July Heart

July's Tatted Heart is called "Peacock Heart" and it's by Birgit's Tatting. Once again, I got the pattern from the internet and it is no longer there, so I can't post the link.

Peacock Heart was a lot of fun and quite easy--it was my favorite heart to do so far. Mostly chains, but I also got to practice shuttle joins again, as well as making consistent picots.

I actually finished this Saturday and Sunday and then moved on back to my ornament:


Since then I've progressed a bit:


Of course, that doesn't show the knot that formed just as I set it down:


Usually these are very easy to just "flick" out of the thread, but sometimes there's a sort of double knot that actually tightens when I flick it. Sigh. I'll have to get out the super-magnifying glasses and tiny pin to pick it out.

I Break for Quilting

My friend and I were able to get together and get started on the quilting portion of the quilt I started last fall. I'm so excited to be nearly done! The left pic shows where I am now on it: All quilted and ready for binding.

Because the feed dogs on my sewing machine don't drop, I did all straight quilting. First, I used the foot that comes standard on the sewing machine (I'm not a sewer--yet--and don't know all the terminology.) My friend Heather recommended a walking foot to reduce puckering, and, surprise, surprise, I have one:


I did still have a bit of puckering, though, but it was just my inexperience showing and I plan to get better. Here is some of my quilting:


You may be thinking, "Wow, that's some serious unstraight sewing!" and you'd be right. Something to work on, especially since I'd like to try my hand at sewing clothing. Also, in the bottom right corner of the above pic, you can see the thread is thick in one spot. That's where I started and stopped. Heather tells me that that is the easy way, but there is a way to start and stop so that it's not as noticeable, and I plan to learn that.

Here's the back with all of it's obvious puckers. But that's OK. I like this fabric best of all I used, and I'll be using it for the binding so I can see it on the front.

I did have a moment of panic when I thought that I had done the final quilting in the wrong spot--around the seam of the border. I looked at the two quilts I have hanging in my studio, to see what they had done. They hadn't done such a seam! Panic! Instead of seeing that one was quilted "in the ditch" and the other had lots of curvy quilting all over the border, I immediately assumed that I had done it wrong. The binding on both is immaculately straight and naturally my mind leaped to the conclusion that they had done their seams on the edge of the quilt and lined up the bindings with that. And of course I had cut the edges off my fabric by then, which made it worse. But I got in touch with Heather, who assured me that I had in fact done it correctly. Whew!
It hasn't been all quilting though. I started working on my ornament, "What Can I Give Him?" by Forget-Me-Nots-In-Stitches. Lauren Sauer is the designer. I have a couple of her pieces in progress and I really love her work. Anyway, I started by doing the outlines of each piece in backstitch:

Well, that didn't work out too well! The heart in the upper left is not only in a bad place, it has a mistake, so the stitching wasn't lining up. Although the long rectangle is not so noticeable, it has the same problems. It was very important to follow the backstitch instructions exactly, so it will line up for finishing. There were some stitches over two, some over three, and a few over one. Working in-hand, because I was too lazy to tack it to stretcher bars, because I'd have to untack it and retack it later, made it very wrinkly. This is better:

Still wrinkly, though. I didn't use steam to press it because I was attaching fusible interfacing:


I don't even want to get into what happens when you cut things out in a hurry. Still, it'll work out, and now the project is attached to stretcher bars and ready for stitching:


Lastly, it's now July and time for a new tatted heart. I'm hoping to get some thread tonight and get started on it. Stay tuned!

Full Steam Ahead

Well, I didn't quite finish DH's ornament by the weekend. I would have, but I napped on Saturday instead. So I finished it on Monday and here it is.

I immediately started on Jazzboy's ornament:



I hadn't been doing Finishing work like I ought to, but today I finally did a small task. I lined up the centers of the stitching, the batting and the foam core with a straight pin.


The little snowman has a belly button:



This way even if I don't get the stitching on straight (something to work on), at least it'll be properly centered.



And I finished Jazzboy's ornament as well:



Very quick and fun and it feels really good to get these small things accomplished. Tomorrow, I hope to start on my own ornament.

Augh!! Frustration!

So I'm happily stitching along feeling pleased with my progress, and I notice that the left side is not going to match up:


Can you see where I made the mistake?


It's the 4th little framing motif on the top from the left (and sorry, I couldn't get any closer or clearer). So I now have to frog-stitch (rip-it, rip-it), that far back! I hate frogging almost as much I hate Finishing. Sometimes it frustrates me so much I have to put the project away for a while, but I am still hopeful that I can finish stitching this by this weekend. After all, it is a holiday.