Block of the Month - Snowbound

Bunny Hill Designs has a Block of the Month freebie pattern for you to applique. It's called Snow Bound. If your guild is having an auction or challenge, these blocks would make wonderful wall hangings. You could even do a quilt using the different blocks! The best part is the fact that you can take a block to do anywhere. Check out the blocks on the Flickr Site. Quilters have been busy!
Tip
This tip is one I use for any needle work project. Instead of inserting my needle in the fabric when I'm done stitching or just stopping for a minute, I have two small earth magnets attached to the front and the back of the fabric where I lay the needle. It is quite strong and I have never lost a needle. In fact, it can even hold a pair of small scissors when necessary. I got my magnets at Lee Valley Tools but check out your local craft store too.

Earth Magnets, Lee Valley Tools

Tip of The Day . . . Learned The Hard Way!!

I set my embroidery machine going early this morning as I needed more Polar Bear Shimmers for a June exhibit. Things went well for the first two sets (takes 40 minutes to stitch up a set). On the third set I had a lot of thread breaks and then the needle started to gum up. I wasn't using anything different to suddenly make the needle sticky. Of course, when the needle is sticky, it will not pick up the bobbin thread. So I did a cleaning of the machine and put in a new needle. I figured this would do the trick. No, it did not. Then I had the bright idea of using needle # 2. That did not work either - same thread difficulty. I noticed that the problem was is a certain section of the hoop. I had used Aqua Magic water soluble stabilizer to hold my base fabric and there was a factory join near one end. I picked at this. A sticky glue was holding the joined parts together. Problem solved! But it was a costly problem, time wise for me as I'm trying to get my textile piece completed by tomorrow at the latest.


Tip: cut off any factory joins when using a stabilizer such as Aqua Magic!!
I use this stabilizer a lot. It's great to embroider on either from the machine or by hand. When the stabilizer is washed away, you have some interesting embroidery to add to a piece. Check out stabilizer descriptions & uses.

The Art of Appliqué

Appliqué is the art of sewing smaller pieces of fabric onto a larger surface. To find out more about appliqué and how it is done, visit TAS - The Appliqué Society. The Art of Applique on the TAS site, has several interesting articles to get you started.
There are several different appliqué methods:

• Stain Glass Appliqué
• Machine Appliqué   Also check out Tips for machine appliqué.
• Reverse Appliqué    How to reverse-applique a tote bag.  How to make a reverse applique on a T-Shirt by machine. Mending using this method!
• Hand Appliqué  Also check out this Back Basting Tutorial for Hand Applique. A close-up picture of hand applique. Hand Applique using freezer paper.

This should get you thinking about experimenting with this particular technique. I will follow up in a later post with sites that have free appliqué patterns.

Part Two of the Fair & Other Stuff

This has been a week of recovery! The Fine Craft & Design Fair was a grand success for me this year. In fact, it was the best I've ever had!  However, it was very exhausting to say the least. I went back for the opening of the second part as a potential customer and didn't walk away empty handed.

Now I'm searching for some simple quilted Christmas projects. Something that could be used at a quilt guild meeting. I revisited About.Com for quilting stuff. I used to search that site quite frequently. This time I found some free Christmas patterns! I found lots of ornaments at a site called All Crafts. For the stitchers, here's a Hardanger ornament. More christmas patterns here but not really what I'm looking for. The search goes on and on and on...

Check these out!

Another busy day! It started out with constructing two more smaller images, setting in windows and planting flowers (in the fabric garden). I have finally photographed all my Pisci Fantasticus so they are ready for the Craft Fair.
I've also been looking at some interesting web sites. For example, have you ever heard of a zentangle?
Also check out:
Quilting Tips
Tutorials and Freebies.
Shadow Trapunto & lots of quilting stuff from Romania.
Art Quilts