thread.

I cut several different shapes and sizes of birds. I like the look of the mix.

Fall mini quilt from a cheater panel. About 22 inches on each side. I quilted this using free motion with several different colors of thread.

The back of the mini quilts are pieced together using squares of vintage sheet fabric. The colors are very autumnal and seemed to suit this project. Now the mini quilts can be used on both sides.

Second mini quilt with fall theme. Lots of quilting to show the details of the patterns.

Hand dyed wool to be made into fall projects-- pumpkins, leaves, etc. I will make pins and also some wall hangings.

Some Recent Projects

Star ornaments made with scrapbook paper and Sizzix machine. Love these! Sending them out on a swapbot swap.

Star ornament made with felted wool.

Pet Mat made with vintage sheet material--very soft!

Another pet mat made with vintage sheet material-- polka dots and stripes.

Betz White shared the directions for redoing a freebie bag. I came home and whipped one up using the free lunch bag the school system gave me last year. This is the inside with a pocket that used to be on the outside. Next you can see the finished bag. The handles match this Amy Butler fabric perfectly.

School is back in full swing and I cannot craft 12 hours a day. Bummer!

How Do You Like Dem Apples?

Felted Wool Apple Pins

In honor of back to school, I am making some lapel pins. Felted wool from sweaters, blazers and other wool garments. These apples are about 2 inches tall.

More pics soon.

Saturday Quilt Day

I got a lot done on the Doll Quilt Swap project today. The pattern is the Chinese Coins variation Pieces of Eight. The fabrics are Amy Butler Daisy Chain line. I love these colors together and think this is turning out very nicely. It does not have to be finished until the beginning of September, but since school is starting again soon, I wanted to get a move on.

Doll Quilt Update

I have not had a lot of time recently to work on the Doll Quilt for DQS7. I planned to make a applique quilt using circles of various sizes. I picked out some prints, cut some circles in both the fabric and the Seam2Seam fusible web. I made a practice top by fusing the circles to a background fabric and pinning it to some of my usual batting (Warm and Natural.) So far so good.


Then I started to practice machine applique with the satin stitch. No good. I tried several times and turned to the Internet for help. I found some good tutorials for doing machine applique. Another thing I have found is that if you search Google Books, often times you will get an ebook as a result, which you can read parts of. The book I found last night had several chapters available and some good tips.


I worked some more this afternoon on the practice quilt and while I was a little more successful, I am afraid I do not have time to get good at this before the mailing deadline. And the stress of trying to make a nice quilt for my swap partner using techniques that are unfamiliar to me is not helpful when I have to go back to WORK next week. :(

(I am not really sad about going back to work, just nervous about the start of a new school year.)


So around 6:00 p.m. I decided to make the kind of quilt I know how to make. I have started a lovely Chinese Coin Quilt using Amy Butler fabrics. Last weekend my aunt who also quilts gave me 2 bagfuls of scraps of leftover fabric from projects she recently completed. I almost swooned over the Amy Butler Daisy Chain fabrics. All good sized scraps, including a couple of yards of one print. She is a good and generous soul.


So the new quilt top is nearly finished (just the top, not any of the quilting.) I think I am going to make a pieced binding with more scraps and back it with some of the yardage. I am feeling way more comfortable about how this is going to turn out. The most important thing is that it looks nice, not that I try new techniques. I can try new techniques on things for myself.

Wholecloth Quilt

I could not sleep the other night and got up to change my pillow case for a fresh dry one. While I was rooting around in the linen closet, I came across a piece of barkcloth home decorator fabric that was stashed in there. It was a large sample piece that came from a local outlet. It was in the linen closet because I had thought it might make be a good pillowcase one day.

Needless to say, the moment I saw it again, I thought that it would make a lovely quilt. I used blue fabric from a vintage sheet to border the center panel. Additional fabric in beige tones was used for the backing and binding. I used a denim blue thread for stipple quilting the borders. The center panel was also stippled, using thread of a greenish blue shade.

When I showed this to my sister yesterday, she took it from my hands, examined it carefully and said, "Thank you!" I guess that means she likes it! She did have to give it back to me so I could wash/dry it. She will get it back soon.

Neptune Quilt Finished!

This is the Disappearing Nine Patch lap quilt made using the Neptune line of fabrics by Tula Pink. This project used 2 charm packs, 1 yard of dark blue/algae damask fabric and 2 yards of the fish scale pattern for the backing and binding. This is when I started this quilt.

