October OMG C'est fini !

October OMG is finished.  My first wool adventure was so much fun.  Thank you Paula for your encouragement to embark on projects in wool applique.  I learned that you need to use lots of pins to keep the applique flat.  My socks and bat are a little rippled because they were not well pinned.

First I big stitched the table runner. I had the binding mostly done and I realized that I had not put on a hanging sleeve and the quilt was not lying as flat as I would like, I took off the binding and removed the quilting.  I had been cleaning up my quilt bookcase when I found this candy corn free motion design that I had used on another Halloween quilt.  I switched up my quilting plan and fired up my Tiara.  I tried my new glide foot for the free motion.

I have not had the chance to quilt on the Tiara for quite a spell.  I am a novice.  I made a rookie mistake.  I put on the foot and thought that it was loose so I tightened it with a wrench.  In the process the needle no longer was aligned with the whole in the foot.  BIG OOPS!  I recovered.  My next challenge was to set the tension.  I had to loosen the bobbin tension a bit.  When I started working on my practice sandwich, there were skipped stitches so I started to adjust the top tension.  I had purchased this device to help with the top tension and did not really use it so I decided to remove it.  After I reassembled, the stitching was worse.  Hmmmm.  I took it apart again and put the tension monitor back on the machine.  Then went online to check the order of the parts to correctly reassemble the top tension assembly.  Could not find anything to help me.  I looked closely at this one part and noticed that one side was smooth and the other was grooved.  I matched it up this time correctly with the knurled knob and it stitched much better.  A few more passes on my practice sandwich and the tension was in fine shape.  I am not so good at free motion but I enjoyed stitching my candy corn motifs on my quilt.

  I am so enjoying learning the joys of the quilting part of the process.  The pattern called for using velvet on the hat.  I ordered a pieced of black  hand dyed cotton velvet but the color did not work well with the black wool so I used a piece of minky-like fabric instead.

I will be on the look out for a hunk of black velvet to have in my stash,  I think you have to see it in person to see if the color works.  I also finished 2 blocks from a Kathy Schmitz design.

Good month of finishes.

First Adventures in Wool

I am working on the Buttermilk Basin table runner pattern.  I'm not sure about the spacing, but I am happy with the result.  I need to finish the embellishment but my buttons and such are at home.  I am thinking over my plan for the added stitching.  I have not decided whether to couch or not and I need to select the threads I will use.  I must also decide upon the quilting plan.  I am whip stitching the edges.  I think that will be my preferred goto.  I found that the wool in the kit was not so tightly woven.  Whip stitching allowed me to reign in the loose fibers. The stitch only went over one thread...it could not be more or the thread would show from the larger stitch.  I had some trouble reigning in the loose fibers while maintaining the shape.  The lip on the mouth of the moon almost disappeared because I was trying to corral the loose fibers.  I really like wool applique.  I also learned that I need to use more pins. I think I like the Karen Kay Buckley small pins better than my clover white head pins for this.  They kept the applique flatter because they are so thin.  They can get lost in the piece though.  Happy stitchin'.  I am a fan of wool applique!!

Much Ado About Nothing...Maybe

I am futzing about how to stitch the wool to the background fabric.  I tried to whip stitch the wool but the edges frayed.  I ended up stab stitching to control the fraying.  I do not know if I needed to make my stitches as small as I did.  The mouth should be easier so because I am dealing with 3 fabrics not four.  On to the mouth.

October OMG!

This month I start my adventures in wool applique.  My sister has encouraged me to branch out and try it with a gift from Buttermilk Basin.  This will be my October OMG.  I also have basket patterns from Red Linen Quilts and the Round the Garden from Quiltmania in the queue.

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.