{Post 1,190} GFG Sample Card

Had some questions about my sample card.  It truly is nothing fancy.  Here it is...

The bottom left aqua/light turquoise probably won't be used.  The blue/black one at the top of the next column stands out quite a bit as well.  The cream on the top right is my last ring on every block.  

{Post 1,189} Grandmother's Flower Garden

Well, call me slow, but I just realized I am a grandmother, and I have a flower garden!!  Here's an update on the progress on my GFG quilt.  I am making a queen-bed-sized quilt, just because I can.  This will be years in the making, but a little progress shot is good once in a while.  I am about to have a lot of travel/sitting/hand-sewing time, so I am prepping some hexagons for the trips to come.

The top pic shows all the color schemes I have going so far.  I have two of the red one and two of the butterfly block.  I am not completely pleased with the one with the dark blue center, but it IS nearly finished!  The ring of hexies outside the navy blue one is too light, but that's life.  So far...

I am fussy-cutting a lot of the hexagons.  That is fun and takes more time, but I like the way it looks.  I have done something that I hope will help me select fabrics in the future.  I sewed a small scrap of each fabric I am using so far onto a piece of paper that I am keeping in my purse.  That way if I'm in a random place (oh, I don't know...say, a pharmacy?) that happens to sell fabric, I can whip out my samples and see if there's something I want to add to the mix.  Genius, right?

{Post 1,188} Wedding Quilt

I am going to post my recently-pieced wedding quilt on here because I doubt the recipient even knows I have a blog.  If she finds it, she can practice acting surprised ;)

The bride-to-be picked out two fabrics.  I made a checkerboard style layout.  She had it displayed at her wedding, clothespinned to a sheet of plywood.  This was one of the most unusual weddings I've ever witnessed.  It was a cowboy-type theme.  The bride and bridesmaids wore cowboy boots (so did the groom and his men).  The bride was "delivered" to the barn and pasture in a pickup truck.  The flowers were sunflowers and daisies.  It was quite the rustic setting.

The top was pieced before folks started signing it.  A couple exuberant youths got carried away with scribbling.  I knew I'd have to remove those pieces, but I didn't have one bit of extra cream fabric.  Then I got the idea to put some pictures from their engagement, rehearsal, and wedding into the quilt!  I pulled out an ancient set of "Printed Treasures" fabric sheets I had.  My husband helped me figure out how to print 4 pictures per sheet.  I added a frame of cream from the blocks I removed.  Voila!  The pictures are a surprise for the bride.

Here are some pictures of the process.  There were two sets of blocks written with pink ink that were close together, so I purposely replaced those with pictures or relocated them.

 

She wants very little quilting on it, so I'll just use black thread and do a large meander in the dark blocks.  Should be finished in short order.  

I noticed one person at the wedding did not sign it, so I am waiting for them to let me know if they want me to add a message before it is quilted.

{Post 1,187} New Hand-Sewing Project

I am devoting my sewing time to finishing the string shirt borders on my Squares Surrounded quilt top.  Making great progress.  I have a pile of small shirt scraps.  Then.  it.  happened.  I sewed this:

Every dark scrap was the perfect size.  Really.  It was meant to be.

{Post 1,187} Mercury Glass Project (DIY from tutorial)

I usually ignore trendy things.  Intentionally.

My daughter's piano teacher has some mercury glass in her dining room.  I sit by it and stitch while Rachel has her lesson.  I got to where I like it!  After reading a couple tutorials, I decided to give it a try today on some items I was going to put in our garage sale Saturday.  I figured if they didn't turn out, to the GS they go.  

I practiced on a quilted pint-size canning jar.  No, I didn't quilt it.  There was a beveled glass pattern years ago that was called quilted.  I didn't see any stitches myself.

The only good picture I got was of my heart-shaped clear glass candy dish.  Here it is.  I am holding it upside down in the photo.

There are a multitude of tutorials out there.  Here is what I did, and it worked for me.  I used my spray bottle filled with water that I normally keep on my ironing board.  Set it as a fine mist.  Spray the outsides of the item if food or plants will ever be in it.  Since this is a candy dish, that's what I did.  Shake up your Looking Glass spray paint (I got mine at Wal-mart although no one else I read about apparently could find it there).  While the glass is wet, spray light coats of the paint.  Have some paper napkins or towels nearby to break the water bubbles under the coat of paint.  It dries really quickly.  Add more coats if it's not as reflective as you would like.

To make it easy to turn the item being sprayed w/o touching it, I put a 6" (cube-shaped) cardboard box on my craft table with an ice cream bucket lid on it.  I set the item on the lid and used the box to turn the project until it was sprayed all over.

PS:  This is being added later (6/20/13).  Every tutorial I saw except one said to spray the paint on and then the water.  I could not see how the bubbles would appear.  With this spray-the-water-first method, the paint coats the water bubbles.  When you break the bubbles with a paper towel or napkin, the "spots" appear.  Made sense to me, and that's what I did.  Your mileage may vary.  :)

{Post 1,186} Pumpkin Patch Top

This is a top I started today.  I am about to list it on eBay.  It measures 48-1/2" wide by 60-1/2" tall.  The original pattern has a 1" finished then a 4" finished border.  

{Post 1,185} Quick Project

I had seen these little bags on Pinterest.  They are on my sewing board if you are interested.  I thought my girls (especially Rachel, my self-named Hunny Bunny) would like them for traveling.  You know--to keep things (unders) together in the ole suitcase.  Rachel is going to two camps and a couple shorter trips this summer.  

I made these two tonight in about 15 minutes each.  The first one was slower because I was reading directions!

They measure about 12" wide and 10-1/2" tall.  My mom bought me the mesh at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  We don't have one anywhere near where I live, but there's one close to her.  It also comes in black.  A yard will make 6 bags.

If you make one of these, here's what I found out...the mesh is super easy to work with, easy to secure with pins, did not stretch much.  All those things are contrary to what the directions indicated.  Just don't pull on it (there's no reason).  I see more of these in my future!  When putting the binding on the sides, sew it to the back and pull it around to the front to topstitch.  Voila!