Quilting the Daisy Chain

Hi Friends!

Confession time: I have two, maybe weird but I think totally normal, habits.

The first is, if I really want to sew but there is something that is more important to get done (for example, taxes) I won't sew anything until I get the more important task done.

Second, if I do have a big task in front of me (like, say, quilting) I have a hard time doing it until I have wrapped my head around how I am going to get it done.

Both of those little quirks dominated this past week.

We were on Spring Break and I was pretty determined to get at least two things done (while our roof was being replaced): finish our taxes and quilt my Daisy Chain quilt.

The taxes got done without many problems (thank you, 2009 self, for keeping the closing documents from the house we bought-life was so much easier because of that!), and I wasn't going to start quilting until it got done. The only problem was I couldn't figure out the particulars about actually quilting my Daisy Chain.

For those of you who are non-quilters, all the work I have done up to this point has just been piecing all the fabric together into a pattern-this particular pattern is called Daisy Chain; the quilting part doesn't start until the quilt top is completed and it is layered with a bottom piece of fabric and batting in between the two. The quilting is the design that you sew to attach all three layers together and form a nice little quilt.

You can see all three layers here: the bottom layer of fabric (wrong side up), the batting, and the quilt top. 

Getting to the actual quilting part requires pinning all three layers together and, frankly, it's my least favorite step. I suppose if I was doing a small quilt it wouldn't be a big deal, but I have to lay everything down on my floor of my living room and get down on my hands and knees to pin the whole thing.

To be honest, I was putting off the pinning part; instead, I worked on my son's Christmas stocking for a few days. It was actually kind of nice to take a break from the sewing machine and focus on my first love, counted cross stitch.

Where I am at now.

Where I was the last time I wrote about the stocking.

But soon, I got back to the quilt. I decided to do a cross hatch design which is a pretty fancy way of saying I'm going to put diagonal lines all over it. It's taken me about three days to do the first half of all the diagonals which I think is pretty good time. I'm going to bury all my threads and then start on the second half of the quilting.

I decided to not quilt the crosses in the Daisy Chain, but I am thinking of doing a stitch-in-the-ditch (or "outlining" them) to make them pop. I'll see how it looks when I am done. 

Any questions you have about making a quilt?

Happy Sewing!

Kate

Noel Pillow

Hi Friends!

One last item got crossed off the list before the New Year! Hooray!

I actually started working on it about five days before Christmas. As you might have surmised-from this post, this one, or this one (and I could find at least five more!)-once I get an idea in my head it is hard for me to move forward until that idea comes to fruition. That meant, I had to make this before I could start wrapping presents, shopping or cooking for Christmas dinner.

I finished this little piece of cross stitch two years ago but hadn't done anything with it.

It's the Noel cross stitch in the back

And I had this piece of fabric my mom's friend, Diane, had sent to me a while ago that just needed to be loved.

Don't they look nice together?

I was having a discussion with my mom over FaceTime about what to do with both of them. At first I was thinking a wall hanging but, almost simultaneously, we said "pillow." The best part was I had just bought a brand new pillow form at Goodwill for $2 and it was burning a hole in my pocket (so to speak). 

I used this YouTube tutorial and it was easy as pie. Except sometimes I can be a Grade A Idiot and I somehow messed it up (I think I didn't measure my pillow form correctly; I may have eyeballed it.) 

 I found a smaller pillow form and it was still too big so I modified it slightly by taking an inch off the whole darn thing. And it looked like this:

Not too shabby

But the back looked like this:

Not acceptable

So I added another panel to one of the envelope flaps to lengthen it and the back looked good:

Yay, I fixed it!

But....I attached the whole thing backwards and the front looked like this:

Back to unacceptable

If you can't tell, that's the back of the cross stitch. 

At this point I really was starting to question my sewing abilities.

I put it down for a night, took it apart once more and (finally) got it right. 

Close-up of the cross stitch

Here it is, in all its glory:

Finally!

I think it turned out pretty well!

I hope you are finishing some last minute crafts at home. Don't forget to submit a picture to me by December 30 and I will enter you to win a $25 gift certificate to JoAnn's.

I have some ideas for the New Year and can't wait to share them with you.

Keep on Crafting!

Kate

Christmas Ornament Tutorial for Framing

Hi Friends!

I am super excited to post today because I have crossed off #9 on The List! I even have a pretty easy tutorial on how to finish them.

But first,  a little story. On Saturday afternoon we were driving to my son's Christmas Concert (3 year olds singing Christmas songs would melt even the iciest of hearts, tbh) and I mentioned to my husband that I wasn't feeling very fulfilled creatively. I read a number of blogs and follow a number of crafters on Instagram and seems like they are just finishing projects left and right and I'm not getting anything done. As I was unpacking all of my sewing and crafting supplies, I realized I have WAY WAY WAY too many projects that haven't been started (hence, this blog and a topic for another day) and that overwhelming feeling has been following me around for the past couple of weeks. So last night when we got home and the kids passed out in their beds I realized I had to make the decision to actively work to get my projects done.

