The Thread in Spain Stays Mainly on the Train

March 29, 2016 Elizabeth E.20 Comments

The title of this post came from Cathy, one of my Instagram readers, after I posted the above photo. I was on a train, in Spain, wrapping thread onto a little organizer. It totally cracked me up, so I thought I would write a bit about my trip, and the hunt for threads. In an interesting ironic twist, it rained all that afternoon.

It all started here, with me packing a few of my Oh Christmas Tree hand-sewing pieces along on our trip to Spain and Portugal. I crammed everything into a wee bag and am so glad I did.

It helped keep my sanity while on the long flight over and on our various ground travel segments while in Spain and Portugal. Like a train (above).

Or a bus from Antequera-Santa Ana Train Station to Granada (they were working on the rails so we had to be bussed in).

We first went to Lisbon, and I thought I’d brought enough threads for what I needed, but when my husband spotted this little shop, I couldn’t resist going in and buying a couple of more.

I definitely needed some purple threads. Check out those larger organizers, which is what they called them. Nice big tabs so the threads don’t fall off.

This shop was next door, and to buy threads, she pulled out her color card, scurried to the back room, and brought back a flat box of DMC, from which she selected one for me. The first shop I went into, I had a hard time communicating what I wanted because they spoke Portuguese and I didn’t. I mimed a sewing action, and somehow they figured out what I wanted.

This was from another shop next door to that one, and I chose a couple of skeins. I found out they had metallic embroidery floss in colors–something I’d never seen in the States–so purchased some purple. It’s a bit like sewing with rods of steel, but I split the floss apart into 3 threads; it makes a fun accent on my flowers and birds.

The next city I went hunting for thread was Madrid. In case you ever go there, here’s a map. I needed regular thread for the appliqué centers of the Oh Christmas Tree flowers, and had left my spool of thread at home (or else it had already gotten lost, which is entirely possible).

It’s all near the Puerta del Sol, which is the center beginning point of All Points in Spain, which of course, is where the fabric shops are located.

As I joked on Instagram, we quilters need a sultry babe like the Maja to be our pitchwoman. (This comes from a famous painting in the Prado Museum, which is in Madrid.) So this time I had looked up how to say “pearl cotton” in Spanish, tried it out, and even though I’m no slouch in the accent department (having lived in Peru when I was a teenager and having progressed through 7 years of Spanish), they had no clue what I was asking for.

This lovely woman came to my rescue. Stephanie is an ex-pat American who has lived more years in Spain than in the US, and took me around to three other shops, all in the same block, helping me find my thread and of course, I bought another couple of balls of pearl cotton. The selection is amazing there!

I was excited when I saw the signs for “patchwork.” This selection on the shelves. . .is it.

In the photo, one woman is doing embroidery, one is doing lace making, one is making a log cabin and the rest are just sort of looking busy for the camera. Stephanie told me that lace making, with all the bobbins, is big there, and that she’d made an entire tablecloth.

And then we went to Barcelona, where Anna of @annaorduna, met me. She and I had corresponded on IG, and she was teaching a class here at BCN Patchwork. Notice the interesting flower tiles in front of the shop. That’s the emblem of Barcelona and I saw it everywhere (check my IG feed, to the right).

She was lovely, and she and her class of two women, the shop owner and another employee gave us great suggestions for places to go and see and to eat dinner. I also asked if she had pearl cotton (this seems to be an obsession with me right now) and they did! The shop employee asked me what color and when I said “all colors,” she brought down from their storage room 7 different trays of pearl cottons. I selected a few for the giveaway for my Oh Christmas Tree post (coming on Saturday), and then one more luscious golden orange color for me.

Other quilts-related things I saw were hexagonal tiles, designed by Guadi for one of his houses, a sweet little ceramic bin with a simple checkerboard-on-point in the historic La Pedrera house, a series of Patchwork Magazines in El Cortes Ingles department store and lastly, a Clinique Giveaway. Oh, how I wanted that one (why do we always get the flowery Clinique pouches–I want this one!), but with the prices for American cosmetics roughly double what I would pay here, I had to leave it in the store. But now I’m determined to make one for myself, in just those colors. Actually I saw tons and tons of tile designs, all over Lisbon and Spain, giving me lots of inspiration for future quilts.

