Lilly's Garden Quilt Grows White Wisteria

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!  For Thanksgiving I seem to have picked up a bug, after days of just feeling bla with my bones aching, the fevers where actually somewhat of a relief.  Don't bother worrying, I felt better enough today to work in the sewing room.  Right I bet you gals know exactly how much better that makes me.  LOL!

White Wisteria and Fairy Ring Applique 

I affixed all of the Calla Lilies, and changed the toadstools into more of a fairy ring shape and then I added a branch of White Wisteria.  The angle of the new branch allowed me to lengthen a couple of the distant purple Wisteria and it you look you can see there is a bit of a graduation line between the white the purple and then the pink.  My next step will be to applique this and then I can start working on filling up that second side of this border and getting on to the remaining 2 borders.

Oh and I have learned a trick to cutting the Wisteria leaves.  Now that I have a solid grasp on how the grow I can rough sketch one on the Steam-a-Seam (2).  Carefully cutting the first branch out I can then rough in the next branch using the spaces of scrap bits to draw in the first side of leaves, then the branch is drawn and the second side of leaves drawn to match.  It goes more quickly this way and my scraps are even smaller than before.

Lilly's Garden Quilt Races to be a Flismy

Lilly's Garden Quilt Flimsy
nearly finished

Lilly's Garden Quilt is really coming along.  As I mentioned it was delivered yesterday (along with some glowing compliments on what I've done so far.    I have run working on it ever since.  I worked on it yesterday until about 15 minutes to midnight, before it let me have my peace to call it a night.

DH took the pictures and this image on the left which I thought was perfect, he cut off the bottom. Then the one on the bottom he cut off the sides, but we'll let him squeak by about it this time.

Lilly's Garden Quilt Flimsy Second View

Right now I'm thinking a slender branch of Wisteria coming off the end of the branch and into the background space a bit more is in order, as well as the big calla all the way on the bottom right, I have quilt a long stem for that which I didn't cut off.  I'll plan to run that up a bit more to make it taller.  What else do you see?  Any thoughts?  Now if you're wondering where this is going I've added a thumbnail of the quilt at the bottom so you can see.  I need to add a long strip of the dark blue to each side.  Then around that will be the piano key boarder that I've been looking forward to (with occasional dread) and it will be all ready for quilting.

Lilly's Garden Quilt
Mock Up

Black Friday Double Check Confirmed

It seems the old adage that I grew up with; Sears will make things right still rings true.  They sent a email to DH, apologizing for the issues with the doorbuster tv we purchased Sunday during their Member's only Black Friday preview sale.  They made it right in such a way that we were able to pick a tv which better suited our needs within our shoe string budget, and DH brought it home and set it up today.  DD loves her coat, DH is glad he doesn't have to face a 2 am cold closed store on Friday morning, so now everyone is happy.  

I'm especially happy and it has nothing to do with Black Friday at all!  I now have my hands on the center for Lilly's Garden Quilt, and I've been up most - oh I see - all of the night working on it.  It now measures a glorious 56" x 88", look for an update very soon when I spread it out and photograph it.

Serger Lace

Did you know you can use a Serger to make lace?  I was looking for information on tension adjustment and discovered it.  Unlike a blanket edge or a hem that goes around and around, this little dress on DD's AG Kailey Doll is actually a dog dress so there was some stopping turning and heading back. I really like the design though.  I think my thread stash needs to swell a bit to include these heavier threads so I can do it more often.  Don't you agree?

Today is the Great American Teach-In.  My theme is What Makes You, You?  I have sheets of paper cut into squares which each child can draw whatever they like.  Ideally they will all have colored pencils so the medium at least will be the same, but if not then when I scan them in I'll just have to hope I can color adjust the tones evenly.  This will be a custom printed panel as I did when DD was in VPK.  Wish me luck!

CQAL November Evening

 A Day's Worth of Pot Holders

I wanted to make pot mitts and so I did.  I took the free Hoffman Pattern I have listed on my sidebar and tweaked it a bit.  Personally I found the mid-line pocked to be to small and knew I wouldn't like it.  So instead I went with the pocket you can see on the upper right pot holder.  The patter also called for two pieces of fabric folded in half for the part over your hand, that seemed skippy and you never know when the oven timer is going off and you might try to grab something out of the oven with the pot holder on upside down - can you hear the voice of experience?  So I stuck all the heat resistant batting in there that I could as well.

These are quilt thick with two layers of fabric plus two layers of batting in each side, so I shoved the tops through the serger before I added the binding.  Can you tell I ran out of the blue binding?  I think the red looks nice though.  I was planning on giving these as pairs which would mean one person would get a red and a blue.  What do you think about that?   Or should I share the love and give them as singles?   

Currently I'm trying to think of what to attach to the top so these can hang?  DH just got home and when I told him my concerns about the pretty little bows touching 350 degree metal, he said they would be ruined.  So what can I use that my little trees can hag up?  

I hope you had a good day sewing.  I spent some time shopping the preview ads for Black Friday.  I wont be venturing out, but I bet I can find a loyal husband who will do it for me...