daisy quilt

I would like to make a quilt

for my daughter as a memory

for her first year in girl scout.

She is a Daisy and is quite proud of it!

It probably helps that her brother is also a cub scout!

Lego Brick Master will soon be a Webelo,

 so he has a few more years under his belt!

I would like to make him one too,

but later as I have not bought the fabric for his!

So yes the fabric is bought,

and it is bright!

but perfect for a little girl!

So I was thinking of some kind of friendship quilt,

with all the names of the girls in her troop.

I tried to have the girls sign their name on the fabric,

and that did not work very well....

May be use the embroidery machine?
I have found a few patterns but still not the perfect one.

Do you have any suggestion?

I have 1/2 yard of each of the non girl scout fabric and

 about 1 1/2 yards of the 2 big prints.

Happy sewing!

Heirloom receiving blanket

A couple of weeks ago

I took another class on heirloom sewing.

I just love sewing with the best quality cotton and lace!

and here is the result:

a beautiful receiving blanket!

Soon a little lamb will be in that corner,

I just need more time!

During the class, we used pre-washed cashmere cotton fabric ( 30"x45"),

 it is cotton, but extrememly soft, just like cashmere!

and 4.5 yard of French lace (also cotton), 1 inch wide.

Heirloom sewing is usually done with a special thread,

a very fine thread like Madeira 80 wt (usually white or ecru)

Here is a close-up of how the lace is attached to the fabric.

It is a 2 step process.

First the lace and fabric are joined together with a straight stitch

(right side together).

 Then after ironing, we used a Parisian hemstitch

with  a wing needle (a very wide needle)

to finish the edge and to make those holes.

I do not have that stitch on my machine,

I used a stitch semilar,

 it looks like a ladder with one side missing,

with a lot of back and forth (help to make the holes)

Then we trimmed the excess fabric in the back.

Here is the picture of the back:

And how about these mitered corners?

We took care of them last. 

When we were sewing the lace to fabric,

 we left a little extra lace at the corners.

So we just folded the fabric and straight stitched the lace

 and cut the excess lace, voila!

And here it the final corner on the right side:

We did this blanket in about 2h.

For the emboidery, you would need to add a few more hours!

If you have never done work like this before

 I would suggest finding a local heirloom store,

here the web site of my local store:

http://www.marthasheirlooms.com/

On April 9 and 10, we will go to a heirloom sewing retreat!!

I will miss the first day since there is nobody to watch

the kids, but I will be able to take a all day class

on a heirloom baby dress,

it will be pink with white lace,

it should be very interesting!

I will keep you posted!!

I did finish my lapin pillow:

 and I sent it to a friend of mine.

Farewell little blue bunny!

Happy sewing!

quilt show 3: Thimbleberries

Time to go back to "my quilt show"
well may be more show and tell!

Once I was more comfortable doing simple quilts,

I became a member of one of those block of the month clubs.

It was a fun way to make big projects more manageable.

I became a fan of Thimbleberries, the directions are always clear,

the fabric is very good quality, but it is always a little dark and country.

I am now not so much into their work,

but a while back I made a lot of their quilts.

So here it is: a Thimbleberries special

"May day tradition"

Thimbleberries quilt club 2002

"Sunset"

Thimbleberries quilt club 2005

the blue fabric is from Provence....

yes like most people I am a fan!

This queen size bed quilt is from the book "Holiday quilts" By L. Jensen.

The fabric is not thimbleberries.

 The main fabric was purchased in France.

It is a reprint of "indienne",

the original fabric was made in India,

using a technique not used in Europe at the time,

and most of the  fabric made using that way were named "indienne".

 I was able to find some pink/red and green looked geat with it.

It is our summer quilt and I love it!

"Winter dazzle"

Thimbleberries quilt club 2002

Above the bed in our guest room!

"Basket case"

Thimbleberries quilt club 2004
with Lego Brick Master (young!)

(this quilt was given to friends, so these are the only picture I have!)

"Sunrise"

Thimbleberries club 2005

 Fall table top

pattern from the book "treats no tricks" by L. Jensen.

This one was made as a baby gift,

I cannot remember the pattern

but it is made with Thimberries fabric,

not so dark after all!

Next time I will write about my real quilt passion:

applique!

(you might have seen some in my first post about quilt)

my own quilt show

Happy sewing!

favorite jacket update

Remember my previous post of a kid jacket?

my-favorite-kid-jacket

Well I finished it and

I am pleased to say:

Miss C. likes it!

And with warm/cold weather of spring it is perfect!

I used denim fabric for the outside and cotton for the lining.

I used machine embroidery for the little faces/bodies.

I purchased it at swakembroidery.com

Easy to download and use

SWAK tce KawaiiCutiesSet

I then quilted the denim to the batting

(80%cotton/20% poly, warmer than just cotton, but behave about the same)

 I did it for the 2 fronts, the back and the sleeves.

Then following the pattern instructions, I attached fronts to the back, and then the sleeves.

I did the same for the lining.

