Blog Blast! Easter Day Applique

Since my two middle boys were up in the Catskills having a visit with my daughter at her college on Easter Day - the rest of us at home were pretty lazy.  We didn't have a big celebration or an Easter egg hunt or even a special meal. 

But, my hubby did get to work on his current building project (a new shed attached to the back of the house to house our bikes and stuff)

and I got to sit and sew. 

Since my applique class ended, I have to admit, I had put my blocks aside.  But I hadn't taken them off my mind.  I had already cut out all the pieces and prepared everything to complete block 4 so I set right in on the stitching

Block 4 required piecing two-part leaves (a lesson for later) and a bit of off block construction - not to mention the creation of some long bias strips for the stem parts.

It turned out pretty well.

Here's how it looks (sideways):

Blog Blast! Easter Friends are Loved

Not that I have a bunch of followers who are waiting to hang on my every word (though that'd be fun) but just in case anyone has been missing my posts, I am going to make a bunch of posts all in ONE day!

Here is the first.

Last week I sent two cute little amigurumi babies to my niece and nephew (scroll back a post to see them close up). 

Both my sister and brother-in-law posted TOO CUTE photos of niece Maisie on Facebook sharing her new friends,  So, here is how the bunny and chick were received.

Easter Treats times TWO!

So after I made the cute little amigurumi chick, I decided I couldn't stop there.  After all, I have a niece (Maisie - almost 2) AND a newphew (Quinn - recently 5).  If I was going to mail a little package to them, it would have to contain TWO cute little amigurumi treats.  SO... I found this free pattern and set to work.

Let me introduce, "Bunny Boo."

 So here are the two sweet little Easter amigurumi that will get packaged up and put in the mail.

Cheers!

Amigurumi Chicks and Felted Birdhouses

I've been absent from the blog posts but not absent from creating content to tell you about.  A few weeks ago I signed up for my first ever online craft workshop.  I am so glad I did.  The craft for the workshop is FELTED BIRDHOUSES and it's taught by craft author, Betz White - one of my favorite craft authors and bloggers.  I loved the little birdhouses she showed and I knew I had to learn to make them.  Betz's workshop is detailed, informative, easy to follow, and professional.  It's awesome!

For the past couple of days, I have been knee deep in felted sweaters, wool blend felt, embroidery floss and glue.  I have completed two of the four bird houses I designed as part of the workshop.  Here they are:

When I complete all four houses (with felted birds attached) I'll post more photos.  Each side of my birdhouse is embellished in a differnt way.  The two above show the side with the "front door."   The tudor style birdhouse is fashioned after my own house and the one of the left is inspired by my vision of a classic little girl's storybook house.

Since I had my bag of fiberfill hanging around my workshop, I decided to switch over to a crochet needle and try out a little AMIGURUMI.  I'm so intrigued by this type of Japanese Crochet.  There are a lot of talented amigurumists out there - if that's not a word, well I've just invented it!  I had no idea if I had the skills to follow an amigurumi pattern.  I'm slightly challenged when it comes to following a pattern.  However, this type of crochet uses mainly single crochet so the stitches themselves are easy.  Counting is a must!  I started simple.

I used this free chick pattern in honor of the Easter season.  Today after school is officially the first day of spring break for my kids.  I'm not sure any of my kids (21, 18, 17, 15) would want a little amigurumi chick, but I'm thinking my really cute, little red-headed niece Maisie might!  So, I got out some light yellow cotton worsted weight yarn and had a go at it.

Here's what I made.

And here is the back side of the little guy.

Even though this was a really easy pattern, there were no instructions about HOW to attach the wings and tail to the body, so I used a matching piece of pearl cotton embroidery thread on a semi-large tapestry needle and I "winged" it.  It doesn't show too much and I knotted the two ends of the thread together tightly to make sure it didn't come apart.

The pattern showed a glued on beak and bead eyes but since I am giving this to an almost 2year old, I didn't want any of the pieces to come off - so I sewed down the felt after gluing it and then I stitched the eyes around a crochet stitch so they are not detachable.

Here's what's up in the next few days... I need to make the felted birds for the birdhouses, continue to work on my applique Blocks #4, 5 and 6 and I DEFINATELY need to get working on my highschool senior's photo albums -YIKES.  Oh yeah, I guess I need to fit in cleaning the bathroom, hanging the laundry, and pulling the vast amount of weeds that have begun appearing in the planting beds, etc etc... it never ends does it?

I am blogging about the graduation photo project over on my other blog, SherYourScraps.

Thats all for today - Cheers!

Applique Updates - Blocks 2 and 3

I almost finished block 2 a few weeks ago. . . except for the circles in the middle of the flowers (I love this flower design, so classic - I know I'll use it again in another applique design).  In applique class I learned how to make "perfect circles."

Here is Block 2 BEFORE the perfect circles were added to the middle of the flower:

"Perfect Circles" have an entire life cycle unto themselves.  I can't say I ENJOY the process of making them.  But, I do like that there is a process for making them perfect.  AND... it's SO much easier to sew on the circles without having to needle-turn the edges.  Once the circles are made, the applique part can be done painlessly.  I have learned to make A LOT of circles all at the same time so that they are ready and prepared when I need them.

To make perfect circles, I used mylar templates called surprisingly PERFECT CIRCLES (by Karen Kay Buckley).  I bought them in a little pack from Cloth & Bobbin, my neighborhood quilting store.  You can use note cards instead of the mylar templates if need be but you have to cut out a circle pattern from the note card.

Step 1: Trace around a perfect circle template on the back side of your fabric using a fabric marking pen.

Step 2: Make a running stitch about one-eighth of an inch around the outside of the marked line.  Begin and end on the wrong side of the fabric.

Step 3: Trim around the outside of the running stitch, about one-eighth of an inch. You don't want to get so close to your stitching that your fabric would fray too close.

Step 4:  Set the perfect circle template on your fabric and give a tug on the 2 ends of your thread.  This should cause your fabric to fold in around the template.

Step 5:  Spray a little bit of Magic Sizing - Light Body into the lid of the sizing (find an entire spray can of this stuff at the dollar store or grocery store for about one dollar but DO NOT use spray starch, it contains sugar and moths or other bugs may eat into your project by being attracted to the sugar - seriously).  The spray will look slightly foamy and also somewhat liquid when you spray it into the lid.

Step 6:  Use a cotton swab or a small paint brush to drip sizing onto the folded edges of your fabric and press a hot iron over the wet fabric until it hardens around the template.

Step 7:  Peel back the edges of the folded fabric and remove the circle template.

Step 8:  Give another tug on the thread to re-form the circle.  Turn the circle over to the right side and press it again with your iron.

Step 9:  Clip the thread strings shorter.

Step 10:  Applique your perfect circle to your background fabric!  Voila.

The other day, I created ALL of the perfect circles for blocks 3 and 4.  It was a circle extravaganza!



You can see the ring of mylar circles in the middle of the photo.  The ring came with the set.  The circles come in a pack of 4 each of a variety of little sizes.  There are templates for bigger perfect circles as well.

 So - since I had completed ALL of my circle making, I was able to also complete the applique of Block #3 as you can see in the photo above.

I thought I'd show the first 3 blocks together.  Here they are.

I have cut all of the templates and several of the fabric pieces for blocks 4, 5 AND 6.  Block 4 has some OFF BLOCK construction which I will discuss in the next update.  Block 3 also had OFF BLOCK construction used in the "fried egg" flowers (see red, yellow, orange flowers above).

More updates soon