I thought about what I could accomplish in about two hours since I still need a decent amount of sleep and realized I could probably put together all of the Christmas ornaments I had cross stitched and hang them on the tree this year!

I used little plastic gold frames for these ornaments. My mom bought me a whole bunch a few years ago and now it is time to use them. These frames didn't come with any backing in them so I used the cardboard on the back of a giant pad of paper I bought the kids from the Dollar Store as backing.

I used the frames as a guide to cut circles out of the cardboard and backing material.

Happy Little Circles

 I then used the cardboard as a guide to cut out the cross stitch material as well. Holding it up to a light helped to center the cross stitch.

Sometimes, I have a good ideas!

I used Elmer's Multi-PUrpose Spray Adhesive.

I used old Thomas the Train placemats as work surface. Be aware, though, that Elmer's Glue has a wide spray area; my 12 1/2" square ruler was just to the left of this placemat and it got covered in glue. 

No Glue

 Spray that circle!

Lots of Glue!

I stuck the backing material to the sticky side of the cardboard circle. As you can see, my cardboard circles and my fabric circles were somehow not the same size. I just cut the fabric to fit the circle.

How hard is it to cut circles?

I sprayed the opposite side of the circle and stuck the cross stitch onto it, trying very hard to make sure the design was as close to the middle of the circle as possible.

Yes, the Gingerbread Lady has no eyes. 

 Once I had both the cross stitch and the backing material on the circle I just kind of jammed it into the frame. I had to do a little finagling with scissors to get the thing to fit but they turned out fine.

Santa

Church

Bird

Candy Cane Heart

House

A few thoughts or, rather, learn from my mistakes.

1. After you cut out the cardboard circles, make sure that they fit into the frame. The first one I made, I used the inside of the frame to make my cardboard circle and after I had cut both the backing fabric and the cross stitch pattern I realized it was too small for the frame.

I wasn't feeling the joy when I realized I had done this! 

2. There's nothing saying you have to use the fabric on the back; I did because I thought it looked pretty. That being said, if I had to do it over again, I might have layered a piece of lightweight batting between the cardboard and the cross-stitch design in order to give it a little more....oomph. 

3. I've had these for so long but I'm pretty sure they are all JanLynn designs. 

That's it! I'm so happy to finish something that was on my List! What's even better is I have crossed off two more items (one by default but it still counts, right?). I'll be talking about the next one later in the week. 

So, what are you working on these days? Trying to get ready for the holidays? Anything you want to submit for December CraftBusters? Remember to get your submission into me by December 30 in order to win a $25 gift certificate to JoAnns (US Residents only, please). 

Have a Happy Week!

Kate

Fall Quilt Complete!

So, does anybody  else have the back-to-school-bug? Because my whole family has it. We all just look and feel miserable. My folks left yesterday (*sad face*) and my mom took it home with her. Sorry family in Arizona!

This last week has been busy! The house is all ready to be put on the market: it's cleaned and staged and ready to go. I'm feeling simultaneously excited and nervous. The only thing that is pressing on my mind is finding new schools for the kids and putting them through that transition. I know, I know. It's not a big deal to switch schools when they are this young. The only thing they are worried about is if all of their stuff is going to come to the new house as well. Thinking about it, that sounds pretty nice: selling the house "as is" and not having to pack as much and starting over at the new house. I guess if money was no object...... oh well, a lady can dream, right?

Moving on....

I finished the Autumn Sampler!  Here it is in all its glory:

I think it turned out quite nicely. It's amazing how the back stitching in the corners really bring out the quilt blocks. For those of you keeping track at home, this is called "Fall Quilt" by Stoney Creek. You can find it here.

Granted, it's not completely finished (as in to hanging quality) but at least it is all stitched. 

I started the next project to keep me busy while the house is on the market and I can't make a huge mess, i.e. no quilts. 

I'm about halfway done already. I really like fast projects! 

Don't forget to join in on the social media fun! You can Like me on Facebook here or follow me on Instagram here. 

Happy Sewing!

Kate

Small, fast update

Just a quick update: my folks are in town and I haven't found as much time as usual to sew. Mom brought a whole bunch of stuff for us to make Christmas ornaments together. We looked it over and thought it was going to be pretty easy and we would whip out a dozen in a few hours or so. yeah, that didn't happen. But we are experimenting and I'm documenting so I can share what we did with you.

I bought some fat quarters today to make patches to appliqué onto my son's quilt where the it has frayed.

The fish fabric is "Go Fish" for Timeless Treasure Fabrics of SoHo.  The plaid fabric is BungleJungle by Timbeck for moda. I don't know who makes the triangle fabric.

Yes, I know they don't exactly all match but I liked them all for different reasons and couldn't put them back after they were in my hands.

Onto what I have worked on this week.

Where I was last week:

Here I am today:

Not much progress.

With school starting next week-my oldest is starting Kindergarten!-I'm trying to capture these last few days of summer with them and not really worrying about much else. If I finish this week that would be great but...not too hurried.

Have a good week!

Kate

Progress!

A little business first:  I've started an Instagram account for the blog to show the happenings of our day-to-day life here. You can find me at instagram.com/sewingbylottery Come check out the fun!