Here is the finished quilt posing in an old wicker chair. This chair sits on my porch and holds a big dish of birdseed in the winter. Other summers I have used it to hold a huge Boston Fern. I got this chair from my maternal grandparents' estate after their deaths. It is too rickety to sit in, but I am keeping it.

Here is a detail of the backing and the stippling free motion quilting. I used several different colors of threads on the top when quilting to accent the shades in the blocks. The bobbin thread was a pale pink that blended well with the fish scale fabric.

If you click on this picture you should be able to see the details of the stippling. I do not prewash fabrics before quilting unless they are from reclaimed bedding or garments. If it is designer fabric off the bolt, I do not prewash. I like the way the quilts turn out when you wash them after the quilting and binding. The cotton batting and cotton fabrics shrink up just a bit in the washer/dryer and give the finished product such a nice texture.

Love this, wonky corner block and all. Keeping it for myself.

Newly Finished Quilts

This quilt was completed from start to finish on Sunday after my nap. I found the center panel in the dish towel bin at the Goodwill. It was wrinkled and in need of a wash and an iron, but I loved the colors of the screen printed design. The towel is 100 percent cotton. I used 5 inch borders of a bright, swirly, yellow fabric from Joann's. I quilted the center panel outlining all the squares in bright yellow thread. The yellow borders were stippled with free motion quilting using my Brother sewing machine.

Here is a detail of the backing fabric. It has a story. I noticed that there was an artist's signature in the design hidden among these abstract and brightly colored fishes. They remind me of guppies. The signature is Ken Done (rhymes with Cone). I had never heard of him before so I did a Google Search. Turns out he is a pretty famous artist in Australia who designs clothing and accessories as well as paints bright scenes of his homeland.

This fabric came from a vintage (80's) custom designed bedding set that I found at an estate sale. There was a duvet cover, large valance curtain panels and a couple of pillow shams. I washed them, took them apart at the seams and ended up with good amount of yardage of home decorator cotton.

Last night when I was pulling out pieces to choose a backing for this cheerful doll quilt I first noticed that some of the fabric was "signed." Just a bit of fabric trivia. If I were a painter I could design fabric too.

This quilt is going to a little girl relative who is visiting her grandparents this week.

Finished and Ready to be Labeled

Last night I finished up the binding on a couple of lap quilts. This morning I ran them through the washer and dryer to get that crinkly goodness that comes when the fabric and batting shrink up after the quilting is done. They turned out great!

I designed and printed some labels on a cotton fabric that goes through the printer. Here is the pile of quilts ready to have the labels sewn on.

Looks like somebody wanted to inspect the freshly washed and still warm from the dryer quilts for himself. Good help is so hard to find!

Sound of Music Video from Youtube

Pet Nap Mats

I love pillow shams. I acknowledge that they are at best decorative and mostly useless. That does not stop me from loving them. Whenever I see pretty pillow shams at thrift stores I buy them. Needless to say, I have more pillow shams than any one person would normally need. Then I had a brain flash!

I need to practice my quilting techniques and I don't want to do that on something that I have spent hours piecing together. Free motion quilting is tricky for me still and I do not want to risk ruining a quilt top while working on my skills. I decided to use the pillow shams as practice projects with a purpose.

I make pet nap mats from them!

I measure the opening that would take a pillow to see how much quilt batting to cut. I use pretty thin batting, Warm and Natural brand, so I use 2 layers of batting. I insert the batting inside the sham and pin the flap shut so that it will lie flat as I am quilting. I am careful to not run over those pins with my sewing machine. That can cause damage to the machine or myself.

Then I flip the sham over and start quilting on the front. Depending on the pattern of the sham, I may do free motion stippling as is shown in the purple plaid mat. I may stitch along the seam lines if the sham has a pieced front as is shown in the blue and yellow mat.

When the stitching is finished I have a nice nap mat for a cat or dog. I have an older cat who cannot groom himself as well as he used to. These mats protect my furniture from his accidental messes. The mats can be used in the car, in your pet's sleeping crate, at the foot of your bed in your pet's favorite lounging spot or as a security blanket when you need to board your pet at a kennel.

If you do not like the idea of using pillow shams from thrift stores, you could purchase shams at your local discount department store. They come in many patterns and colors and you are sure to find some to match your home decor. If your dog is larger than medium sized, you can use pillow shams meant for king sized pillows.

They are easily cleaned in the washer and dryer.

Let me know if you try this idea. I am thinking this will make a good present for my pet loving friends.

Comfy Conner?

This is how I found Conner when I came into the bedroom this morning. Yes, he is resting his body on one pillow and his chin on another. It's a dog's life, isn't it? I laughed and headed for the camera.