Sympathy card featuring a photo of a majestic tree, ribbon and decorative paper

 I started with a large envelope and made a dark green card to fit inside.  I added the decorative paper and added the two green embossed strips to cover the place where they joined.  I added a length of ivory gros grain ribbon with a flagged end using double sided tape and trimmed to the edge of the card.  The photo is one from a photo calendar made by my sister, Sylvia.  She is a photographer and makes several different photo calendars every year which highlight her best photos of the year.  I trimmed the photo from the calendar page and adhered it a piece of kraft cardstock leaving a bit of room on the right hand side where I added a row of paper piercing using my pattern tracing wheel.  I mounted this focal element to my card front with 3D foam tape and then added the greeting overlapping it a bit.  

An uncle passed away this week and this will be going to his family.  

Therese

Happy Halloween!!

 Have carved my two little pie pumpkins into Jack O Lanterns and we will set up the chute later today which will deliver our hot chocolate packages to kids when they show up.  The weather is good and we expect to get a 5C high today with the sun shining so it will be a good time for Trick or Treating!! 

Therese

Cat quilt featuring some slow stitched squares and bright colours

I have finished my last quilt top!!  It took the better part of the day but I am very happy to have it finished.  This one has the five slow stitched cats framed in light blue at the top and some very bright rows of pieced fabrics interwoven with rows of solid blue fabric.  I used cotton flannel for the batting and navy blue polyester cotton on the back. The backing was just wide enough for the quilt so I had to find something else to bind it.  I decided on an orange poly/cotton.  I cut it to 3" wide, ironed it in half and then joined my six pieces.  I used the single fold method to attach the binding.  It guarantees that you will not miss the back because you sew it to the quilt top first and then do the top stitching to secure it in place.  Worked really well and I think this is the method my Mom uses on her quilts though I don't recall having done it myself recently.  I used a decorative stitch in orange on the top and blue in the bobbin when I did my top stitching.  It has a lot of contrast.  I should have used blue in the bobbin when I first added the binding to the quilt as it can show on the front depending on how closely you can add your top stitching.   I have been slow stitching for mending this week so not much progress on cats.  I am looking forward to starting a new project and am researching Quilt As You Go techniques to see if can find an easier way to quilt the main body of the quilts I am making.  

Therese