Oh Christmas Tree Quilt-A-Long & a Giveaway!

January 5, 2016February 11, 2016 Elizabeth E.38 Comments

When I first saw this Christmas Tree on Instagram, I fell in love. So I proposed a Quilt-A-Long that would ~~force~~ enable me to to get it completed in time for Christmas 2016, for there is power in having to put your innermost feelings about quilts/goal setting out there in the world and shaming yourself into finishing it. I’m really good at this, I know. I wrote to Wendy Williams, who designed this pattern, and she gave us her blessing, and said “she can hardly wait to see the quilts that will come of this.” So onward, everyone!

The magazine where this pattern is found is Simply Modern Issue #3, and that’s the giveaway part. I have an extra copy which you can win, but wait a minute. First let’s do the business of this. If you aren’t lucky enough to win this, you can buy it from Fat Quarter Shop, or the QuiltMania people, or if you live in Australia, it’s on Wendy’s website Flying Fish Kits (link below).

I’ve broken it down into several steps, some easy and for some months you will be carting around your embroidery around with you everywhere you go, but these are definitely do-able steps. Here they are:

January, Step “prepare”: buy the magazine, gather your fabrics, buy the felt/wool, buy/find the pearl cotton. More about that in a minute.

February, Step 1: Make the tree on the background and stitch it down. If you use wool felt, she has an easy appliqué method.

March, Step 2: Make 21 flowers.

April, Step 3: Make 10 birds.

May, Step 4: Make the scene at the bottom. Wendy’s pattern (IG: flyingfishkits) has two cavorting reindeer. I plan to switch mine out to a simple nativity. Your choice. (If I were you, I’d also start haunting her IG site as she has lots of great embroidery ideas for the flowers. I’d also consider buying her book, Wild Blooms and Colorful Creatures, for more tips and helps.)

June, Step 5: Appliqué down the flowers.

July, Step 6: Appliqué down the birds and the scene.

August, Step 7: Sawtooth border (reds).

September, Step 8 (finish up Quilt-A-Long): Make wonky star blocks, sew them together and attach border #2. Ta-Done! I just have to deliver you here. You are on your own for getting it quilted and bound.

So here’s the drill for Step: prepare. Wendy calls for wool felt. Some of my IG followers have left a lengthy series of comments on an earlier IG post about threads and wools (scroll back in the feed to find it–it says Step 1 on it, which is an oops, but it’s those Flying Monkeys again). You can buy 100% wool and felt it yourself (more tips in her book or on the internet), or buy 100% wool felt. According to @yondergirlie, the preferred is the felt, as you don’t have to stitch it down as much as it doesn’t fray (sometimes the felted wools can fray). The general consensus was to use pearl cotton #8 for the embroidery. According to the pattern, you’ll also need a medallion-style piece of fabric to appliqué in the center of some of the flowers. I love Wendy’s combination of wool and felt together.

(all of my felts, threads and wools; some of the fabrics, and Sue Spargo’s Creative Stitches book for embroidery ideas)

I visited with the people at a local shop today that specializes in felted wool. When using the wool they use Steam-A-Seam 2 to back their pieces, fuse them to the top, and then they handstitch around them, using pearl cotton size 12 thread. All these are options for you to try and to experiment with. I’ll be using wool felt, plus some felted wool sweaters for accent pieces, that I recently re-discovered in my garage (let’s hear it for UFOs that deliver to your newest project). I also found a stash of wool felt that I purchased in Munich, Germany some years ago. If you want to take a trip there, I can provide the address (it’s another one of those things that I buy, hoard away, and then later find a use for, much to my delight).

Many others mentioned an ETSY shop: https://www.etsy.com/shop/quiltingacres [copy and paste addresses into your browser address bar]. I’ve also seen Primitive Gatherings mentioned for felted wool, as well as @benziedesign on Instagram. I have found lots of Christmas fabric on sale this past month to use for the wonky stars, borders and background. So, gather away and get ready for the Oh, Christmas Tree quilt-a-long!