Then I stitched all the edges together (denim quilted fabric to lining fabric):

neck, front, sleeves, bottom.

So that all the edges are machine finished.

Then I stitched the side seams, a little tricky, but when done right,

the jacket is fully reversible!

I hand stitched 2 buttons at the top to have a more opened neck.

It is a perfect jacket to play and run.

I wish I had better pictures but it is already dirty and

 muddy from running around the yard!

It is definitively spring time!

Happy sewing!

lapin

With a blog called Bear, Dolly and Moi

it is pretty obvious that I like bears and dolls!

But did you know I have a bunny weakness too?

I know. SHOCKING!

(lapin by the front door)

and since it is almost Easter,

it is rabbit madness just about everywhere!

I have of course most of Beatrix Potter's collection.
I also have this beautiful book,
about her beginning and her abilities as an artist.

Inside there are the traditional paintings that we are familiar with,
but also beautiful sketches, like this one, done in 1891.

I have made a few cross stitch embroideies of Peter in my youth.

I still have some of the fabrics from a few years ago,

 they are just so lovely!

I even purchased the embroidery CD

(so much faster than cross stitching!)

and here is the Peter you get:

and yesterday I found a perfect pattern for bunny lovers!

Here is a link to this pattern:

http://dontlooknow.typepad.com/dont_look_now/2009/04/and-the-winners-are-plus-a-little-something-for-everyone.html

The lady  running this blog "don't look now!" is amazing.

Kellie's patterns are wonderful, I wanted to have them all and

to start working on it right away...

which is a huge problem since the kitchen is still waiting for another coat of paint,

the basement is also waiting,

and the 3 other dolly projects....

just breathe!

Since it looks like I will not be teaching this semester,

I should be OK....!

So I got started on the bunny!

Yep, life is short!

and here is the beginning of this bunny

his face is not finished yet, it is just taking longer than I expected!
I will post it when I am done, hopefully before Easter!

Happy sewing!

Brag Monday

Today I submitted my Paris pillows

at the graphics fairy

graphics fairy : brag monday

Come over and check it out!

Happy sewing!

tea party

Yesterday my daughter went to a birthday party:

a fancy tea party.

So I decided to make as a present for the birthday girl

supplies for felt tea party at home.

requirement:

-tea (bags, this is not the UK!)

-cookies

-fruit

-chocolate

-some container to keep it all

so here is my version of a tea party!

The tea bags are based on a few designs that I have been seeing on flickr felt group

http://www.flickr.com/groups/handmadefeltfood/pool/

I combined different parts from different people's vision to make my own version.

As you can tell, I like green tea!

I used tule for the bag, I cut leaves for the inside and the tag.

The string is cotton yarn , and for safety reason it is less than 6 inch.

I found the pattern for the chocolate bunnies at

playingfood.blogspot.com/

I changed the eyes a little, the white part is stitched on with the blue floss,

I did a French knot, of course!

The little cake is made using the new TV show: DIY dish

http://www.thediydish.com/

It is rolled felt on the inside (strawberry/vanilla), recovered with icing

and with some cream on the top!

I also made my favorite cookies

and some strawberries.

For the tray/basket, I used 2 fabric, some ribbons and some iron-on fleece.

I started with a square about 12 inch, removed 4 squares in each corner,

 around 2.5 inch, whatever the high of the tray you are interested in.

I ironed on the fleece.

I stitched the 8 pieces of ribbon.

Then with right sides together, I stitched both fabric around, leaving an opening.

I clipped the corners and the inside of the corners.

I returned the fabric, ironed it and hand stitched.

To help the edges stand up, I stitched along the lignes through all layers.

Here is a view of the flaten tray.

 

It would be all that is needed for a tea party with friends,

after all it should feed 4.

The birthday girl liked very much!

Happy sewing!

today is party day!

Today I have entered my first link party!

So come check out "Tea Rose Home" at

http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/

Sachiko has some beautiful ideas (including great tutorials)

I especially like her child size mannequin.

I will talk more about this particular post later

as I am working an a doll version!

here is a preview!

Happy sewing!

pillows, more pillows!

A few Saturday night ago as I was reading blogs and more blogs,

I found this blog " graphics fairy"with great clip arts:

http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

So I went to work and made these pillows:

I used 2 old pictures from monuments of Paris:

free-clip-art-vintage-eiffel-tower

vintage-paris-graphic-arc-de-triomphe

I made my own printer fabric by ironing muslin fabric to freezer paper

(cut to the size of regular paper) and printing the picture.

It is probably not safe for washing, but I do not plan to.

Since I was limited by the size of the paper, I sewed some more fabric on the 3 sides,

 about 2-3 inch.

It did make the picture bigger,

 but the difference between the printed picture and the background fabric was too evident

so I used grosgrain ribbon to make a frame.

I stitched on both side of the ribbon.

I also sewed some black piping before attaching the back of the pillow.

Since they are unusal size, I just stuffed them and stitched them closed.

I think they turned out pretty good!

 

Happy sewing.