Still stitching. I hated this yellow chain stitch, so I took it out. Below is what finished up with, then sewed to another larger felt circle when I got home (I didn’t carry any felt with me, and although I saw lots of felt in Madrid, it was all acrylic–yuch).

Another place I got inspiration from was the costumes of the participants in the Procession in Barcelona. See that gridded lace-like background? Why couldn’t I try that on one of my circles?

I started by marking the divisions of the circle with pins, then stitched it, as shown, moving from a lower point on the inside to a shifted-over point on the outside.

Went back in and subdivided those.

Now I’m working going the other way, so that it makes an intersection.

All done.

Now I went in and put little French knots at each intersection. I started out with three-wraps of thread, but it was too big, so went down to two-wraps of thread. And no, I didn’t take out the first few. There is so much going on in these flowers, I didn’t worry about being perfect, and I’m guessing you didn’t notice at first that some knots were bigger and some were smaller. Now you can. This is another reason NOT to point out flaws in our quilts to anyone else.

Now for another type of border, one that I learned when I was 12 years old. (Thank you, Mom, for teaching me how to embroider.) Begin by doing a simple backstitch around the circle, shown here in red.Bring up your needle in a different color just in the middle and using the eye of the needle, weave your thread in and out those stitches, as shown.

Don’t pull them too tight–you want a lovely little serpentine loop to show.

I chose a slightly different color (because I had tons to choose from) but you could use the same. Bring up your needle where you did in the first one, then weave in the opposite direction, completing the loopy design. Or you could just stop with one thread.

I was worried that I was supposed to do an even number of backstitches. . . or an odd number of backstitches, but decided not to worry about it and just make it work. Can you see where the problem was? Yes, now that I’ve told you, but you couldn’t see it before. Just make it work, and don’t worry about it.

Here’s another stitch: the herringbone, my style. (I’m sure there’s an official name for this.) I numbered the sequence for you. Start by bring your needle out at 1, then poke it to the back at 2, then before you’ve pulled the thread all the way through, bring your needle up at 3, right in between 1 and 2. Now tighten up the thread.

Go up to the outside edge, and poke your needle down at 4, then out at 5.

Complete the stitch by poking it to the back at 6, then bringing it back out before you’ve drawn it completely through, at 7.

We’re repeating now, but I’m showing you how I catch the two points with one slide of the needle. Go through at 8 and come out at 9.

Then over to 10 and out at 11.

You can start to see the completed stitch here. I don’t mind the little gap at “x” but if you don’t like it, close it up by taking bigger “bites” of your needle.

Here’s the completed stitch all the way around this circle. I worked this in size 5 pearl cotton–big and fat.

Finished!

On the way home, a ten-plus hour flight from Frankfurt to LAX, I couldn’t sleep. So I watched movies I’d already watched before, flicked on my overhead light and kept stitching and stitching. I finished all of these on the plane home.

Here, posing in all their beauty on an airplane tray table, are all the flowers I finished on our trip. I hope you are posting them on IG with the hashtag of #startyourneedles or #ohchristmastreeqal so we can all borrow ideas from each other. Keep stitching–don’t worry if yours are not finished. We still have a couple of months to go, so just take them with you and add another round wherever you can. I’ll show the completed set of circles and the tree, all mocked up (again) on my next post on April 2nd, plus I’ll be hosting a giveaway for those Barcelona size 8 threads.

(posing here with metro tickets from our trip)

I’m glad to be home, and looking forward to our next part of the Oh Christmas Tree Quilt-A-Long!

Halloween QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Hallowe’en 1904 QAL–Step Two

March 13, 2016April 10, 2016 Elizabeth E.7 Comments

STEP TWO: CUT!!

Happy March 13th! My friend Leisa and I got busy this month, cutting up our fabrics so we could show you this step. I’ve made some alterations to our Master Plan (below). If you’re not making this quilt–see you at the next post!

