My mom pieced all of these and sent them to me for quilting and binding.
The first is a wall hanging.
She bought the fabrics and panel in a kit from Jordan Fabrics. I added backing and binding fabric from my shop.
See mom, I got them done!
I saw this recently somewhere and saved the photo because I thought it was so funny.
What do you "need to quilt" today?
This stuff is really interesting and easy to use.
I made another short video, 2:51 minutes long.
If the embedded video doesn't play for you, click the following link:
If you don't like watching videos, I'll tell you a bit about it. This stuff is a gel. You paint it onto regular fabric or fabric item. Depending on how many coats you do it's water and stain-resistant all the way to waterproof and stain-resistant with an oilcloth finish. You have to heat set the product for it to be permanent after it cures for 24 hours.
Three coats of this stuff really does provide an oilcloth like finish. Once cut, the fabric doesn't even fray with the liquid vinyl on it. You can sew with it, just make sure if you have to iron it you use a teflon press sheet or parchment paper. You don't want to get this stuff on your iron!
I am going to make some things with fabric I've treated with liquid vinyl. I'm thinking placemats, bibs, and linings for bags. It's food safe so one of my customers is planning to make elastic banded bowl covers. You can paint this stuff on just one side of the fabric or both sides! Fabric sandwich bags is another good use for this instead of using plastic zip bags.
I've been carrying these needle threaders for a while now and still love them. My husband uses one all the time when servicing machines and I keep mine with my Featherweight as it is the only machine I own that doesn't have a needle threader. I made a short video showing how it works, because this is the kind of thing that is easier to explain with video rather than words. It's less than 2 minutes long if you want to see how these things work.
I finished up my COVID sanity project!
I am currently out of this embroidery kit but I have ordered more. They will be here in a day or two. I also ordered a bunch more of these type of kits besides this one.
All of these kits are listed on my shop website in the Kits section. When the new kits arrive the website will be updated. All the ones listed right now that are sold out have been reordered, plus a few new ones. These are really fun to do. They come with the design already pre-printed on the fabric, all the floss you need to make it, a needle and a hoop you can use to do the stitching and to display your finished project in if you choose. Instructions are also included complete with stitch instructions for all of the stitches used in each project, if you need instructions. There are also lots of stitch instruction videos online if you need a little extra help.
I have discovered a new product. A customer asked me to order this because she was almost out of the bottle she purchased elsewhere.
Let me show you how this works:
If you don't want to watch the video or it doesn't play for you for some reason, basically you just spray this on your fabric (yardage or clothing or sheets or whatever) with the fabric damp just pull the wrinkles out, smooth it with your hands, and let it dry. Yep, it's seriously that simple! My new best friend! I have put the shirt back in my closet so I can start wearing it again.
If the video doesn't play for you here, you can go to my shop YouTube channel directly and watch it there.
Cynthia C. purchased this adorable panel at another shop on her travels. The border fabrics came from this shop. She has embroidered some of the elements on the panel.
The photos below show some close-ups of the hand embroidery she has done.
This has been an annual thing at my shop. Every July I hang the challenge quilts from the San Luis Valley Quilt Guild members who chose to participate. It gives them some exposure and advertises their annual quilt show which happens the first two weeks in August.
The photo below explains the theme for this year:
And here are the 12 entries:
The bottom portion of the first photo explains the 4 voting categories. If you'd like to vote just leave a comment and use the 4 categories from the first photo. I will fill out a paper ballot for you and put it in the basket with the other votes. In your comment, just leave the name of the category and the appropriate number quilt you are voting for that category. You don't have to put a number for every category if you don't want to.
I was quarantined upstairs away from my family for over a week recently when I had COVID. There is only so much surfing online I can do and watching movies and such on my iPad. I just had to have a hand sewing project! Luckily I had one ready to go in my sewing room. So one morning when I was briefly allowed downstairs to shower I snagged the kit on my way back upstairs. (My sewing room is right at the base of the stairs so I didn't have to go far.)
I had actually started this the afternoon I started feeling poorly. I had one big yellow petal done before I had to put it down because I didn't feel well. I have to finish the purple flowers at the bottom, finish the two satin stitched leaves and fill the center of the sunflower with french knots.
I have a few more of these embroidery kits in stock. You can view them in the Kits section on my website. These Cozy Blue Handmade kits are really nice! The design is pre-printed on the fabric. You get all the thread required, a needle, a wooden hoop and instructions in each kit.
I don't have this quilted yet, but the top is done.
The pattern we used is a Villa Rosa Designs pattern called Quilters Palette. It finishes at 45" by 60". Again, the fabric collection we used is called Sundance. The binding will be the same red fabric we used for the inner border around the center fabric.
We made a little oopsy when cutting the center fabric and had to adjust the red inner border around the center, but it still works. When we cut kits for this we will be sure to adjust the yardage for the main fabric so that you could make the pattern correctly! The pattern is correct - we just didn't read carefully enough and cut that piece wrong for our sample. Rather than wasting the piece we had cut we decided to just make it work for the sample.
These beautiful fabrics arrived while I was out sick and have been "flying" out the door - pun intended. The collection is called Songbird Serenade from P & B Fabrics.
.jpeg "Songbird Serenade fabric collection from P & B Fabrics")
The last photo is the panel. It's standard size 24" wide by width of fabric panel - so those birds are pretty big. They'd be great cut up and used for placemats or the outside of a tote bag. They would also make awesome throw pillows! Again, these fabrics are from the Songbird Serenade collection.
