Note to self: review checklist carefully

Back in the old days, I used to be much more involved in my local quilt guild. I actually belonged to the guild, number one, and I would participate in swaps, retreats, activities, etc. Then life interfered, and my free time became completely unpredictable. All my crafting and quilting took place at home in whatever snatches of time I could carve out. But over the past year or so I've made an effort to reconnect. While I wish I could still attend guild meetings and retreats and Saturday sew-ins, I've at least committing to joining "Wooley Bee."

Wooley Bee is like my "Cheers". When you walk in, everyone looks up from their projects and exclaims "Hello!" "So good to see you!" "Can't wait to see what you're working on!" We're allowed to complain about work, commiserate over family issues, share our triumphs, oogle handiwork, show off purchases that receive appropriate levels of appreciation, and give into peer pressure to start yet another project. Oh yes, and we also sew. And sometimes we actually sew wool projects at Wooley Bee.

At last night's particular meeting, I was planning to work on my hexi project (not a scrap of wool in site), but, as I mentioned, I have good momentum going that I want to keep. It's also super portable and I knew I could crank out some rows of hexis while chatting and catching up with everyone. Too bad I didn't bring thread. Really. And none of my buddies had any regular sewing thread, because they were using fancy thread for their wool projects: wool thread, sparkly thread, beading thread, pearl cotton thread... No cotton sewing thread to be found. And the quilt store next door was closed. Aaaaarg.

But maybe it was a blessing in disguise because I did bring my own pearl cotton, and was forced to embroider my next sea creature: the dolphin. I had used a chain stitch for the outline on the birds because I wanted it to look full and feathery. I wanted a smoother effect for the dolphin. The stem stitch wasn't working out with the pearl cotton, so I used a backstitch. The problem was that a single backstitch wasn't bold enough on the dark background. A second line of backstitch gave it the width it needed, and kept the primitive style I was looking for. And going around the dolphin a second time was much more palatable surrounded by excellent company that it would have been in front of the TV at home.

 

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New Hexi Project

August was kind of a lost month. We took a family vacation, which meant we were gone for about 10 days. As soon as we returned, the kids were off and running to their extracurricular activities that were beginning several weeks before their classes began. August is also one of my busiest times at work.

So of course I started a new project!


I had a baggie full of 5" batik squares from an online swap I was in a million years ago... or maybe 5 or 6 years ago. They were so pretty that I really couldn't bear to cut into them. But my unofficial resolution this year has been to use the pretty stuff. What am I doing just keeping it folded up in storage bins?

I was looking through this book recently for a wool pattern when I ran across a great hexagon pattern that featured primitave embroidered chickens. Inspired by my batiks and our recent family vacation, I decided to remake with an ocean theme.


It calls for more than 625 hexagons. But I've had help.

I've been alternating between making hexagons and embroidering, so I had to see how the hexis might frame some of my shorebirds...

I chose to use a darker background for the embroidery, as the original pattern called for. I really like it. I want to do more embroidery on prints too. But I've been working steadily on this project for a few weeks, so I'm going to try to keep my up monmentum on a single project.

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Back to basics

Chain piecing yards and yards of soon-to-be 9 patch blocks!

Dress makeover

I have this dress that I really love... maybe because the first time I wore it was to a wine tasting shortly after I got divorced and a close colleague of mine exclaimed, "Girl! You look like you're 20 years old!" (and I hadn't been 20 for a while). And then I wore it to Acapulco on my honeymoon a few years later and I love the picture of the two of us having a perfect dinner overlooking Acapulco Bay while the sun is setting.

So when I got a stain on it at some mysterious time and place, and hadn't noticed, I was upset. Upset enough to go ahead and wear it to whatever event I got it out for the next time, with the plan to pretend that it just happened. But I knew I could only pull that off so many times.

I ran across this pattern online, fell in love with it, and decided the folk art peacock would be just the thing to embroider over the stain.

Fast forward about one year of "aging" the pattern in my stiching stash while I gained some more experience with stitching on stretchy fabric...

Although the pattern was an iron-on transfer, I wanted the peacock to face the opposite direction so it would face into the center of the dress. I traced the pattern with a micron pigma pen onto water soluable stabilizer. This turned out to be a stroke of genius become some of the lines in the pattern were too delicate for the thread and fabric I was using and the lines of the pattern would not have been perfectly covered. This way I had some leeway to adapt my stitches.

I actually ended up cutting out the piece of stabilzer twice because the first time around I didn't make sure it was big enought to be caught entirely in the hoop and the tension would have been way off. Luckily, I figured this out before I had it all traced.

Then I basted the stabilzer to the dress so it wouldn't shift as I was stitching.

I used mostly DMC stranded cotten, but also used some metallic silver thread to give it a little sparkle. I often wear silver sandals with the dress, so I thought that would be fun.

I wasn't sure how it would turn out positioned on the dress, but it really turned out great. I'm very happy that I did not give up on this dress and now it's ready to go with me on vacation!

Wooly Leaf Exchange

I'm so excited about the exchange I'm doing with a friend. Our goal is to make 10 sets of two leaves (keep one and trade one) and then we'll take it from there later.

I've been wanting to try the whipped wheel since I've been seeing it all over the web-maybe at Take a Stitch Tuesday first? I made my spoke points by using coins and buttons as guides. After adding the bullion stitch border, it needed a little something else, and I think the beads added some pizzaz.

I can't wait to see dozens of the leaves together on a sampler!

Dye Party!

Some of my quilty friends hosted a dye party. This time I took some languishing thread left over from an old girl scout project and did some over dying. I can't wait to use it in an embellished wooly leaf exchange I'm participating in!

Bonus Triangle Project Continued....

I used only a few of my bonus triangles to piece together a background for my new project and then tried to figure out how to transfer the heart pattern I made from tissue paper. First I traced around it with chalk, but that wasn't showing up well enough. Then I decided to quickly machine baste around it and that worked out great.

I took my prepped background to Wooley Bee and was able to attach all the leaves and begin embroidering the vine.

 I finished up the vine the next day and decided it was too pretty to get beat up in use as a project bag, so now I'm thinking I might make it into a pillow.

Stay tuned. This kind of edge-of-your-seat excitement never ends around here!