Yep, we got a little goofy on some of the cutting, but don’t worry! We made it through, and so can you. Remember that Leisa and I are doing only NINE blocks of the original twenty as we want wall-sized quilts, so if you are making the big one, your numbers and cutting time will increase (I know that’s a duh.)

HOWEVER, at the end of this post, I’ve included a smallerized version of this quilt, thanks to Mary Burton, one of my readers, who often “shrinks down” quilt patterns in order to make the full compliment of blocks. So you can make a smaller quilt, by also making smaller blocks. More, later.

As a reminder, we are following this pattern by Blackbird Designs, so of necessity, to protect the pattern designers, I won’t show complete measurements. But where I’ve deviated or made up my own pattern, I’m happy to share.

We started here. I didn’t have the pattern when we were buying, so we went a little overboard on some things, but amazingly, we ended up fairly on target for most of the fabrics. I would probably add another green, if I were doing it again. Download and print out the PDF of the cutting chart: Cutting Chart for Halloween Quilt

Here’s a part of it:

Across the top I identify the piece, then the color of the fabric and the number (#) of those pieces for one block. Then I added my column of number (#) for 9 blocks. You get to fill in your info on the last column. Keep reading. . . while you enjoy this wonderful quilt from Thelma, of Cupcakes ‘n Daisies:

*Thelma’s Quilt, of Cupcakes ‘n’ Daisies*

As you look at YOUR chart, you’ll need to decide how many star blocks you want, how many appliqué blocks you’d like to make. Then, further subdivide your appliqué choices into how many pumpkins? how many cats? how many moons/whatever? The pattern includes the pumpkins, stars and moons, but for the cat, you’re on your own (that’s what we have Google Image for–just type in silhouette halloween cat). Thelma’s owl is referenced in *this* post. Leisa and I are making 5 star blocks, 1 cat-on-a-pumpkin block, 2 pumpkin blocks, and 1 moon block.

We are doing the 8-way method of making half-square triangle blocks (HST)–more on this in the next post–but for the size of HSTs we need to go around the outside edge, we need to cut 7″ squares. Since there are 24 HST around the outside of one large block, you’ll need three sets per block of these 8-way HSTs–three of a dark (orange or black) and three of a light (tan/off-white). I couldn’t decide ahead what I wanted where, so I planned to cut 27 of each (dark, light) and I’ll figure it out as I go along, but then I’m okay if I have to mix orange and black HST points around the outside. Refer to the chart. Quickly, here’s all that we cut:

Cut seven-inch squares on this step, half in light and half in dark (orange/black) fabrics.

Then to make sure I was on track, I thought I’d better sew up one of these 8-way HST things and cut the triangles for the corners around the appliqué just to make sure it all worked. It does. I’ve put on the leaves on my pumpkin, but not the curlicue stem (that, and appliquéing them down will come later–I’m just testing). By the way, this block measures 19 1/2″ (finished)– just to compare it to Mary’s version of 9″ (her instruction sheet further down; keep reading).

ATTENTION: If you are going to appliqué down your stars onto the center of your background blocks, skip ahead to the next section. This next discussion (somewhat confusing until you start the actual construction, but I’ll do my best to explain it now) is for those who want to make wonky stars.

Let’s talk about the Wonky Stars. Here’s a sample (without the HSTs) to see how the fabrics are all placed around. There are four pieces for the star centers, and five pieces that make up the star backgrounds. Sew them together, trim and you have our block.

While this cutting-bigger-and-shuffling thing was big in the 1980s when we’d make wonky nine-patch blocks, it’s currently being taken to new heights by the Buggy Barn. But generally you make a pattern for the star bigger than you need, then sew it together after shuffling the pieces. I’ll give you this template next month, but above you can see one of the earlier prototypes.

The stars in the blue/light print are my first prototype and you can see I cut off the points. Re-draft. The next set (the lower green/white) just looked weird. Re-draft. I am pretty happy with the top two stars (green white) as their proportions look okay to me, and when I did them up in the fabrics of the blocks (above), they still looked okay. So, how did we figure out what to cut?

