September OMG Done!

Thanks to thequiltshow,com for this fun project.  My version of Blooms for Julie was made in memory of my maternal grandfather, a country doctor who had a passion for gardening.  I spent many hours playing in the gardens playing or picking cherries, vegetables or flowers.  I can still smell the lilacs. I adapted the pattern.  My applique is needle turned and many of the flowers are 3D.  Some sport Kurumi centers.

 I decided the the bright green half of the leaf needed some toning down a bit.  I decided to embroider them with some DMC #911.  I used the Spanish knotted feather stitch for veins.  I declare this quilt officially done and ready for use.
Before....                                                                        After.............

In addition to finishing Blooms for Julie I said I would complete one other TBD.  Above I have completed the stitching on Kathy Schmitz calendar blocks.  I now have all of them stitched and I will piece the border on the October block so that I have it up by the first.  Thanks to OMG I am feeling fabulous about my finishes,

                                                   October Done!

Stovetop Felting

Here is my plan to felt my brights.  I have a modern washing machine.  Unfortunately that means for my machine that the washer controls the cycles and not me.  The only way to get the hottest water is to use the sanitize cycle which takes more that two and a half hours.  That is much too long for individually felting small pieces of wool.  I know to felt you need soap, agitation and heat.  I put measured amounts of water in my pots added a measured amount of Synthrapol and boiled on my stovetop.  How long?  I was not sure about the time.  My regular cycle is about 45 minutes which includes time to fill, drain, and spin.  I settled on 23 minutes.  This is because my washer does have a rinse and spin cycle that takes 23 minutes.  I boil the wool then dump the pot with the wool and the boiling water into my machine and let the machine finish the job.  Today I will finish felting my brights for Round the Garden and hopefully finish stitching Blooms for Julie.

Organizing my wool.

Today I will spend watching football games and organizing my wool stash.  I am planning on getting ready to make Round the Garden, a quilt project published in Quiltmania's Simply Moderne magazine.  I hand dyed a piece of cotton that I intend to use.

Here is my fabric on top of the magazine issue.  The center is dyed wisteria followed by a ring of kiwi and the outside is old rose.  The dyes I got from Pro-Chem. I need a bunch of wool brights to applique on my cotton background.  Time to organize.  The process took me all day....but then again I was watching football as well.  It was fun for me,  First I rolled all my larger pieces.

I had purchased some scrap bags from Sue Spargo recently and they were in these little bags.  I dumped a bag that was pinks and purples onto my plastic table and decided to roll them.  I fastened them with safety pins.  The pins were pins that I had when I first started quilting.  I had later purchased curved safety pins and these others were in a box not really being used.  I went through my wool pile and pulled out all the pinks and purples and rolled these larger pieces.  I put them in a gallon zip bag.

Next I worked on the lights.  

 The beige lights.

 The gold lights.

 The taupe lights

The peachy lights.  Then on to the darks, reds, multicoloreds, greys, blues, greens, browns and the like.

I left my charms together.  Most of them I know are slated for the this project.  

I have a group of wool that needs to be felted.

But now my wool is being stored in these bags ready.  I think I will be able to find what I need for my projects.  

Cotton Picker

 The Cotton Picker is a favorite tool of mine.  Mostly I use it to remove errant threads from my sewing and quilting projects.  Today I am using it to rescue my wool.  I purchased some wool to use in an upcoming project.  I am a novice at wool work.  I separated my wools to prepare to felt it- lights, darks, mediums and brights.  The lights, darks and mediums went as anticipated.  The brights were a disaster.  The colors bled onto one another.  Here you see how the orange settled on the green.  All of my brights looked muddied and no longer bright.  Here comes Cotton Picker to my rescue.  I drug the Cotton Picker across the surface of the wool and the muddied fibers came off.

Above is the before and below is the after.  I think it is a marked improvement and makes this piece of wool usable.  Hooray for the Cotton Picker.   

The piece is not so bright anymore but I am happy with it.  I learned a lesson about separating colors.  Each bright needs to be felted by its lone.  

New Blog

I decided to make a new blog to focus just on stitchin'.  I intend to start doing more wool applique and I thought this might be helpful as I begin embellishing my work.

Join me at:  http://stitchinmyway.blogspot.com/

Slow Stitching Sunday September OMG

Today I am under the weather so it will be a slow stitching Sunday.  My goal is to add veins to the leaves on Blooms for Julie.  I did not intend to do this but the bright lime green fabric needs some toning down so as to not overpower the focus on the border.  I went to an embroidery book that I got from Goodwill (It is a great reference book.); and selected the Spanish Knotted feather stitch which is great for outlining, straight lines and gentle curves.  I will get a lot of practice with this stitch on this quilt.

Here is a before and after picture.  I think it tones it down.  I like the result.

September OMG

My OMG for this month is the embroidery on the Blooms for Julie quilt plus another mission TBD.  I am at my daughter's for the moment and I do not know when I will be where at the moment.