Button’s Globe {Teacher Quilt}

This year, Button and I got together in April to plan his thank you quilt to his teacher.

Button requires a little extra patience and care at school and we were grateful, as a family, for her extra kindness and support. We pulled out the Spelling Bee Book by Lori Holt that I had made the Joy pillow, butterfly and fox pillows.  I had originally planned to do letters, but he fell in love with the Vintage Life layout with the globes since his favorite subject seems to be geography.

He immediately became “bossy” and insisted on the fabric choices he pulled from my stash. 

I quickly was able to piece the blocks together. 

There was a bit of a slow down while I chose what to do with the “wire”.
I settled on a twisted chainstitch with a brassy gold perle cotton. 

We ran to the store to buy some sashing and border fabric.
He spotted the dotted blue fabric from the heart globe and we soon had a finished top to quilt. 

I was excited to be able to use my new Prostitcher program to do the crosshatch quilting on the globes. 

And also able to have fun and do free motion quilting everywhere else.  Stippling in the block backgrounds, wishbone in the sashing, and wild feathers in the borders. 

His backing choice wasn’t exactly what I would have chosen, but I just couldn’t argue because he was so determined to make decisions about her quilt.

We had fun digitizing his heart and signature for the quilt label. 

And I loved how excited he was to gift it to her. 

Quilt Stats:

Measures: Lap Size 

Pattern: Vintage Life by Lori Holt

Fabrics: Various scraps and stash. Sashing, Border, Backing and binding Joann Fabrixs. 

Quilting: Crosshatch and free motion on HQ Avante and Pro-stitcher

It was fun to see her open it

and also to see the reactions of his classmates and her!

And now it is summer....his favorite and my time of the year!!!

Just Keep Swimming...

Oh wait!  I'm not swimming anymore!  I'm DONE!!

The turtle applique quilt is on its way home!! This quilt idea has been interesting, frustrating, and quite a journey.  I was commissioned by a special mom that I had worked on a Butterfly Kiss project for her other daughter. She contacted me because she had a Pottery Barn crib set, but she couldn't get the actual quilt. 

Pottery Barn Kids

I had her send me pictures from her room and all of the bedding she did have so I could make sure I coordinated as best as I could.  The pink quilt she bought was plain, but had some actually really pretty hand quilted effects.  

 It was at that point, I knew that I wouldn't feel "right" about just machine appliqueing on some turtles and sending it back.  I found this sweet seersucker fabric so that the turtle backs would have some texture.

 My biggest concern was that it would look like I added the turtles after it was quilted.  Granted, yes, I was adding them after, but I really wanted it to feel like the end result was exactly how it would be if I were making the quilt from the start!

 To get a bit of dimension that I was looking for, I fused some batting to the backside before appliqueing the turtle backs on.  I did hand needle turn applique on all of the pieces. 

I added some seersucker flowers because one of the prints that she had for nursery had "girl" turtles with flowers tucked in behind their "ears".  I also added embroidery floss stitches on each turtle back bout 1/2 inch from the edges. 

I wasn't truly happy with the entire quilt until I decided to blanket stitch all of the solid pieces.  I started with the seaweed first because it was the making me the least happy.

 And when I finished them, I realized that the turtle bodies needed the added touch too!.

 It made them look less "glued" on that way.  

I also changed my mind about doing a machine embroidered name. 

 It seemed that it just was too commercial looking when I went to all the trouble of doing the handwork on the rest of the quilt.

The only downfall?  I still have chronic swelling of my hands and finger from my surgery.  The process that normally would be pretty quick for me, became laboriously slow and tedious. 

But it was worth it! 

Now I just hope Momma and Finley are happy with it!!!

Modern Mini Challenge

I tossed around ideas.  I wasn't sure what to do.


All I knew is that I wanted to challenge myself to do at least one mini this year!

I have only have done two quilts that are mini ever in my quilting life.  Not to include the quilted throw pillows.


Warning: I have never made a "Mug Rug"!

When I bought this card for my husband for Valentine's, I almost didn't want to sign it and put into the envelope...it was too cute!

I loved the heart, the idea of a tree trunk, and the raised embossing on the card.  I confiscated it before he knew it!

For my mug rug, I appliqued a heart on some beige fabric.  Embroidered "You + Me" in white.

Embroidered the quote in black with a few French Knots.

Took my mini to the sewing machine and used a REALLY heavy weight polyester thread to get the raised effect.

A teeny tiny binding.  Only 1/4 of an inch wide on both sides.

And for the backing, I used one of my earlier attempts at using a zig zag for the heart that I just wasn't happy with!  I decided to cover the other backing because the heavy weight thread was obnoxious on the back.  And it gave it a bit more thickness!

I hope Mr. Boss likes it. 
 Because I am keeping the card in my studio and he is getting the mug rug for his desk at work. 


I need the card for a BIG quilt idea...
because, frankly, I don't think I was very good at the 5 x 5 inch version!

Check out the other entries at Ellison Lane Quilts. I am not even going to pretend that I am actually a competitor.  I am not even sure it is considered "modern".  

I just enjoyed the challenge!

Woven and Whipped Spider Webs Tutorial

After finishing and really enjoying the woven spider web hand embroidery technique I used for the eyes on the giraffe and hippo for Baby Connor's quilt,

  I decided it was the best technique for the elephant on Baby William's quilt.  (FULL quilts HERE).

And since I had a few questions about it, I thought I'd share the technique with anyone interested.

Woven Spider Web Embroidery 

 The foundation for this is a bunch of straight stitches.  They look like spokes of a wheel.  I liked five for the eye which when it is finished is approx. 3-4 mm diameter.  Note: The larger your design the more number of spokes you will need.

Make your straight stitches come to the same center point.

I used a second color just for instructional purposes, but you will use the same thread you started with to make the spokes!

You will start weaving the embroidery floss/thread over and under each spoke.  Pull the stitches snugly towards the center.

Keep going over and under, over and under.

It will keep building like this.

You will keep weaving until all the spokes are completely covered.

It will look different depending on how loose or compact you pulled your thread.  

Options: Any type of thread, yarn, or ribbon! 

Uses: Flowers, wheels, circles, and dots.

 

Whipped Spider Web Embroidery

(aka Ribbed or Backstitch Spider Web)

Guess what?  It starts out the SAME way as the Woven Spider Web.  The only difference is that you can do odd or even amount of spokes.  For the purpose of this tutorial, I just did five spokes.

This happens to be a bit more tricky, so I labeled each spoke with a number.  

To begin with, you will see that above you will go UNDER two spokes (1 and 2).

Then (see below) you will "backstitch" over spoke 2, 

then UNDER the next two spokes (2 and 3).

The embroidery floss SHOULD be wrapped around spoke 2 (see arrow above).

After you have gone UNDER spoke 2 and 3, you will "backstitch" over spoke 3.

Under spoke 3 and 4.  Backstitch over spoke 4. 

Under spoke 4 and 5.  Backstitch over spoke 5.

After a few rotations, you will start to see that each spoke will be covered and a nice spider web look in between each spoke.

And like the woven web, you will continue until all of your spokes are completely covered.

Options:  Any type of thread/yarn

Uses:  I contemplated this, but didn't really like it for eyes.  I think it would be better suited for flowers, spider webs, wheels, and of course circles and dots!

Just a reminder,  I used two different colors for instructional purposes, but you should use the same thread throughout!

And if you are wondering, I strictly use embroidery floss, and usually just use the basic DMC brand you can pick up from your local hobby/fabric store!   I have used it for 14 years now, and it hasn't ever bothered me!

Feel free to ask any questions!  Hope this was helpful!