First, following Thelma’s lead, I made plastic templates for each piece, then divided them up by star-center and star-background. Leisa laid out the templates on the cutting board, trying to see how economically we could fit them onto a strip of fabric. She came up with a 4″ strip of fabric for the star backgrounds (and it will take 18″ of that strip for one background set) and a 3 1/2″ strip for the star centers (and you’ll use 11″ of that strip). So you can get two complete star backgrounds from one 4″ by WOF strip and three complete star centers from one 3-1/2″ by WOF strip.

The trick is, though, that you need a variety of prints to make the wonkiness. Since there are 4 pieces to the star center, you’ll need at least 4 strips, each of a different fabric. For the star backgrounds, you’ll need 5 different strips.

ARE YOU THOROUGHLY CONFUSED? Me too, and I already did it. Just download the chart, follow along how many we cut (or count the number in the photo) and get everything cut. Don’t give away your extra fabric, in case you need more, and tuck it all away in a box until April 13th, when we’ll start constructing the appliqué blocks, and I’ll show you how to do the 8-way HST blocks, too. Wonky stars are coming in May.

NOW, here’s Mary Burton’s measurements for her smaller quilt. She writes:

“The blocks finish at 8.5 inches with piano border finishing at 3″ so the quilt will be 40″ square. I love mine. I don’t usually make bed quilts so I reduce lots of patterns.”

I’ve purposely left this photo uncropped so you can use the outlet for a gauge as to how elegant this smaller version of the quilt is. Really fabulous, and I love the way her backgrounds in the star blocks go from medium to light.

She and I corresponded back and forth several times. She mentioned that:

“[Going smaller] isn’t harder when you are an experienced quilter. You just take your time. Take two squares, sew your seam and measure that piece to be sure you have the measurement you are supposed to have. Do that until you get the correct measurement. If you do that you should not have to pin. Also, you will always be able to use that needle position for all future projects.

The only part that I had to slow down for were the half square triangles because they are so small. If you use the easy angle ruler, they actually cut and go together fast. I just learned how to use it this year and it’s wonderful. Since I made this quilt last spring I just cut 2-inch squares in half and sewed my triangles together and then squared them down to 1 1/4.” The Easy Angle ruler leaves that step out and you don’t have any fabric waste. You do have to find your correct measurement though. You don’t measure your seam, you measure those 2 squares after you sew them.

I did press my seams open because of so many seams. You can use any technique you wish. I always use whatever works for me. If you have never use the Easy Angle ruler, Bonnie Hunter has a tutorial for it on her site. Don’t bother with the tutorial from the manufacturer.”

Download her instruction sheet here: Burton_Halloween1904 And if you want to thank her, leave a comment and I’ll forward it on to her.

By the way, I’ve changed some of the schedule stuff below. Just keeping’ things up to date. See you next month!

Revised Master Schedule:

Step 1 (Preparation): February 2016–buy all the fabrics and find the pattern. Mine was purchased from Common Threads in Waxahachie, TX (www.commonthreadsquilting.com). The quilt measures 90 by 90, which is too large for me, so I’m only doing nine blocks. Each block is 20″ square, and with the outer borders, that should come to roughly 65″ square. I may change my mind, but this looks good from here.

Step 2: March 2016–Cut out the quilt: the tan backgrounds of the squares, the border triangles, the smaller half-square triangles, strips for the wonky stars, but save the piano key border for later.

Step 3: April 2016–Assemble four blocks and add large appliques; use Thelma’s method (of Cupcakes and Daisies) for adding the curlicue stem. Make and add half-square triangeles (HSTs) around these blocks, using the 8-at-a-time method of HSTs, here and here. In the pattern, and in the photo from Thelma, they are mixed up and varied, but also harmonized (some have a mix of orange and black, some have just black, some have just orange.) Make your own rules and go with it.

Step 4: May 2016–Cut and make the wonky star blocks from templates and strips. We’ll be using Thelma’s method. I’m doing five blocks, so will need to make twenty wonky stars and true them up.

Step 5: June 2016–Assemble the rest of the star blocks, adding the large triangles on each corner and their HST borders. In the pattern, and in the photo above from Thelma, they are mixed up and varied, but also harmonized (some have a mix of orange and black, some have just black, some have just orange.) Make your own rules and go with it.