I've completed quite a lot on the Autumn cross stitch. This week has been pretty awesome in that I've been able to devote at least an hour each day to cross stitching. Let's hope this streak continues!

Here's what I had done last week:

And here's where I am at this week: 

I backstitched the the center frame,added the sunflower and finished the corner square last night

A little closer look at the backstitching. 

I think it is coming out really well. I can't believe how fast it is going!

I did have to spend some time on Saturday and Sunday fixing my son's quilt. A while ago-maybe two or three months-his quilt desperately needed a wash (with that dark blue fabric all his drool stains just show up!). When I took it out of the washer I noticed the quilt top had sheared away from the batting and the backing in one of the corners. It was very strange. 

Not even sure how that happened!

Plus the seam where I had connected the two ends of the binding had frayed very badly as well-no picture for that one. Luckily the part where the quilt top was frayed was on the same side as the bad binding so I got out my trusty seam ripper and took out about six feet of binding. I still had some of the striped fabric and was able to add a little patch to the frayed part up in the corner.

Voila!

I also had enough of the binding left over and was able to fix that as well. I even had enough time to re-attach all the binding!

However, as I was looking at the quilt top to see if there was any more damage I noticed that many of the nine patch squares had separated. Remember, this quilt was started at least 20 years ago and my mom said when she first started it she didn't really know all that much about making quilts or seam allowances.

There's about a dozen of these little separations. Bummer. 

She suggested we just dump the quilt and she make a new one for him but I don't think so! This gives us an opportunity to make something really awesome. I'm thinking we should appliqué various nautical patches onto the quilt: whales, anchors, boats, etc. I think that would make it really cute!

Alright, I've been a busy lady this week sewing-wise. Don't forget to check me out on Instagram and, if you haven't already, stop by and say HI on Facebook as well or comment below!

Have a great week!

Kate

Summertime!

It's summer! The last couple of months have just FLOWN by here in our house. We've had pre-school "graduations" (very cute but ridiculous to call it a graduation), beach excursions for birthdays, tea parties, matching shirts for Father's Day, fireworks in the backyard, cousins and aunts and uncles visiting, and I have two extra helpers in the kitchen lately wanting to help with every meal I make (sometimes a good thing, sometimes not so much).

We've also decided to put our house on the market but before we do we have had to do some sprucing up around the place. But with all this packing up and cleaning I have been doing a lot of de-cluttering and have gotten rid of so much stuff.  So. Much. Stuff. It's amazing. It's  kind of embarrassing how much stuff we have but it feels so good to give it away and get what's leftover organized.

But with packing up and making the house ready for strangers to walk through (ugh) I did put a lot of my sewing/crafting stuff in storage (and by storage I mean my in-laws garage!). I do know myself, though, and I have to keep some sort of project going, so I kept a few of my counted cross stitch projects here at home so I can work on those during down times. My thinking is I can get the stitching stuff done on a few projects and once we are at the new place and settled in I will finish them to completion! I do have an unspoken agreement with myself that I will not purchase any new craft or sewing project until I finish at least ten from my list. Confession time: I may have bought some Christmas fabric for a project that I already have but didn't have the fabric to complete it. That doesn't count, right?

This little plan has worked so far: I've finished an Easter sampler and some Christmas ornaments and now I am working on something for Autumn.

I'm thinking of adding their names somewhere

One for each of the girls

Right now back stitching the quilt.

I'm also going to try and post once a week if only to show the progress that I have made on any given project. 

I have so many ideas running around in my head. My latest idea is to take this giant, ugly quilt top I started eight or nine years ago, finish it and make it into a picnic blanket. I've found we have been taking lots of picnics or going to lots of parks this summer and we need a giant picnic blanket for everyone to spread out on. But I've got some cool ideas to make it awesome. Guess I will have to add that to The List.

What's everyone been working on this summer?? Let me know in the comments below, I love to hear from you!

Sidetracked Again

As we all know, I have a problem.

I have far too many projects- 75+ and counting.

Hence, the lottery and this website.

Plus I am easily sidetracked by seasonal stuff I want to do-I made some glitter X's and O's for Valentine's Day I haven't posted about, St. Patrick's Day garland seen here and made more awesome here, Halloween costumes , and so much more! There's actually a couple more counted cross stitch items I need to add to The List .

But there's just so many awesome things to do, you know? And sometimes hand quilting can get SO boring and I need to change it up a little.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is this: I've been side tracked.

Again.

But it's for a good reason! I swear!

Here's how it all started. I saw on Facebook that one of my favorite quilt stores, The Wild Rose Quilt Shop, needed help with some counted cross stitch samples. They are opening up a little sister store in one of the cruise ports in Alaska this summer and, among other things, will be selling Alaskan themed ornaments.

Hello?!?! How could I say no to that request? I like love counted cross stitching and I'm really good at it. So, for the last two weeks, I have been busting these bad boys out every couple of nights.

I have liked working on them since they aren't my usual subject matter. They are really small (stitched on 22 count Aida cloth) and go really fast.

I hope to have all of them stitched by next week and can spend next weekend framing them.

What are you working on these days?