UPDATE (2/11/16): I’ve found two more sources for high-quality felt from companies here in the United States. I’ve ordered from both of them and can attest to the quality of these felts (and no, they aren’t giving me anything for free).

The first one is A Child’s Dream. Above snapshot is from their website; they have several different thicknesses and many more colors, but I went for the “Holland wool felt” type of wool.

The second is The Felt Pod. Again, a snapshot from their website shows many of their different products in their wool felt. This is the “Reds” page.

Now for the giveaway (domestic only). HOWEVER! if you live in Australia, Wendy has patterns of this tree for sale on her blog (just thought you’d like to know).

Since it’s my birthday tomorrow, I’d like you to leave a one-or two-line memory about your best birthday ever. I’ll randomly draw a name this weekend and get it sent off on Monday. Make sure you fill in an accurate email address as I’ll use that to contact you. And if you throw your name in the ring for this magazine, I’ll expect to see a finished quilt this coming December, as you wouldn’t want to just hoard it away from someone who really really really wants it, would you? ~~Leave your comments below.~~

NOTE: Comments are now closed. Giveaway winner will be announced this afternoon (Friday, Jan. 8th).

Bee Blocks & Winner of Project Folio

August 25, 2013 Elizabeth E.8 Comments

First, while my husband and I were watching Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway in Three Days of the Condor, I leaned over to him and said, “Give me a number between one and sixteen.”

“Five.”

Five it is. Cindy, you are the winner. I’ll mail off the portfolio tomorrow. Thank you to all my very fine readers and followers. You are such lovely people!

I must admit that I did want to give it to my newest follower: my daughter, Barbara (Hi Barb!), but I’ll make her a new something or other for her work-out clothes (what she said she’d use it for) and send this white one to Cindy. Congrats!

Secondly, even though it feels as if I haven’t touched a machine much this month, I did get my Bee Blocks finished. Above is the one for Always Bee Learning. We were sent some some fabrics, a link, and we were off to making arrows. It was a real brain-stretcher, but I finished mine and sent them off to Megan.

And for the Mid-Century Modern Bee, Mary asked for some Cross-X, or X & + blocks as I’ve seen them called, in pinks. So I followed her linked tutorial at Badskirt’s blog and sent them off.

And now, the to pull the biggest rabbit out of the hat: figure out how to start sewing my projects again. With this disjoint summer, a bad beginning to my school year (it will get better), and some time away from the sewing machine, it’s like being on a boat being carried down stream from the dock, slowly, and you can see your picnic lunch there in the middle and you are getting kind of hungry but you can’t figure out how to get to it. Okay, bad analogy, but I think you all know the feeling.

I look at my list of things I want to sew and nothing interests me. I love reading blogs and seeing everyone’s fun projects, and think, I could do that. But if I do everyone else’s project, how will I find time to do mine? It’s a double-edged sword, this living in a world of blogs and Instagram and it’s hard to turn off the input in order to find the creative project that is uniquely mine.

My father, aged 87, goes most mornings down to his painting studio on the second floor of a building in his downtown. There, he thinks, starts his routine, puts on his music, paints, pauses. Of course, I can only imagine this because it is done in solitude, but every October he opens his studio for a painting sale in his studio, proving that he accomplishes, produces, Gets Stuff Done, sending out more paintings into the world.

I find my challenge to still myself — to enjoy the social media-fied quilt world, yet also to let that project that is interesting to me find its way forward. I’ve been tempted by another Polaroid Swap, a recent Signature Swap, this winter’s Scrappy Trip-A-Long, and the Medallion Quilt among other recent popular quilts. But I also know through historical evidence that our quilting grandmothers searched the newspapers for what others were doing, and through imitation, linked themselves together through common projects.

LIke them, I do quilt what is in my universe. I often think of Nancy Crow, a quilt artist I admire from afar who has seemed to produce what is important to her, to follow her own stream of thinking and creating without regard for what is the most popular. Perhaps she, and my father, are at one end of the spectrum while the social media/Instagram/blogging crowd, of which I am a part, is at the other end. No answers here.