Step6: July 2016–Arrange the blocks on your design wall and stitch together. Cut the pieces for your borders. Make the four corner pinwheels.

Step 7: August 2016–Sew borders together and attach them to the quilt.

Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts · Sewing

Oh Christmas Tree-QAL–Step 2

March 2, 2016March 4, 2016 Elizabeth E.29 Comments

I’ve been haunting the IG feed #ohchristmastreeqal and love seeing all the progress of where the trees are and how things are coming along. We’ll finish this tree up in no time flat, but I think I’d like to keep sticking to the schedule (below).

We also have a giveaway at the end of this post, so please read all the way through, and then follow the steps to enter.

First up, this post is co-authored by Wendy of Wendy’s Quilts and More (blog) and wendyquiltsandmore (IG). Wendy has been a great partner in this Oh Christmas Tree QAL. Because she is about 4 months ahead of us, and I can send her different questions and she is unfailingly helpful. I asked her if we could use a lot of her photos for this particular post about the flowers, and she was happy to allow me to post them, so get ready for a photo-heavy post.

This month is the flowers. The basic idea is to layer up felt circles, or use a piece of medallion-style fabric appliquéd to a felt circle, then embellish it with embroidery stitches, using pearl cotton. I originally started cutting out a lot of circles, from the prepped up freezer paper circles in my numbered baggies (see previous Oh Christmas Tree QAL post on tab above), but realized that it might be better to be more of a one-by-one process. So let’s do one circle and you’ll see what I mean.

I cut out a medallion print (meaning that it’s a design that is self-contained in a circle), and pinched the edge under all the way around the outside, to set the edge for turning under (a Becky Goldsmith tip for appliqué). Here are some examples of medallion fabrics, from Wendy:

And here are some of mine (above). After writing back and forth with Wendy, I went through all my fabric stash and found even more than this. It’s surprising how many I’d overlooked. We do have some the same. Okay, back to the stitching.

Placing the circle on a larger piece of felt, I sewed down the edge, stitch by stitch, scooping the raw edge under with my needle, sometimes swishing the needle tip left and right under that edge if there was a tuck/sharp point (above). Often it’s what’s happening underneath that bumpy edge which determines the smoothness of your appliqué, so pay attention to what your seam allowances are doing, even trimming them further to a scant 1/4″ inch if you need to. I also try to have my needle come out the “center” of that folded edge, not on the top. That way the stitches won’t be too obvious, and then I don’t pull it too tightly. I want my circle to float.

As I mentioned, I am appliquéing this medallion to a larger piece of felt. Wendy picked up this tip from Wendy Williams, the author of this pattern (and found on IG at Flying Fish Kits–also a resource for stitching ideas), and this tip is also found in Williams’ book, Wild Blooms and Colorful Creatures.

Then just cut around the circle evenly, and you have your first completed appliquéd medallion. Wendy of Quilts and More recommends a medium-blade scissor (although I used a lightweight pair of larger shears, shown in the photo, but they are SHARP). Her scissors are below:

She writes “Once the fabric flowers are on, Wendy just cuts the felt circle free hand, keeping an even margin around the fabric. She says it’s meant to look hand made, and the circle doesn’t need to be perfect. Keep the scissors in the same position and turn the felt with the other hand, rather than cutting around corners. Use very sharp scissors with medium length blades. Not tiny embroidery scissors, not huge dress making scissors. I use the orange ones in this photo.”

Layer it up, and save it for a good TV program (Wendy of Quilts and More has a great shot of herself stitching while she watched a cricket match) when you can stitch away. This is circle #1, and is the largest circle of the bunch.

Next up is my auditioning another fabric medallion against several colors of wool felt. I added more info about where to buy wool felt to the original “Prepare” post, and yes, you can mix the felted wools and the wool felt, without any Quilt Police coming after you, if you want to purchase some. I am using Kaye Buckley’s scissors, which have one serrated edge that grips the fabric and helps me trim them evenly.

