Blog

A Tale of Two T-Shirts

By Jenny | September 20, 2012 |

What a week-I actually completed 2 t-shirts in just a few days! One was a “remodel” of an existing t-shirt and the other I started from scratch. Considering that I have Fear Of Knits, that is quite an accomplishment. My church is going to have an  area-wide service day where we all go out to various projects in the community and work at whatever needs to be done. We are going to wear t-shirts to identify ourselves. I decided I am just too cool to wear a plain unisex t-shirt, so I made mine over using the “T-Shirt Makeover” by Pamela’s Patterns.…

Lessons Learned: Marking

By Jenny | September 17, 2012 |

This is another case of  “I make all the mistakes so you don’t have to”! I learned so many things the hard way on my Lily quilt. I’ll be passing along my mistakes and remedies. First, marking. You know I don’t like to mark and I only mark when I have to. I put grids all over this quilt, so that required marking. I marked 3/8″ grids on the Radiance fabric in the center and 1/2″ grids on the border of raw silk-all of this on wool batting. So we have challenges from the get go: I was marking on…

Gold Bug Quilt Show

By Jenny | September 11, 2012 |

The fall quilt show season has begun-yeah! The Gold Bug Quilters show was last weekend and I got a chance to enjoy the quilts. Paula Beck did a demo on Sharpie Scarves-they are so cool! I had never heard of this before but after some brief research I realized that it’s been around for a few years. Why was I not notified?It’s really the simplest thing. You start out with a silk scarf blank. Iron it down to some freezer paper to keep it steady.Doodle on it with Sharpies.Spray it with 70% alcohol straight out of the bottle.Let it sit…

I’m a Believer

By Jenny | September 6, 2012 |

I thought I was done with “Mom’s Lily Bed”, formerly known as “Lily Quilt“. Just for grins, I thought I might add beads to the outer border, since I already had put them in one of the inner borders. I’ve been following Kathy Schmidt’s blog and she does some really nice beading on her art quilts. I guess her beading got stuck in my head and I thought what the heck, let’s see if this does anything for this quilt. So here we are without beads. Pretty. I’m a little leary of the whole embellishing thing because IMHO the quilting world…

Sneak Peek-Lily Quilt

By Jenny | September 4, 2012 |

I’ve been working my larger Lily quilt-once I catch up, I’ll pass on what I’ve learned while making this quilt. I think my new tag line should be: “I make all the mistakes so you don’t have to”! I’ll post more about Lily later -enjoy!

August Free Motion Quilting Challenge

By Jenny | August 29, 2012 |

You don’t always win. And, you have to make lots of mediocre art to make great art. This I know to be true. Case in point:This month’s FMQ Challenge over at SewCalGal’s blog gave us a choice-either learn one particular motif or do a challenge provided by Susan Brubaker Knapp that uses environmental objects to create your own motifs. That was a no brainer for me-I’ve long been interested in creating my own motifs from what I see around me. It all started out so well. Susan asked us to just take 5-10 minutes with our digital cameras on macro lens and just…

8 Signs of a Fabulous Vacation

By Jenny | August 28, 2012 |

I just got back from a week at Huntington Beach, Ca. It was one of the best vacations ever! It started out slowly with a day of just DH. Then Son #2 and girlfriend joined us, followed by Son #1 from Maine and his girlfriend, as well as a Dear Friend of 35+ years and her DH. We filled our incredible house rental with family and friends. My Mommy heart runneth over. We rode bikes and ate well, walked the pier to watch surf and surfers and ate well, walked to downtown to hang out and ate well, hung out on the…

Daisy Table Topper

By Jenny | August 16, 2012 |

I like to build fun little projects into my schedule-projects that are quick and are easy on the mind. I’ve wanted to do this one for awhile-use my Daisy Fill to make a table topper. I started with two Kona Cottons-a gray and a pink. I used Misty Fuse to put them together, making  a reversible topper about 36″ square. It’s pretty easy to make a table topper. Mark the edges of your topper and lay a line of bubbles down each side. Then randomly put down bubbles and daisies, going over all lines twice using free motion quilting and fill all your…

Tutorial: Narrow Rolled Hem

By Jenny | August 10, 2012 |

Sometimes you want a beautifully executed narrow rolled hem. If you have a curved hemline on a circular skirt, or if you are working with fussy, thin or silky fabrics, a narrow rolled hem will give a beautiful finish and add a little body to the hemline, producing that lovely flip of the hem. I think a narrow rolled hem gives a couture look to a garment. I learned this super easy method that does not involve one of those pesky, hard-to-use Narrow Rolled Hem Feet. In fact, all that is needed are three passes of a straight stitch plus one trimming…

Gauzy Summer Vest

By Jenny | August 10, 2012 |

I recently had the briefest of moments to sew up a quick summer vest. I really miss garment sewing but I don’t have much time for it these days, so this floaty vest out of some fabulous fabric was a sure bet. It’s a perfect cover up, even when it’s 104 outside-like today! I pretty much knew that this super simple pattern-Butterick 4989-would work up quickly, without much hassle. I did take a moment to check that the shoulders were a proper fit for me, and of course I shortened it a bit, but beyond that, there were no fit issues.…