Just searching for those oars that will get my boat back to the dock, back to my sewing machine, back to my quilty world.

Giveaway · Quilts

Christmas Lollypop Tree Wallhanging

April 17, 2013April 17, 2013 Elizabeth E.15 Comments

I finally was able to stitch down the petals, dots and branches of my Christmas Lollypop Tree Wallhanging, figure out the borders (I referred to the antique Lollypop Quilt for ideas) and get it all stitched together. Lacking: quilting, and a border, so it looks a bit incomplete, but like I always say, it’s nice to be at this point! I think I’ve cornered the market on red and white and kelly-green and white fabrics. Funny how our stashes will tilt one way while we’re working on a quilt, then veer into another direction when the next project comes along. This is one thing I’ve been working on for this Works In Progress Wednesday Post, hosted by Lee of Freshly Pieced. Thanks, Lee!

Another thing that has been in the works, but couldn’t show before is the little earbud holder. I used Dog Under My Desk‘s pattern, and it went together pretty quickly. I gave it to a friend, for she and I have what we call “sushi therapy,” where we get together and vent about our students (she’s a professor, too). I think between the sushi and the venting, we maintain our sanity (but this semester is really trying our patience!).

I fussy cut out a bit of fabric that has a piece of sushi saying “You’re really really rice” and appliqued it on to the inside bottom of the pouch. My friend laughed.

And I made her a bag from my favorite pattern by Grand Revival: “Practical Bag,” with some book fabric that she gave me (I’m such a nice girl, that I’m sharing!). I’ve made this pattern a ton of times. I made it in New York fabric for my sister who lived in New York for 18 months on a church mission, so she could carry her groceries back home after shopping. I made it for a friend who came to visit from Iowa and whose husband is a pastor (BTW, they just got a call to move to Brisbane, so she’ll be joining all my Australian friends very soon). I’ve made a couple for me, and a bunch for I don’t know who else. I originally purchased it for my daughter to make and traced off the pattern for me in case she had questions. But soon, I bought my own and an extra. What will I do with this?

(They are much better at styling their photo, I think.) So. . . I think I’ll drop it into the mail to one of my readers! As usual, readers get one chance and followers get two chances, but leave a comment if you’d like me to mail you my extra pattern. But to qualify, tell me what you’ll make your bag to hold. . . or to who you’ll give it away to if your idea is to make it for a gift.

I can make this bag up in under an hour, and it holds quite a lot of groceries, or sewing for a doctor’s office trip, or snacks for the kids, or things to return for your errands. I’ll use the tried and true husband-pick-a-number method of selecting someone (although if you’re very clever in what you say, I might have to override him). Giveaway will end Friday morning when I drag myself out of bed, so make sure to leave your email so I can contact you.

And if you want to know what I’ll be doing while you write interesting things? I’ll be quilting my Christmas Lollypop Tree and grading Drama tests (grading is NEVER done). Thanks for reading, and Good luck!

Giveaway · Quilts

I’m Featured on the Name Game!

April 8, 2013April 10, 2013 Elizabeth E.28 Comments

Today Cindy of Live a Colorful Life is featuring this blog on her series titled, The Name Game, where she highlights a blog whose name she likes. I’m more than happy to be one of her Featurettes. So, please, head over there and see what she has written (you can bet I’ll be looking, too, as I don’t know what she’s said yet, either!)

And leave a comment below if you’d like to win that fun button and the boy-themed fabric.

Or you might want this one (see previous post for more info on both).

If you are a follower, you double your chances of winning, so feel free to enter your email and follow me, now that Google Reader is disappearing (sigh). At any rate, Cindy and I will draw from our comments and will choose some winners–two from each blog. Remember to indicate which button is your first choice.

We’ll close the drawing on Wednesday at 5 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, and announce the winners. Leave your comment below and good luck!

Update: Drawing closed and I will post winners shortly (like, after dinner). Thanks to all who left comments and entered our giveaway. You’re the best!