Being the Nervous Nelly that I am (it took me weeks to screw up the courage to start the flowers), I layered the circle over one of the smaller appliquéd flowers to kind of get the size I needed, then cut halfway around. I took off the freezer paper, and finished up the job.

So here is my first batch of prepped-up circles; some have fabric and one doesn’t.

To make my life easy, I pulled out my Sue Spargo book and leafed through some ideas.

I’m using two weights of pearl cotton: size 12 (recommended) and size 5 (larger, more visible).

I am using wool appliqué size #22 needles, which have a nice big eye and a sharp point and aren’t too long. Then I pulled up Wendy’s IG feed (all the photos below) and got a few more ideas, then just put my needle in the center and began. I happened to think about what I wanted to do and decided to stitch them all layered up like this. However, you may, on some circles, choose to embroider one circle, then add it to the next. I was still trying to gather my courage when I began this, so stabbed my needles into the center of the magenta circle, close to the edge and ran the orange #5 thread all the way out to the edge of the yellow-green circle, working my way around. Then, I took a small catch stitch over each of those “rays,” close to the outer edge of the magenta circle.

I switched to the thinner #8 thread and did straight stitches in between the others, then went back and added the yellow French knots at the top of each of those “rays.” I threaded on the blue thread, and did a few more French knots (odd number) in the center, not really caring how they landed, as I wanted a clustery look to them. Then I did an open Laisy-Daisy stitch on the outside, creating a row of “petals” with my thread.

Truth-in-Stitching: the back.

Here’s another. On the left, the beginning. You can see on this flower, I chose to echo the print of the center fabric. I am doing the first layer of felt by itself. I then layered it onto the second (gold) layer and kept stitching. This is the biggest flower, destined for the top of the tree, so I wanted something bright, yet echoed the colors throughout.

Again, here they are, unadorned.

After a couple episodes of Downton Abbey, they are embellished. I wrote to Wendy and asked her how long they took her to stitch (hence that hashtag on IG of #startyourneedles), and she replied that she can get two done in an evening. That’s about my speed, although I think I as get more familiar with stitches, I’ll be faster. Pay attention to your pearl cotton/felt colors. I loved the fabric in the pink one, upper right, but after I stitched it? Not so much. Either I’ll put that one where it’s not really noticed, or stitch another. I also started with the bigger circles; I’m sure the smaller ones will go faster.

Okay, now for the photo gallery from Wendy:

You can see Wendy has a great variety of stitches, and uses the appliquéd fabrics to great effect.

I searched “embroidery stitches” on Google Image and came up with tons, including these two:

A recap of where we are:

~~January, Step “prepare”: buy the magazine, books, gather your fabrics, buy the felt/wool, buy/find the pearl cotton.~~

~~February, Step 1: Make the tree on the background and stitch it down.~~

~~March, Step 2: Make 21 flowers.~~

—-> I just have to make a comment here. We have until June to get our flowers done, as well as the birds (which will go really fast because we’ll be so experienced, right?) So no panicking, please. Just #startyourneedles, steadily stitching and by the time it comes to stitch down the flowers, you’ll be ready.

April, Step 3: Make 10 birds.

May, Step 4: Scene at bottom of tree.

June, Step 5: Appliqué down the flowers. (Wendy gave me some tips for this last week, which I’ll pass along.)

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

August, Step 7: Sawtooth border (reds); sew together and attach.

September, Step 8 (finish up Quilt-A-Long): Make wonky star blocks, sew them together and attach border #2.

See you April 2nd for the next step: birds. I have a few tips on these, too, courtesy of Wendy. You’ll enjoy visiting both her website and her IG feed for great ideas and to see a master quilter and stitcher at work, and take a look at how far she is on her tree. Inspiration! Thank you, Wendy, for all your help.

Reminder: If you tag your IG photos with #ohchristmastreeqal, we can all help each other out with ideas for stitching, plus it’s just fun to see what you are all doing!

Here we go. I have two giveaways, and I’ll choose the winners from comments here.

First is another magazine, if you know someone who wants to jump in, or doesn’t have their own copy. It’s courtesy of QuiltMania, who gave it to me at QuiltCon, when I explained what we were doing. I’m sure if you wanted to subscribe, they wouldn’t mind a bit, or order the Simply Moderne #4, if you want another eye-popping design (way below).

