Birthday card featuring a little bear with a gift, pastel background paper and little ribbon flags

My youngest grand daughter will be three this month.  I have prepared this card for her birthday!!!  I created a peach card to fit in a large pearly peach envelope from my stash and added a layer of coordinating pastel paper (SU).  I watercoloured the little bear and gift (Cre8tive Hand) to coordinate.  I ran my pattern tracing wheel on each edge to create a line of paper piercing.  I layered it with a pieced layer of peach and green before adding four little coordinating ribbon flags.  I trimmed the top and bottom with scallop decorative scissors and pierced each scallop with a push pin to echo the paper piercing I used on the image.  I added clear glitter to the gift's ribbon and the little butterfly.  A fun card for a little girl turning three!!  Therese
 

Slow Stitching - little ivory tree ornaments

I have been working on these little ivory wool ornaments for a bit.  They are little harder two work than the felted wool because the wool is just a smidge less thick and dense.  It is harder to keep the stitches from showing on the back.  I did several lines of chain stitch on this little tree - one each in variegated pink, green and yellow.  I also did blanket stitch all the way around in ivory thread.  I added a little hanger and added to my god child's Christmas card.  It cost me $1.07 over a regular stamp to mail it off.   So these are not a viable option for little gifts for friends and family that I can send in my cards.  It is good to know so I will see if I can invent some other way to use the little triangles I have cut out before I add any more stitching.  I started one with little snowflakes using variegated blue thread.  I will do some brainstorming over the holidays and see what I can come up with.  Therese

 

Large bag with a zipper, short handles, QAYG patchwork and a pocket inside

I have been mulling this concept in my head for a while and decided to just get at it.  I cut a large piece of the turquoise floral medium weight fabric - 22" x 60".  I trimmed two strips of 5" x 122" off of each end to make the handles.  They are a bit wider than usual so I folded both sided to the middle in the center of the handle and stitched it down.  It makes them both nice and sturdy and not too bulky.  I started by stitching my little folk art bird embroidery on the front of the bag which was white as it was the wrong side of the fabric.  The floral is on the inside of the bag.  Next, I created a pocket for the inside and stitched it place over the sewing lines I could see on the inside of the bag.  I stitched the pocket in place from the inside and the proceeded with sewing two pieces of coordinating patch work fabric to each side of the bird.  Next, I added two strips of fabric QAYG (right sides together, stitching, and flipping over the top one).  I pinned my top piece of fabric to the top edge of my bag cut long enough that it would be captured by the next fabric strip.   I add my handles  sewing them in place so they would stay where they should be before adding the little turquoise checkered strip.  Because it overlaps the handles it had to be folded over and top stitched which secured all the pieces in place.  I finished the bottom half of the front in the same fashion leaving a bit of an open space for the piece I would be putting on the bottom of the bag.  I did the back in the same way I had made the front.  I used a wide strip of black for the bottom of the bag which I pinned and top stitched into place.  Next, I added the zipper.  I added two small pieces of fabric to each end of the zipper to create a single piece to encase in the seams.  I folded over about a half inch on both  pieces of the top front and top back of the bag.  I pinned the zipper in between very carefully so I could sew one seam on each side to secure all three pieces of each side together.  Worked well!!   Next, I created a French seam on each of the sides to give a finished look to the inside.   I boxed the bottom at 6" wide which encase most of my black bottom which I had failed to calculate in my design.  I would have preferred to have my bottom piece come up a little higher so the whole bottom showed the black fabric.  I will know better next time.  It is a large bag and I will be donating it to a local Charity for their clients.  I like that I have a nice finished inside without a lining and that the bag is a little more robust due to the two layers of fabric.   Therese

 

Tree skirt - Christmas fabric done QAYG onto a used tree skirt

I had a tooth pulled this week and was feeling like a quiet activity so I decided to make a tree skirt.  I had been mulling this idea in my head for a while and wondered if it would work.  I had picked up a used tree skirt during Trash to Treasure without realizing that it was torn.  I have wanted to find a way to make it useful again and was playing with the idea of QAYG strips on the front.  The front was a velvety surface on which someone had very nicely painted several beautiful partridges but with the rip it made trying to repair it impossible.  I cut out the Christmas scraps I had on hand and a few from Mom's pile and looked to see what would be possible.  I found a Merry Christmas border and decided I should work around that.  I added fabric to each end to make it long enough to fit where I thought it would best be seen.  I found the bottom white piece which was tall enough to fill in between the greeting and the edge of the skirt though I had to add to each end to make it wide enough.  I positioned the white piece where I wanted it and then the strip with Merry Christmas so that it was even from side to side upside down over it.  I stitched both down to the skirt using white thread on the top and a red in the bottom so it would blend with the red on the back.  I ironed the greeting over and then started finding more strips to add above.  Most of these were already strips so I did not have to cut too much fabric.  I kept adding strips until I was pass the middle and then used shorter pieces to do each side of the back.  Once finished I stitched from the back really close to the stitched edge to secure all the ends down.  Next,  I trimmed between the line of stitching and the edge of the bottom layer so the stitched edge of the skirt was all that showed.  Then, it was a matter of figuring how I would finish the two edges at the back and the circle for the trunk of the tree.  After a bit of mucking in m supplies I decided to use black seam binding with a decorative stitch in red to finish off those edges.  It worked really well and made a very cool looking tree skirt.  Glad to have made this piece usable again!!  Therese