Summer Sewing

The temperature is rising as the week rolls along,

30 today (86F) 38 tommorow (100F) and 40 Friday (104F) and back to 34 Saturday (93F)

It’s a good time to be a hermit which I confess I am in January.  Apart from two walks around the corner to our little shop for mail/paper/milk I have not left the property since Christmas eve!!! Bliss.

My little studio is not airconditioned but it’s still quite pleasant in here, not sure how I’ll feel by this afternoon :-0

On Saturday Irene and Jenn came over, the three of us had not had a chance to get together to talk about what we want to do through the year, singly as well as collectively.  So it was a meeting of Turn Left for Harmony, all meetings should be like this.image of sewing day

I am ticking things off that list of ‘summer jobs’, one was to make the remaining three cushions of my intended set of four.

Possibly it is 18 months or two years since I made the first cushion, but happily all four are now made, tick.

image of cushion making

Next job…

Work through the steps for making Perfect Bias Stems, 1/8″ wide using a set of laminated instructions purchased in Houston from

Amidon Quiltworks,

Previously I just made a 1/4″ stem with the bias maker and folded it in half but the bulk was less than ideal.

 Amidon Quiltworks sells a two sided laminated instruction sheet for Perfect Bias Stems designed by P3Designs and the sample stem Amidon gave me was 1/8″, perfectly bendy and flat.  Granted it was made with Batik and that is tightly woven and does behave itself well, but I was keen to have a crack at it.

I followed all the steps (20) carefully, it has been well thought out and I won’t show too much as it is copyrighted to P3Designs.

image of making bias stemsI used an RJR  Smithsonian fabric, Stem #1 worked well but I was a little disappointed in the fabric wastage, for the next stem I altered the instructions slightly to compensate.  It is a little bit fiddly (but these are skinny stems) but after making the six stems I needed I had worked out where I could minor tweak what is a very good method devised by P3.

My stems actually ended up being 1/8″ to 3/16″ wide, but I know where I went wrong and perhaps the coarser weave had something to do with it too but I don’t use Batiks so the method needs to work for my fabrics.

The Verdict… I am happy, but could be a bit happier, with the results and the stems are not bulky.  I’ll use this method again.

So what’d  I do with those stems?

LOL, started a new quilt of course

image of Applique Chintz Basket

Some Dutch Chintz, some Smithsonian... what a lovely mix

This morning I started chooosing the flowers, it will be Broderie Perse for those, and settled on carefully selecting flowers from (but felt like hacking in to) the panel from the 1810 Chintz Medallion, Virginia Quilt Museum range by Quilting Treasures. Luckily I had two as I needed to cut in to them both to get the flowers I needed.

image of Broderie Perse fabric

1810 Chintz Medallion by Quilting Treasures.

As is typical with me, I really don’t know what this will be nor how big, I’m just having fun with it for now.

image of applique block

ready for stitching when it gets too hot to do much else.

I didn’t plan for a butterfly in this block but as the panel had one I thought I might as well use it :-)

Off to clean up the table and then play some more before, it’s now mid afternoon and the temp is still OK in here.

Thanks for dropping by

Margaret

Comments

  1. Margaret, Irene and Jenn, it is so nice to see good friends enjoying the art of quilting and friendship. happy new year to all of you kathy from cal and sometimes tx

    • Hi Kathy, good to hear from you and that you have returned home safely after Houston (tho to where I’m not sure, California or Texas? we may have to nickname you Kathy Caltex ;-) Aussies give all their friends a nickname)
      M :-)

  2. Yes – it was a great meeting. We couldn’t wait to finish it so that we could sit and sew. We hadn’t done that for a long time. Margaret love how your vase and flowers is turning out. But it would drive me crazy not knowing what I was doing – I need to get EVERYTHING down on paper before i begin but i do like the way you work and it ALWAYS turns out beautiful!

  3. Kathy caltex says:

    Well ladies, i live in ca and visit family in texas. have car will travel and love to do so when i have a chance, this weekend i am off to 4 lovely days of a sewing retreat in napa (read wine country) and hopefully will get some of my unfinished quilts done and some new ones started. the one project i am not taking is my jane austin as it is cut and i am nervous about losing some parts. So admire the work that you do and look forward to seeing some new things from you.

  4. Hi Margaret
    What a lovely day you had together, so fun to have friends who share our passion.
    Love your new block, love the fabrics and that green.

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