Second giveaway is an envelope full of fabric medallions, my choice (I’ll cut from my extensive stash of medallions). You can use some, share some. There will be at least a dozen to help you get going on your stitching.

I’ll announce the two winners on Friday. Indicate in your comment which you are most interested in: Simply Moderne #3 magazine (with our tree on it) or medallions. Yea, you have to choose.

UPDATE: Comments closed. Winner announced tomorrow mid-morning.

#startyourneedles for the #ohchristmastreeqal

See you April 2nd for Step Three!

Of course you want to subscribe! (I’m an enabler, for sure)

Oh Christmas Tree QAL · Quilt-A-Long · Quilts

Oh Christmas Tree QAL–Step 1

February 2, 2016February 1, 2016 Elizabeth E.25 Comments

I’ve been busy shopping for wools, wool felts, felted wools and all combos in between. See below for an explanation of what they all are, although you’ve probably figured it out by now. For those of us just joining in, the first step we did was to prepare by purchasing the Simply Moderne issue #3, which has the pattern we’ll be using; we also purchased all our supplies of wools, threads and fabrics. It’s never too late to join, just look for the Oh Christmas Tree QAL tag at the bottom and click to locate all the posts on this blog (plus a wee giveaway to reward you for wading through all this). We are also on Instagram with the tag #ohchristmastreeqal.

Let’s talk about wool, specifically FELTED WOOL and WOOL FELT:

I found some 100% wool sweaters at the thrift store, threw them in the washer with three tennis balls and an old tennis shoe, then dried them. This process — using hot water, soap and agitation — is called fulling, with the result of felted wool. I did that twice. You can see in the top the difference between the two sweaters (they were originally the same size); however, one is called a “washable wool” so it won’t felt. Some felted more evenly and better than others, but all of them looked like they could fit a toddler, even though they started out as an adult-sized sweater. I plan to use some of this newly felted wool with my flowers and birds.

You can also do this with 100% wool woven fabric. You want it to felt down evenly so it is dense and won’t ravel. Many of you purchased already felted wool and are ready to go. Primitive Gatherings recommends using Steam A Steam 2 on the back to really stabilize the woven felted wool when you are working with it. If you have tips on working with felted wool, please leave comments on this post, where others can find the info. Many comments have already been left on the initial post on IG, if you want to look there.

I’m using what Wendy Williams recommended: 100% wool felt, which is that flat stuff your grandmother used to buy in the dime store to make toys, but is now available only in specialty shops (see previous Oh Christmas Tree post and the links below). Felt does not fray when cut and is extremely stable, although it does shed a bit on first cutting. It is wool fibers that have been felted together, and is not woven, nor knitted (as in the two examples above).

Try to keep these two terms separate in your mind: wool felt (which is what I’m using) and felted wool. There’s a few more links at the bottom of this post for more reading.

So these are my supplies (top) and some medallion fabrics (bottom). These fabrics have a circle pattern in them with fairly ornate decorative motifs inside. Wendy uses them with her wools to add some flair, especially when creating the circles.

I cut my background fabric, and I added about 1 1/2 inches to the measurements because I’m a chicken about these sorts of things.

I took the fabric to the ironing board and ironed in a soft crease. Don’t overdo it.

I labeled the crosswise branches on the feather tree in the right margin of the first diagram, which you can see in the red box, and following their directions, and put pins along that soft center crease to know where to place things.

I cut first one strip of blue (lighter) and then the dark one, and couldn’t decide between the two for my tree. So I laid out all my supplies on top of the strips. I liked the country French blue, but decided, finally, that the darker would bring more contrast to the finished quilt.

I cut the long center strip, using the measurements in the pattern. She asks you to taper the wool at the top, so I put a pin in the middle, then measured and placed others. I angled my 24″ ruler from that middle pin to the outer edge of the center and cut away that wedge. I didn’t cut enough on the first time, so did it again. I also cut the top a wee bit larger than she asked –just a bit–as I like the look of it.

