Sewing - pink baby blanket with pink, striped & white squares and happy face flannel backing

I cut the five inch squares of cotton fabric for this quilt a couple of weeks ago and took a sewing day yesterday to put it all together.  I stitched together the front matching the corners really well.  I created the backing using some happy face flannel and added a strip of the same pink as the front as I had to trim out a stain.  I layered the backing, the batting and then the top and pinned it really well.  I added diagonal lines of wavy decorative stitching in white thread to quilt all the pieces together and trimmed it to the edges of the front.  I usually like to use the backer to bind but it was not large enough so I trimmed strips of the striped fabric to create a binding.  I bound the top and the bottom and then added the sides.  It took quite a bit of fiddling to get diagonal lines on the corners so I will be finding a better way next time.  I am happy with how it worked out (31.5" x 40.5").  It will be going into our inventory for the fall Gramma Link Africa events in the fall.  Therese

Sewing - cute chicken potholders

 I made these cute chicken potholders for my sister who just had a birthday.  The chicken fabric and the coordinating borders were scraps which I trimmed to 7.5" once they were sewn.  I backed them with d to flannel batting and the red backing (9.5") and added two lines of quilting.  They are self bound with the backing fabric.  I usually cut the front 7" and the backing 9.5" but they worked out fine.  

Therese

All occasion card featuring a hand decorated background, black embossed border, embossed flowers and hand drawn border and leaves

 One of my sister's is having her 65th birthday and I made this card for her.  I started with a hand decorated background that had a variety of paints on it.  I stamped it with a flower image from the set using Versamark clear ink which gave a bit of a darker look to the stamped images.  I embossed the swirly floral border twice and the little flourishes twice as well with black embossing powder.  I stamped the flower onto coordinating coloured cardstock scraps and embossed them with pearl embossing powder.  I fussy cut them and added a tiny brad in the center of each.  After positioning them I removed them and doodled flowers, stems and leaves of them before mounting them to the background with 3D foam tape.  I doodled a wavy border all the way around and then glued this large embellished background to a blue card.  One of my other sisters hosted family to celebrate!!!  A fun weekend!!   Therese