I also cut these crosswise branches a scant 1/8″ larger, especially on the top branches (I have one more set to go up above) and I’m glad I did.

I laid them out on my fabric, using the soft crease and my rulers, in order to get them on the fabric straight. You don’t want a tipping Christmas tree! I also used the 24″ ruler as I pinned each set, as the wool will bump up against it, helping you get it on perpendicular to your tree trunk. I was able to get it on fairly straight that way.

Although I initially pinned them by putting the pins parallel to the crosswise branch, I soon found that it made the wool and the fabric buckle, so I shifted to this method of pinning. Pin a LOT if you are using felt. If you’ve used the wool backed with Steam-A-Seam, it will be tacky on the back and it will be easily positioned. The felted wool people will then go to their ironing board after the first pinning step and press it down. As Primitive Gatherings notes: “Keep your iron moving at all times so you will not scorch your wools.” Wool is a natural fiber and can burn and scorch, but you might try using a lightweight pressing cloth in order to protect the wool and not give it a “shine” from too much pressing. (That’s my college Clothing and Textiles degree being put to good use–thank you, Mrs. Dimas, for your tailoring class.)

Now start stitching. I put my ball of pearl cotton in this little holder and boy was that handy. You can buy one from Bird Brain Designs. (See below for how you can win a couple freebies for yourself.)

Start with the crosswise branches, and do a close backstitch on them. I did mine right close together along the branches, like the top example:

(from *here*)
You can do a search to find out how to do a backstitch, which is where I found *this* quick YouTube Tutorial.

I butted my ends of the crosswise branches together under the main tree trunk and stitched, lifting the “trunk” as I went underneath. I also tried it with the edges just under the edge of the trunk, leaving a space between them, but felt it was more stable with the wool tucked in further.

I did an expanded backstitch going up the side of the tree, leaving a space in between each stitch, using two separate threads (one for each side) as I went up. I decided to sew the tree trunk as I finished each branch, so it would feel quicker to me. The whole stitching down of branches and trunk took the better part of a morning.

I have this on high-power magnification on my camera. I promise you NO one is going to look at your stitches this closely, so if you make a mistake or it’s not quite right, don’t fret. This whole tree is in the folk/rustic flavor so an imperfection adds to the charm. You can see that I did a closer backstitch on the crosswise branches and an expanded, or open, backstitch on the trunk. It was easy to stitch.

Ta-DONE!

Since we always want to prep up for the next step before leaving our project, I’ve also added to this step the tracing-off the patterns for the flowers and the birds. I’m using freezer paper, as it can be ironed onto my felt and used multiple times. There are a lot of circles to cut out of your paper in order to prepare. I’m using Kay Buckley’s Perfect Circles, matching up to what’s on the pattern and tracing around them. (Yes, I punch holes in my bigger plastic circles so they won’t warp and buckle under the heat of the iron when I use them at the ironing board–the heat and steam can escape through the holes. I sometimes also mark the center, which is what you see here.)

I can use the inside of a Perfect Circle to trace those teeny circles in the middle (inside the green square in the first photo), or a spool of thread, if there isn’t a Perfect Circle to match up with what you are doing. I labeled each circle on my pattern with a master number and an inner number, as in 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4 so when I cut them apart I know which goes where. I placed them all in plastic bags.

For the birds, I labeled them, drawing a dashed line where it crosses the main pattern piece (or is tucked under), added another piece of freezer paper to it with glossy sides together, and stapled them once in each major piece. I’m not ready to cut them apart yet, as I’ll do that in April, when we do birds. Pay attention to where she says to reverse the bird patterns. If you want to, you can also start cutting your circles out of your wools and felts and fabrics (if you are using fabrics). I realize that things often change as we start stitching the flowers and birds (the under-tree scene will come later), but it’s helpful to get going on this step.

It’s all tucked away, waiting for next month’s step. Here are the steps again:

~~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. Prep up the circles by tracing them and organizing them together.~~

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.

We’ve done:

and now

I’ll post Step Two on March 2nd. The second day of the month will be our regular posting day from now until we finish, and I’ll also put a reminder up on Instagram.